As a country with not only significant production potential but also fragmented land ownership, the Kyrgyz Republic struggles with environmental efficiency, which is a strategic element of environmental management in agricultural production. The objective of this study was to assess the environmental efficiency of sheep’s wool when used as a fertilizer in bean production in northern Kyrgyzstan. In this study, the efficiency indicator was taken to be GHG emissions per functional unit of product, using a proprietary methodology for calculating GHG emissions to determine the true value of this material as a source of soil nutrients and organic matter. Two experimental factors were used in the experiment: fertilizer type and fertilizer rate. Fertilization with sheep wool resulted in a 15% higher bean yield compared to when fertilized with mineral fertilizers at a comparable rate, converted to pure nitrogen. By using sheep wool as a source of mineral nutrients for the plants, the carbon footprint was reduced by almost 10% compared to a facility with mineral fertilization. Therefore, the use of sheep wool as a source of plant nutrients is environmentally justified.

Application of Modern Management Concepts by Polish Companies - Analysis of Research ResultsOur article presents the results of research on the use of modern management concepts in companies from the so-called traditional sectors of the economy in Lesser Poland and Silesia Voivodeships. The study group consists of 125 companies operating in metallurgy- and steel-related sectors such as machinery, coke, mining and energy. Studies have confirmed that the companies surveyed utilise modern management concepts in their activities, although such utilisation is highly diverse (only one company pointed out that it does not utilise any such concepts). The most popular management concepts are controlling and outsourcing. In contrast, Balanced Scorecard and Business Process Reengineering belong to the group of rarely used strategies.

Excessive distribution of holdings is one of the most important barriers which causes that in a great part of Poland rational use of farms in impossible. This problem particularly concerns the south and east region of the country. Correct spatial distribution of lands belonging to holdings is one of the most crucial factors that enable an economically profitable activity of these farms. The aim of the paper was verification of the applicability of the prepared spatial data base, farm-land configuration of agricultural plots of the selected agricultural farms to indicate the areas of optimization of the internal transport. As a result, based on the developed spatial data base, an impact of the land configuration of agricultural plots in the investigated group of agricultural producers on organization of the field transport between the holding and agricultural plots was determined. The scope of the paper covered a vegetable producer group, which associates 5 farms that have in total 620 ha of agricultural land.

The aim of the paper is to present the results of introducing the SMED method on one of the production lines in a selected production company. For the purposes of this study, a single bottling line for filling 200 ml and 250 ml glass bottles with carbonated drinks was selected. Upon analyzing the process of mixer washing in terms of time, it was shown that in individual steps, the total single washing time was 5 hours 3 minutes on average, which accounted for about 19% of the total retooling of the production line. However, after using the SMED method, this process has taken 3 hours 50 minutes. Thus, a saving of 1 hour 13 minutes was obtained after shortening the retooling, which allowed to extend the production process.

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