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The article focuses on the importance of benchmarking in maintenance processes. Maintenance benchmarking is a process used by organizations to evaluate and improve their maintenance practices and performance by comparing them to industry standards or best practices. The goal of maintenance benchmarking is to identify areas for improvement, optimize resource allocation, and enhance overall operational efficiency. The changing environment of small and medium-sized enterprises in recent years has produced new pressures and concerns. In this present environment and in the future, successful companies will be those that can continually improve and adapt their services to meet and exceed the demands of stakeholders. The goal of the improvement might concern the actual quality of the state of the environment in one case, whereas in another case, the focus could be on environmental costs or the satisfaction of the citizens with environmental services. The benchmarking type used and the benchmarking objectives will influence the criteria for choosing benchmarking partners. Benchmarking is currently one of the most effective industrial performance improvement processes. In this regard, benchmarking, formal and structured observation, and exchanging ideas between organizations may prove to be valuable tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the concept of the circular economy as a term was first mentioned in 2015, when the "Action Plan for the circular economy" was adopted at the European level, it is still not possible to speak of a sufficient knowledge base in this area. The Action Plan (COM (2015) 614) can be seen as an initial strategic document that sets out a concrete and ambitious roadmap for implementing the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030. However, the European Green Agreement cannot be left out in this context either (COM(2019) 640). It is seen as a new growth strategy to transform the EU into a fair and prosperous society with a modern, competitive, resource-efficient economy, with net greenhouse gas emissions expected to be zero by 2050 and economic growth independent of resource use. A new EU circular economy action plan - Towards a cleaner and more competitive Europe was also adopted in 2020 (COM(2020) 98). The main priority areas are measures focusing on the value chains of key products electronics and ICT (information and communication technologies), batteries and vehicles, plastics, textiles, packaging, construction and buildings, food, water and nutrients measures covering all links in the value chain from production to consumption, repair and refurbishment, waste management up to the return of raw materials back to the economy and their use in the production cycle in the form of secondary raw materials. The transition to a circular economy also includes a revision of the European waste directives: on waste, on packaging and packaging waste, on landfills, on batteries and accumulators and used batteries and accumulators, and on waste electrical and electronic equipment. In order for all of this to be possible, it is necessary to know the amount of waste produced by individual sectors, which is also dealt with in our article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of foreign direct investment in the mining industry can be illustrated in the case of countries whose economy relies heavily on the mining sector as this attracts major foreign investment to them. The aim of the study is to determine whether there is a link between the inflow of foreign direct investment and the selected macroeconomic indicators in OECD countries and to identify groups of countries showing similar characteristics in this context. The evaluation of the interconnection of selected indicators in this study was made firstly by examining if there is a link between the examined macroeconomic indicators (independent variables) and the FDI inflow (dependent variable). The results showed that an increase in labour productivity could be reflected in an increase in FDI inflows. Based on the results obtained, the backward link in relation to labour productivity was also examined, whether there is a link between the macroeconomic indicators (independent variables) and the labour productivity (dependent variable), resulting in that an increase in FDI inflows could translate into an increase in labour productivity. The paper also included cluster analysis, the main goal of which was to determine countries based on the evaluation of labour productivity and the inflow of foreign direct investment. Four clusters have been identified, two large ones and two clusters containing individual countries (Ireland and Luxembourg). All of the V4 countries are included in one of the large clusters, including the countries which are characterised by low variability in average labour productivity and high variability in the average inflow of foreign investment. The mining industry's recommendations, conclusions, and implications are focused mainly on this cluster of countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mineral resources are an integral part of society's life and affect many sectors of society's economy. None of the production sectors of the economy and social life can exist without securing a sufficient amount of minerals. In this article, we deal with the analysis of the raw materials policy of the Slovak Republic. A necessary condition for the creation of the raw material policy of the territory is the knowledge of the raw material base and the raw material needs of the given territory. Without this knowledge, raw materials policy-making is impossible. We made an analysis of the legal environment on the basis of which we created a set of critical areas of the Slovak Republic raw materials policy. We have drafted a recommendation to be incorporated into the legislative proposals with regard to raw materials policy. The proposed recommendation could ensure the sustainability of the country's mining industry as well as streamlining mining fees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is dealing with the issue of limestone in V4 countries, in the countries, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. The limestone is intensely mined because it has a multilateral use: it serves as gravel, building stone, peculiarly coloured varieties are used as a decorative stone; the largest quantity is consumed in the production of cement and lime. In the metallurgy, limestone (high percentile) is an important slag-forming additive; in confectionery is the source of necessary CO2. At the beginning of the article, are analysed the general properties, formation and composition of limestone. It is followed by mining and preparation and processing of limestone. In the part of the article dealing with production, are parts focused on the production of V4 countries, but also part dealing with the production of concrete products and their use in the industrial sectors. Data collected about export and import of the limestone led to the acquisition of business analyses and the creation of maps for better visualisation of acquired knowledge. In the article are processed data of limestone, its production in V4 countries and export and import, which were statistically processed and evaluated by the test Wilcoxon /Kruskal-Walis. As can be seen from the collected data and its processing, the business has a local character. The biggest producer is Poland, followed by the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. Biggest exporter of the limestone is Poland; the biggest importer is the Czech Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The logistics as one of the levels of company management deals with managing and securing flows in chains and networks. Typical chain in production enterprises of extracting and processing raw materials are production processes, the chain of production operations. Production processes in the industry that belong to the class are homogeneous production processes. This article discusses the methodology of creating management systems in terms of their specifics. The basic characteristic of homogeneous production processes (HPP) is manufacturing one product, respectively narrow assortment of products. HPP has specific characteristics and features, such as continuous material flow, discrete and continuity operations and facilities, notably in terms of heating equipment, long life and high investment costs for the construction, big inertia in terms of management, etc. This group also includes the processes and procedures of raw materials extraction processes, processing of raw materials, metallurgical processes, petrochemical manufacturing, building materials processes, etc. Continuously discrete processes, before modelling, are necessary to be transformed into discrete form, because there is a lot of tools for their modelling in the area of discrete processes. This requires specific approaches for their modelling, management and logistics. The basic management principle applied to such processes is a Feed forward, which can provide theoretical invariance of the controlled process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]