Design + energy: results of a national student design competition

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1980-01-01

A national competition for students in schools of architecture was conducted during the Spring of 1980. The competition was the first of a series of competitions that emphasized the integration of architectural design and energy considerations in medium-scale building projects, and specifically applying passive solar design strategies and the appropriate use of brick masonry materials. Some 300 faculty members and over 2200 students representing 80 of the 92 US architecture schools participated in the program. A summary is presented of the program and the range of submissions grouped by problem types and general climatic region.

ENTERPRISE IRELAND: Design for Competitive Advantage Conference

OpenAIRE

Dee, Peter

2003-01-01

A stimulating conference bringing together world leading experts on design to address the importance of brand development strategies to achieve competitive advantage. Peter Dee - Strategic Design and Marketing Consultant, specialised in the creation of brand development strategies for Enterprise Ireland’s Design Unit. Peter was responsible for the design and development of the the brand identity for the Enterprise Ireland Design for Competitive Advantage Conference in Dublin.

47 CFR 1.2103 - Competitive bidding design options.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 47 Telecommunication 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Competitive bidding design options. 1.2103 Section 1.2103 Telecommunication FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION GENERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE Competitive Bidding Proceedings General Procedures § 1.2103 Competitive bidding design options. (a) The...

Greenhouse vegetable production in The Netherlands and Switzerland: A grounded look at sector competitiveness

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mann, S.; Breukers, A.; Schweiger, J.; Mack, G.

2011-01-01

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a theory that is sufficiently adapted to sector competitiveness. The case of greenhouse vegetable production in The Netherlands and Switzerland is used to explain differences in sector competitiveness. Design/methodology/approach – Interviews

Sustaining Competitiveness Through product Development Activities Within Malaysian Automotive Suppliers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Norizah Mohamad

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The local automotive suppliers are facing a number of important challenges such asglobalisation, new requirement in market specifications and the competition brought about by theAsean Free Trade Area (AFTA agreements. In an effort to enhance the competitiveness of themanufacturing sector, the government has implemented the Second Industrial Master Plan, IMP2(1996-2005. The focus of the IMP2 is more on innovation and applications of new technologies, sothat industries can move up the value chain of their activities. Innovative capabilities achieved fromcompanies’ new product development activities have been recognized to be crucial for companies tosustain their competitiveness and organisational success. The importance of product development ismost obvious in the context of the discussion on the competitiveness of the Malaysian automotivesuppliers. The study will focus on the small medium enterprises (SMEs that make up more than 60 %of these automotive suppliers. The study is to determine the extensiveness of the suppliers’ productdevelopment activities by examining the involvement of the suppliers in customer’s productdevelopment activities. Consequently, the impact of this involvement to the competitiveness of thesuppliers is examined. The results were established based from a survey to parts and componentssuppliers of Proton, the Malaysian car national assembler. The study has shown that the SMEs wereinvolved from the early stages of the product development process that is during the design stage. Theproduct development efforts have shown to contribute towards increasing firms’ market share andfirms were also able to gain a better understanding of future product demand. A significant number ofthe suppliers have managed to penetrate the export market. Unfortunately, among the respondents,there is only one system supplier. This indicates that, either the technological capabilities of theSMEs still needed upgrading for the requirement as

Semi-arid development: competitiveness factors in biodiesel productive chain

OpenAIRE

Breno Barros Telles do Carmo; Dmontier Pinheiro Aragão; Heráclito Lopes Jaguaribe Pontes; Bruno Magalhães Ribeiro; Marcos Ronaldo Albertin

2009-01-01

The new global market competitiveness considerer the competition between productive chains (PC) or supply chains, not just between enterprises. In this case, it can be observed collaboration and cooperation enterprises that dispute with others productives chain. The PC competitiveness can be impaired if is subject by inhibitors factors, that can impairer the performance. This paper analyses these competitiveness factors inhibitors in biodiesel productive chain (CPB) in semi-arid area: exporte...

Competitiveness of tomato production in punjab, pakistan

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Akhtar, W.; Qureshi, A.H.; Khan, M.A.

2016-01-01

The study measures competitiveness at farm level and economic efficiency at country level of tomato production in relation to tomato trade by using Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) framework in Punjab, Pakistan. The province was divided into two tomato production regions i.e., Central and Southern Punjab for analysis purpose under importable scenario by using import parity price. Results of PAM model revealed that tomato production in both regions of Punjab has competitiveness under prevailing market situation as indicated by positive private profitability and private cost ratio (PCR) which is less than 1. Competitiveness difference in two regions indicated that Central Punjab has more competitiveness at farm level in tomato production. Economic efficiency results i.e. Domestic Resource Cost (DRC) ratio remained 0.39 and 0.51 in Central and Southern Punjab, respectively with positive social profitability indicating strong comparative advantage under importable scenario. The above results implied that Central Punjab has greater economic efficiency than Southern Punjab in domestic resources use for production of tomato as import substitute commodity. Results of Nominal Protection Coefficient (NPC) and Effective Protection Coefficient (EPC) indicated that combine effects of policies on output and tradable input market did not pass any protection to tomato farmers in the study area. Net effect of policy or market failure is reducing the profitability of tomato producers at farm level which indicates lack of motivation from policies for farmers to expand tomato production as import substitute crop. Present study recommended competitiveness and economic efficiency analysis in other tomato producing regions of the country for year round tomato supply on the basis of resource efficiency and to curtail tomato imports to save the precious foreign exchange. To enhance the competitiveness there is need to increase farmer's incentives through increase of farm level price up to

Productivity and Competitiveness of Sorghum Production in ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

showed that sorghum production in the study areas yielded profitable returns ... Keywords: Sorghum, Profitability, Competitiveness, Investment Potential, .... Guinness Ghana Brewery Limited to estimate cost and returns at the marketing sector ...

Competition and product quality in the supermarket industry.

Science.gov (United States)

Matsa, David A

2011-01-01

This article analyzes the effect of competition on a supermarket firm's incentive to provide product quality. In the supermarket industry, product availability is an important measure of quality. Using U.S. Consumer Price Index microdata to track inventory shortfalls, I find that stores facing more intense competition have fewer shortfalls. Competition from Walmart—the most significant shock to industry market structure in half a century—decreased shortfalls among large chains by about a third. The risk that customers will switch stores appears to provide competitors with a strong incentive to invest in product quality.

Artistic design in a competitive world

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Galle, Per; Brix, Anders

2012-01-01

To achieve competitive advantage in order to survive on a globalized market, industries and companies perceive an urgent need for innovation. Design is increasingly considered a success factor of innovation, and accordingly governments are devising design policies to harness design for ‘driving...

How Juries Assess Universal Design in Norwegian Architectural School Competitions.

Science.gov (United States)

Houck, Leif D

2016-01-01

This paper investigates how architectural school competition juries assess Universal Design. The method used is a case study of 18 recent architectural school competitions in Norway. The results show that most competition briefs ask for Universal Designed buildings. In 8 of the 18 cases, Universal Design is mentioned as an assessment criterion. In 11 of the 18 cases, Universal Design is commented on by the juries in the jury reports, but only in 3 of the cases, do the juries assess this aspect consistently on every competition project. The overall impression is that some amount of uncertainty looms concerning how Universal Design should be assessed in the competition stage. Based on the findings, future juries should concentrate on orientation and overview prior to technicalities and details.

Product Image to Build the Core Competitiveness of Enterprises

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shi Yan

2017-01-01

Full Text Available As a new specialty research field, Product Image is being paid more attention. This article introduced the concept of Product Image and Core-competition, and illustrated how to conduct Core-competition of enterprise from two aspects of the foundation of Product Image and the communication of Product Image.

77 FR 65279 - Domestic Competitive Products Pricing and Mailing Standards Changes

Science.gov (United States)

2012-10-26

... POSTAL SERVICE 39 CFR Part 111 Domestic Competitive Products Pricing and Mailing Standards Changes... and mailing standards for the following competitive products: Express Mail[supreg], Priority Mail.... SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This final rule describes new prices and product features for competitive products...

76 FR 77271 - Competitive Product Postal Price Changes

Science.gov (United States)

2011-12-12

... POSTAL REGULATORY COMMISSION [Docket No. CP2012-2; Order No. 997] Competitive Product Postal Price... recently-filed Postal Service request for a change in competitive products prices. The changes will take... and justification for the changes, the effective date, and a schedule of the changed rates. The price...

78 FR 26404 - New Competitive Product

Science.gov (United States)

2013-05-06

... Product AGENCY: Postal Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice. SUMMARY: The Commission is noticing a recent... product list. This notice informs the public of the filing, invites public comment, and takes other... the competitive product list.\\1\\ The Postal Service asserts that Parcel Return Service Contract 4 is a...

Collaboration within Student Design Teams Participating in Architectural Design Competitions

Science.gov (United States)

Erbil, Livanur; Dogan, Fehmi

2012-01-01

This paper investigates design collaboration with reference to convergent and divergent idea generation processes in architectural design teams entering a design competition. Study of design teams offer a unique opportunity to investigate how creativity is fostered through collaborative work. While views of creativity often relate creativity to…

Influences of three-dimensional printing to product innovation design thinking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liu Ling

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The increasing demand of individuation brings new challenges to traditional product design. This paper studies and analyzes three-dimensional print technology promotes the future development of product innovation design. The advantages of 3D printing equipment can help creative products enterprises shorten product manufacturing period and make them powerful in competition.

Designing powerplants for today's competitive environment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Makansi, J.

1994-01-01

Deregulation continues to unfold. Certainty about what the impact will be is as scarce as new US powerplant development opportunities. But one thing industry observers seem clear on is that the priorities for powerplant design will shift as competitive forces are rolled out. Powerplants will have to be developed, designed, and operated as a bottom-line business, not as part of a regulated industry. Thus, the design must enable the facility to accomplish this goal. In the emerging fully competitive environment, that bottom line applies to both the kilowatt and the kilowatt-hour. The entrepreneurial and business skills and talents of the independent power producer (IPP) have mostly been brought to bear on capital costs and project development thus far, with electricity sold under long-term power-purchase agreements. If retail wheeling takes hold, future plants must also be designed to merchandise power to a variety of customers scattered around the grid. This article provides insight into how powerplant design will accommodate new priorities

Mechanism of management of competitiveness of production of agrarian and industrial complex

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Buryak E. A.

2016-04-01

Full Text Available the concept of competitiveness and mechanisms of management of competitiveness of production is considered. Major factors of ensuring competitiveness of production of agrarian and industrial complex are allocated. The main problems of production of wheat in the Republic of Crimea making negative impact on the level of her competitiveness are revealed. The mechanism of management of competitiveness of production of agrarian and industrial complex is developed.

The competitiveness of biofuels in heat and power production

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kosunen, P.; Leino, P.

1995-01-01

The paper showed that natural gas is the most competitive fuel in all the energy production alternatives under review, ie both in separate heat production and electricity generation and in combined heat and power production. Even though the heavy fuel oil taxes have grown more rapidly than taxes on domestic fuels, oil continues to be cheaper than solid fuels in heating and steam plants. According to the feasibility calculations made, combined heat and power production is the least-cost production form of electricity, and the larger the plant unit, the lower the cost. Looking to the future, in respect of merely the development in fuel taxes the competitiveness of domestic fuels will improve markedly if the taxation structure remains unchanged. It seems that at smaller points of consumption, such as heating and steam plants and small-scale power plants, fuel chips would be the most competitive fuel. In larger units, such as heat and power production plants and condensing power plants, fuel peat, primarily milled peat, would be the most competitive. The competitiveness of fuel chips at larger plants will probably be limited by the supply of sufficient volumes from such an area where the delivery costs would not raise the price of fuel chips too high. Coal would remain competitive only if the real import price of coal rose clearly more slowly than the real prices of domestic fuels. It seems that heavy fuel oil will be used only as a start-up, support and back-up fuel. Evaluating the future competitiveness of natural gas is difficult, since the impact of new pipeline investments on the price of natural gas is not known

Prospects of competitive process innovation business in Brazil: critical factors for competitiveness, productivity and growth

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kátia Keiko Kitaguti

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The economic conditions of recent times require a structural changing and, mainly, behavioral ones of Brazilian business. The scenario created by big economic powers shows the difference between Brazilian industries and service sectors when it is compared business issues, for example, competitiveness, productivity and innovation, with others countries. The technological innovation consists in a critical factor for competitiveness and for the global economic development; moreover, it can be found in industrial sectors (responsible for materialization and organization of operational system of production process and in service sectors (which make planning of the contracted activity. Innovation should not be included only in these two economic sectors; however, it has to be included in the economic thought of countries. It has to be highlighted the fact that innovation is not the unique factor of competitiveness, but, productivity and knowledge make the same impact in competitiveness as innovation does. Besides, external and internal demands predict trends in terms of searching products, process an strategies, which can promote a better interaction between market and productivity control. In a global context, Brazil, specially, has a lot of techniques to learn in terms of how to use its resources in a adequate way, independently if they are natural or not. That is why studies about critical factors for competitiveness are determined for the Brazil's sustainable growth.

Interior design students win two IDEC Student Design Competition awards

OpenAIRE

Watson-Bloch, Cathy

2005-01-01

Interior Design students in the School of Architecture + Design at Virginia Tech won two of the four awards presented in the 2004-2005 Interior Design Educators Council (IDEC) Student Design Competition. Winners were selected at the International IDEC Conference in Savannah, Ga. with Virginia Tech Interior Design students winning second place and honorable mention.

Decentralized supply chain network design: monopoly, duopoly and oligopoly competitions under uncertainty

Science.gov (United States)

Seyedhosseini, Seyed Mohammad; Fahimi, Kaveh; Makui, Ahmad

2017-12-01

This paper presents the competitive supply chain network design problem in which n decentralized supply chains simultaneously enter the market with no existing rival chain, shape their networks and set wholesale and retail prices in competitive mode. The customer demand is elastic and price dependent, customer utility function is based on the Hoteling model and the chains produce identical or highly substitutable products. We construct a solution algorithm based on bi-level programming and possibility theory. In the proposed bi-level model, the inner part sets the prices based on simultaneous extra- and Stackleberg intra- chains competitions, and the outer part shapes the networks in cooperative competitions. Finally, we use a real-word study to discuss the effect of the different structures of the competitors on the equilibrium solution. Moreover, sensitivity analyses are conducted and managerial insights are offered.

Entry and Competition in Differentiated Products Markets

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schaumans, C.B.C.; Verboven, F.L.

2011-01-01

We propose a methodology for estimating the competition effects from entry when firms sell differentiated products. We first derive precise conditions under which Bres- nahan and Reiss'entry threshold ratios (ETRs) can be used to test for the presence and to measure the magnitude of competition

Design models in the development of mechatronic products

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Habib, Tufail; Brunø, Thomas Ditlev; Nielsen, Kjeld

2012-01-01

In view of widespread application of mechatronic systems and the competition to offer customized products at high quality and low cost, there has been considerable attention to introduce new methods and models in this regard. This paper explores design process of mechatronic product development w...

COMPETITIVE PRODUCT ADVANTAGES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adrian MICU

2006-01-01

Full Text Available Cost advantages may be either internal or external. Internal economics of scope, scale, or experience, and external economies of focus or logistical integration, enable a company to produce some products at a lower cost than the competition. The coordination of pricing with suppliers, although not actually economizing resources, can improve the efficiency of pricing by avoiding the incrementalization of a supplier's nonincremental fixed costs and profit. Any of these strategies can generate cost advantages that are, at least in the short run, sustainable. Even cost advantages that are not sustainable, however, can generate temporary savings that are often the key to building more sustainable cost or product advantages later.. Even when a product's physical attributes are not readily differentiable, opportunities to develop product advantages remain. The augmented product that customers buy is more than the particular product or service exchanged. It includes all sorts of ancillary services and intangible relationships that make buying thesame product from one company less difficult, less risky, or more pleasant than buying from a competitor. Superior augmentation of the same basic product can add substantial value in the eyes of consumers, leading them to pay willingly what are often considerable price premiums.

Supplier integration for new product developments: antecedents for supplier integration in modular product designs

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Eggers, Justus Erich

2016-01-01

Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) increasingly integrate supplier resources in new product developments (NPD) to overcome bottlenecks of resource and to create competitive advantages. At the same time, OEMs react to the new market challenges by implementing modular product designs. Despite the

Secondary Products (Markets, Competition, and Technological Improvements)

Science.gov (United States)

Philip A. Araman

1988-01-01

Competitiveness, imports, exports, and technological improvements--these are issues facing secondary wood-product manufacturers. The major problems focus on increasing foreign imports and the inability of U.S. industries to repell the imports. How and where should we, as researchers, allocate our efforts to enhance the competitiveness of secondary forest industries in...

Results of the Washington Passive Solar Design/Build Competition

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nylen, N.

1981-01-01

In an effort to encourage the design, construction, and marketing of moderately priced passive solar homes in Washington state, the Western Solar Utilization Network (Western SUN) recently sponsored the Washington Passive Solar Design/Build Competition. The competition drew an overwhelming response from designers and builders throughout Washington. Thermal performance of the designs was evaluated by a technical review committee, and final selections were made by the Competition Jury in accordance with the following criteria: perceived market acceptance, thermal performance, cost effectiveness, simplicity of design and operation, and completeness of the passive concept. Design contract awards totaling $50,000 were made available to winners in four categories, including single and multi-family, new and remodeled residences. In order to receive the award in its entirety, winning design/build teams are required to construct their design by April, 1983. As a result of the competition, a great deal was learned about the attitudes and knowledge of professionals and the general public regarding the use of solar energy in Washington state. Among the points that will be highlighted in this paper are the following: (1) a design/build competition is an effective vehicle for promoting solar energy among professionals in the housing community as well as the general public; (2) passive solar techniques can contribute significantly to the heating and cooling needs of residential housing throughout the state of Washington; (3) there is a great deal of interest and talent among the designers and builders of solar residences in Washington; and (4) follow-up activities, including the promotion of winning designs, the systematic collection of performance data, and identification of the major obstacles confronting designers and builders of solar homes, are critical to the success of the program in achieving both its short-term and long-term goals.

The Impact of Product Market Competition on Training Provision

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lai, Tat-kei; Ng, Travis

2014-01-01

While standard models of training focus on how input market affects firms' training decisions, this paper investigates the impact of product market competition on training provision. Using the longitudinal data from Statistics Canada's Workplace and Employee Survey, we find that increased...... that increasing training is an important channel through which competition raises productivity....

The Impact of Product Market Competition on Training Provision

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lai, Tat-kei; Ng, Travis

's Workplace and Employee Survey, we find that increased competition is strongly associated with more training provision within workplace. We show that this association is unlikely to be driven by unobservable workplace heterogeneity, the specific measures used, and other relevant factors which can affect...... training provisions. To the extent that training is a significant source of human capital and industry competitiveness, our empirical results suggest increasing training is a significant channel through which competition raises productivity.......While standard models of training focus on how the structure of the input market affects training provisions of firms, this paper investigates the relationship between product market competition and training provision. Using the longitudinal and nationally representative data from Statistics Canada...

Space station interior design: Results of the NASA/AIA space station interior national design competition

Science.gov (United States)

Haines, R. F.

1975-01-01

The results of the NASA/AIA space station interior national design competition held during 1971 are presented in order to make available to those who work in the architectural, engineering, and interior design fields the results of this design activity in which the interiors of several space shuttle size modules were designed for optimal habitability. Each design entry also includes a final configuration of all modules into a complete space station. A brief history of the competition is presented with the competition guidelines and constraints. The first place award entry is presented in detail, and specific features from other selected designs are discussed. This is followed by a discussion of how some of these design features might be applied to terrestrial as well as space situations.

COMPETITIVE PRESSURE AND PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH: THE CASE OF THE FLORIDA VEGETABLE INDUSTRY

OpenAIRE

Kalaitzandonakes, Nicholas G.; Taylor, Timothy G.

1990-01-01

The relationship between the degree of competitive market pressure and the rate of productivity growth is empirically investigated with a case study of the Florida fresh winter vegetable industry. The results indicate that crops which faced considerable competitive pressure exhibited significant productivity growth while the crops that faced minimal competitive pressure generally exhibited little growth in productivity. Thus, the hypothesis that competitive pressure is positively related to p...

Rate design in a competitive environment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wathen, J.M.

1995-01-01

Innovative rate designs used by several United States utilities to become more competitive, were presented. Considerations of retail wheeling and other services for increasing competitiveness were debated. The process for designing specialized rate programs was described, along with descriptions of special rate types, including economic development rates, load retention/anti-bypass rates, cogeneration/self-generation rates, distressed industry rates, load management rates and special situation rates. The existence of special provisions in state legislation allowing special rates to be offered was noted. Confidentiality and the need for a review process to ensure fairness of special agreements was discussed. The efficacy of using individual customer contracts to allow full recognition of the special characteristics and needs of individual customers and the effects of such contracts on the industry, were considered

Competition along productivity gradients: news from heathlands.

Science.gov (United States)

Delerue, Florian; Gonzalez, Maya; Achat, David L; Puzos, Luc; Augusto, Laurent

2018-05-01

The importance of competition in low productive habitats is still debated. Studies which simultaneously evaluate preemption of resources and consequences for population dynamics are needed for a comprehensive view of competitive outcomes. We cultivated two emblematic species of European heathlands (Calluna vulgaris and Molinia caerulea) in a nursery for 2 years at two fertility levels, reproducing the productivity gradient found in phosphorus (P)-depleted heathlands in southwest France. The second year, we planted Ulex europaeus seedlings, a ubiquitous heathland species, under the cover of the two species to evaluate its ability to regenerate. Half of the seedlings were placed in tubes for exclusion of competitor roots. We measured the development of the competitors aboveground and belowground and their interception of resources (light, water, inorganic P). Ulex seedlings' growth and survival were also measured. Our results on resources interception were consistent with species distribution in heathlands. Molinia, which dominates rich heathlands, was the strongest competitor for light and water in the rich soil. Calluna, which dominates poor heathlands, increased its root allocation in the poor soil, decreasing water and inorganic P availability. However, the impact of total competition and root competition on Ulex seedlings decreased in the poor soil. Other mechanisms, especially decrease of water stress under neighbouring plant cover, appeared to have more influence on the seedlings' response. We found no formal contradiction between Tilman and Grime's theories. Root competition has a primary role in acquisition of soil resources in poor habitats. However, the importance of competition decreases with decreasing fertility.

RELEVANT DIRECTIONS FOR THE PRODUCTION OF COMPETITIVE CONSTRUCTION PRODUCTS ON THE BASIS OF INNOVATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. Yu. Levitskiy

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Objectives. The article substantiates the necessity for competitive innovative high-tech construction products at the present stage of modernisation of the construction industry and reveals some peculiarities of their manufacture.Methods. In the course of the research, a programme-targeted method was applied, underlying the development of a programme for the innovative development of construction production.Results. Relevant directions of innovative development of construction production are systematised. The world's application experience of a technical regulation parametric model for construction industry product manufacturing is generalised. In order to increase the level of innovative activity of construction organisations, a set of practical measures is proposed whose implementation will ensure the output of competitive building products to the market.Conclusion. Increasing the competitiveness of construction products is closely connected with the activation of innovative processes: the introduction of high technology (including resource-saving into production processes and the expansion of the output of innovative products with the best consumer properties capable of successfully competing on the market with foreign counterparts in the context of import substitution strategies. The modernisation of the construction industry on the basis of introduction of hightech production methods specifies new requirements to the professional competencies of personnel producing competitive building products. To solve the set problems, a tool for improving the management mechanism of the innovative activity of construction organisations was proposed, ensuring the integration of institutional and production conditions for the large-scale development of advanced technologies and production of science-intensive types of construction products. 

Enhancing Efficiency of Water Supply – Product Market Competition versus Trade

OpenAIRE

Reto Foellmi; Urs Meister

2004-01-01

This paper analyses and compares potential efficiency gains induced by the introduction of product market competition and cross boarder trade in the piped water market. We argue that due to the specific circumstances in the water sector product market competition, i.e. competition by common carriage is not expected to be very intensive. The connection of networks could alternatively be used for cross boarder trade between neighboured water utilities. We show that competition by common carriag...

A Design of Product Collaborative Online Configuration Model

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Xiaoguo; Zheng, Jin; Zeng, Qian

According to the actual needs of mass customization, the personalization of product and its collaborative design, the paper analyzes and studies the working mechanism of modular-based product configuration technology and puts forward an information model of modular product family. Combined with case-based reasoning techniques (CBR) and the constraint satisfaction problem solving techniques (CSP), we design and study the algorithm for product configuration, and analyze its time complexity. A car chassis is made as the application object, we provide a prototype system of online configuration. Taking advantage of this system, designers can make appropriate changes on the existing programs in accordance with the demand. This will accelerate all aspects of product development and shorten the product cycle. Also the system will provide a strong technical support for enterprises to improve their market competitiveness.

Hi-tech products marketing and competitive advantage

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Perović Jelena

2004-01-01

Full Text Available The company today, in causes turbulent environment and intensive integrations must cooperate, accept and develop high technology in order to achieve needs of customers. It's only way that companies replay on challenge global environment, decrease costs of investment per capita, decrease the risk, captivate new market and held competitive in causes of global market. High tech technology marketing function is help that results of new technology transfer on economy. Their function is reach need of customers, too. Positive influence of technology is the highest in area of production costs and productivity. Speed years are in front of our and it demands larger productivity, which primary source must be technology changes. High technology marketing is the most provocative framework for take competitive advantage, answer on global change and way of permanent reach rigorous need of customers.

Designing future products: what difficulties do designers encounter and how can their creative process be supported?

Science.gov (United States)

Bonnardel, Nathalie

2012-01-01

To remain competitive, companies must regularly offer new products to consumers. A major challenge for designers is therefore to come up with design solutions and define products that are both new and adapted to future users and usages. Although classic methods and ergonomic recommendations are useful in most run-of-the-mill design contexts, they are of limited benefit when the design situation requires greater creativity. This paper therefore addresses issues related to product design by pursuing a triple objective: (1) highlight the difficulties encountered by designers in imagining and conceiving new products, (2) find out which conditions could help designers come up with creative ideas for innovative products, and (3) suggest methods and tools to support designers' creative process and help them take other stakeholders' needs and expectations into consideration.

Overview and theory relating to the concepts of competitiveness, efficiency and productivity

OpenAIRE

Latruffe, Laure

2017-01-01

This is a brief overview and theory relating to the concepts of competitiveness, efficiency and productivity: concept of competitiveness, measurement of competitiveness, determinants of competitiveness.

Telerobotic Excavator Designed to Compete in NASA's Lunabotics Mining Competition

Science.gov (United States)

Nash, Rodney; Santin, Cara; Yousef, Ahmed; Nguyen, Thien; Helferty, John; Pillapakkam, Shriram

2011-01-01

The second annual NASA Lunabotics Mining competition is to be held in May 23-28, 2011. The goal of the competition is for teams of university level students to design, build, test and compete with a fully integrated lunar excavator on a simulated lunar surface. Our team, named Lunar Solutions I, will be representing Temple University's College of Engineering in the competition. The team's main goal was to build a robot which is able to compete with other teams, and ultimately win the competition. The main challenge of the competition was to build a wireless robot that can excavate and collect a minimum of 10 kilograms of the regolith material within 15 minutes. The robot must also be designed to operate in conditions similar to those found on the lunar surface. The design of the lunar excavator is constrained by a set of requirements determined by NASA and detailed in the competition's rulebook. The excavator must have the ability to communicate with the "main base" wirelessly, and over a Wi-Fi network. Human operators are located at a remote site approximately 60 meters away from the simulated lunar surface upon which the robot must excavate the lunar regolith surface. During the competition, the robot will operate in a separate area from the control room in an area referred to as the "Lunarena." From the control room, the operators will have to control the robot using visual feedback from cameras placed both within the arena and on the robot. Using this visual feedback the human operators control the robots movement using both keyboard and joystick commands. In order to place in the competition, a minimum of 10 kg of regolith material has to be excavated, collected, and dumped into a specific location. For that reason, the robot must be provided with an effective and powerful excavation system. Our excavator uses tracks for the drive system. After performing extensive research and trade studies, we concluded that tracks would be the most effective method for

Virginia Space Grant Consortium Management of National General Aviation Design Competition

Science.gov (United States)

2002-01-01

This report summarizes the management of the National General Aviation Design Competition on behalf of NASA, the FAA and the Air Force by the Virginia Space Grant Consortium (VSGC) for the time period October 1, 2000 through September 30, 2001. This was the VSGC's seventh and final year of managing the Competition, which the Consortium originally designed, developed and implemented for NASA and the FAA. The competition is now being managed in-house by NASA. Awards to winning university teams were presented at a ceremony held at AirVenture 2001, the Experimental Aircraft Association's Annual Convention and Fly-In at Oshkosh, Wis. by NASA and FAA officials. The competition called for individuals or teams of undergraduate and graduate students from U.S. engineering schools to participate in a major national effort to rebuild the U.S. general aviation sector. Participants were challenged to meet the engineering goals of the Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiment (AGATE) project. For the purpose of the contest, general aviation aircraft are typically defined as single or twin engine (turbine or piston), single-pilot, fixed-wing aircraft for 2 - 6 passengers. The competition seeks to raise student awareness of the importance of general aviation by having students address design challenges for a small aircraft transportation system. NASA, AFRL and the FAA hope to stimulate breakthroughs in technology and their application in the general aviation marketplace. National goals for revitalizing the industry offer excellent, open-ended design challenges with real world applications for the Innovative Design Category. Both individual and team submissions were encouraged. University faculty advisors and students consistently cite the value of this kind of educational experience for their engineering students. Eight proposals were submitted for the 2001 Competition for the Innovative Design Category. Eleven faculty members and 124 students participated. Since inception

Product-Market Competition in the Water Industry: Voluntarily Nondiscriminatory Pricing

OpenAIRE

Föllmi, Reto; Meister, Urs

2002-01-01

This paper presents an attempt to create competition in the water market by means of direct competition. We argue that the usual liberalisation device, competition for the market by franchise bidding, is problematic due to the particular features of the water industry. Our approach proposes the implementation of product market competition, i.e. competition in the market. In such a situation several water utilities using a single set of pipes compete for customers in the same area. Since the w...

Liner shipping hub network design in a competitive environment

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gelareh, Shahin; Nickel, Stefan; Pisinger, David

2010-01-01

A mixed integer programming formulation is proposed for hub-and-spoke network design in a competitive environment. It addresses the competition between a newcomer liner service provider and an existing dominating operator, both operating on hub-and-spoke networks. The newcomer company maximizes i...

Competitiveness of wood pulp production in different Brazilian states

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Naisy Silva Soares

2013-06-01

Full Text Available This work aimed to analyze the competitiveness of wood pulp production in different Brazilian states, in May, 2008 (Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Espírito Santo and Bahia, using the Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM. The results obtained indicated that the private and social profitability of wood pulp production and commercialization was positive and greater in Bahia. The Brazilian companies were penalized by public policies adopted for the sector; the wood pulp production in São Paulo and Bahia were more competitive and less exposed to the negative effects of public policies that reduce the national company profits.

THE COMPETITIVENESS OF SOYBEAN PRODUCTION IN BLITAR-EAST JAVA, INDONESIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Moh. Azis Arisudi

2008-12-01

Full Text Available In East Java Province, the government still provides subsidy to soybean production in the form of soft credit to production inputs. Since the government budget and subsidy have been limited, efficiency in production, marketing and trade become crucial issues. The conducted research will try to achieve some research objectives as follows: Analyzing soybean farmer income in the Blitar District at the different cropping system; Obtaining analysis on comparative advantage and competitive-ness of soybean by different cropping system; analyzing influences of social price changes to farmers income due to public investment; and analyzing government policy impact on farmers income due to market/actual price development. The research uses Policy Analysis Matrix to obtain competitiveness rate, efficiency and impact of government policy on soybean production under multi-cropping system and different ecological zones in the Blitar district.

MERIP - Design of Production Systems with focus on Human Ressources

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jacobsen, Peter; Knudsen, Mads Kristian Lund

1998-01-01

", "Employee-activated Production Development - MAPU", "Integrated Production Systems - IPS" and "Strategic Development of Staff - SUM". MERIP (Human resources in production) is a continuation of this type of projects, aiming at increasing the competitive power of the companies. However MERIP scientists want...... to involve the human resources in the production in new ways. Therefore the objective of the project is to develop methods for design of production systems, that use every possibility in human resources supported by the technology aiming at increasing the competitive power of the companies. The task force......The way in which the Industry has involved the human resources in production systems, has changed in last decades. Previously the human resources were mainly considered as means to link together the technical systems, while today they are key resources responsible for development, planning...

Economics In Optical Design, Analysis, And Production

Science.gov (United States)

Willey, Ronald R.

1983-10-01

There are indications that we are entering an era wherein economics will play an increasing role in the optical design and production process. Economics has always been a factor in the competition between commercial ventures in the product arena. Now, we may begin to see competition between different technologies for the scarce resources of the society, including money. A proper design approach begins with a thorough examination and refinement of the requirements from the top down. The interrelationships of the various components must be properly understood and balanced. The specifications must be clear, complete, and realistic. Improper or incomplete system design can cause an extensive waste of resources. The detail optical design to meet the performance requirements has sometimes been the only part of the process that the designer has considered his own responsibility. The final optimization should also consider economic related factors: the cost of tolerances, the available tools test plates, materials, and test equipment. In the preliminary design stage, he should have decided which alignment and test methods are most appropriate to the system. The distribution of tolerances in an optical/mechanical system is a frequently neglected opportunity to reduce cost. We have reported previously on our work in this area, and expand further on it in the context of this paper. The designer now has an opportunity to generate better designs at a lower cost that are more economical to produce. The watchword for the 1980's may become the one found in the assembly automation industry: "more, better, for less".

From pioneering orientation to new product performance through competitive tactics in SMEs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pedro M. García-Villaverde

2017-10-01

Full Text Available The literature regarding entry timing suggests that pioneering orientation (PO is a key determinant factor of new product performance (NPP due to ‘first mover advantages’. The contradictory results and specific biases raise a research gap on which conditions and processes lead PO to a higher NPP. This paper proposes to fill this gap by designing and testing a model examining to what extent development of competitive tactics drive and explain the way from PO to NPP. We test the model on a sample of 224 footwear firms. Results show that, separately, each of the competitive tactics has a total mediating effect linking PO with NPP. Introducing the competitive tactics into a multiple mediator model the routes from PO to NPP through low cost and innovation differentiation are relevant and compatible. However, marketing differentiation is less effective. The study provides new ways of linking the entry timing and advantage strategy perspectives.

ECONOMIC ESSENCE OF COMPETITIVENESS OF AGRO-FOOD PRODUCTS AND ITS MANAGEMENT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cornel COSER

2013-02-01

Full Text Available Approach of the competitiveness of food products can be found in many research studies in the field. They reveal the essence of agro-food competitiveness, while expressing management tools and method. At the level of agro-food competitiveness management, this article highlights also the possibility of influencing factors determining the defining characteristics of the respective competitiveness.

Economic essence of competitiveness of agro-food products and its management

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Coser Cornel

2013-02-01

Full Text Available Approach of the competitiveness of food products can be found in many research studies in the field. They reveal the essence of agro-food competitiveness, while expressing management tools and method. At the level of agro-food competitiveness management, this article highlights also the possibility of influencing factors determining the defining characteristics of the respective competitiveness.

Competitive Effects of Mass Customization

OpenAIRE

Oksana Loginova

2010-01-01

Earlier theoretical literature on mass customization maintains that customization reduces product differentiation and intensifies price competition. In contrast, operations management studies argue that customization serves primarily to differentiate a company from its competitors. Interactive involvement of the customer in product design creates an affective relationship with the firm, relaxing price competition. This paper provides a model that incorporates consumer involvement to explain t...

Market Entry, Product Quality And Price Competition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mathur Sameer

2015-08-01

Full Text Available We study an entrant firm’s product quality choice and the price competition arising between the entrant and the incumbent firm. We show that the entrant firm should introduce a relatively higher (lower quality than the incumbent firm when the consumers’ valuation for quality is sufficiently large (small. We also study how the incumbent firm modifies its price in response to the ensuing price competition. We find that the incumbent firm should decrease its price. We also profile how the incumbent firm’s price non-linearly depends on consumers’ valuation for quality.

Evaluation of turmeric-mung bean intercrop productivity through competition functions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohamaed ISLAM

2018-04-01

Full Text Available An intercropping experiment was conducted with varying combinations of turmeric and mung bean to find out the efficacy of productivity and economic return through competition functions. Treatments were evaluated on the basis of several competition functions, such as land equivalent ratio (LER, aggressiveness, competitive ratio (CR, monetary advantage index (MAI and system productivity index (SPI. Results showed that rhizome yields of turmeric were higher in intercropping system than in mono crop. It indicated that intercropping of mung bean did not affect the rhizome yield of turmeric. However, turmeric (100 % + 3 row mung bean (100 % in between turmeric lines intercropping system exhibited maximum yield of both the crops as well as turmeric equivalent yield, LER, competitive indices values, SPI and MAI (Tk. 2,44,734.46 ha-1 compared to the other intercropping combinations and the mono crops. Aggressiveness of intercrop indicated dominance of turmeric over mung bean in all the combinations except turmeric (100 % + 1 row mung bean (33 %. Competition functions of intercroping suggested beneficial association of turmeric and mung bean crops. The study revealed that mung bean could be introduced as intercrop with turmeric without hampering rhizome yield with higher benefit additionally increasing mung bean production area.

Intra-industry momentum and product market competition around the world

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ting Li

2016-06-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the relationship between product market competition and intra-industry momentum returns. Based on 12,982 firm observations from 19 developed markets for the period of 1990–2010, I find that buying winners and selling losers in competitive industries generates significantly higher momentum profits than that in concentrated industries. The higher the intensity of product market competition, the larger are the intra-industry momentum returns. The results are robust to sub-samples (periods of the U.S., non-U.S. countries, the G7 countries, 1990–2000, and 2001–2010. I further employ the nearness of a stock's price to the 52-week high to determine past winners and losers and find stronger results. I also compare intra-industry momentum returns with Jegadeesh and Titman (1993 individual stock momentum and Moskowitz and Grinblatt (1999 inter-industry momentum strategies. My results suggest that intra-industry momentum strategy outperforms the latter two strategies in most cases. The overall results are consistent with the notion that severe product market competition induces managers to improve financial performance.

Pay attention to the enterprise competitive intelligence analysis research promotion enterprise scientific research production and product development

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yang Yan

2014-01-01

This article covers the competitive intelligence content and five characteristics, and on the American Competitive intelligence Outstanding Company's place situation, shows fully the competitive intelligence constructs the core competitive power regarding the enterprise to have the significant function, Its contribution has already hold the pivotal status in the world famous enterprise. It is an important cornerstone for enterprises which construct the core competitive power. Along with the enterprise competition environment rapid change, the competitive intelligence importance suddenly to reveal day by day. Just like the world richest family Microsoft Corporation president Bill. Gates asserted that, How to collect, How to analysis, how to manage and how to use information, lt will decide the enterprise victory and loss. And unified the enterprise scientific research production the special details, take 'To develop the SF_6 New Product' to introduce as the example how did the enterprise competition intelligence, as well as how did the information development and using in it. (author)

Modeling design iteration in product design and development and its solution by a novel artificial bee colony algorithm.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Tinggui; Xiao, Renbin

2014-01-01

Due to fierce market competition, how to improve product quality and reduce development cost determines the core competitiveness of enterprises. However, design iteration generally causes increases of product cost and delays of development time as well, so how to identify and model couplings among tasks in product design and development has become an important issue for enterprises to settle. In this paper, the shortcomings existing in WTM model are discussed and tearing approach as well as inner iteration method is used to complement the classic WTM model. In addition, the ABC algorithm is also introduced to find out the optimal decoupling schemes. In this paper, firstly, tearing approach and inner iteration method are analyzed for solving coupled sets. Secondly, a hybrid iteration model combining these two technologies is set up. Thirdly, a high-performance swarm intelligence algorithm, artificial bee colony, is adopted to realize problem-solving. Finally, an engineering design of a chemical processing system is given in order to verify its reasonability and effectiveness.

Liner Shipping Hub Network Design in a Competitive Environment

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gelareh, Shahin; Nickel, Stefan; Pisinger, David

A new mixed integer programming formulation is proposed for hub-and-spoke network design in a competitive environment. It addresses competition between a newcomer liner service provider and an alliance, both operating on hub-and-spoke networks. The newcomer company maximizes its market share...... — proportional to service time and transportation cost —by locating a predefined number of hubs at candidate ports and designing its network. While general-purpose solvers do not solve instances of even small size, an accelerated lagrangian method coupled with a primal heuristic obtains very good bounds. Our...

Service Engineering as an Approach to Designing Industrial Product Service Systems

OpenAIRE

Schuh, G.; Gudergan, G.

2009-01-01

Organised by: Cranfield University Unique customer solutions which integrate products and services into a high value offering have the potential to successfully differentiate from competition even prices are dictating product markets. However, companies face tremendous challenges to develop customer solutions. Service engineering is considered to be the scientific discipline which supports the design task of intangible offerings and thus a foundation for solution design. We enh...

Essays on the Indian economy : Competitive pressure, productivity and performance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sahoo, A.

2008-01-01

India undertook a drastic economic reform program in 1991, with the significant objectives of removing existing inefficiencies and enhancing global competitiveness. A competitive environment is a prerequisite condition for gaining higher productivity. The main desired role of economic liberalization

Service Co-Production, Customer Efficiency and Market Competition

OpenAIRE

Mei Xue; Patrick T. Harker

2003-01-01

Customers’ participation in service co-production processes has been increasing with the rapid development of self-service technologies and business models that rely on self-service as the main service delivery channel. However, little is known about how the level of participation of customers in service delivery processes influences the competition among service providers. In this paper, a game-theoretic model is developed to study the competition among service providers when selfservice is ...

Competitive closed-loop supply chain network design with price-dependent demands

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rezapour, Shabnam; Farahani, Reza Zanjirani; Fahimnia, Behnam

2015-01-01

Abstract This paper presents a bi-level model for the strategic reverse network design (upper level) and tactical/operational planning (lower level) of a closed-loop single-period supply chain operating in a competitive environment with price-dependent market demand. An existing supply chain (SC...... for the supply of new and remanufactured products. The performance behaviors of both SCs are evaluated with specific focus placed on investigating the impacts of the strategic facility location decisions of the new SC on the tactical/operational transport and inventory decisions of the overall network. The bi...

Sustainability and cleaner production: a study on the implications competitive advantage in business

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jaqueline Guimarães Santos

2015-08-01

Full Text Available This paper discusses the relationship between the adoption of environmental management system in the business and the competitive advantages that can result from this process. Therefore, the effects are discussed the emergence of a model of sustainable development and the role and opportunities of the company that perspective. Being theoretical, the aim of this paper is to discuss the potential contributions that the implementation of cleaner production technology can offer to the enterprise competitive strategy. To elucidate these relationships are discussed concepts relating to the introduction of an environmental management system, which emphasized the use of environmental measures, specifically the inherent Cleaner Production that aim to reduce the environmental impacts of industrial production, eliminating waste and reducing costs. Moreover, the concept of competitive advantage is crafted light of assumptions Porter on profitability from cost reduction and product differentiation. The findings indicate that the introduction of the Cleaner Production to reduce costs and add value to the image of the product, is an instrument of competitiveness that allows the company to differentiate and gain competitive advantage.

Competitive Supply Chain Network Design Considering Marketing Strategies: A Hybrid Metaheuristic Algorithm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ali Akbar Hasani

2016-11-01

Full Text Available In this paper, a comprehensive model is proposed to design a network for multi-period, multi-echelon, and multi-product inventory controlled the supply chain. Various marketing strategies and guerrilla marketing approaches are considered in the design process under the static competition condition. The goal of the proposed model is to efficiently respond to the customers’ demands in the presence of the pre-existing competitors and the price inelasticity of demands. The proposed optimization model considers multiple objectives that incorporate both market share and total profit of the considered supply chain network, simultaneously. To tackle the proposed multi-objective mixed-integer nonlinear programming model, an efficient hybrid meta-heuristic algorithm is developed that incorporates a Taguchi-based non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II and a particle swarm optimization. A variable neighborhood decomposition search is applied to enhance a local search process of the proposed hybrid solution algorithm. Computational results illustrate that the proposed model and solution algorithm are notably efficient in dealing with the competitive pressure by adopting the proper marketing strategies.

Contemporary large-scale international design competitions1 in China. A case study of Baietan, Guangzhou

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zheng Liang

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The importance of contemporary design competitions has been increasingly recognized in fast-growing China in the course of World Trade Organization (WTO integration and globalization. However, scientific and systematic analysis is rare on how international design competitions are introduced, and how they interact and transplant in the Chinese context. The well-known Chinese-Western culture gap and complicated social and political background make this topic more challenging. Herein, the authors focus on how the international design competitions were “translated” into both international and local perspectives with a compara­tive analysis on development of international design competitions between the Chinese and the Finnish model. To fully exemplify the design-completion procedure and the different roles of Chinese stakeholders and their perspectives on design competitions, the authors study the Baietan case, which was chosen due to its specific relationship with the city’s strategic plan, its representativeness in using international design competitions in connection to large-scale urban projects in China and its public access to the relevant documentation. The preliminary findings suggest that Chinese-style design competitions, acting as ‘designed trading zones’, with less-defined competition rules compared to the Finnish model, may foster the settings of local transformation in adopting international urban planning and design knowledge. However, an integrated approach is required to address subsequent implementation.

History of Nuclear Weapons Design and Production

Science.gov (United States)

Oelrich, Ivan

2007-04-01

The nuclear build-up of the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War is often portrayed as an arms race. Some part was indeed a bilateral competition, but much was the result of automatic application of technical advances as they became available, without careful consideration of strategic implications. Thus, the history of nuclear weapon design is partly designers responding to stated military needs and partly the world responding to constant innovations in nuclear capability. Today, plans for a new nuclear warhead are motivated primarily by the desire to maintain a nuclear design and production capability for the foreseeable future.

Design approaches to achieve competitive LMFBR capital costs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Arnold, W.H.; Ehrman, C.S.; Sharbaugh, J.E.; Young, W.H.

1982-01-01

Through analysis of the essential functional elements of an LMFBR, numerous ways were found to simplify system design, reduce the size of components and equipment, and eliminate some components and systems. The projected capital cost per net kW of this design is competitive with that of current PWRs. RandD programs and the construction and operation of CRBRP now are needed to prove out the features of this new design

Using a Competitive Approach to Improve Military Simulation Artificial Intelligence Design

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Stoykov, Sevdalin

2008-01-01

...) design can lead to improvement of the AI solutions used in military simulations. To demonstrate the potential of the competitive approach, ORTS, a real-time strategy game engine, and its competition setup are used...

IDC Robocon: A Transnational Teaming Competition for Project-Based Design Education in Undergraduate Robotics

OpenAIRE

Ning Tan; Rajesh Elara Mohan; Shaohui Foong; Masaki Yamakita; Masami Iwase; Shoshiro Hatakeyama; Norihiro Kamamichi; Libo Song; You Wang; Qiuguo Zhu

2016-01-01

This paper presents a robot design competition called ‘IDC Robocon’ as an effective tool for engineering education. The International Design Contest (IDC) Robocon competition has several benefits in creating a meaningful design experience for undergraduate engineering students and includes an international flavour as participants of the competition hail from all around the world. The problem posed to the contestants is to design, build and test mobile robots that are capable of accomplishing ...

Export competitiveness of dairy products on global markets: the case of the European Union countries.

Science.gov (United States)

Bojnec, Š; Fertő, I

2014-10-01

This paper analyzed the export competitiveness of dairy products of the European Union (EU) countries (EU-27) on intra-EU, extra-EU, and global markets, using the revealed comparative advantage index over the 2000-2011 period. The results indicated that about half of the EU-27 countries have had competitive exports in a certain segment of dairy products. The results differed by level of milk processing and for intra-EU and extra-EU markets, and did so over the analyzed years. Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, and the Netherlands are old EU-15 countries with competitive dairy exports (from the lowest to the highest according to the level of milk processing). The majority of the new EU-12 countries have faced difficulties in maintaining their level of export competitiveness, at least for some dairy products and market segments. The more competitive EU-12 countries in dairy exports were the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) and Poland. The duration of export competitiveness differed across the dairy groups of products according to the level of milk processing, indicating the importance of dairy chain product differentiation for export competitiveness and specialization. The export competitiveness of the higher level of processed milk products for final consumption can be significant for export dairy chain competitiveness on global markets. Copyright © 2014 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product reformulation and nutritional improvements after new competitive food standards in schools.

Science.gov (United States)

Jahn, Jaquelyn L; Cohen, Juliana Fw; Gorski-Findling, Mary T; Hoffman, Jessica A; Rosenfeld, Lindsay; Chaffee, Ruth; Smith, Lauren; Rimm, Eric B

2018-04-01

In 2012, Massachusetts enacted school competitive food and beverage standards similar to national Smart Snacks. These standards aim to improve the nutritional quality of competitive snacks. It was previously demonstrated that a majority of foods and beverages were compliant with the standards, but it was unknown whether food manufacturers reformulated products in response to the standards. The present study assessed whether products were reformulated after standards were implemented; the availability of reformulated products outside schools; and whether compliance with the standards improved the nutrient composition of competitive snacks. An observational cohort study documenting all competitive snacks sold before (2012) and after (2013 and 2014) the standards were implemented. The sample included thirty-six school districts with both a middle and high school. After 2012, energy, saturated fat, Na and sugar decreased and fibre increased among all competitive foods. By 2013, 8 % of foods were reformulated, as were an additional 9 % by 2014. Nearly 15 % of reformulated foods were look-alike products that could not be purchased at supermarkets. Energy and Na in beverages decreased after 2012, in part facilitated by smaller package sizes. Massachusetts' law was effective in improving the nutritional content of snacks and product reformulation helped schools adhere to the law. This suggests fully implementing Smart Snacks standards may similarly improve the foods available in schools nationally. However, only some healthier reformulated foods were available outside schools.

Evaluation on Core Competitiveness of Wholesale Market of Agricultural Products Based on CWAA Operator

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

2011-01-01

According to relevant data,we select five indices,namely management ability,organization and management capability,enterprise culture,development ability and technical equipment ability,to establish the index system of core competitiveness of wholesale market of agricultural products.Based on combination weight arithmetic average(CWAA) operator,we advance an evaluation model of core competitiveness of wholesale market of agricultural products which involves participation of many people.By inviting five exerts,we conduct evaluation in terms of management ability of wholesale market of agricultural products,organization and management capability of leadership,enterprise culture of wholesale market of agricultural products,future development ability of wholesale market of agricultural products,and exiting technical equipment ability of wholesale market of agricultural products.We adopt hundred-mark system to grade and evaluate core competitiveness of wholesale market of agricultural products.The results show that the experts’ evaluation score of core competitiveness of wholesale market of agricultural products is high.The evaluation result is reasonable and authentic and this model is feasible.

Competitive Liner Shipping Network Design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Karsten, Christian Vad; Brouer, Berit Dangaard; Pisinger, David

2017-01-01

We present a solution method for the liner shipping network design problem which is a core strategic planning problem faced by container carriers. We propose the first practical algorithm which explicitly handles transshipment time limits for all demands. Individual sailing speeds at each service...... leg are used to balance sailing speed against operational costs, hence ensuring that the found network is competitive on both transit time and cost. We present a matheuristic for the problem where a MIP is used to select which ports should be inserted or removed on a route. Computational results...

Competitive Liner Shipping Network Design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Karsten, Christian Vad; Brouer, Berit Dangaard; Pisinger, David

We present a solution method for the liner shipping network design problem which is a core strategic planning problem faced by container carriers. We propose the first practical algorithm which explicitly handles transshipment time limits for all demands. Individual sailing speeds at each service...... leg are used to balance sailings speed against operational costs, hence ensuring that the found network is competitive on both transit time and cost. We present a matheuristic for the problem where a MIP is used to select which ports should be inserted or removed on a route. Computational results...

A-Well defined raw material specifications of product and its components, a key of successful new product design. A critical evaluation by case study

OpenAIRE

Vidyadhar Malhar Dandge; Heramb Vidyadhar Dandge

2015-01-01

New product design and development indeed needs long termvision for better product life and hence to have better product features the design team has to take into consideration various techno-commercial aspects todesign and develop most adequate new product. Normally in case of new product design all related activities are initiated by the team of technicians under the directive jointly given by top and marketing management of the concerned organization. Due to global competition ...

Competitive Liner Shipping Network Design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Karsten, Christian Vad

.The contributions of this thesis cover modeling, methodology, and applications.The developed methods address operational (cargo routing), tactical (speed optimization and service selection), and strategic (network design) planning problems faced by liner shipping companies. Ultimately, the proposed methods help...... take the container transportation times that can be realized in the network nor the number of transshipments into consideration. This is mainly because the optimization problem is based on other transportation networks where these constraints are not decisive to the quality of the network. Furthermore......, the problem in itself is challenging to optimize due to its size and complexity. However, the field has seen crucial progress and is mature to include handling of competitiveness in the actual design of the network.As a liner shipping network is an organic entity, which is constantly changed to reflect...

Rights to Designaton Focusing on Protected Designations and Geographical Indications of Agricultural Products and Foodstuffs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ilková Zuzana

2015-02-01

Full Text Available The paper deals with the issue covered by the field of industrial property, it deals with the right to designation, especially with characteristics of legal regulation of labeling of products with regard to their geographical origin at the Slovak, communitarian and international levels. Individual objects of the industrial property may be the result of intellectual creative activity of its creator/creators (e.g. inventions, utility models, designs or they are not the result of creative activity of a particular natural person and are considered as industrial property rights to designation. The group of rights to designation includes: business names, trademarks, designation of origin for products and geographical indications for products. The rights to designation, inter alia, shall ensure uniqueness and competitive advantage for entrepreneurs and easy identification on the market of goods and services for the consumers. The paper closely analyzes the harmonized legal regulation of designations of origin and geographical indications of agricultural products, foodstuffs, spirit drinks, and wines. At the example of Tokaj wine region, it demonstrates the importance of protected designations at the EU level, in case of which demonstrable geographical origin of the product with controlled product specification by authorized national bodies brings a guarantee of quality of this product for consumers and the competitive advantage during their commercial implementation for the entrepreneurs.

Data Mining to Capture User-Experience: A Case Study in Notebook Product Appearance Design

OpenAIRE

Rhoann Kerh; Chen-Fu Chien; Kuo-Yi Lin

2014-01-01

In the era of rapidly increasing notebook market, consumer electronics manufacturers are facing a highly dynamic and competitive environment. In particular, the product appearance is the first part for user to distinguish the product from the product of other brands. Notebook product should differ in its appearance to engage users and contribute to the user experience (UX). The UX evaluates various product concepts to find the design for user needs; in addition, help the designer to further u...

Organizational Structure and Product Market Competition

OpenAIRE

Jung Hur; Yohanes E. Riyanto

2007-01-01

We analyze an interaction between a firm’s choice of organizational structure and competition in the product-market. Two organizational structures are considered, namely a centralized-organization, whereby formal authority is retained by a principal, and a decentralized-organization, whereby formal authority is delegated to an agent. We show that the choice of organizational structure hinges on a trade-off between operating-profit and managerial effort. The principal may prefer to choose an o...

How integrating industrial design in the product development process impacts on company performance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gemser, G; Leenders, MAAM

There is a growing belief that investing in industrial design is beneficial to company performance. This article sheds more light on how and when integrating industrial design in the product development process can enhance a company's competitive position. The basic premise is that the impact of

Spatial Competition with Entry Deterrence considering Horizontal Product Differentiations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ai-nong Zhou

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Spatial competition plays important roles in economics, which attracts extensive research. This paper addresses spatial competitions along with horizontal product differentiations and entry deterrence. By the dynamic game theory model about one firm and a potential entrant with different cost in a linear city, this paper finds that both the higher fixed setup cost and the higher transportation cost deter entrants. To efficiently deter the entrants, the establisher is inclined to locating at the middle point of the linear city.

Capturing, Sharing, and Discovering Product Data at a Semantic Level--Moving Forward to the Semantic Web for Advancing the Engineering Product Design Process

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Lijuan

2011-01-01

Along with the greater productivity that CAD automation provides nowadays, the product data of engineering applications needs to be shared and managed efficiently to gain a competitive edge for the engineering product design. However, exchanging and sharing the heterogeneous product data is still challenging. This dissertation first presents a…

Creativity in ergonomic design: a supplemental value-adding source for product and service development.

Science.gov (United States)

Zeng, Liang; Proctor, Robert W; Salvendy, Gavriel

2010-08-01

This article investigates the role of creativity in ergonomic design and the generic process of developing creative products and services. Creativity is gaining increased emphasis in both academia and industry. More than 50 years of research in creativity indicates that creativity is key to product and service innovation. Nevertheless, there is scarcely any comprehensive review dedicated to appraising the complex construct of creativity, the underlying cognitive process, and the role of creativity in product and service development. We review relevant literature regarding creativity, creative cognition, and the engineering design process to appraise the role of creativity in ergonomic design and to construct a conceptual model of creative product and service development. A framework of ergodesign creativity is advanced that highlights the central role of creativity in synergistically addressing the four dimensions of ergonomic design: functionality, safety, usability, and affectivity. A conceptual model of creative design process is then constructed that is goal oriented and is initiated by active problem finding and problem formulating. This process is carried out in a recursive and dynamic way, facilitated by creative thinking strategies. It is proposed that ergodesign creativity can add supplemental value to products and services, which subsequently affects consumer behavior and helps organizations gain competitive advantage. The proposed conceptual framework of ergodesign creativity and creative design process can serve as the ground for future theory development. Propositions advanced in this study should facilitate designers generating products and services that are creative and commercially competitive.

Competition, Ownership and Productivity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Baghdasaryan, Delia; la Cour, Lisbeth

2013-01-01

Theoretical results support two concurrent views regarding the mediating role that ownership structure might play on the effect of competition on firm performance. According to one stream of literature, competition has a high, positive impact in companies that have an effective ownership structur...

The Participation to The All Japan College of Technology Design Competition and The Trial of Art and Design Education

Science.gov (United States)

Takeshita, Junji; Kato, Kenji

In the 2nd All Japan College of Technology Design Competition, the students majoring department of architecture (included architecture course in advanced course of Architecture and Civil Engineering) of Toyota National College of Technology won the highest award in all 3 sections of the held competition. In this paper, 2 sections of design course in awarded 3 sections was taken up. In addition, while reporting the circumstances and measure to the competition participation, the revision of a molding subject performed in recent years and the relation of this winning-a-prize result were considered.

An Intelligent Method of Product Scheme Design Based on Product Gene

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qing Song Ai

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Nowadays, in order to have some featured products, many customers tend to buy customized products instead of buying common ones in supermarket. The manufacturing enterprises, with the purpose of improving their competitiveness, are focusing on providing customized products with high quality and low cost as well. At present, how to produce customized products rapidly and cheaply has been the key challenge to manufacturing enterprises. In this paper, an intelligent modeling approach applied to supporting the modeling of customized products is proposed, which may improve the efficiency during the product design process. Specifically, the product gene (PG method, which is an analogy of biological evolution in engineering area, is employed to model products in a new way. Based on product gene, we focus on the intelligent modeling method to generate product schemes rapidly and automatically. The process of our research includes three steps: (1 develop a product gene model for customized products; (2 find the obtainment and storage method for product gene; and (3 propose a specific genetic algorithm used for calculating the solution of customized product and generating new product schemes. Finally, a case study is applied to test the usefulness of our study.

Direct fuel cell product design improvement

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Maru, H.C.; Farooque, M. [Energy Research Corp., Danbury, CT (United States)

1996-12-31

Significant milestones have been attained towards the technology development field testing and commercialization of direct fuel cell power plant since the 1994 Fuel Cell Seminar. Under a 5-year cooperative agreement with the Department of Energy signed in December 1994, Energy Research Corporation (ERC) has been developing the design for a MW-scale direct fuel cell power plant with input from previous technology efforts and the Santa Clara Demonstration Project. The effort encompasses product definition in consultation with the Fuel Cell Commercialization Group, potential customers, as well as extensive system design and packaging. Manufacturing process improvements, test facility construction, cell component scale up, performance and endurance improvements, stack engineering, and critical balance-of-plant development are also addressed. Major emphasis of this product design improvement project is on increased efficiency, compactness and cost reduction to establish a competitive place in the market. A 2.85 MW power plant with an efficiency of 58% and a footprint of 420 m{sup 2} has been designed. Component and subsystem testing is being conducted at various levels. Planning and preparation for verification of a full size prototype unit are in progress. This paper presents the results obtained since the last fuel cell seminar.

Competition in the household heat product markets in Finland

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Linden, Mikael; Peltola-Ojala, Paeivi

2005-01-01

In the article the market of household heat products is defined independently. The market consists mainly of electricity, district heating, light fuel oil, and wood. Geographically household heat product markets are limited to the area which is covered by the local district heating network. We test indirectly whether this market definition is valid, i.e. do different household heat products act as substitutes to each other. However, the substitution may quite often be limited since the local district heat supplier is the only supplier on the area and also electricity companies have high market shares in the area they are located. The amount of competitors even in these enlarged markets is low. Also the local district heating network gives a technological potential to non-competitive product specific pricing. Thus, a relevant case exists where the district heating company can determine the price of its product without constraints from other firms and heat products. We test empirically whether the local prices of district heating are affected by the local heat product market shares of district heating companies. We use panel data which consists of 75 district heating companies in years 1996 - 2002. The data includes market share, joint production, district heating tariffs, production scale, and raw material input cost variables. The results obtained from different estimations indicate clearly that competitive case is not the prevailing one in the Finnish district heating pricing. The market shares of district heating companies had a positive effect on the district heating prices. The result also does not support the hypothesis that different household heat products belong to same heat product markets. (Author)

Evaluation and decision of products conceptual design schemes based on customer requirements

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Huang, Hong Zhong; Li, Yan Feng; Liu, Yu; Wang, Zhonglai [University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Sichuan (China); Liu, Wenhai [2China Science Patent Trademark Agents Ltd., Beijing (China)

2011-09-15

Within the competitive market environment, understanding customer requirements is crucial for all corporations to obtain market share and survive competition. Only the products exactly meeting customer requirements can win in the market place. Therefore, customer requirements play a very important role in the evaluation and decision process of conceptual design schemes of products. In this paper, an evaluation and decision method based on customer requirements is presented. It utilizes the importance of customer requirements, the satisfaction degree of each evaluation metric to the specification, and an evaluation metric which models customer requirements to evaluate the satisfaction degree of each design scheme to specific customer requirements via the proposed BP neural networks. In the evaluation and decision process, fuzzy sets are used to describe the importance of customer requirements, the relationship between customer requirements and evaluation metrics, the satisfaction degree of each scheme to customer requirements, and the crisp set is used to describe the satisfaction degree of each metric to specifications. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by an example of front suspension fork design of mountain bikes.

Evaluation and decision of products conceptual design schemes based on customer requirements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang, Hong Zhong; Li, Yan Feng; Liu, Yu; Wang, Zhonglai; Liu, Wenhai

2011-01-01

Within the competitive market environment, understanding customer requirements is crucial for all corporations to obtain market share and survive competition. Only the products exactly meeting customer requirements can win in the market place. Therefore, customer requirements play a very important role in the evaluation and decision process of conceptual design schemes of products. In this paper, an evaluation and decision method based on customer requirements is presented. It utilizes the importance of customer requirements, the satisfaction degree of each evaluation metric to the specification, and an evaluation metric which models customer requirements to evaluate the satisfaction degree of each design scheme to specific customer requirements via the proposed BP neural networks. In the evaluation and decision process, fuzzy sets are used to describe the importance of customer requirements, the relationship between customer requirements and evaluation metrics, the satisfaction degree of each scheme to customer requirements, and the crisp set is used to describe the satisfaction degree of each metric to specifications. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by an example of front suspension fork design of mountain bikes

A study in cost analysis of aggregate production as depending on drilling and blasting design

Science.gov (United States)

Bilim, Niyazi; Çelik, Arif; Kekeç, Bilgehan

2017-10-01

Since aggregate production has vital importance for many engineering projects-such as construction, highway and plant-mixed concrete production-this study was undertaken to determine how the costs for such production are affected by the design of drilling and blasting processes used. Aggregates are used in the production of concrete and asphalt, which are critical resources for the construction sector. The ongoing population increase and the growth of living standards around the world drive the increasing demand for these products. As demand grows, competition has naturally arisen among producers in the industry. Competition in the market has directly affected prices, which leads to the need for new measures and cost analysis on production costs. The cost calculation is one of the most important parameters in mining activities. Aggregate production operations include drilling, blasting, secondary crushing (if necessary), loading, hauling and crushing-screening, and each of these factors affects cost. In this study, drilling and blasting design parameters (such as hole diameter, hole depth, hole distance and burden) were investigated and evaluated for their effect on the total cost of quarrying these products, based on a particular quarry selected for this research. As the result of evaluation, the parameters actually driving costs have been identified, and their effects on the cost have been determined. In addition, some suggestions are presented regarding production design which may lead to avoiding increased production costs.

Export competitiveness of pakistani horticultural products

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Akhtar, W.; Akmal, N.; Shah, H.; Tahir, A.; Niazi, M.A.

2013-01-01

This paper examines Pakistan's competitiveness in export of selected horticulture commodities by employing set of revealed comparative advantage (RCA) and revealed competitive advantage indices with respect to global trade. Results demonstrate that Pakistan has comparative and competitive advantage over the period under analysis and indicates a transition from comparative and competitive disadvantage to comparative and competitive advantage during the period under analysis. Tangerines, mandarins, clem have maintained relatively higher revealed comparative advantage as compared to other categories for the whole period under analysis. Onion export has revealed comparative advantage with some fluctuations over time. The research indicates that Pakistan's comparative and competitive advantages have been increasing in all the selected commodities during period under analysis which indicates the potential of horticulture exports for foreign exchange earnings. There is need to strengthen comparative and competitive advantage in horticulture sector by policy support and facilitating role by all stakeholders. (author)

Competition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bridoux, F.; Vodosek, M.; Den Hartog, D.N.; McNett, J.M.

2014-01-01

Competition traditionally refers to the actions that firms take in a product market to outperform rivals in attracting customers and generating revenues. Yet, competition extends beyond product markets to other arenas such as factor markets, where firms compete for resources, and the political

COMPETITIVENESS OF NIGERIAN RICE AND MAIZE PRODUCTION ECOLOGIES: A POLICY ANALYSIS APPROACH

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Victor Olusegun Okoruwa

2011-05-01

Full Text Available The Nigerian rice and maize sectors are faced with decreasing supply and increasing demand as rice and maize have taken a strategic place of other staples leading to excessive importation and increasing government intervention. This study therefore assesses the competitiveness of Nigerian rice and maize production ecologies using the policy analysis matrix (PAM on a sample of 122 farmers. Results of the PAM revealed that outputs from the production ecologies are taxed. This is further confirmed by the Effective protection coefficient (EPC and Subsidy ratio to producers (SRP values, however, the production ecologies are subsidized on the use of tradable inputs. The production ecologies show a strong competitiveness at the farm level (under irrigated rice, upland rice and upland maize and a strong comparative advantage. Sensitivity analysis indicated that a 50 percent increase in output and a 13.3 percent depreciation of the domestic currency will increase competitiveness and comparative advantage of rice and maize production in all ecologies. The study recommends that government should ensure a level of policy stability in the rice and maize sectors, assist farmers with irrigated water scheme to ensure constant water supply, and increase the level of output through provision of improved seed varieties.

Enabling Product Design Reuse by Long-term Preservation of Engineering Knowledge

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jörg Brunsmann

2009-12-01

Full Text Available In the highly competitive engineering industry, product innovations are created with the help of a product lifecycle management (PLM tool chain. In order to support fast-paced product development, a major company goal is the reuse of product designs and product descriptions. Due to the product’s complexity, the design of a product not only consists of geometry data but also of valuable engineering knowledge that is created during the various PLM phases. The need to preserve such intellectual capital leads engineering companies to introduce knowledge management and archiving their machine-readable formal representation. However, archived knowledge is in danger of becoming unusable since it is very likely that knowledge semantics and knowledge representation will evolve over long time periods, for example during the 50 operational years of some products. Knowledge evolution and knowledge representation technology changes are crucial issues since a reuse of the archived product information can only be ensured if its rationale and additional knowledge are interpretable with future software and technologies. Therefore, in order to reuse design data fully, knowledge about the design must also be migrated to be interoperable with future design systems and knowledge representation methods. This paper identifies problems, issues, requirements, challenges and solutions that arise while tackling the long-term preservation of engineering knowledge.

Economic requirements for competitive laser fusion power production

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hogan, W.J.; Meier, W.R.

1986-01-01

An economic model of a laser fusion commercial power plant is used to identify the design and operating regimes of the driver, target and reaction chamber that will result in economic competitiveness with future fission and coal plants. The authors find that, for a plant with a net power of 1 GW/sub e/, the cost of the driver must be less than $0.4 to 0.6 B, and the recirculating power fraction must be less than 25%. Target gain improvements at low driver energy are the most beneficial but also the most difficult to achieve. The optimal driver energy decreases with increasing target technology. The sensitivity of the cost of electricity to variations in cost and performance parameters decreases with increasing target technology. If chamber pulse rates of a few Hz can be achieved, then gains of 80-100 are sufficient, and higher pulse rates do not help much. Economic competitiveness becomes more difficult with decreasing plant size. Finally, decreasing the cost of the balance of plant has the greatest beneficial effect on economic competitiveness

Product market competition and investments in cooperative R&D

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hinloopen, J.; Vandekerckhove, J.

2011-01-01

Building on the framework developed by Qiu (1997) we investigate the influence of product market competition on incentives to invest in cooperative R&D. For that we disentangle the three components that make up the combined-profits externality. The strategic component is always negative and the size

COMPETITIVENESS OF METAL PRODUCTION OF RUP ‘BMZ» ON THE INTERNATIONAL COMMODITY MARKETS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. V. Kuzmich

2011-01-01

Full Text Available It is shown that the received integral indices of competitiveness testify to the fact that production is on the high level of competitiveness on world markets of sales and is approximately on one position with the best goods-analogues.

The impact of packaging on product competition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maryam Masoumi

2012-09-01

Full Text Available The primary objective of this paper is to detect important factors, which are influencing competitive advantage. The proposed model of this paper uses sampling technique to measure characteristics of society. There are eight independent variables for the proposed study of this paper including packaging endurance, easy distribution, customer promotion through packaging, packaging structure, packaging as silent advertiser, diversity of packaging, clean and healthy packaging and innovation in packaging. The proposed study uses structural equation modeling to either accept or reject all hypotheses associated with the proposed study of this paper. The population of this study includes all managers and experts who are involved in packaging products. We used simple sampling technique and chooses 300 from a population of 450 people who are considered as the population of this survey. Cronbach alpha was determined as 0.732, which is above the minimum acceptable level. The results confirm that all mentioned factors influence competitiveness, effectively.

Mathematical analysis of the impact mechanism of information platform on agro-product supply chain and agro-product competitiveness

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jiang Qi-Jie

2017-04-01

Full Text Available How to optimize agro-product supply chain to promote its operating efficiency so as to enhance the competitiveness of regional agricultural products has posed a problem to academic circles, business circles and governments of various levels. One way to solve this problem is to introduce an information platform into the supply chain, which this essay focuses on. Firstly, a review of existing research findings concerning the agro-product competitiveness, agro-product supply chain (ASC and information platform was given. Secondly, we constructed a mathematical model to analyze the impact of information platform on the bullwhip effect in ASC. Thirdly, another mathematical model was constructed to help compare and analyze the impact of information platform on information acquisition of members in ASC. The research results show that the implantation of information platform can mitigate the bullwhip effect in ASC, and members can determine order amount or production more close to the actual market demand. And also the information platform can reduce the time for members in ASC to get information from other members. Besides, information platform can help ASC to alleviate information asymmetry among upstream and downstream members. Furthermore, researches about the operating mechanism and pattern, technical feature and running structure of the information platform, along with their impacts on agro-product supply chain and the competitiveness of agricultural products need to be advanced.

Mathematical analysis of the impact mechanism of information platform on agro-product supply chain and agro-product competitiveness

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Qi-Jie; Jin, Mao-Zhu; Ren, Pei-Yu

2017-04-01

How to optimize agro-product supply chain to promote its operating efficiency so as to enhance the competitiveness of regional agricultural products has posed a problem to academic circles, business circles and governments of various levels. One way to solve this problem is to introduce an information platform into the supply chain, which this essay focuses on. Firstly, a review of existing research findings concerning the agro-product competitiveness, agro-product supply chain (ASC) and information platform was given. Secondly, we constructed a mathematical model to analyze the impact of information platform on the bullwhip effect in ASC. Thirdly, another mathematical model was constructed to help compare and analyze the impact of information platform on information acquisition of members in ASC. The research results show that the implantation of information platform can mitigate the bullwhip effect in ASC, and members can determine order amount or production more close to the actual market demand. And also the information platform can reduce the time for members in ASC to get information from other members. Besides, information platform can help ASC to alleviate information asymmetry among upstream and downstream members. Furthermore, researches about the operating mechanism and pattern, technical feature and running structure of the information platform, along with their impacts on agro-product supply chain and the competitiveness of agricultural products need to be advanced.

A mathematical formulation for interface-based modular product design with geometric and weight constraints

Science.gov (United States)

Jung-Woon Yoo, John

2016-06-01

Since customer preferences change rapidly, there is a need for design processes with shorter product development cycles. Modularization plays a key role in achieving mass customization, which is crucial in today's competitive global market environments. Standardized interfaces among modularized parts have facilitated computational product design. To incorporate product size and weight constraints during computational design procedures, a mixed integer programming formulation is presented in this article. Product size and weight are two of the most important design parameters, as evidenced by recent smart-phone products. This article focuses on the integration of geometric, weight and interface constraints into the proposed mathematical formulation. The formulation generates the optimal selection of components for a target product, which satisfies geometric, weight and interface constraints. The formulation is verified through a case study and experiments are performed to demonstrate the performance of the formulation.

78 FR 44982 - Public Inquiry on Competitive Products Fund

Science.gov (United States)

2013-07-25

... administrative steps. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Stephen L. Sharfman, General Counsel, at 202-789-6820... Commission found that beginning in October 2012, the National Trial Balance showed a zero balance for Account... zero balance likely resulted from a transfer of the balance in the Competitive Products Fund to the...

ASPECTS REGARDING WINE PRODUCTION AND WINE SECTOR COMPETITIVENESS IN ROMANIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Raluca Georgiana LADARU

2014-10-01

Full Text Available The paper aimed to make some assumptions regarding wine sector competitiveness in Romania. Vineyards have an important share in Romanian agriculture, Romania being ranked on 11th position in the world and on 5th position in the European Union in terms of vineyards surface, while the wine industry is an important contributor to the GDP. The research method was based on analyze of wine sector evolution in the last years. The paper presents current global context of wine market at international level and focus on Romanian wine production sector and wine trade, seen in the light of competitiveness. The competitiveness of Romanian wine sector need to be related with measures that are able to increase the attractiveness of Romanian wines, both on domestic and external markets.

Technical inefficiency and competitiveness in production: the case of ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The study examined technical inefficiency and competitiveness among rice farmers in Niger State, Nigeria. Data for the analysis came from a random sample survey of the area of study. A Single-stage (Cobb-Douglas based stochastic frontier production function was used in analyzing the data. Evidence from the analysis ...

Impact of competition on nuclear production

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Slade, G.B.

1993-01-01

The Comprehensive National Energy Policy Act of 1992 made access to utility transmission systems by Independent other utilities, and wholesale generators easier and cheaper. Further, the law requires that transmission rates be set to allow recovery of only legitimate and verifiable costs. According to Douglas Smith in the January 1993 issue of Power Engineering, non-utility generators of electricity increased installed capacity by 16% from 1989 to 1990. During that same period, regulated utilities added only 1% of new capacity. By 1993 non-utility generation is expected to supply 62,000 Megawatts of U.S. electric power. It is likely that with the transmission barrier to entry decreased, the non-utility generators will continue to expand even faster. Recent rulings by several public service commissions have put utilities on-notice that future additions to capacity will have to be demonstrated to be the most cost-effective method to serve customers' needs. In the nuclear production part of the business, the author has already started to see some impact from this increased competition: Trojan, Yankee Rowe, San Onofre-1, and Rancho Seco, have either shut down or have announced their imminent shutdown as a result of economic concerns. The paper presents ten years of operating and maintenance costs taken from Utility Data Institute reports of data reported to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) by the utilities who operate the nuclear and fossil production facilities in the United States. It is apparent that the non-fuel costs for nuclear plants have increased substantially. This paper examines the impacts of these cost increases on the ability of nuclear plants to compete in an increasingly competitive marketplace

DESIGNING A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE MODEL WITH TECHNOLOGY ORIENTED APPROACH USING FAHP TECHNIQUE: A CASE STUDY IN COIL INDUSTRY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

ABDOLHAMID S. GHADIKOLAEI

2013-04-01

Full Text Available One of the distinctive attributes of today’s successful companies is having at least one competitive advantage in one known area. Technological competency is an important advantage which helps improve the firm’s competitiveness. In fact, suitable use of new technologies can dramatically influence the innovation speed, decrease the time of product development cycle and also increase the rate of new product introduction. Firm-specific technological competencies help explain why a firm is different, how it changes over time, and whether it is capable of remaining competitive. In this study, technological competency factors (technology management, process technology, product technology are prioritized according to the competitive advantage levels(customer satisfaction, brand reputation, new product introduction, market share and competitive priorities (cost, price, quality, flexibility, time using fuzzy Analytic hierarchy process (FAHP with the aim of maximizing the nonfinancial performance at coil manufacture industry. The results indicate that within Iran coil industry, process technology is of greater importance than technology management and product technology.

Predifining Emotion Through Product Design

OpenAIRE

Reni, Theresia; Hudrasyah, Herry

2010-01-01

In the recent decades the business environment has changed tremendously due to the advance of globalization and competition, changing the essentials for success. To overcome competitive pressure, marketer and designer have to focus on customer's sensory needs and desires to create a deep rooted relationship through emotional dialogue. In this context, innovativeness appears to be a key ingredient to create and control consumer's emotion. Perceived of innovativeness is strongly infl...

Retail competition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1998-01-01

Retail competition as the cornerstone of a competitive electricity marketplace was the subject of the seventh in the series of policy discussion papers developed at the Market Design Conference. Concern was expressed that because of the complexities involved in market design and technical implementation, the retail competition may lag behind other elements of the implementation of the new market design. A variety of key issues were debated, including the role of physical versus financial contracts, the form of retail competition and financial settlement systems in the short term, the requirement to separate 'competitive' (metering, billing, maintenance, consumer education) from non-competitive' (the transmission wires) services and the role of municipal electric utilities. It was agreed that the IMO should play an important role in defining and enforcing the separation of services, and that as a general rule, the development of policy in this area should be guided by the principle of maximizing the potential for competition

A game-based decision support methodology for competitive systems design

Science.gov (United States)

Briceno, Simon Ignacio

This dissertation describes the development of a game-based methodology that facilitates the exploration and selection of research and development (R&D) projects under uncertain competitive scenarios. The proposed method provides an approach that analyzes competitor positioning and formulates response strategies to forecast the impact of technical design choices on a project's market performance. A critical decision in the conceptual design phase of propulsion systems is the selection of the best architecture, centerline, core size, and technology portfolio. This selection can be challenging when considering evolving requirements from both the airframe manufacturing company and the airlines in the market. Furthermore, the exceedingly high cost of core architecture development and its associated risk makes this strategic architecture decision the most important one for an engine company. Traditional conceptual design processes emphasize performance and affordability as their main objectives. These areas alone however, do not provide decision-makers with enough information as to how successful their engine will be in a competitive market. A key objective of this research is to examine how firm characteristics such as their relative differences in completing R&D projects, differences in the degree of substitutability between different project types, and first/second-mover advantages affect their product development strategies. Several quantitative methods are investigated that analyze business and engineering strategies concurrently. In particular, formulations based on the well-established mathematical field of game theory are introduced to obtain insights into the project selection problem. The use of game theory is explored in this research as a method to assist the selection process of R&D projects in the presence of imperfect market information. The proposed methodology focuses on two influential factors: the schedule uncertainty of project completion times and

Lunabotics Mining Competition

Science.gov (United States)

Mueller, Rob; Murphy, Gloria

2010-01-01

This slide presentation describes a competition to design a lunar robot (lunabot) that can be controlled either remotely or autonomously, isolated from the operator, and is designed to mine a lunar aggregate simulant. The competition is part of a systems engineering curriculum. The 2010 competition winners in five areas of the competition were acknowledged, and the 2011 competition was announced.

FACTORS INCREASING THE COMPETITIVENESS OF MILK PRODUCTION IN THE KRASNODAR REGION

OpenAIRE

Kremyanskaya E. V.

2016-01-01

The study justifies the need for improving the competitiveness of milk production in the commodity market, identifies the key indicators of improving the competitiveness of milk, which include the quality and level of costs. A direct dependence of the efficiency of realization of milk and incentives of operators of machine milking (milkers) on the quality of the raw milk produced is defined by means of the method of statistical groupings. A correlation and regression analysis of the quality o...

Distinct Patterns of Brain Activity Characterise Lexical Activation and Competition in Spoken Word Production

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Piai, V.; Roelofs, A.P.A.; Jensen, O.; Schoffelen, J.M.; Bonnefond, M.

2014-01-01

According to a prominent theory of language production, concepts activate multiple associated words in memory, which enter into competition for selection. However, only a few electrophysiological studies have identified brain responses reflecting competition. Here, we report a magnetoencephalography

INNOVATION POTENTIAL AS A DETERMINING FACTOR IN THE GROWTH OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES BUILDING PRODUCTS

OpenAIRE

T. U. Levitsky; A. M. Esetova

2014-01-01

It is stipulated that the construction company, chosen the strategy of economic growth, should have some competitive advantages, determining opportunities for sustainable development and effective improving, and operational efficiency increase. One of the factors of the competitiveness increase of construction products is the innovative potential of construction industry. Methodical approaches to the evaluation of innovative capacity and its effect on the growth of competitive advantages have...

Herbivory and competition slow down invasion of a tall grass along a productivity gradient

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kuijper, DPJ; Nijhoff, DJ; Bakker, JP

2004-01-01

Competition models including competition for light predict that small plant species preferred by herbivores will be outshaded by taller unpreferred plant species with increasing productivity. When the tall plant species is little grazed by the herbivores, it can easily invade and dominate short

On Adaptive Extended Different Life Cycle of Product Design Strategy

Science.gov (United States)

Wenwen, Jiang; Zhibin, Xie

The article uses research ways of following the whole lifespan of product and enterprise's development course to research strategy of company's product design and development. It announces enterprises of different nature, enterprises at different developing stage will adopt different mode strategy. It also announces close causality between development course of company and central technology and product. The result indicated in different developing stages such as company development period, crisis predicament period, lasting steadies period, improving by payback period, issues steadies secondary period, declining go and live period, enterprise should pursue different mode product tactics of research and development such as shrinking strategy, consolidating strategy, innovation keeping forging ahead strategy. Enterprise should break regular management mode to introduce different research and development mode to promote enterprise's competitiveness effectively.

GLOBAL COMPETITION AND ROMANIA’S NATIONAL COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pop Nicolae Alexandru

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Analyzing products and services around us it is clear that most of them are the result of production factors, labor and capital becoming more international and increasingly less and less national. We are witnessing the globalization of markets and production, to a large global integration and interdependence, increase personalization of production and services as a result of new communication systems interaction and flexible production processes. Markets will continue to homogenize and diversify at the same time, so it is important that as a global marketer one addresses a market segment defined by income, age, and consumption habits and not by membership of a nation. The most visible and polarized is the premium segment fighting for high income clients where brand value plays an important role. Instead identification of large segments of customers offers the advantages of scale economy in production and marketing for global enterprises. Consumer profile is the dominant global consumer requesting and accepting global products and services easily. In fact, what can force an economic alignment to achieve the best performance, rather than the global consumer. The research methodology used includes literature review, comparative analysis, synthesis of data based on bibliographic resources and official documents.The aim of the paper is to highlight current models that underlie the competitive advantage of nations and assess the competitive advantage of Romania in the context of the global market. A case study is used to offer an overview of competitive advantage of Antibiotice Iasi SA, a competitive player, in a global pharmaceutical market with strong global competition. Countries moderate companies’ achievements of global efficiency objectives due to the countries’ rivalry. Romania has to understand that it is in competition with other countries in order to fulfill economic, political and social objectives. The scope in the end is the well

COMPETITIVENESS OF THE PRODUCTS AND ITS IMPACT ON THE STRUCTURE OF EXPORTS - THE CASE OF ROMANIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

TRIPA Simona

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The paper analyse the evolution of the competitive advantages of the main products exported by Romania in the 2000-2014 period and the connection between this evolution and the current structure of Romanian exports. In the first part we calculated the Revealed Comparative Advantage Index (RCA of Balassa, index for main groups of products exported by Romania the period 1990 to 2014 and we analysed the competitive advantage evolution. In the second part we presented the evolution of the structure of Romanian exports in 2010-2014 and we noticed that the recorded changes in structure of Romanian exports is in close correlation with the changing competitiveness of products exported by Romania. In this sense one of the most significant examples is given by the evolution recorded in exports of machinery and transport equipment that not only was raised every year but the sector succeeded and currently holds a competitive advantage in the market of these products - a market where it is knows is stiff competition. Although garment exports have recorded during the analyzed period the largest decrease, the advantages of the Romanian garment industry - labor force highly qualified endowing companies with machinery efficient, product quality achieved, flexibility and quick response to orders but also geographical position the country - still cause this sector recording still comparative advantages though its values are declining during the whole period analyzed.

2016 U.S. Department of Energy Race to Zero Student Design Competition Guide

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

2016-03-01

This Guide to the Race to Zero Student Design Competition is a comprehensive overview of the framework, timeline, design parameters, judging criteria, and awards. This Guide provides links to resources that the teams will need.

Battle of the Retail Channels: How Product Selection and Geography Drive Cross-Channel Competition

OpenAIRE

Erik Brynjolfsson; Yu (Jeffrey) Hu; Mohammad S. Rahman

2009-01-01

A key question for Internet commerce is the nature of competition with traditional brick-and-mortar retailers. Although traditional retailers vastly outsell Internet retailers in most product categories, research on Internet retailing has largely neglected this fundamental dimension of competition. Is cross-channel competition significant, and if so, how and where can Internet retailers win this battle? This paper attempts to answer these questions using a unique combination of data sets. We ...

INNOVATION POTENTIAL AS A DETERMINING FACTOR IN THE GROWTH OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES BUILDING PRODUCTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. U. Levitsky

2014-01-01

Full Text Available It is stipulated that the construction company, chosen the strategy of economic growth, should have some competitive advantages, determining opportunities for sustainable development and effective improving, and operational efficiency increase. One of the factors of the competitiveness increase of construction products is the innovative potential of construction industry. Methodical approaches to the evaluation of innovative capacity and its effect on the growth of competitive advantages have been proposed. 

Brand competition in consumer packaged goods : Sustaining large market advantages with little product differentiation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bronnenberg, B.J.

2008-01-01

In direct competition between national brands of consumer packaged goods (CPG), one brand often has a large local share advantage over the other despite the similarity of the branded products. I present an explanation for these large and persistent advantages in the context of local competition on

Can Competition Keep the Restrooms Clean? Price, Quality and Spatial Competition

OpenAIRE

Pennerstorfer, Dieter

2017-01-01

This article investigates the influence of competition on price and product quality among Austrian camping sites, a market characterized by both horizontal (spatial) and vertical product differentiation. Theoretically, the effect of competition on quality is ambiguous and depends on the degree of cost substitutability between output and quality. Estimating a system of equations shows that intense competition has a positive impact on product quality and a negative effect on prices (conditional...

COMPETITIVENESS OF CROATIAN PRODUCTION AND PROCESSING OF WHEAT ON THE EU MARKET

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Davor Balaž

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Analysis of competitiveness is a demanding process that includes data collection and comparison on the macro and micro economic basis. For the purposes of this study, an analysis the available data on the production and processing of wheat in the Republic of Croatia and the European Union (desk research, 5 Region of eastern Croatian (130 samples of producers, and processors of wheat 18 samples was conducted. Based on the collected data, an analysis of the samples structure was conducted according to different variables in accordance with the performed descriptive statistical analysis for ordinal variables and quantitative (the metering and interval. The data analysis resulted in calculations using the cost competitiveness of domestic resources (DRC, and making analytical matrix (PAM. The calculation of separated coefficient (DRC has not confirmed the competitiveness of Croatian wheat production for the reference year. Possible necessary adjustments to business standards, foreign trade, foreign trade protection and domestic support under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP have been identified. The study was conducted to evaluate the economic performance of Croatian production and processing of wheat in simulated conditions, using the method calculating the coefficient of DRC. The performed calculations showed mutual diseconomic interdependence of production and processing of wheat in the Republic of Croatia, with a positive impact on the stability and sustainability of the business in rural areas. Based on the research it was found out that there are conditions for the quantitative and qualitative increase in the production and processing of wheat in the Republic of Croatia.

COMPETITION AS MARKET MECHANISM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

N. Ya. Kazhuro

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The essence of a competition as an objective law for development of the commodities production based on private ownership of the means of production and commodity exchange has been revealed in the paper. The paper presents an economic basis of market economy (private ownership which generates a corresponding production objective. Such purpose is a maximization of profit and a minimization of market subject expenses. Therefore, a struggle for the most favourable conditions on commodity production and sales is inevitable in such situation. The struggle is considered in the community with developed market economy as a competition.The competition is regarded not as an exogenic factor exerting its influence on market economic system from the outside, but as an objective phenomenon which is inherent to management market system in itself. Such treatment is substantiated by economic disintegration of individual commodity producers. Being an important engine of market economy, the competition does not establish its laws, and its role is to be an executive of data which are internally inherent in commodity production laws and firstly it concerns a profit maximization law which defines a purpose and guiding motif of economic entities in the given economy.The competition plays a contradictory role under conditions of market economy. On the one hand, it makes manufacturers constantly to aspire to expense reduction for the sake of profit increase. This has resulted in labour productivity increase, production cost decrease and a company receives an opportunity to reduce retail price for its products. Consequently, the competition acts as a potential factor for lowering of prices while increasing production efficiency. On the other hand, sellers have more freedom in price fixing under conditions of imperfect competition as they sell their products under the conditions of a monopolistic competition or an oligopoly. This is the main weakest point of the market

Conceptual design of the HTTR-IS hydrogen production system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sakaba, Nariaki; Sato, Hiroyuki; Hara, Teruo; Kato, Ryoma; Ohashi, Kazutaka; Nishihara, Tetsuo; Kunitomi, Kazuhiko

2007-08-01

Since hydrogen produced by nuclear should be economically competitive compared with other methods in a hydrogen society, it is important to build hydrogen production system to be coupled with the reactor as a conventional chemical plant. Japan Atomic Energy Agency started the safety study to establish a new safety philosophy to meet safety requirements for non-nuclear grade hydrogen production system. Also, structural concepts with integrating functions for the Bunsen reactor and sulphuric acid decomposer were proposed to reduce construction cost of the IS process hydrogen production system. In addition, HI decomposer which enables the process condition to be eased consisting of conventional materials and technologies was studied. Moreover, technical feasibility of the HTTR-IS system in which the hydrogen production rate of 1,000 Nm 3 /h by using the supplied heat of 10 MW from the intermediate heat exchanger of the HTTR was confirmed. This paper describes the conceptual design of the HTTR-IS hydrogen production system. (author)

Effects of moistening, salinity and competitive interactions on vitality and production activity of Salicorniaeuropaea (Chenopodiaceae

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S. F. Kotov

2005-09-01

Full Text Available Dynamics of competitive interactions in populations of annual euhalophyte S. europaea was investigated. For S. europaea the hypothesis of Newman and Tilman is confirmed, concerning presence of intensive competition between plants on unproductive habitats for soil resources. Vital state of plants in populations of S. europaea is determined by intensity of competitive interactions, level of humidity and degree of salinity of ecotype. On an example of S. europaea, productive activity of plants on salted habitats was analyzed and the role of interspecific competition in this process was determined.

Italian water service's competitive tendering: does any tender design exist?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Antonioli, B.

2006-01-01

During the last two decades, the procurement of public services has been engaged a process of intensive change, both at the local and national level, particularly in Europe. In Italy, recent developments of legislative framework are aimed to adopt competitive tenders both for service's concession or private partner selection. Economists and operators generally agree about the effectiveness of auctions for the concession's contracting out. Otherwise, the agreement is weaker if the question is how to prepare the auction: bidding market a la Demsetz, beauty contests or hybrid forms? In other words, more attention should be devoted to the analysis of reference market and to auction's design. The aim of this paper is to verify, starting from the analysis of auction realized between 1998 and 2005, the real designing of the auctions other than the presence of an idea of industrial policy for water services. Results highlights that tenders are few, poorly designed and scarcely effective. To be more precise, results remark the lack of foresight of industrial policy and, more generally, the necessity to reflect on the real possibility of the competition for thc market in the water sector, characterized by an high degree of economical and social complexity [it

78 FR 7251 - Rulemaking Concerning the Standards for Designating Positions in the Competitive Service as...

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-31

...--Rulemaking Concerning the Standards for Designating Positions in the Competitive Service as National Security... Positions in the Competitive Service as National Security Sensitive and Related Matters Memorandum for the Director of National Intelligence [and] the Director of the Office of Personnel Management The Director of...

A hybrid of monopoly and perfect competition model for hi-tech products

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, P. C.; Wee, H. M.; Pai, S.; Yang, H. J.; Wee, P. K. P.

2010-11-01

For Hi-tech products, the demand rate, the component cost as well as the selling price usually decline significantly with time. In the case of perfect competition, shortages usually result in lost sales; while in a monopoly, shortages will be completely backordered. However, neither perfect competition nor monopoly exists. Therefore, there is a need to develop a replenishment model considering a hybrid of perfect competition and monopoly when the cost, price and demand are decreasing simultaneously. A numerical example and sensitivity analysis are carried out to illustrate this model. The results show that a higher decline-rate in the component cost leads to a smaller service level and a larger replenishment interval. When the component cost decline rate increases and the selling price decline rate decreases simultaneously, the replenishment interval decreases. In perfect competition it is better to have a high service level, while for the case with monopoly, keeping a low service level is better due to complete backordering.

A competitive trade-off limits the selective advantage of increased antibiotic production.

Science.gov (United States)

Gerardin, Ylaine; Springer, Michael; Kishony, Roy

2016-09-26

In structured environments, antibiotic-producing microorganisms can gain a selective advantage by inhibiting nearby competing species 1 . However, despite their genetic potential 2,3 , natural isolates often make only small amounts of antibiotics, and laboratory evolution can lead to loss rather than enhancement of antibiotic production 4 . Here, we show that, due to competition with antibiotic-resistant cheater cells, increased levels of antibiotic production can actually decrease the selective advantage to producers. Competing fluorescently labelled Escherichia coli colicin producers with non-producing resistant and sensitive strains on solid media, we found that although producer colonies can greatly benefit from the inhibition of nearby sensitive colonies, this benefit is shared with resistant colonies growing in their vicinity. A simple model, which accounts for such local competitive and inhibitory interactions, suggests that the advantage of producers varies non-monotonically with the amount of production. Indeed, experimentally varying the amount of production shows a peak in selection for producers, reflecting a trade-off between benefit gained by inhibiting sensitive competitors and loss due to an increased contribution to resistant cheater colonies. These results help explain the low level of antibiotic production observed for natural species and can help direct laboratory evolution experiments selecting for increased or novel production of antibiotics.

Eco-marketing and eco-design of products

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Filipović Jovan

2007-01-01

Full Text Available Environmental marketing (Eco-marketing, as a relatively new movement, emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, is in the growing phase of its development. Eco-labeling and other ways/types of eco-marketing are attracting more attention of consumers, since they are aware of the necessity of nature conservation and environmental protection. There has been a lot of misunderstanding and miss leadings in interpretation and substantiation of ecomarketing claims in previous period of time. One of the most concrete improvements in eco-marketing was appearance and establishment of ISO 14020 guidelines. ISO 14020 guidelines are integral part of ISO 14000 series of standards, which could be implemented in eco-marketing. At the same time, development of "green" products and marketing of "green" products, are direct positive contributions to resources reduction, environmental protection and sustainable economic development. Companies designing this kind of products can expect better position on the market, improvement of competitiveness, reduction of expenses (less raw materials, less waste, less harmful effects on the environment, raising corporate social responsibility, higher export.

Product Placement: A Smart Marketing Tool Shifting a Company to the Next Competitive Level

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kramolis Jan

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The primary aim of this paper was to discover connection between company’s competitiveness and product placement as a marketing tool. The secondary aim was searching for the genesis of product placement. The mentioned issues are explained from the perspectives of three groups: TV studios experts, directors and producers, and other experts (media agencies and advertisers. The Czech Republic market where product placement can be registered is very small – only few television companies. The survey was conducted during years 2011 and 2012 in the Czech Republic. There is no directly measurable tool to tell us exact outputs. However, the results reveal: Marketers are sure that product placement is efficient. The product placement belongs to a longterm marketing field where the brand building is also included. On the basis of the ascertainments acquired by the survey, the basic links between product placement, long-term marketing, and competitiveness are explained in this paper.

Design and Implementation of a New DELTA Parallel Robot in Robotics Competitions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jonqlan Lin

2015-10-01

Full Text Available This investigation concerns the design and implementation of the DELTA parallel robot, covering the entire mechatronic process, involving kinematics, control design and optimizing methods. To accelerate the construction of the robot, 3D printing is used to fabricate end-effector parts. The parts are modular, low-cost, reconfigurable and can be assembled in less time than is required for conventionally fabricated parts. The controller, including the control algorithm and human-machine interface (HMI, is coded using the Borland C++ Builder 6 Personal software environment. The integration of the motion controller with image recognition into an opto-mechatronics system is presented. The robot system has been entered into robotic competitions in Taiwan. The experimental results reveal that the proposed DELTA robot completed the tasks in those competitions successfully.

Theoretical bases of management product quality as one of the main direction of maintenance of industrial competitiveness

OpenAIRE

Dykan, O.

2015-01-01

In the article the author considered the essence of the concept of "product stewardship" as one of the main areas to ensure industrial competitiveness. Given the current negative trends in the development of industry in Ukraine and low competitiveness of domestic products, the necessity of rethinking the dominant principles, stages and functions of quality control. The main problems of implementation of the process of product quality control to domestic industrial enterprises. As a conclusion...

Ergonomic Product Design 21

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kwon, Yeong Guk

1996-09-01

This book explains basic of ergonomic product design with human engineering, image engineering and strategy of that design, ergonomic industrial design, which includes product design to access the human engineering in development of new product and customer satisfaction, application technology of image engineering, industrial design of human engineering item and strategy of human engineering, a good ergonomic design. It also tells of examples of convenient design for human such as hardware product and software product in automobile, telephones for ergonomic product in the future, new goods and new technology, ergonomic product in house and office, and computers and robots in the future.

The Spanish distribution system for oil products: an obstacle to competition?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Contin, I. [Universidad Publica de Navarra (Spain). Dpto. Gestion de Empresas; University of Njimegen (Netherlands). International Political Economy Centre; Correlje, A. [University of Rotterdam (Netherlands). Dept. of General Economy; Huerta, E. [Universidad Publica de Navarra (Spain). Dpto. Gestion de Empresas

2001-01-01

This paper examines why the formal liberalization of the Spanish market for automotive fuels did not introduce competition in the sector. Against the background of the transformation of the country's oil industry, it is shown how the Spanish distribution system emerged as the essential facility within the formally liberalized oil products market. 'Light-handed' regulation, in combination with the prevailing ownership structure turned the system into an impediment to newcomers' activities and to competition. This suggests that an evaluation of regulatory options for distribution systems in specific markets should take into due account crucial market characteristics like concentration and specific ownership/control relationships. (author)

Design logistics performance measurement model of automotive component industry for srengthening competitiveness of dealing AEC 2015

Science.gov (United States)

Amran, T. G.; Janitra Yose, Mindy

2018-03-01

As the free trade Asean Economic Community (AEC) causes the tougher competition, it is important that Indonesia’s automotive industry have high competitiveness as well. A model of logistics performance measurement was designed as an evaluation tool for automotive component companies to improve their logistics performance in order to compete in AEC. The design of logistics performance measurement model was based on the Logistics Scorecard perspectives, divided into two stages: identifying the logistics business strategy to get the KPI and arranging the model. 23 KPI was obtained. The measurement result can be taken into consideration of determining policies to improve the performance logistics competitiveness.

Operator-Oriented Product and Production Process Design for Manufacturing, Maintenance and Upgrading

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rhijn, G. van; Bosch, T.

2017-01-01

The nature of production in the manufacturing industry is changing, and companies face large challenges. Customers expect fast delivery times, proven sustainability, flexibility, and frequent product upgrades. To stay competitive and manage rapid technological demands, a parallel, iterative and

Product design - Molecules, devices, functional products, and formulated products

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gani, Rafiqul; Ng, Ka M.

2015-01-01

Chemical product design is a multidisciplinary and diverse subject. This article provides an overview of product design while focusing on product conceptualization. Four product types are considered - molecular products, formulated products, devices and functional products. For molecular products......, computer-aided design tools are used to predict the physicochemical properties of single molecules and blends. For formulated products, an integrated experiment-modeling approach is used to generate the formula with the specified product attributes. For devices and functional products, conceptual product...... design is carried out by modeling the product based on thermodynamics, kinetics and transport processes, by performing experiments, and by decision making based on rule-based methods The results are product specifications in terms of the type of ingredients, composition, and the structure, form, shape...

Competition and the Reference Pricing Scheme for pharmaceuticals.

Science.gov (United States)

Ghislandi, Simone

2011-12-01

By introducing n (>1) firms with infinite cross-price elasticity (i.e. generic drugs), we explore the effects of competition on the optimal pricing strategies under a Reference Pricing Scheme (RPS). A two-stage model repeated infinite number of times is presented. When stage 1 is competitive, the equilibrium in pure strategies exists and is efficient only if the reference price (R) does not depend on the price of the branded product. When generics collude, the way R is designed is crucial for both the stability of the cartel among generics and the collusive prices in equilibrium. An optimally designed RPS must set R as a function only of the infinitely elastic side of the market and should provide the right incentives for competition. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Do Corporate Control and Product Market Competition Lead to Stronger Productivity Growth? Evidence from Market-Oriented and Blockholder-Based Governance Regimes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Koke, J.; Renneboog, L.D.R.

2003-01-01

This study investigates the impact of corporate governance and product market competition on total factor productivity growth for two large samples of German and UK firms. In poorly performing UK firms, the presence of strong outside blockholders lead to substantial increases in productivity.

Competitive drivers and international plant configuration strategies: A product level test

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Belderbos, R.A.; Sleuwaegen, L.

2005-01-01

We analyze the determinants of the decision to invest abroad and the choice of spatial configurations of overseas plants for 120 Japanese firms active in 36 well-defined electronic product markets. We find that key competitive drivers at the firm and industry levels have a critical impact on the

Smart, connected products as a new competitive advantage: Challenges for Serbia

OpenAIRE

Savić, Nebojša; Pitić, Goran; Trbovich, Ana S.

2016-01-01

The current debate among scholars of innovation and competitiveness centres on the concept of smart connected products (SCP). In this review article, we attempt to engage Serbia in this global debate by explaining the core concepts and arguments, building on previous research, and demonstrating how the developments in Serbia's ICT sector exemplify the new theory. We present the cases of three companies engaged in the production of SCPs, namely Schneider Electric DMS NS, Strawberry Energy, and...

Dynamic Pricing of New Products in Competitive Markets: A Mean-Field Game Approach

OpenAIRE

Chenavaz, Régis; Paraschiv, Corina; Turinici, Gabriel

2017-01-01

Dynamic pricing of new products has been extensively studied in monopolistic and oligopolistic markets. But, the optimal control and differential game tools used to investigate the pricing behavior on markets with a finite number of firms are not well-suited to model competitive markets with an infinity of firms. Using a mean-field games approach, this paper examines dynamic pricing policies in competitive markets, where no firm exerts market power. The theoretical setting is based on a diffu...

You Be the Judge: When Competitions Employ an Engineering Design Rubric

Science.gov (United States)

Goldberg, Gail Lynn

2017-01-01

This article examines the use of an engineering design rubric by judges for three different student competitions--one regional, one national, and one global--to evaluate portfolios posted on the Innovation Portal, a free online resource available to students, teachers, and others engaged in STEM education across instructional levels. Judges…

The competitiveness of domestic rice production in East Africa: A domestic resource cost approach in Uganda

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Masao Kikuchi

2016-03-01

Full Text Available The rapid increase of rice imports in sub-Saharan Africa under the unstable situation in the world rice market during the 2000s has made it an important policy target for the countries in the region to increase self-sufficiency in rice in order to enhance food security. Whether domestic rice production can be competitive with imported rice is a serious question in East African countries that lie close, just across the Arabian Sea, to major rice exporting countries in South Asia. This study investigates the international competitiveness of domestic rice production in Uganda in terms of the domestic resource cost ratio. The results show that rainfed rice cultivation, which accounts for 95% of domestic rice production, does not have a comparative advantage with respect to rice imported from Pakistan, the largest supplier of imported rice to Uganda. However, the degree of non-competitiveness is not serious, and a high possibility exists for Uganda’s rainfed rice cultivation to become internationally competitive by improving yield levels by applying more modern inputs and enhancing labour productivity. Irrigated rice cultivation, though very limited in area, is competitive even under the present input-output structure when the cost of irrigation infrastructure is treated as a sunk cost. If the cost of installing irrigation infrastructure and its operation and maintenance is taken into account, the types of irrigation development that are economically feasible are not large-scale irrigation projects, but are small- and microscale projects for lowland rice cultivation and rain-water harvesting for upland rice cultivation.

Electric market models, competitive model and alternative design

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Arnedillo, O.

2007-01-01

Almost ten years after the liberalization of the Spanish electric system, its market design has remained basically unchanged. Therefore, it is reasonable to consider whether the current model continues to be adequate or whether it should be changed. However, although the current model is far from the absolute optimum, it is suited to the current state of the Spanish system. Only some improvements, such as the reform of the capacity guarantee payment can be undertaken immediately. It will only be possible to undertake other improvements as distribution companies cover all of their electricity needs in forward contracts acquired through a competitive process. (Author)

Design considerations for economically competitive sodium cooled fast reactors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Hongbin; Zhao, Haihua; Mousseau, Vincent; Szilard, Ronaldo

2009-01-01

The technological viability of sodium cooled fast reactors (SFR) has been established by various experimental and prototype (demonstration) reactors such as EBR-II, FFTF, Phenix, JOYO, BN-600 etc. However, the economic competitiveness of SFR has not been proven yet. The perceived high cost premium of SFRs over LWRs has been the primary impediment to the commercial expansion of SFR technologies. In this paper, cost reduction options are discussed for advanced SFR designs. These include a hybrid loop-pool design to optimize the primary system, multiple reheat and intercooling helium Brayton cycle for the power conversion system and the potential for suppression of intermediate heat transport system. The design options for the fully passive decay heat removal systems are also thoroughly examined. These include direct reactor auxiliary cooling system (DRACS), reactor vessel auxiliary cooling system (RVACS) and the newly proposed pool reactor auxiliary cooling system (PRACS) in the context of the hybrid loop-pool design. (author)

International design competition - Formula student Germany; Internationaler Konstruktionswettbewerb - Formula Student Germany

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Basshuysen, R. van; Siebenpfeiffer, W. (eds.)

2007-11-15

Following its great success last year, Formula Student Germany made an even more impressive impact at the second competition held at the Hockenheimring in 2007. This time, 1400 students from 14 nations came together to present the results of their development work to 5000 visitors and sponsors. At the end, the competition was won by the team from the University of Stuttgart - and ATZ/MTZ would like to congratulate them on their victory. The special character of Formula Student, however, means that everyone has something to celebrate. The enthusiasm and commitment of the teams not only resulted in exciting racing cars and innovative overall designs but also in a fantastic atmosphere. (orig.)

New concrete materials technology for competitive house building

OpenAIRE

Peterson, Markus

2003-01-01

The research project aims at investigating the potential of new concrete materials technology (high performance concrete, HPC and self-compacting concete, SCC) for competitive design, production and function of structural frames of cast in-situ concrete in house building.

Integrating Kano’s Model into Quality Function Deployment for Product Design: A Comprehensive Review

Science.gov (United States)

Ginting, Rosnani; Hidayati, Juliza; Siregar, Ikhsan

2018-03-01

Many methods and techniques are adopted by some companies to improve the competitiveness through the fulfillment of customer satisfaction by enhancement and improvement the product design quality. Over the past few years, several researcher have studied extensively combining Quality Function Deployment and Kano’s model as design techniques by focusing on translating consumer desires into a product design. This paper presents a review and analysis of several literatures that associated to the integration methodology of Kano into the QFD process. Various of international journal articles were selected, collected and analyzed through a number of relevant scientific publications. In-depth analysis was performed, and focused in this paper on the results, advantages and drawbacks of its methodology. In addition, this paper also provides the analysis that acquired in this study related to the development of the methodology. It is hopedd this paper can be a reference for other researchers and manufacturing companies to implement the integration method of QFD- Kano for product design.

A Design competition as regeneration opportunity: the Fregene’s waterfront

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Enrica Gialanella

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The article aims to present a reflection on  the ability which has a local government to be able to regenerate a part of the city through a design competition. To do this we take as a case study of Fregene (formerly elected as a case study during a research on the development of new urban coastal centers, for which it was organized in 2006  a design competition with object the redevelopment of the waterfront. What it was considered important to carry out in this study is an attempt to update the new instances of urban regeneration that occurred: in fact, due to the recent urban transformations and the pressing economic crisis (combined with reduced physical of  a large part of  the beach the framework to meet the needs of today is more complex.Therefore, we addressed to a study of the state of the town, arriving at the objectives related to the transformation hypothesis, desirable, starting from the promenade, center for the function  and important for the relationship that allows us to establish the natural character of the coastal environment. We did, therefore, a comparison between the objectives spelled out in the notice of the administration in 2006 and those that currently appear focal for an integrated development of Fregene, to try to understand how we could rework the announcement today, in the light of the new order came to take shape.The rethinking of the waterfront, in addition to being the topic still actual, could be integrated with new instances identified, useful to a designer who is faced with the complexity of the topic. In addition, the reflection wants to focus on how the instrument of competition may be useful to carry out a survey of the possible hypotheses of transformation, and how it can be supported by other procedural elements, needed to achieve  the objectives of  urban  regeneration.

Oil production responses to price changes. An empirical application of the competitive model to OPEC and non-OPEC countries

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ramcharran, Harri

2002-01-01

Falling oil prices over the last decade, accompanied by over-production by some OPEC members and the growth of non-OPEC supply, warrant further empirical investigation of the competitive model to ascertain production behavior. A supply function, based on a modification of Griffin's model, is estimated using data from 1973-1997. The sample period, unlike Griffin's, however, includes phases of price increase (1970s) and price decrease (1980s-1990s), thus providing a better framework for examining production behavior using the competitive model. The OPEC results do not support the competitive hypothesis; instead, a negative and significant price elasticity of supply is obtained. This result offers partial support for the target revenue theory. For most of the non-OPEC members, the estimates support the competitive model. OPEC's loss of market share and the drop in the share of oil-based energy should signal adjustments in price and quantity based on a competitive world market for crude oil

Chemical Product Design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gani, Rafiqul

2004-01-01

This paper highlights for a class of chemical products, the design process, their design with respect to the important issues, the need for appropriate tools and finally, lists some of the challenges and opportunities for the process systems engineering (PSE)/computer-aided process engineering...... (CAPE) community. The chemical products considered belong to the following types: chemical/biochemical/agrochemical products, coatings and solvents, food (nutraceuticals), HIM (household, industrial and institutional), personal care, pharmaceuticals and drugs. The challenges and opportunities...... are highlighted in terms of the needs for multi-level modeling with emphasis on property models that are suitable for computer-aided applications, flexible solution strategies that are able to solve a large range of chemical product design problems and finally, a systems chemical product design framework...

Effect of competition on the production and activity of secondary metabolites in Aspergillus species

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Losada, L.; Ajayi, O.; Frisvad, Jens Christian

2009-01-01

and in the presence of other fungal species. However, it is not known whether secreted secondary metabolites provide a competitive advantage over other fungal species, or whether competition has any effect on the production of those metabolites. Here, we have performed co-cultivation competition assays among......Secondary metabolites are of intense interest to humans due to their pharmaceutical and/or toxic properties. Also, these metabolites are clinically relevant because of their importance in fungal pathogenesis. Aspergillus species secrete secondary metabolites when grown individually...... different species of Aspergillus to determine relative species fitness in culture, and to analyze the presence of possible antifungal activity of secondary metabolites in extracts. The results show that, for the most part, at 30C only one species is able to survive direct competition with a second species...

Achieving competitive advantage through the integration of disabled architects in architectural design firms in Egypt

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ezzat Othman Ayman Ahmed

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The 2030 strategy of sustainable development in Egypt is based on integrated goals, including Human Resource Development. Egypt has ~9,540 disabled architects, who can play an important role in achieving competitive advantage through their integration in Architectural Design Firms (ADFs. By neglecting the benefits of integrating disabled architects, ADFs encounter the risk of losing unique skills and competent personnel. This article investigates the integration of disabled architects in ADFs as an approach for achieving competitive advantage. To achieve this aim, a research methodology consisting of literature review, case studies, and survey questionnaire has been adopted, and it is designed to achieve five objectives. First, literature review is used to investigate the concepts of disabilities and competitive advantage, as well as the relation between integrating disabled architects and the achievement of competitiveness in ADFs. Second, six case studies are presented and analyzed to investigate the role and process of achieving competitive advantage in ADFs through employing disabled architects. Third, the results of a survey questionnaire are analyzed to examine the perception regarding and application of employing disabled architects as an approach for achieving competitive advantage in ADFs in Egypt. Fourth, a framework is developed to facilitate the integration of disabled architects in ADFs with the goal of achieving competitive advantage. Finally, the research findings are summarized and recommendations are put forth. The value of this research stems from the need to address the issue of lack of employment of disabled architects in ADFs and the benefits of making better use of their unique capabilities and skills toward achieving competitiveness. In addition, this research covers a controversial topic that receives scant attention in construction literature, especially in Egypt.

A Rough VIKOR-Based QFD for Prioritizing Design Attributes of Product-Related Service

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiuzhen Li

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Many manufacturers today are striving to offer high value-added product-related services (PRS due to increasing competition and environmental pressure. PRS can reduce the negative impact on the environment, because it extends the life of products and minimizes the cost. Product and service planning has been considered as the critical factor to the success of PRS. Quality function deployment (QFD has been recognized as an efficient planning tool which can convert customer needs (CNs into design attributes of PRS involving product attributes (PAs and service attributes (SAs. However, the subjective and vague information in the design of PRS with QFD may lead to inaccurate priority of PAs and SAs. To solve this problem, a novel rough VIKOR- (VIseKriterijumska Optimizaciji I Kompromisno Resenje- based QFD is proposed. The proposed approach integrates the strength of rough number (RN in manipulating vague concepts with less a priori information and the merit of VIKOR in structuring framework of compromise decision-making. Finally, an application in compressor-based service design is presented to illustrate the potential of the proposed method.

Product quality as the main factor of increase of competitiveness (on the example of JSC “Kazan helicopter plant”)

Science.gov (United States)

Khafizov, I. I.; Nurullin, I. G.

2017-09-01

Planning for effective development, and timely research perspectives and opportunities, States, markets, regulations, competition and competitiveness of its production, helps to achieve the stable business success in the market. The relevance of the study of the production of high quality products is that the quality of goods and services should always comply with the requirements established in state regulations, standards, regulations or conditions.

Enabling Manufacturing Competitiveness and Economic Sustainability : Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Changeable, Agile, Reconfigurable and Virtual production

CERN Document Server

2012-01-01

The changing manufacturing environment requires more responsive and adaptable manufacturing systems. The theme of the 4th International Conference on Changeable, Agile, Reconfigurable and Virtual production (CARV2011) is “Enabling Manufacturing Competitiveness and Economic Sustainability”. Leading edge research and best implementation practices and experiences, which address these important issues and challenges, are presented. The proceedings include advances in manufacturing systems design, planning, evaluation, control and evolving paradigms such as mass customization, personalization, changeability, re-configurability and flexibility. New and important concepts such as the dynamic product families and platforms, co-evolution of products and systems, and methods for enhancing manufacturing systems’ economic sustainability and prolonging their life to produce more than one product generation are treated. Enablers of change in manufacturing systems, production volume and capability scalability and man...

Advances in chemical product design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Lei; Fung, Ka Yip; Wibowo, Christianto

2018-01-01

The nature of chemical product design problems is diverse and multidisciplinary. It involves many design issues such as project management, market study, product design, process design, and economic analysis for better organizing the product design project and achieving better products. This arti......The nature of chemical product design problems is diverse and multidisciplinary. It involves many design issues such as project management, market study, product design, process design, and economic analysis for better organizing the product design project and achieving better products....... This article provides an overview of chemical product design with a multidisciplinary hierarchical framework including all the design issues and tasks. Each of the design issues and tasks are introduced and discussed, methods and tools are summarized and compared, challenges and perspectives are presented...... to help the chemical product design researchers on finding more novel, innovative and sustainable products, by the combined effort from academia and industry to develop a systematic generic framework, and tools including product simulator, process simulator, database manager, modeling tool, and templates...

Dynamic Pricing Competition with Strategic Customers Under Vertical Product Differentiation

OpenAIRE

Qian Liu; Dan Zhang

2013-01-01

We consider dynamic pricing competition between two firms offering vertically differentiated products to strategic customers who are intertemporal utility maximizers. We show that price skimming arises as the unique pure-strategy Markov perfect equilibrium in the game under a simple condition. Our results highlight the asymmetric effect of strategic customer behavior on quality-differentiated firms. Even though the profit of either firm decreases as customers become more strategic, the low-qu...

Tradeable emission permits regulations in the presence of imperfectly competitive product markets. Welfare implications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sartzetakis, E.S.

1997-01-01

In the present paper, we analyse the interaction of a competitive market for emission permits with an oligopolistic product market. It is well known that a competitive permits market achieves the cost minimizing distribution of abatement effort among the polluting firms for a given reduction in emissions. However, when the product market is oligopolistic, it may redistribute production inefficiently among firms. It has been suggested that this inefficiency can outweigh the gains obtained from using emission permits instead of command and control. Although this argument is clearly correct under full information, it is shown in the present paper that it reverses under incomplete information. In particular, it is shown that when tradeable emission permits are specified according to the standard textbook example, they yield higher social welfare than the command and control regulation. 1 fig., 2 appendices, 11 refs

Innovation in product design as a factor for reducing logistic and production costs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luciana Fighera Marzall

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Innovation has been considered of fundamental importance for organizations competing in dynamic environments, which along with cost management has been shown as an organizational strategy that allows the company to measure its results and implement measures that impact on the organization's performance as a whole. This paper, carried out in a metal mechanical industry of a telecommunications engineering branch, aims to analyse cost reduction in logistics raw materials areas through innovation in the product design, which are antennas and towers for telephone networks. In terms of methodology, this study presents itself as a qualitative and quantitative research-action, which from the link between theory and practice allows for intervention in the middle of the researchers studied. As a result, an innovative project was developed, which allowed for the reduction costs of production by 68% and logistics by 32%. Despite the significant decrease in costs, the quality of manufactured products not declined and customer needs were met, thus making the company more competitive against competitors. Not widespread in the literature, this analysis of the impact on logistics and production costs due to improvements in the project is the main contribution theoretical of this paper.

Analysis of competition and concentration in the confectionery products market in Serbia

OpenAIRE

Lončar, Dragan; Rajičić, Vesna

2011-01-01

Confectionery products make up a significant part of the consumer basket, which makes them a strategically important segment of the consumer standard in Serbia. Hence the authors' interest in the domains of market concentration and antitrust regulation of this industry. The aim of this paper is to present the current status and trends in the confectionery products market, to define the methodological framework and to perform an analysis of competition and market concentration. The methodology...

The impacts of product market competition on the quantity and quality of voluntary disclosures

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mojgan Saeidi

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the relationship between product market competition and voluntary disclosure among 124 selected firms listed on Tehran Stock Exchange over the period 2004-2013. The study uses Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI and Lerner (LLIA index to measure competition in terms of capacity and price, respectively. In addition, the study uses the questionnaire developed by Botosan (1997 [Botosan, C. A. (1997. Disclosure level and the cost of equity capital. Accounting Review, 72(3, 323-349.] to measure voluntary disclosure. Using linear regression technique, the study has determined that there was a meaningful, direct and positive relationship between voluntary disclosure and competition in terms of price (LLIA. In addition, the results indicate that there was a meaningful and reverse relationship between voluntary disclosure and competition in terms of capacity (HHI.

Size- and food-dependent growth drives patterns of competitive dominance along productivity gradients.

Science.gov (United States)

Huss, Magnus; Gårdmark, Anna; Van Leeuwen, Anieke; de Roos, André M

2012-04-01

Patterns of coexistence among competing species exhibiting size- and food-dependent growth remain largely unexplored. Here we studied mechanisms behind coexistence and shifts in competitive dominance in a size-structured fish guild, representing sprat and herring stocks in the Baltic Sea, using a physiologically structured model of competing populations. The influence of degree of resource overlap and the possibility of undergoing ontogenetic diet shifts were studied as functions of zooplankton and zoobenthos productivity. By imposing different size-dependent mortalities, we could study the outcome of competition under contrasting environmental regimes representing poor and favorable growth conditions. We found that the identity of the dominant species shifted between low and high productivity. Adding a herring-exclusive benthos resource only provided a competitive advantage over sprat when size-dependent mortality was high enough to allow for rapid growth in the zooplankton niche. Hence, the importance of a bottom-up effect of varying productivity was dependent on a strong top-down effect. Although herring could depress shared resources to lower levels than could sprat and also could access an exclusive resource, the smaller size at maturation of sprat allowed it to coexist with herring and, in some cases, exclude it. Our model system, characterized by interactions among size cohorts, allowed for consumer coexistence even at full resource overlap at intermediate productivities when size-dependent mortality was low. Observed shifts in community patterns were crucially dependent on the explicit consideration of size- and food-dependent growth. Accordingly, we argue that accounting for food-dependent growth and size-dependent interactions is necessary to better predict changes in community structure and dynamics following changes in major ecosystem drivers such as resource productivity and mortality, which are fundamental for our ability to manage exploitation of

Coal competitiveness?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rogeaux, B.

2006-01-01

Will coal electrical plants be more competitive in the coming years? Answering this one cannot be limited to merely comparing estimates based on reference electricity production costs. The competitiveness of coal will indeed depend on the final product marketed, as the MWhs are not equal: is the purpose to produce base, half-base MWh? Does the electrical equipment structure require flexible MWh (for instance in the event of significant intermittent renewable energy amounts), and therefore plants able to adjust their power rapidly? But the competitiveness of coal will also depend on many factors that will correct reference cost estimates: uncertainties, risks, externalities. These factors will need to be appreciated on a case by case basis. We introduce some of the reasoning used to better appreciate the future competitiveness of coal, and the main factors conditioning it in three contrasting regions of the world: Europe, USA, china. (author)

Incorporating Renewable Energy Science in Regional Landscape Design: Results from a Competition in The Netherlands

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Renée M. de Waal

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Energy transition is expected to make an important contribution to sustainable development. Although it is argued that landscape design could foster energy transition, there is scant empirical research on how practitioners approach this new challenge. The research question central to this study is: To what extent and how is renewable energy science incorporated in regional landscape design? To address this knowledge gap, a case study of a regional landscape design competition in the Netherlands, held from 2010–2012, is presented. Its focus was on integral, strategic landscape transformation with energy transition as a major theme. Content analysis of the 36 competition entries was supplemented and triangulated with a survey among the entrants, observation of the process and a study of the competition documents and website. Results indicated insufficient use of key-strategies elaborated by renewable energy science. If landscape design wants to adopt a supportive role towards energy transition, a well-informed and evidence-based approach is highly recommended. Nevertheless, promising strategies for addressing the complex process of ensuring sustainable energy transition also emerged. They include the careful cultivation of public support by developing inclusive and bottom-up processes, and balancing energy-conscious interventions with other land uses and interests.

Bankruptcy and Product-Market Competition: Evidence from the Airline Industry

OpenAIRE

Ciliberto, Federico; Schenone, Carola

2010-01-01

We investigate the effects of Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings on product market competition using data from the US airline industry. We find that bankrupt airlines permanently downsize their national route structure, their airport-specific networks, and their route-specific flight frequency and capacity. We also find that bankrupt airlines lower their route-specific prices while under bankruptcy protection, and increase them after emerging. We do not find robust evidence of significant changes ...

Designing a new supply chain for competition against an existing supply chain

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rezapour, S.; Farahani, R.Z.; Dullaert, W.E.H.; de Borger, B.

2014-01-01

We develop a bi-level model for designing an entrant supply chain (SC) in the presence of a pre-existing competing SC where demand is elastic with respect to price and distance. The model assumes dynamic competition between the new and pre-existing SCs in retailers' level and probabilistic

The contribution of competitive intelligence to the development of local productive settlements: case Jaú-SP

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wanda A. M. Hoffmann

2004-01-01

Full Text Available The current economical context has been provoking the largest exhibition of the Brazilian companies to the international competition, imposing challenges and opportunities. The Brazilian small and medium enterprises, SME’s, they are the most vulnerable given the shortage of resources and production costs, among other aspects. The local productive settlements or clusters are important manners of organization of the production of SMEs. Those production manners are considered vital in the employment generation and income to the country. The characteristics of those settlements that measure your dynamics and growth are important themes of research in several areas and countries, for the economical and social importance, thoroughly spread the last years for researchers and entities. The present study approaches the contribution of the competitive intelligence for the clusters improvements. In that context the dynamics of local productive settlements and your technological difficulties and of administration they are identified focalizing the segment of foot-wears and leathers of Jaú in the State of São Paulo. Several aspects are approached in relation to dynamics of that local productive settlement, through your comparative analysis with international settlements, especially Italian. Indicating signs of a typical strategy of industrial clusters, shown by the synergy obtained by the interactivity of change of information intra-cluster and the effort in increasing your competitive capacity.

Facultative control of matrix production optimizes competitive fitness in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14 biofilm models.

Science.gov (United States)

Madsen, Jonas S; Lin, Yu-Cheng; Squyres, Georgia R; Price-Whelan, Alexa; de Santiago Torio, Ana; Song, Angela; Cornell, William C; Sørensen, Søren J; Xavier, Joao B; Dietrich, Lars E P

2015-12-01

As biofilms grow, resident cells inevitably face the challenge of resource limitation. In the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14, electron acceptor availability affects matrix production and, as a result, biofilm morphogenesis. The secreted matrix polysaccharide Pel is required for pellicle formation and for colony wrinkling, two activities that promote access to O2. We examined the exploitability and evolvability of Pel production at the air-liquid interface (during pellicle formation) and on solid surfaces (during colony formation). Although Pel contributes to the developmental response to electron acceptor limitation in both biofilm formation regimes, we found variation in the exploitability of its production and necessity for competitive fitness between the two systems. The wild type showed a competitive advantage against a non-Pel-producing mutant in pellicles but no advantage in colonies. Adaptation to the pellicle environment selected for mutants with a competitive advantage against the wild type in pellicles but also caused a severe disadvantage in colonies, even in wrinkled colony centers. Evolution in the colony center produced divergent phenotypes, while adaptation to the colony edge produced mutants with clear competitive advantages against the wild type in this O2-replete niche. In general, the structurally heterogeneous colony environment promoted more diversification than the more homogeneous pellicle. These results suggest that the role of Pel in community structure formation in response to electron acceptor limitation is unique to specific biofilm models and that the facultative control of Pel production is required for PA14 to maintain optimum benefit in different types of communities. Copyright © 2015, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

COMPETITIVENESS OF NIGERIAN RICE AND MAIZE PRODUCTION ECOLOGIES: A POLICY ANALYSIS APPROACH

OpenAIRE

Victor Olusegun Okoruwa

2011-01-01

The Nigerian rice and maize sectors are faced with decreasing supply and increasing demand as rice and maize have taken a strategic place of other staples leading to excessive importation and increasing government intervention. This study therefore assesses the competitiveness of Nigerian rice and maize production ecologies using the policy analysis matrix (PAM) on a sample of 122 farmers. Results of the PAM revealed that outputs from the production ecologies are taxed. This is further confir...

Knowledge management and Competitive Intelligenge: designing competitiveness and innovation strategies to small business

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cassia Aparecida Corsatto

2013-11-01

Full Text Available The present paper´s intention was make a presentation about the concepts and definitions of knowledge management and competitive intelligence search in the current bibliography and draw a parallel about their real possibility of application in the small business context. By the way, the main intention was bring the discussion to the relevance of the knowledge management to make and applied competitiveness strategies in this enterprise, another intention was show others elements and tools to support the application of this strategies inside the organization. This elements are: person and process. This elements are: person and process and they have a essential importance to create an internal enterprise knowledge, to create and maintain the information organized to keep the organizations with more appropriate information witch will support the way to formulated strategies and make decisions. It also intend to show tolls and methodologies to help organizations improved the competitive intelligence`s strategies as a way to increase competitiveness and value creation for customers and market.

Facultative control of matrix production optimizes competitive fitness in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA14 biofilm models

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Madsen, Jonas Stenløkke; Lin, Yu Cheng; Squyres, Georgia R.

2015-01-01

response to electron acceptor limitation in both biofilm formation regimes, we found variation in the exploitability of its production and necessity for competitive fitness between the two systems. The wild type showed a competitive advantage against a non-Pel-producing mutant in pellicles but no advantage...... in colonies. Adaptation to the pellicle environment selected for mutants with a competitive advantage against the wild type in pellicles but also caused a severe disadvantage in colonies, even in wrinkled colony centers. Evolution in the colony center produced divergent phenotypes, while adaptation...... to the colony edge produced mutants with clear competitive advantages against the wild type in this O2-replete niche. In general, the structurally heterogeneous colony environment promoted more diversification than the more homogeneous pellicle. These results suggest that the role of Pel in community structure...

Peer review and competition in the Art Exhibition Game.

Science.gov (United States)

Balietti, Stefano; Goldstone, Robert L; Helbing, Dirk

2016-07-26

To investigate the effect of competitive incentives under peer review, we designed a novel experimental setup called the Art Exhibition Game. We present experimental evidence of how competition introduces both positive and negative effects when creative artifacts are evaluated and selected by peer review. Competition proved to be a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it fosters innovation and product diversity, but on the other hand, it also leads to more unfair reviews and to a lower level of agreement between reviewers. Moreover, an external validation of the quality of peer reviews during the laboratory experiment, based on 23,627 online evaluations on Amazon Mechanical Turk, shows that competition does not significantly increase the level of creativity. Furthermore, the higher rejection rate under competitive conditions does not improve the average quality of published contributions, because more high-quality work is also rejected. Overall, our results could explain why many ground-breaking studies in science end up in lower-tier journals. Differences and similarities between the Art Exhibition Game and scholarly peer review are discussed and the implications for the design of new incentive systems for scientists are explained.

75 FR 52378 - Transfer of Commercial Standard Mail Parcels to Competitive Product List

Science.gov (United States)

2010-08-25

..., 2010, the United States Postal Service[reg] filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission a Request of the United States Postal Service to transfer commercial Standard Mail Parcels from the Mail... POSTAL SERVICE Transfer of Commercial Standard Mail Parcels to Competitive Product List AGENCY...

Finite land resources and competition

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Haberl, Helmut; Mbow, Cheikh; Deng, Xiangzheng

2014-01-01

Rising demand for land-based products (food, feed, fi ber, and bioenergy) as well as conservation of forests and carbon sinks create increasing competition for land. Landuse competition has many drivers, takes different forms, and can have many significant implications for ecosystems as well......: production versus production (e.g., food vs. fuel), production versus conservation (e.g., food production vs. conservation), and built-up environment versus production or conservation (e.g., food vs. urban). Sustainability impacts that result from land-use competition are analyzed and found to differ...... and energy systems, “ land architecture” (i.e., the significance of spatial confi gurations), and multiscale models to assess local-global connections and impacts....

The Virtual Product-Process Design Laboratory for Structured Chemical Product Design and Analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mattei, Michele; Yunus, Nor Alafiza Binti; Kalakul, Sawitree

2014-01-01

The objective of this paper is to present new methods for design of chemicals based formulated products and their implementation in the software, the Virtual Product-Process Design Laboratory. The new products are tailor-made blended liquid products and emulsion-based products. The new software...

DESIGN VERSUS PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Edu Grieco Mazzini Junior

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Design or product development? The questioning in relation to the employment of such terminology dates back to possible misconceptions regarding interpretation and approach them. Therefore, it can be stated that there are differences between these two terms? In this context, we highlight two views concerning the origin of the design. The first character creative and based on pre-industrial revolution, based on projective and methodologies directed towards the practice of designing products. And second, where design is understood as an industrial process: the development of new products includes, besides a creative procedure are developed, and symbolic formal solutions for products, but also a technical procedure based on the definition of the requirements concerning the product engineering. Is this the most widely accepted interpretation? theoretical studies were conducted from interpretations of the concept of the design proposed by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design – ICSDI (2012, and for the characterization of the process of product development, we sought to develop an analogy between these two terminologies and can be proved that the use of one of terminology will not cause deviations of interpretation, since both deal with the life cycle of the product. The main results obtained until now the definition of design proposed by the ICSID where it is characterized as a creative activity focused on the complete life cycle of products is the more approaches of the concept of product development.

Competitive Advantages from Horizontal Relationships in Productive Agglomerations: perceptions of local agents

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leonardo Pinheiro Deboçã

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Objective – This paper aims to assess to what extent relational view assumptions can explain competitive advantages perceived in the industrial agglomeration contexts of small businesses. Design/methodology/approach – We used qualitative research; two furniture centers, Misassol (SP and Ubá (MG, were examined through comparative data analysis. Data was collected through interviews with executives from 40 companies and 13 supporting organizations. The relational view and its assumptions point to factors that generate competitive advantage resulting from collaborative relationships between companies. Moreover, agglomerations provide intense relationships and are encouraged by governance entities. Findings – No competitive advantages clearly established due to relational gains were identified. The behavior of entrepreneurs in both centers tends strongly towards individualism. What agents identify as competitive advantages corresponds to situational or contextual factors in these centers and do not result from the realization of relational view assumptions, escaping from this paradigm. Relational gains can result only from subgroups that are formed through affinity, with no intervention from governance. Practical implications – Despite an agglomeration tendency within companies belonging to the furniture sector, a strong inclination towards individualism creates barriers to obtaining additional advantages resulting from relational gains, whether due to market regionalization, access of sales representatives, or logistics and tax costs, among other issues. However, actions in small groups are an important governance mechanism for that context. Contributions – Evaluate the assumptions of relational view and its explanatory power for competitive advantages in agglomerations of Brazilian furniture companies.

Design for a Crane Metallic Structure Based on Imperialist Competitive Algorithm and Inverse Reliability Strategy

Science.gov (United States)

Fan, Xiao-Ning; Zhi, Bo

2017-07-01

Uncertainties in parameters such as materials, loading, and geometry are inevitable in designing metallic structures for cranes. When considering these uncertainty factors, reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) offers a more reasonable design approach. However, existing RBDO methods for crane metallic structures are prone to low convergence speed and high computational cost. A unilevel RBDO method, combining a discrete imperialist competitive algorithm with an inverse reliability strategy based on the performance measure approach, is developed. Application of the imperialist competitive algorithm at the optimization level significantly improves the convergence speed of this RBDO method. At the reliability analysis level, the inverse reliability strategy is used to determine the feasibility of each probabilistic constraint at each design point by calculating its α-percentile performance, thereby avoiding convergence failure, calculation error, and disproportionate computational effort encountered using conventional moment and simulation methods. Application of the RBDO method to an actual crane structure shows that the developed RBDO realizes a design with the best tradeoff between economy and safety together with about one-third of the convergence speed and the computational cost of the existing method. This paper provides a scientific and effective design approach for the design of metallic structures of cranes.

Environmental structure and competitive scoring advantages in team competitions

Science.gov (United States)

Merritt, Sears; Clauset, Aaron

2013-10-01

In most professional sports, playing field structure is kept neutral so that scoring imbalances may be attributed to differences in team skill. It thus remains unknown what impact environmental heterogeneities can have on scoring dynamics or competitive advantages. Applying a novel generative model of scoring dynamics to roughly 10 million team competitions drawn from an online game, we quantify the relationship between the structure within a competition and its scoring dynamics, while controlling the impact of chance. Despite wide structural variations, we observe a common three-phase pattern in the tempo of events. Tempo and balance are highly predictable from a competition's structural features alone and teams exploit environmental heterogeneities for sustained competitive advantage. Surprisingly, the most balanced competitions are associated with specific environmental heterogeneities, not from equally skilled teams. These results shed new light on the design principles of balanced competition, and illustrate the potential of online game data for investigating social dynamics and competition.

An affective e-commerce design for SMEs product marketing based on kansei engineering

Science.gov (United States)

Habyba, A. N.; Djatna, T.; Anggraeni, E.

2018-04-01

One of the SMEs problems in Indonesia in this information technology era is the inability to control the market. SMEs can use the e-commerce website to improve their competitiveness. It can be used as a marketing tool for SMEs to promote their products and expands the SMEs markets especially for the agroindustry SMEs where located in district area that still rely on local markets to sell their product. Some SMEs e-commerce websites have been developed in Indonesia but can not significantly increased the sales of SMEs product. Furthemore, the design of it is only able to meet the consumer need in function and usability. The development of e-commerce design should pay attention in high affective quality. This is because the affective responses effect the user’s perception of cognitive quality, usability and ease of use of e-commerce. This study is aimed to make e-commerce that can meet the affective needs of users. The result of Kansei words selection and extraction using TF-IDF are four design concepts of e-commerce website. The formulation of new SMEs e-commerce website design is resulted from the integration of four design concepts and four design elements. The “Natural-Formal” concept has the greatest value than other concepts after QTT-1 analysis. This concept can implemented as the new SMEs e-commerce website design.

Design of Product Placement Layout In Retail Shop Using Market Basket Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Isti Surjandari

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Retailing is an industry with high level of competition.  It is a customer-based industry which depends on how it could be aware of what the customers' needs and requirements are. One technique most used in supermarkets is the mix merchandise. The purpose of this paper is to identify associated products, which then grouped in mix merchandise with the use of market basket analysis. This association between products then will be applied in the design layout of the product in the supermarket. The process of identifying the related products bought together in one transaction is done by using data mining  technique. Apriori algorithm is chosen as a method in the data mining process. Using WEKA (Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis software, the association rule between products is calculated. The results found five category association rules and fourteen sub-category association rules. These associations then will be interpreted as confidence and support to become consideration for the product layout.

THE EFFECT OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE AND HUMAN ADVANTAGE ON INDUSTRIAL COMPETITIVE STRATEGY (Case Study: SMIs in Gorontalo Province

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Trifandi Lasalewo

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Small and Medium Industries (SMIs have a strategic role in the Indonesian economy, as they earn 61.9 percent of the foreign exchange which goes to make up the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, and nationally they are able to absorb 97 percent of the workforce. The Global Competitiveness Report also notes that SMIs serve as the business units that affect every nation’s competitiveness. Considering this strategic role, the selection of a competitive strategy for these SMIs is absolutely necessary. Through an in-depth literature review, this study aims to explore what variables influence the competitive strategy of industries, particularly the SMIs. By using a Systematic Literature Review (SLR with a total of 31 main literature (articles, papers and books, this study has found two dominant factors that influence industrial competitive strategy: Competitive advantage and human advantage, which are subsequently developed into six independent variables (construct variables, i.e. cost, delivery, product quality, product variety, know-how and innovativeness, with a total of 44 indicators. The results of measurements of the sample of SMIs in Gorontalo Province, using Structural Equation Modeling, found that both competitive advantage and human advantage jointly influence 40.2 percent of the industrial competitive strategies. These results indicate that competitive strategies, such as creating products with unique features, on-time delivery, flexibility in production, and employee involvement in the innovations, are indispensable to SMIs in order for them to produce quality products and be able to maintain their advantage.

Product design and development engineering

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Kookhwan

2008-01-01

This book gives design of molded plastics, design of press product, design of die casting products, the application of communication terminal design, application and design of machine elements(screw, spring, bearing, gear, retaining ridge, drawing standards, KS and JIS material marks list), 3D CAD, concurrent engineering of product design, creative concept design.

Design for the future

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Antelo, R.

1998-01-01

Up until a few years ago, to be successful it was sufficient to have a product which was different from he competition's product in one of the following ways: price, quality, innovation design. With respect to other characteristics, it was sufficient just not to be outstandingly negative. The current scene is totally different. If a products is situated in the middle of the competition with respect to the above factors, only the Company's survival can be guaranteed (with difficulty). If on the other hand, it is situated below the competition with respect to some of the above characteristics, the Company may be in danger. If the product is situated above the competitive advantage will be guaranteed. The capacity to generate winning products is therefore a key factor to generating shareholder value: the success of the product and, therefore, the company's success is determined when the product is conceived and developed and on the selection of technological processes. In this context we have developed a model of reference to help companies attain excellence when developing products. (Author)

PRICES IN COMPETITIVE SYSTEM

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

VADUVA MARIA

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Regularities of competitive market determine rules for determining prices and their dynamics. Orientation prices to competition (competitive pricing is the strategy most frequently used in countries with market economies and especially for exports. Moreover, in an economy dominated by market competition it cannot be ignored without certain risks the prices resulting from competition between products bidders. Companies that use this type of strategy seek to maintain a level of prices linked to that charged by other competitors (or exporting producers generally no longer covering production costs or demand, relying on the assumption that the average market price is a reasonable basis of costs. But the way how practical guidance and reporting to the competition in every price strategy, will be determined by the company's market position, by the available power and enjoyed prestige, objectives and prospects of its market share etc. according to these elements, there may be several versions of pricing strategies oriented to competitors.

Petrochemical industries diagnosis concerning competition, quality and productivity programs; Diagnostico de industrias petroquimicas face aos programas de competitividade, produtividade e qualidade

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Souza Antunes, Adelaide Maria de; Chamas, Claudia Ines [Universidade Federal, Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil). Coordenacao dos Programas de Pos-graduacao de Engenharia

1992-12-31

The objective of this study is to evaluate how brazilian petrochemical industries take technological and competitive strategies. New industrial policy emphasizes quality, productivity and competitiveness aspects. The sector company survival depends on fitting to competition patterns. (author) 6 refs.

Petrochemical industries diagnosis concerning competition, quality and productivity programs; Diagnostico de industrias petroquimicas face aos programas de competitividade, produtividade e qualidade

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Souza Antunes, Adelaide Maria de; Chamas, Claudia Ines [Universidade Federal, Rio de Janeiro, RJ (Brazil). Coordenacao dos Programas de Pos-graduacao de Engenharia

1993-12-31

The objective of this study is to evaluate how brazilian petrochemical industries take technological and competitive strategies. New industrial policy emphasizes quality, productivity and competitiveness aspects. The sector company survival depends on fitting to competition patterns. (author) 6 refs.

Competitiveness of Colombian Cotton in Relation to the Main Producing Countries Through the Focus of Production Costs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antonio M. Martínez Reina

2015-07-01

Full Text Available This paper studies the competitiveness of cotton production in Colombia through a comparative analysis of the patterns of production costs in the producing regions of Colombia in relation to the main producers of cotton fiber. The basic information for this study is based on statistics taken mostly from Conalgodón, producer organizations and the textile industry. Economic statistics and estimates measurement techniques by the method of ordinary least squares (OLS were used, especially for estimating the functions of supply and demand. For the analysis of competitiveness, the unit production cost of Colombia was compared against other countries producing cotton fiber. The results show, on the one hand, that the production of short fiber in Colombia is likely to increase and to dedicate more areas to such type of crops given the growing trend of demand from the industry, which exceeds right now the spinning rings or long-fiber; and on the other hand, the results show that under the current conditions the country is not producing cotton in a competitive way and therefore the component of imported cotton is growing over time.

Developing Automatic Form and Design System Using Integrated Grey Relational Analysis and Affective Engineering

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chen-Yuan Liu

2018-01-01

Full Text Available In the modern highly competitive marketplace and global market environment, product quality improvements that abridge development time and reduce the production costs are effective methods for promoting the business competitiveness of a product in shorter lifecycles. Since the design process is the best time to control such parameters, systematically designing the processes to develop a product that more closely fits the demand requirements for the market is a key factor for developing a successful product. In this paper, a combined affective engineering method and grey relational analysis are used to develop a product design process. First, design image scale technology is used to acquire the best the design criteria factors, and then affective engineering methods are used to set the relationships between customer needs and production factors. Finally, grey relational analysis is used to select the optimal design strategy. Using this systematic design method, a higher quality product can be expanded upon in a shorter lead-time for improving business competition.

Theoretical Basis Of The Company Competitiveness Assessment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vladimir Nikiforovich Belkin

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The article deals with the basic theoretical questions of the company competitiveness assessment. The state of modern economic thought on this issue is shown. The main factors of the company competitiveness are specified. A specific role of staff of an enterprise is revealed: on the one hand, it is a resource, on the other is a subject, resulting in productive movement all factors of competitiveness, i.e. the staff is a critical factor in the company competitiveness. The criterion of company competitiveness is proposed, on its basis, the concept of “competitive enterprise” is defined. The most well-known approaches for assessing the company competitiveness are analyzed. The author’s method of the company competitiveness assessment based on the dynamics of the integral index of competitiveness is provided. For those cases, when it is impossible to determine the proportion of products on the market, it is proposed to evaluate the company competitiveness on the profitability of its production. The article shows the experience in calculating of the company competitiveness on the proposed author’s methods.

Design of resilient consumer products

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Haug, Anders

2016-01-01

Consumer product sustainability is a topic that has been of increasing interest to practice and academia in recent decades. In this context, a widely discussed means of achieving sustainability is to design more durable products, thereby reducing the need for the production of new products....... In particular, the emotional perspective on product durability has received attention in recent design literature, since consumer products are often replaced long before they become physically non-functioning. However, the literature does not provide a full account of the causes of product replacement...... for designers to design resilient consumer products and for researchers to engage in further studies....

Distributed Wind Competitiveness Improvement Project

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

2018-02-27

The Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) is a periodic solicitation through the U.S. Department of Energy and its National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP) is a periodic solicitation through the U.S. Department of Energy and its National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Manufacturers of small and medium wind turbines are awarded cost-shared grants via a competitive process to optimize their designs, develop advanced manufacturing processes, and perform turbine testing. The goals of the CIP are to make wind energy cost competitive with other distributed generation technology and increase the number of wind turbine designs certified to national testing standards. This fact sheet describes the CIP and funding awarded as part of the project.ufacturers of small and medium wind turbines are awarded cost-shared grants via a competitive process to optimize their designs, develop advanced manufacturing processes, and perform turbine testing. The goals of the CIP are to make wind energy cost competitive with other distributed generation technology and increase the number of wind turbine designs certified to national testing standards. This fact sheet describes the CIP and funding awarded as part of the project.

On the Competitive Interaction Between Private Label and Branded Grocery Products

OpenAIRE

Ronald W. Cotterill; Ravi Dhar; William P. Putsis Jr.

1996-01-01

Recent research in marketing has focused on cross-category variation in the market share of private label products, while recent work in the economics and industrial organization literature has focused on the determinants of firm price setting behavior. In this paper, the authors develop a framework for estimating market share and price reaction equations simultaneously in an attempt to understand the nature of competitive interaction in the market for private label and branded grocery produc...

Endogenous, Imperfectly Competitive Business Cycles

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Whitta-Jacobsen, Hans Jørgen

We investigate how imperfect competition affects the occurrence and the properties of endogenous, rational expectations business cycles in an overlapping generations model with constant returns to scale in production. The model has explicit product and labor markets all characterized...... by monopolistic competition. An implicit assumption of barriers to entry justifies that the number of firms is fixed even when positive profits occur. It turns out that both market power of firms on the product markets and market power of unions on the labor markets make the occurrence of cycles more likely....... In particular, imperfect competition on the product markets and the positive profits associated with it may have the effect that there is a cycle even if the labor supply curve is increasing in the real-wage rate. For competitive cycles is required not only a decreasing labor supply curve, but a wage elasticity...

COMPETITIVE STRATEGY OF A FOREIGN MULTINATIONAL IN BRAZILIAN POULTRY PRODUCTION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Denise Barros de Azevedo

2012-05-01

Full Text Available This paper addresses the question of the strategies involved in the import process of cages for laying hens, directed at the multinational enterprise distribution center. Identifies the reasons why a multinational company invests in Brazil, specifically in the city of Araraquara, São Paulo, where it is implementing a distribution center (DC. Developing the study of the strategies involved in the process, according to the main issue of the work, it took place through the exploratory analysis of the current logistics process of the Company, identifying the strategies adopted and the advantages of the new process. In order to achieve the objectives, the study is based on the theoretical study of Porter's five competitive forces, SWOT analysis, generic strategies adopted to achieve return on investment and, based on issues such as import , logistics, warehousing and distribution center. The survey shows that deployment of the DC, the strategy involves the insertion in the national market, specifically in São Paulo that is the biggest market of laying hens in the country to gain competitive advantage, and the multinational also adopts the strategy generic differentiation, with regard to technology and product quality. Despite the high costs of construction and maintenance of the DC, they represent a barrier to market entry, have no financial risk for the multinational enterprise, since this deployment will also increase the demand for the product, allowing the return on invested capital.

PLM SOLUTION DESIGN FOR NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT.-CASE STUDY

OpenAIRE

Varsha Arun Chitale*, Prof. R.B. Patil, Prof. Amol R. Patil

2016-01-01

In competition business environment, companies recognize the importance of collaboration throughout the entire product lifecycle. The main focus of the paper is on the collaboration in New Product Development (NPD) processes and how Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) strategy are likely to paradigm support advanced collaboration strategies, such as Mass Customization and Customer Co-Creation. The relation between these strategies and product lifecycle phases related to New Product Developmen...

Optimizing Product Attributes to Gain Competitive Advantage in Markets for Hardwood Lumber

Science.gov (United States)

Robert J. Bush; Philip A. Araman

1990-01-01

One of the ways in which wood-based companies can gain competitive advantage is to concentrate on a particular segment of the market for their products. By meeting the needs of this segment better than its competitors, a company can create switching costs, develop customer loyalty, and the increase profit margins. This article describes a study that was conducted that...

A “value for money” framework to study product competitiveness in the automotive market

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

C. lo Storto

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Assessing the value for money of a product is of paramount importance to get useful strategic information relative to market and technological trends and major determinants of technological innovation, and to conduct benchmarking studies and make comparison among competitive products. This paper note presents a methodological “value for money” framework to assess the market competitiveness of a passenger car. This framework uses both published data and industry expert judgements. In this framework, the value for money of a car is assumed to be dependent on the economic cost (i.e., price and fuel consumption that the consumer has to bear when using it, and on the car technical value (PTV which is built as a function of certain measurable features of the product. The framework is adopted to analyse a sample of 216 cars that were sold in the Italian domestic market between the 70s and the early 90s. The relationship between the car technical value, price, and fuel consumption is investigated using a translog regression equation.

Distinct patterns of brain activity characterise lexical activation and competition in spoken word production.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vitória Piai

Full Text Available According to a prominent theory of language production, concepts activate multiple associated words in memory, which enter into competition for selection. However, only a few electrophysiological studies have identified brain responses reflecting competition. Here, we report a magnetoencephalography study in which the activation of competing words was manipulated by presenting pictures (e.g., dog with distractor words. The distractor and picture name were semantically related (cat, unrelated (pin, or identical (dog. Related distractors are stronger competitors to the picture name because they receive additional activation from the picture relative to other distractors. Picture naming times were longer with related than unrelated and identical distractors. Phase-locked and non-phase-locked activity were distinct but temporally related. Phase-locked activity in left temporal cortex, peaking at 400 ms, was larger on unrelated than related and identical trials, suggesting differential activation of alternative words by the picture-word stimuli. Non-phase-locked activity between roughly 350-650 ms (4-10 Hz in left superior frontal gyrus was larger on related than unrelated and identical trials, suggesting differential resolution of the competition among the alternatives, as reflected in the naming times. These findings characterise distinct patterns of activity associated with lexical activation and competition, supporting the theory that words are selected by competition.

Site Identification by Ligand Competitive Saturation (SILCS) simulations for fragment-based drug design.

Science.gov (United States)

Faller, Christina E; Raman, E Prabhu; MacKerell, Alexander D; Guvench, Olgun

2015-01-01

Fragment-based drug design (FBDD) involves screening low molecular weight molecules ("fragments") that correspond to functional groups found in larger drug-like molecules to determine their binding to target proteins or nucleic acids. Based on the principle of thermodynamic additivity, two fragments that bind nonoverlapping nearby sites on the target can be combined to yield a new molecule whose binding free energy is the sum of those of the fragments. Experimental FBDD approaches, like NMR and X-ray crystallography, have proven very useful but can be expensive in terms of time, materials, and labor. Accordingly, a variety of computational FBDD approaches have been developed that provide different levels of detail and accuracy.The Site Identification by Ligand Competitive Saturation (SILCS) method of computational FBDD uses all-atom explicit-solvent molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to identify fragment binding. The target is "soaked" in an aqueous solution with multiple fragments having different identities. The resulting computational competition assay reveals what small molecule types are most likely to bind which regions of the target. From SILCS simulations, 3D probability maps of fragment binding called "FragMaps" can be produced. Based on the probabilities relative to bulk, SILCS FragMaps can be used to determine "Grid Free Energies (GFEs)," which provide per-atom contributions to fragment binding affinities. For essentially no additional computational overhead relative to the production of the FragMaps, GFEs can be used to compute Ligand Grid Free Energies (LGFEs) for arbitrarily complex molecules, and these LGFEs can be used to rank-order the molecules in accordance with binding affinities.

Public-Private Collaboration on Productive Development Policies in Colombia

OpenAIRE

Marcela Eslava; Marcela Meléndez Arjona; Guillermo Perry

2014-01-01

This Working Paper analyzes the institutions that shape public-private collaboration for the design and implementation of productive development policies in Colombia. These policies are increasingly designed in the context of formal institutions and venues, with public-private collaboration being a pillar of that formal design. This paper focuses on two specific case studies: the Private Council for Competitiveness and its role in the National Competitiveness System and the Productive Transfo...

The neural dynamics of competition resolution for language production in the prefrontal cortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Bourguignon, Nicolas J; Ohashi, Hiroki; Nguyen, Don; Gracco, Vincent L

2018-03-01

Previous research suggests a pivotal role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in word selection during tasks of confrontation naming (CN) and verb generation (VG), both of which feature varying degrees of competition between candidate responses. However, discrepancies in prefrontal activity have also been reported between the two tasks, in particular more widespread and intense activation in VG extending into (left) ventrolateral PFC, the functional significance of which remains unclear. We propose that these variations reflect differences in competition resolution processes tied to distinct underlying lexico-semantic operations: Although CN involves selecting lexical entries out of limited sets of alternatives, VG requires exploration of possible semantic relations not readily evident from the object itself, requiring prefrontal areas previously shown to be recruited in top-down retrieval of information from lexico-semantic memory. We tested this hypothesis through combined independent component analysis of functional imaging data and information-theoretic measurements of variations in selection competition associated with participants' performance in overt CN and VG tasks. Selection competition during CN engaged the anterior insula and surrounding opercular tissue, while competition during VG recruited additional activity of left ventrolateral PFC. These patterns remained after controlling for participants' speech onset latencies indicative of possible task differences in mental effort. These findings have implications for understanding the neural-computational dynamics of cognitive control in language production and how it relates to the functional architecture of adaptive behavior. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A test of a design process scale

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Marinakis, Yorgos; Harms, Rainer; Walsh, Steven Thomas

2015-01-01

Design is a type of innovation that focuses on creating new product and service meanings. Models of the design process are important because they can help firms manage their product and service design processes to obtain competitive advantage. Empirically-based models of the design process are

UNPACKED: Middlesex University Product Design

OpenAIRE

Griffiths, Wyn

2013-01-01

'UNPACKED: Middlesex University Product Design' is showcasing the 2013 graduating group of the Middlesex University BA/BSc Product Design course.\\ud The group of Product Designers will be exhibiting at two places in 2013; at the Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London from 6-10th June and at the prestigious New Designers exhibition, Business Design Centre, London 3-6th July.

Future survival requires competitive skills

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Adam, P.J.

1996-01-01

The companies that will succeed in the global power business in 25 years will be those that best understand the productivity implications of the current power game. In the competitive free market for electricity, the inefficient will be driven out. This will include the developer that is unable to achieve higher productivity in developing and financing projects, the engineer-constructor that longs for the old risk-free, cost-plus environment and the trading company that fails to enter into new relationships with the most productive companies in the world. Also in jeopardy will be the operator who can't reduce O and M costs and the manufacturer who is unable to control overhead or labor costs. Succeeding will be all about productivity. Free market competition drives productivity improvement. In a competitive environment, companies must operate at a more efficient level. The US learned this accidentally through the Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act, getting us a side benefit of free market competition and lower electricity prices. In other countries the practice of socialism and its final bankruptcy forced adjustments to free market policies

Product design engineering - a global education trend in multidisciplinary training for creative product design

Science.gov (United States)

de Vere, Ian; Melles, Gavin; Kapoor, Ajay

2010-03-01

Product design is the convergence point for engineering and design thinking and practices. Until recently, product design has been taught either as a component of mechanical engineering or as a subject within design schools but increasingly there is global recognition of the need for greater synergies between industrial design and engineering training. Product design engineering (PDE) is a new interdisciplinary programme combining the strengths of the industrial design and engineering. This paper examines the emergence of PDE in an environment of critique of conventional engineering education and exemplifies the current spread of programmes endorsing a hybrid programme of design and engineering skills. The paper exemplifies PDE with the analysis of the programme offered at Swinburne University of Technology (Australia), showing how the teaching of 'designerly' thinking to engineers produces a new graduate particularly suited to the current and future environment of produce design practice. The paper concludes with reflections on the significance of this innovative curriculum model for the field of product design and for engineering design in general.

Data survey on the effect of product features on competitive advantage of selected firms in Nigeria.

Science.gov (United States)

Olokundun, Maxwell; Iyiola, Oladele; Ibidunni, Stephen; Falola, Hezekiah; Salau, Odunayo; Amaihian, Augusta; Peter, Fred; Borishade, Taiye

2018-06-01

The main objective of this study was to present a data article that investigates the effect product features on firm's competitive advantage. Few studies have examined how the features of a product could help in driving the competitive advantage of a firm. Descriptive research method was used. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 22) was engaged for analysis of one hundred and fifty (150) valid questionnaire which were completed by small business owners registered under small and medium scale enterprises development of Nigeria (SMEDAN). Stratified and simple random sampling techniques were employed; reliability and validity procedures were also confirmed. The field data set is made publicly available to enable critical or extended analysis.

EPR design: A combined approach on safety and economic competitiveness

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Griedl, R.; Sturm, J.; Degrave, C.; Kappler, F.; Martin-Onraet, M.

2001-01-01

Starting in 1991, the French and German cooperation led to common work based on the experience of the two designers FRAMATOME and SIEMENS KWU with all their know how, the most important utilities in France and Germany operating NPP and the technical supports of the Licensing Authorities GRS and IPSN. The conclusion of that work was the issue in November 1997 and February 1999 respectively of two Basic Design reports for a European Pressurized Reactor (EPR) with a power of 4250 MWth and 4900 MWth. The Basic Design approach was led under two key items: Enhancement of the overall safety level by implementation of design measures to: make the plant less dependant to common cause failures; practically eliminate all high pressure core melt sequences which could lead to important radioactive releases to the environment; implement specific systems to face severe accident situation with low-pressure core melt. Use of the many years of experiences in two different nuclear designs is to reach an overall availability figure over 91%, partly due to design improvements on the safety level. With such an objective, demonstrated by feedback of experience on already operating plants, the EPR project can be proposed as a competitive alternative to the most recent fossil plants. (author)

Advances in product family and product platform design methods & applications

CERN Document Server

Jiao, Jianxin; Siddique, Zahed; Hölttä-Otto, Katja

2014-01-01

Advances in Product Family and Product Platform Design: Methods & Applications highlights recent advances that have been made to support product family and product platform design and successful applications in industry. This book provides not only motivation for product family and product platform design—the “why” and “when” of platforming—but also methods and tools to support the design and development of families of products based on shared platforms—the “what”, “how”, and “where” of platforming. It begins with an overview of recent product family design research to introduce readers to the breadth of the topic and progresses to more detailed topics and design theory to help designers, engineers, and project managers plan, architect, and implement platform-based product development strategies in their companies. This book also: Presents state-of-the-art methods and tools for product family and product platform design Adopts an integrated, systems view on product family and pro...

Potential land competition between open-pond microalgae production and terrestrial dedicated feedstock supply systems in the U.S.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Langholtz, Matthew H.; Coleman, Andre M.; Eaton, Laurence M.; Wigmosta, Mark S.; Hellwinckel, Chad M.; Brandt, Craig C.

2016-08-01

Biofuels produced from both terrestrial and algal biomass feedstocks can contribute to energy security while providing economic, environmental, and social benefits. To assess the potential for land competition between these two feedstock types in the United States, we evaluate a scenario in which 41.5 x 109 L yr-1 of second-generation biofuels are produced on pastureland, the most likely land base where both feedstock types may be deployed. This total includes 12.0 x 109 L yr-1 of biofuels from open-pond microalgae production and 29.5 x 109 L yr-1 of biofuels from terrestrial dedicated feedstock supply systems. Under these scenarios, open-pond microalgae production is projected to use 1.2 million ha of private pastureland, while terrestrial dedicated feedstock supply systems would use 14.0 million ha of private pastureland. A spatial meta-analysis indicates that potential competition for land under these scenarios would be concentrated in 110 counties, containing 1.0 and 1.7 million hectares of algal and terrestrial dedicated feedstock production, respectively. A land competition index applied to these 110 counties suggests that 38 to 59 counties could experience competition for upwards of 40% of a county’s pastureland. However, this combined 2.7 million ha represents only 2%-5% of total pastureland in the U.S., with the remaining 12.5 million ha of algal or terrestrial dedicated feedstock production on pastureland in non-competing areas.

Product Design Engineering--A Global Education Trend in Multidisciplinary Training for Creative Product Design

Science.gov (United States)

de Vere, Ian; Melles, Gavin; Kapoor, Ajay

2010-01-01

Product design is the convergence point for engineering and design thinking and practices. Until recently, product design has been taught either as a component of mechanical engineering or as a subject within design schools but increasingly there is global recognition of the need for greater synergies between industrial design and engineering…

MACROECONOMIC ASPECTS OF COMPETITIVENESS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Oleg Hooke

2017-09-01

Full Text Available In the process of globalization of world economic processes, the role of individual national economies increases, comparative advantages of the development of a country are formed, and their competitiveness is ensured. That is why it is worth emphasizing the importance of increasing the competitiveness of each individual country, based on its internal capacity. In a broad aspect, the competitiveness of the national economy is perceived as the ability of the country to ensure the balance of its external proportions and to avoid those constraints imposed by the foreign economic sphere, to self-organizing the improvement of their world economic ties. The competitiveness of the economy at the macro level is associated with the duration of the cycle of reproduction of the main productive assets and, accordingly, the jobs, productive forces of society and determined by the overall economic efficiency of investment. The criteria of competitiveness of the national economy are the growth of social productivity of labor, increase of social and economic efficiency of production and standard of living of the population. The competitiveness of the national economy determines sustainable socio-economic development of the country, as well as sustainable development predetermines the competitiveness of not only the country, but also all its levels. Scientific results are obtained using special methods of research of economic objects and phenomena, that is, based on the correlation and regressive, comparative analysis (establishing the relationship between the indicator factor, as well as economic modeling. Findings. Generalizing analysis and the importance of the macroeconomic aspect of competitiveness were used in the research paper, which will allow to better respond to the economic situation, in accordance with the trends of the “green” transformation of the economy; which in turn will solve important problems of the development and implementation of its

Competitive strategy : Sorrin Puutarha

OpenAIRE

Haaristo, Emilia

2010-01-01

The thesis handles the fresh food product industry in Finland and especially one company operating in the industry and its competitive position. Sorrin Puutarha manufactures ready-to-use fresh cut salad bag, which is sold in the grocery stores. The objective of the thesis was to find competitive advantages of the case company. Once the competitive advantages were identified the purpose was to choose a fitting competitive strategy that would strengthen those advantages. The field study was con...

ANALYSING PRODUCTION DESIGN: POSITIONS AND APPROACHES

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ion Wille, Jakob

2017-01-01

This article discusses the challenges of understanding production design and reviews dominant approaches to production design analysis.......This article discusses the challenges of understanding production design and reviews dominant approaches to production design analysis....

Methodological Foundations of Clustering and Innovativeness for Establishing the Competitive Production of Biofuels

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Klymchuk Oleksandr V.

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The article is aimed to study the worldwide trends in development of innovative processes and creation of cluster structures for elaborating methodological foundations for establishing the competitive production of biofuels. The article highlights the cluster approaches in conducting the global commercial activities that create effective mechanisms and tools to encourage innovation-investment regional development and can be characterized by their relevance for the Ukrainian economy. Emphasis is made on the matter that clustering is one of the key tools for structuring the energy market, integrated exploiting the potential of bioenergy industry sector, management of the economic policies of redistribution of value added, implementation of the growth of investment attractiveness of the biofuel industry in our country. It has been concluded that cluster development in the biofuel production will stimulate specialization and cooperation processes in the agro-industrial economy sector, bringing together related businesses in the direction of an effective interaction, thereby ensuring a high level of competitiveness of biofuels in both the national and the international markets.

Two-Echelon Inventory Optimization for Imperfect Production System under Quality Competition Environment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xinfeng Lai

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This paper develops two integrated optimization models of two-echelon inventory for imperfect production system under quality competition environment, in which the vendor’s production process is assumed to be imperfect, and JIT delivery policy is implemented to ship product from the vendor to the buyer. In the first model, product defect rate is fixed, and, in the second model, quality improvement investment is function of defect rate. The optimal policies of ordering quantity of buyer and shipment from vendor to buyer are obtained to minimize the expected annual total cost of vendor and buyer. Numerical examples are used to demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the models. Sensitivity analysis is taken to analyze the impact of demand, production rate, and defect rate on the solution. Implications are highlighted in that both the vendor and the buyer can benefit from the vendor’s investing in quality improvement.

Application of an imperialist competitive algorithm to the design of a linear induction motor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lucas, Caro; Nasiri-Gheidari, Zahra; Tootoonchian, Farid

2010-01-01

In this paper a novel optimization algorithm based on imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) is used for the design of a low speed single sided linear induction motor (LIM). This type of motors is used increasingly in industrial process specially in transportation systems. In these applications having high efficiency with high power factor is very important. So in this paper the objective function of design is presented considering both efficiency and power factor. Finally the results of ICA are compared with the ones of genetic algorithm and conventional design. Comparison shows the success of ICA for design of LIMs.

Competitive bidding in Medicare: who benefits from competition?

Science.gov (United States)

Song, Zirui; Landrum, Mary Beth; Chernew, Michael E

2012-09-01

To conduct the first empirical study of competitive bidding in Medicare. We analyzed 2006-2010 Medicare Advantage data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services using longitudinal models adjusted for market and plan characteristics. A $1 increase in Medicare's payment to health maintenance organization (HMO) plans led to a $0.49 (P service plans included, higher Medicare payments increased bids less ($0.33 per dollar), suggesting more competition among these latter plans. As a market-based alternative to cost control through administrative pricing, competitive bidding relies on private insurance plans proposing prices they are willing to accept for insuring a beneficiary. However, competition is imperfect in the Medicare bidding market. As much as half of every dollar in increased plan payment went to higher bids rather than to beneficiaries. While having more insurers in a market lowered bids, the design of any bidding system for Medicare should recognize this shortcoming of competition.

Product design for energy reduction in concurrent engineering: An Inverted Pyramid Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Alkadi, Nasr M.

Energy factors in product design in concurrent engineering (CE) are becoming an emerging dimension for several reasons; (a) the rising interest in "green design and manufacturing", (b) the national energy security concerns and the dramatic increase in energy prices, (c) the global competition in the marketplace and global climate change commitments including carbon tax and emission trading systems, and (d) the widespread recognition of the need for sustainable development. This research presents a methodology for the intervention of energy factors in concurrent engineering product development process to significantly reduce the manufacturing energy requirement. The work presented here is the first attempt at integrating the design for energy in concurrent engineering framework. It adds an important tool to the DFX toolbox for evaluation of the impact of design decisions on the product manufacturing energy requirement early during the design phase. The research hypothesis states that "Product Manufacturing Energy Requirement is a Function of Design Parameters". The hypothesis was tested by conducting experimental work in machining and heat treating that took place at the manufacturing lab of the Industrial and Management Systems Engineering Department (IMSE) at West Virginia University (WVU) and at a major U.S steel manufacturing plant, respectively. The objective of the machining experiment was to study the effect of changing specific product design parameters (Material type and diameter) and process design parameters (metal removal rate) on a gear head lathe input power requirement through performing defined sets of machining experiments. The objective of the heat treating experiment was to study the effect of varying product charging temperature on the fuel consumption of a walking beams reheat furnace. The experimental work in both directions have revealed important insights into energy utilization in machining and heat-treating processes and its variance based

Analysis of Competitiveness and Support Instruments for Heat and Electricity Production from Wood Biomass in Latvia

Science.gov (United States)

Klavs, G.; Kudrenickis, I.; Kundzina, A.

2012-01-01

Utilisation of renewable energy sources is one of the key factors in a search for efficient ways of reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases and improving the energy supply security. So far, the district heating supply in Latvia has been based on natural gas, with the wood fuel playing a minor role; the same is true for decentralised combined heat-power (CHP) production. The paper describes a method for evaluation of the economic feasibility of heat and electricity production from wood biomass under the competition between different fuel types and taking into account the electricity market. For the simulation, a cost estimation model is applied. The results demonstrate that wood biomass can successfully be utilised for competitive heat production by boiler houses, while for electricity production by CHP utilities it cannot compete on the market (even despite the low prices on wood biomass fuel) unless particular financial support instruments are applied. The authors evaluate the necessary support level and the impact of two main support instruments - the investment subsidies and the feed-in tariff - on the economic viability of wood-fuelled CHP plants, and show that the feed-in tariff could be considered as an instrument strongly affecting the competitiveness of such type CHP. Regarding the feed-in tariff determination, a compromise should be found between the economy-dictated requirement to develop CHP projects concerning capacities above 5 MWel - on the one hand, and the relatively small heat loads in many Latvian towns - on the other.

State aid for the adequacy of production in EU competition law

OpenAIRE

Domazet, Siniša

2017-01-01

State aid is essentially inadmissible in EU competition law. The paper deals with state aid for the adequacy of production. Research has shown that if the conditions contained in the guidelines on state aid for environmental protection and energy for the period 2014-2020 are fulfilled, this form of state aid will be permitted. It has been established that there is no practice of the European Commission in connection with this form of state aid. Recommendation to the Member States is to carry ...

76 FR 13000 - Transfer of Commercial First-Class Mail Parcels to Competitive Product List

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-09

...: On February 24, 2011, the United States Postal Service[supreg] filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission a Request of the United States Postal Service to transfer commercial First-Class Mail Parcels from... POSTAL SERVICE Transfer of Commercial First-Class Mail Parcels to Competitive Product List AGENCY...

ASPECTS OF REGIONAL COMPETITIVENESS THROUGH DYNAMIC PRICES OF PETROLEUM PRODUCTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniela\tENACHESCU

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This paper presents aspects regarding the dynamics of prices of petroleum products: gasoline and diesel in Romania in the period 2003(2007-2014. Both focus on relationship-price raw material and finished product by the impact of market prices. Given that the price of fuel is a key factor in economic development but also in the living of population, this paper has proposed to analyze some aspects of the dynamics of prices of petroleum products in correlation with commodity prices in a competitive market in 2003 -2014. In the analized period, price of oil barrel has a dynamics substantially influenced by the global political turbulences but also by lower oil demand due to consumption reduction, especially lately. Increases and decreases were abrupt and unpredictable in the early years of the first decade of the XXI century. Political crises in the Middle East, the economic crisis started in 2007 and especially the crisis in Ukraine and policies adopted by the EU and the US have led to extremely large fluctuations in oil prices from one period to another . This dynamic will only cover the price of petroleum products namely gazoline and diesel for vehicles.

Agent-Based Model of Price Competition and Product Differentiation on Congested Networks

OpenAIRE

Lei Zhang; David Levinson; Shanjiang Zhu

2007-01-01

Using consistent agent-based techniques, this research models the decision-making processes of users and infrastructure owner/operators to explore the welfare consequence of price competition, capacity choice, and product differentiation on congested transportation networks. Component models include: (1) An agent-based travel demand model wherein each traveler has learning capabilities and unique characteristics (e.g. value of time); (2) Econometric facility provision cost models; and (3) Rep...

COMPETITIVENESS THROUGH INFORMATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Raluca Daniela RIZEA

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Intelligence competitiveness has already started to build its road in the company’s long term strategies. Nonetheless, business executives continue to look for ways to apply information technology strategically to their businesses. Using information managers manage to communicate, to convey their knowledge about markets, competitors, products, services and operations. Even if data and information are all over there are few amounts of managers that realize the importance of them to the success of the business. This article will review competitive forces and competitive information systems strategies for gaining competitive advantages, explain concepts of value chain, value co-opetition (competition and cooperation, and discuss innovation strategy. Co-opetition is a strategy whereby companies cooperate and compete at the same time with their competitors, complementors (i.e. hardware and software businesses, customers, suppliers. The article discuss an important dimension of information system, identifies competitive advantages and enhancing competitive strategies thought information systems.

The impact of product market competition on transactions with related parties and company performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mojtaba Asadi

2015-03-01

Full Text Available This paper presents an empirical investigation on the effect of product market competition on transactions with related parties and company performance. The study selects a sample of 250 randomly selected firms whose common shares were traded on Tehran Stock Exchange. The study uses Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI to measure the market concentration and uses historical information over the period 2008-2012 to examine the hypotheses of the survey. Using simple regression analysis, the study has detected a positive relationship between HHI and related party transactions. In addition, the study has detected a negative relationship between competition and company performance measured by return on assets.

Congruent Knowledge Management Behaviors as Discriminate Sources of Competitive Advantage

Science.gov (United States)

Magnier-Watanabe, Remy; Senoo, Dai

2009-01-01

Purpose: While knowledge management has been shown to be a strategic source of competitive advantage, processes designed to enhance the productivity of knowledge do not, however, equally contribute to the organization's capabilities. Consequently, this research aims to focus on the relationship between each mode of the knowledge management process…

Production structure and international competition position of the German environmental protection economy; Produktionsstruktur und internationale Wettbewerbsposition der deutschen Umweltschutzwirtschaft

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Legler, Harald; Schasse, Ulrich [Niedersaechsisches Institut fuer Wirtschaftsforschung e.V., Hannover (Germany)

2009-06-15

There exists a connection between the economic structural orientation and international competitiveness on the one hand as well as the environmental political requirements on the other hand. The environmental protection economy fits quite well the profile that Germany is demanded in the international change. Under this aspect, the authors of the contribution under consideration report on the production structure and on the international competition position of the German environmental protection economy. The authors report on (a) the production structure and production dynamics of the environmental protection industry; (b) German environmental protection economy in the international comparison; (c) Goods, building works and services for environmental protection in Germany.

Industrial Competitiveness of Pakistan (2000-10)

OpenAIRE

A. R. Kemal

2007-01-01

Though Pakistan’s exports have increased significantly, analyses have shown that Pakistan’s industrial competitiveness is limited to a narrow range of products. This paper looks at the factors affecting Pakistan’s competitiveness ranking and relates these various factors to trends in Pakistan’s total factor productivity. In addition to looking at the components of Pakistan’s competitiveness ranking, this paper details the steps required for Pakistan to increase its global industrial competiti...

Product line design

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Anderson, S. P.; Celik, Levent

2015-01-01

Roč. 157, May (2015), s. 517-526 ISSN 0022-0531 Institutional support: RVO:67985998 Keywords : product line design * product differentiation * second-degree price discrimination Subject RIV: AH - Economics Impact factor: 1.097, year: 2015

Regular and promotional sales in new product life-cycle: A competitive approach

OpenAIRE

Guidolin, Mariangela; Guseo, Renato; Mortarino, Cinzia

2016-01-01

In this paper, we consider the application of the Lotka-Volterra model with churn effects, LVch, (Guidolin and Guseo, 2015) to the case of a confectionary product produced in Italy and recently commercialized in a European country. Weekly time series, referring separately to quantities of regular and promotional sales, are available. Their joint inspection highlighted the presence of compensatory dynamics suggesting the study with the LVch to estimate whether competition between regular and p...

Teamwork in health care: opportunities for gains in quality, productivity, and competitive advantage. What works, what doesn't, and why.

Science.gov (United States)

Montebello, A R

1994-01-01

Wholesale political, economic, and social change is pressuring health-care organizations to reinvent themselves as they enter a new arena of managed competition. Survival is at stake. Will belt-tightening efforts, combined with structural changes and strategic alliances, achieve the necessary improvements in efficiency and help to secure an adequate patient base? It seems reasonable to expect that health-care institutions can realize the major gains in quality, productivity, efficiency, and competitive edge that organizations in the manufacturing and service industries have enjoyed for the past several years. It seems like a logical next step for health-care organizations to deploy proven methods--such as work redesign, team-based structures, and empowered workforces--that have helped to restore competitiveness to many industrial and service firms. This article describes how to organize teams at all levels and accelerate their development to achieve important organizational objectives--such as improving quality, productivity, and efficiency--while increasing employee satisfaction. Pioneering workplace innovations are reviewed to demonstrate how high-involvement teams integrating strategic planning, research, and health-care delivery processes are not only possible but highly desirable. Enhanced quality, improved productivity, greater efficiency, and employee satisfaction all translate to an undeniable competitive advantage.

National workshop on forest productivity & technology: cooperative research to support a sustainable & competitive future - progress and strategy

Science.gov (United States)

Eric D. Vance

2010-01-01

The Agenda 2020 Program is a partnership among government agencies, the forest products industry, and academia to develop technology capable of enhancing forest productivity, sustaining environmental values, increasing energy efficiency, and improving the economic competitiveness of the United States forest sector. In November 2006, the USDA Forest Service, in...

The competitiveness of metallurgy and metal products industry in Spain; La competitividad de las industrias metalurgica y de productos metalicos en Espana

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mateos Torres, C.

2012-07-01

This article analyzes the competitiveness of metallurgy and manufacture of metal products sectors, in which the Industrial Observatory of the Metal Sector has studied the key factors of innovation for competitiveness. It includes a reference to the competitive situation of the Spanish iron and steel industry. Furthermore, the investments carried out by both sectors under the Competitiveness Promotion Programme for Strategic Industrial Sectors during the years 2009-2011 are analyzed. (Author)

COMPETITIVE ABILITY OF BEAN CULTIVARS WITH HAIRY BEGGARTICKS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

LEANDRO GALON

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Weed interference is a factor that limits the productivity of beans and, among these, hairy beggarticks is one of the main species competing with the crop for environmental resources. Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate the competitive ability of black bean cultivars (BRS Campeiro, IPR Uirapuru, SCS204 Predileto and BRS Supremo in the presence of a biotype of hairy beggarticks. The experimental design is a completely randomized block with four replications. Treatments were arranged in a replacement series, consisting of a proportion of the crop and the hairy beggarticks: 100:0; 75:25; 50:50: 24:75, and 0:100, which corresponds to 40:0, 30:10, 20:20, 10:30, and 0:40 plant pots1. We accomplished competitive analysis through diagrams applied to the replacement series, as well as using relative competitive indices. The leaf area and shoot dry mass were evaluated at 40 days after emergence of the species. There was competition between bean cultivars and hairy beggarticks for the same environmental resources, causing negative interference in the growth of the species, independent of the proportion of plants. Bean cultivars had a lower relative loss by reducing the morphological variables of the hairy beggarticks, thereby demonstrating superiority in its competitive ability in relation to the weed. Interspecific competition is less damaging than intraspecific competition for both species.

Computational Intelligence Techniques for New Product Design

CERN Document Server

Chan, Kit Yan; Dillon, Tharam S

2012-01-01

Applying computational intelligence for product design is a fast-growing and promising research area in computer sciences and industrial engineering. However, there is currently a lack of books, which discuss this research area. This book discusses a wide range of computational intelligence techniques for implementation on product design. It covers common issues on product design from identification of customer requirements in product design, determination of importance of customer requirements, determination of optimal design attributes, relating design attributes and customer satisfaction, integration of marketing aspects into product design, affective product design, to quality control of new products. Approaches for refinement of computational intelligence are discussed, in order to address different issues on product design. Cases studies of product design in terms of development of real-world new products are included, in order to illustrate the design procedures, as well as the effectiveness of the com...

Papaya Development Model As A Competitive Local Superior Commodity

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Reny Sukmawani

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The aim of this research is to study the comparative advantage and papaya competitive and to design its development model by using the approach of local base agriculture development. This research uses survey method. The resulting research shows that papaya is a base commodity that has comparative advantage and competitive. The development papaya in the district of Sukabumi is quite good bases on eight superior creations. But in order to be the main sector in economic development and has a competition, the development of papaya must concern to its influence factors. In supporting papaya development as a competitive local superior commodity, it needs to be done some efforts are as follows: (1 increase a skillful worker; (2 improve business management; (3 increase papaya productivity by using technology and study papaya planted technology in specific local superior commodity; (4 develop the involvement of the business relation; (5 provide market information and information technology network; and (6 improve infrastructures.

CO2 emission costs and Gas/Coal competition for power production

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Santi, Federico

2005-01-01

This paper demonstrates how a CO 2 emission reduction programme can change the competition between the two power production technologies which will probably dominate the future of the Italian power industry: the coal fired USC steam power plant and the natural gas fired CCGT power plant. An economic value of the CO 2 emission is calculated, in order to make the short-run-marginal-cost (or the long-run-marginal-cost). equal for both technologies, under a CO 2 emission trading scheme and following a single-plant specific CO 2 emission homogenizing approach [it

Learning from Toyota: How Action Learning Can Foster Competitive Advantage in New Product Development (NPD)

Science.gov (United States)

Fuchs, Barbara

2007-01-01

New product development and commercialization are essential to entrepreneurial growth and international competitiveness. Excellence in this area is strongly supported by individual and organizational learning efforts. By analyzing how Japanese car manufacturer Toyota organizes learning, this paper evaluates the potential of action learning to…

An imperialist competitive algorithm for solving the production scheduling problem in open pit mine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mojtaba Mokhtarian Asl

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Production scheduling (planning of an open-pit mine is the procedure during which the rock blocks are assigned to different production periods in a way that the highest net present value of the project achieved subject to operational constraints. The paper introduces a new and computationally less expensive meta-heuristic technique known as imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA for long-term production planning of open pit mines. The proposed algorithm modifies the original rules of the assimilation process. The ICA performance for different levels of the control factors has been studied and the results are presented. The result showed that ICA could be efficiently applied on mine production planning problem.

Regulated Medicare Advantage And Marketplace Individual Health Insurance Markets Rely On Insurer Competition.

Science.gov (United States)

Frank, Richard G; McGuire, Thomas G

2017-09-01

Two important individual health insurance markets-Medicare Advantage and the Marketplaces-are tightly regulated but rely on competition among insurers to supply and price health insurance products. Many local health insurance markets have little competition, which increases prices to consumers. Furthermore, both markets are highly subsidized in ways that can exacerbate the impact of market power-that is, the ability to set price above cost-on health insurance prices. Policy makers need to foster robust competition in both sectors and avoid designing subsidies that make the market-power problem worse. Project HOPE—The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.

Characterizing Product Lifecycle in Online Marketing: Sales, Trust, Revenue, and Competition Modeling

OpenAIRE

C, Santosh K; Mukherjee, Arjun

2017-01-01

Recent researches have seen an upsurge in the analysis of consumer reviews. Although, several dimensions have been explored, less is known on the temporal dynamics of events that happen over the lifecycle of online products. What are the dominant sales patterns? How are they affected by review count, rating, helpfulness and sentiment? How is trust characterized and what are its effects on sales and revenue? What happens during a market competition? When does a takeover/recovery happen and by ...

CIRP Design 2012 Sustainable Product Development

CERN Document Server

2013-01-01

During its life cycle, a product produces waste that is over 20 times its weight. As such it is critical to develop products that are sustainable. Currently product development processes lack high quality methods and tools that are empirically validated to support development of sustainable products. This book is a compilation of over forty cutting edge international research papers from the 22nd CIRP International Design Conference, written by eminent researchers from 15 countries, on engineering design process, methods and tools, broadly for supporting sustainable product development.   A variety of new insights into the product development process, as well as a host of methods and tools that are at the cutting edge of design research are discussed and explained covering a range of diverse topics. The areas covered include: ·Sustainable design and manufacturing, ·Design synthesis and creativity, ·Global product development and product life cycle management, ·Design for X (safety, reliability, manufactu...

How does Clubs' Organizational Design Affect Competition Among Clubs?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Prüfer, J.; Walz, U.

2007-01-01

We analyze competition among clubs in which the status of club members is the crucial added value accruing to fellow club members through social interaction within the club (e.g. in country clubs, academic faculties, or internet communities). In the course of competition for new members, clubs trade

How Does Clubs' Organizational Design Affect Competition Among Clubs?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Prüfer, J.; Walz, U.

2007-01-01

We analyze competition among clubs in which the status of club members is the crucial added value accruing to fellow club members through social interaction within the club (e.g. in country clubs, academic faculties, or internet communities). In the course of competition for new members, clubs trade

Evaluation of the influence of dominance rules for the assembly line design problem under consideration of product design alternatives

Science.gov (United States)

Oesterle, Jonathan; Lionel, Amodeo

2018-06-01

The current competitive situation increases the importance of realistically estimating product costs during the early phases of product and assembly line planning projects. In this article, several multi-objective algorithms using difference dominance rules are proposed to solve the problem associated with the selection of the most effective combination of product and assembly lines. The list of developed algorithms includes variants of ant colony algorithms, evolutionary algorithms and imperialist competitive algorithms. The performance of each algorithm and dominance rule is analysed by five multi-objective quality indicators and fifty problem instances. The algorithms and dominance rules are ranked using a non-parametric statistical test.

Intensity of competition in the market of greenhouse vegetables

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Oleg Ivanovich Botkin

2012-03-01

Full Text Available This paper reviews the competitive environment of the market greenhouse vegetables. Revealed specific features of the industry, determining the level of intensity of competition in the market greenhouse vegetables. Classified factors internal and external environment, identify indicators that affect the state of the market. The factors that determine the intensity of competition in the market greenhouse vegetables.The main competitors on the Russian market of greenhouse production.Identified indicators of the intensity level of competition, in particular: the level of monopolization of the market greenhouse vegetables, the level of concentration of production in the industry, the generalized index of the intensity of the competitive environment.Shows a comparative analysis of competitors’ market greenhouse vegetables in Udmurtia.Revealed competitive advantages which can help local producers to reduce the pressure of competition and intra-industry to occupy a leading position in the Russian market of greenhouse vegetable production.The dynamics of economic performance of Russian producers. Ways of improving the competitiveness of enterprises for the production of greenhouse vegetables

LOOKING BEYOND COST LEADERSHIP AND DIFFERENTIATION IN THE QUEST FOR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cristian – Liviu Vele

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The current business environment, shaped by significant changes in the consumers’ behavior and, also, by a decrease in the demand for products and services, has influenced the way in which the companies are organized and managed, making the quest for sustainable competitive advantages top priority. The companies that will be able to provide customers with superior products and services will have the highest chances of survival. While it is true that times of economic crises causes a large number of companies to exit the market, it is also true that those who manage to adapt and gain sustainable competitive advantages will not only survive, but will be able to fill in the gaps left by their competitors and thus to increase their business. This article wishes to provide a theoretical perspective on the possible sources of sustainable competitive advantages, besides Michael Porter’s cost leadership and differentiation strategies. Following this, we will show how technological innovation, time, efficient use of the resources and designing the best organizational structure can be used as sources to gain sustainable competitive advantages.

Effects of UV-B radiation on microcystin production of a toxic strain of Microcystis aeruginosa and its competitiveness against a non-toxic strain

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yang, Zhen; Kong, Fanxiang; Shi, Xiaoli; Yu, Yang; Zhang, Min

2015-01-01

Highlights: • UV-B radiation showed higher inhibition to non-toxin producing than toxin-producing strains on growth and photosynthetic activity. • Both intracellular and extracellular MC contents decreased markedly under UV-B radiation. • Higher resistance to UV-B radiation helped toxin-producing M. aeruginosa to predominate in the competition. - Abstract: Microcystins (MCs) produced by toxic cyanobacteria pose a health hazard to humans and animals. Some environmental factors can alter the MC concentrations by affecting the abundance of toxin-producing strains in a cyanobacteria population and/or their toxin production. In this study, we designed a monoculture and competition experiment to investigate the impacts of UV-B radiation on MC production and the competition between toxin and non-toxin producing strains of Microcystis aeruginosa. UV-B radiation resulted in higher inhibition of the growth and photosynthetic activity of the non-toxin producing strain relative to that observed for the toxin-producing strain. Both intracellular and extracellular MC contents decreased markedly when the toxin-producing strain was exposed to UV-B radiation. In addition, a quantitative real-time PCR assay revealed that the ratio of toxin-producing M. aeruginosa under UV-B exposure was higher than that under PAR alone at an early stage of the experiment. However, its abundance under UV-B exposure was lower compared with the PAR alone treatment after day 12. Our study demonstrated that UV-B radiation has a great impact on the abundance of the toxin-producing strain in the Microcystis population and their toxin production, which suggests that the fluctuation of UV-B radiation affects the MC level of cyanobacteria blooms

Effects of UV-B radiation on microcystin production of a toxic strain of Microcystis aeruginosa and its competitiveness against a non-toxic strain

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yang, Zhen, E-mail: zhyang@niglas.ac.cn; Kong, Fanxiang, E-mail: fxkong@niglas.ac.cn; Shi, Xiaoli; Yu, Yang; Zhang, Min

2015-02-11

Highlights: • UV-B radiation showed higher inhibition to non-toxin producing than toxin-producing strains on growth and photosynthetic activity. • Both intracellular and extracellular MC contents decreased markedly under UV-B radiation. • Higher resistance to UV-B radiation helped toxin-producing M. aeruginosa to predominate in the competition. - Abstract: Microcystins (MCs) produced by toxic cyanobacteria pose a health hazard to humans and animals. Some environmental factors can alter the MC concentrations by affecting the abundance of toxin-producing strains in a cyanobacteria population and/or their toxin production. In this study, we designed a monoculture and competition experiment to investigate the impacts of UV-B radiation on MC production and the competition between toxin and non-toxin producing strains of Microcystis aeruginosa. UV-B radiation resulted in higher inhibition of the growth and photosynthetic activity of the non-toxin producing strain relative to that observed for the toxin-producing strain. Both intracellular and extracellular MC contents decreased markedly when the toxin-producing strain was exposed to UV-B radiation. In addition, a quantitative real-time PCR assay revealed that the ratio of toxin-producing M. aeruginosa under UV-B exposure was higher than that under PAR alone at an early stage of the experiment. However, its abundance under UV-B exposure was lower compared with the PAR alone treatment after day 12. Our study demonstrated that UV-B radiation has a great impact on the abundance of the toxin-producing strain in the Microcystis population and their toxin production, which suggests that the fluctuation of UV-B radiation affects the MC level of cyanobacteria blooms.

The Instrumentarium for Providing the Competitiveness of Exports of the Food Industry Products of Ukraine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tunitska Julia M.

2017-10-01

Full Text Available The article is aimed at analyzing the dynamics, structure, and problems of the innovation development of the food industry and substantiating the directions of its intensification as a factor in the development of a competitive exports of Ukrainian food products. The article carries out a detailed analysis of the dynamics and structure of the innovation activity of Ukrainian food industry in the period from 2007 to 2015, in particular the characteristics of its resource and innovation provision. The performance level of productive-economic activities of the economic entities, the destabilizing factors impeding the innovation development of the national food industry, and the nature of formation of its technological infrastructure have been determined. A set of measures has been proposed to accelerate the innovation development of the food industry at the meso- and macro levels. For further research, enhanced studies on substantiating the methodology for estimating and forecasting the competitiveness of the food industry at the international level would be prospective.

Cold War competition and food production in China, 1957-1962.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yixin

2009-01-01

This article examines how Mao's grand strategy for Cold War competition inflicted a catastrophic agricultural failure in China and victimized tens of millions of Chinese peasants. It argues that Khrushchev's 1957 boast about the Soviet Union surpassing the United States in key economic areas inspired Mao to launch an industrialization program that would push the People's Republic past Great Britain in some production categories within fifteen years. Beginning in 1958 Mao imposed unrealistic targets on Chinese grain production to extract funds from agriculture for rapid industrial growth. Maoists placed relentless pressure on communist cadres for ruthless implementation of the Great Leap Forward. Contrary to Maoist plans, China's grain output in 1959-1960 declined sharply from 1957 levels and rural per capita grain retention decreased dramatically. Throughout China, party cadres' mismanagement of agricultural production was responsible for the decline in grain output, and the communist state's excessive requisition of grain caused food shortages for the peasants. But the key factor determining the famine's uneven impact on the peasantry in the provinces was the degree to which provincial leaders genuinely and energetically embraced Maoist programs. This is illustrated by a close examination of the Great Leap famine in Anhui Province.

Linking Design, Marketing, and Innovation: Managing the Connection for Competitive Advantage

OpenAIRE

Dr. Yen Hsu

2012-01-01

Marketing should closely coordinate with product innovation. Not only will an effective connection of the marketing activity and design trigger product innovation in enterprises, it is a key factor to the product success in the market place. In practice, how to process product design so as to reach the goal of marketing during the innovation procedure? In the past, enterprises did have some concrete actions but empirical studies regarding the correlation model between marketing strategy and d...

Design and competitive advantage in technology-driven sectors : The role of usability and aesthetics in Dutch IT companies

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gemser, G.; Jacobs, D.; Ten Cate, R.

2006-01-01

This exploratory study examines the relationship between design and competitive advantage in a technology-driven sector. The sector chosen as a research setting is the Dutch information technology (IT) sector. The research on managerial perceptions of the benefits and costs of design focused on the

CONCEPTUAL PRODUCT DESIGN IN VIRTUAL PROTOTYPING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Debeleac Carmen

2009-07-01

Full Text Available A conceptual model of the industrial design process for isolation against vibrations is proposed and described. This model can be used to design products subject to functional, manufacturing, ergonomic, aesthetic constraints. In this paper, the main stages of the model, such as component organization, conception shape, product detailing and graphical design are discussed. The work has confirmed the validity of proposed model for rapid generation of aesthetic preliminary product designs using the virtual prototyping technique, by one of its main component that is conceptual product design.

Product line design

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Anderson, S. P.; Celik, Levent

2015-01-01

Roč. 157, May (2015), s. 517-526 ISSN 0022-0531 R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA15-22540S Institutional support: PRVOUK-P23 Keywords : product line design * product differentiation * second-degree price discrimination Subject RIV: AH - Economics Impact factor: 1.097, year: 2015

Production, Competition Indices, and Nutritive Values of Setaria splendida, Centrosema pubescens, and Clitoria ternatea in Mixed Cropping Systems in Peatland

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Ali

2013-12-01

Full Text Available This research was conducted to evaluate production, different competition indices and nutritive value of Setaria splendida, Centrosema pubescens, and Clitoria ternatea in monoculture and mix cropping system on peat soil land. The experiment was set up in a randomized complete block design with five treatments and three replications. The five treatments were: S. splendida sole cropping (SS, C. pubescens sole cropping (CP, C. ternatea sole cropping (CT, S. splendida and C. pubescens mix cropping (SS/CP and S. splendida/C. ternatea mix cropping (SS/CT. The DM yield of S. splendida in mixed cropping with C. pubescens increased 43.4% and in mix cropping with C. ternatea increased 15.7% compared to sole S. splendida. The value of land equivalent ratio of SS/CP (LERSS/CP was >1. The LERSS/CT value was 1. The competition ratio (CR values of S. splendida in both mix cropping were >1. The agressivity (A values of S. splendida in both mix cropping were positive. The crude protein, NDF and ADF content of forage were not affected by mix cropping system. In conclusion, mix cropping in peatland do not affect productivity and nutritive value of S. splendida, C. pubescens, and C. ternatea. S. splendida is more effective in exploiting environmental resources when intercropped with C. pubescens compared to C. ternatea on peatland.

Customer Focused Product Design Using Integrated Model of Target Costing, Quality Function Deployment and Value Engineering

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hossein Rezaei Dolatabadi

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Target costing by integrating customer requirements, technical attributes and cost information into the product design phase and eliminating the non-value added functions, plays a vital role in different phases of the product life cycle. Quality Function Deployment (QFD and Value Engineering (VE are two techniques which can be used for applying target costing, successfully. The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated model of target costing, QFD and VE to explore the role of target costing in managing product costs while promoting quality specifications meeting customers’ needs. F indings indicate that the integration of target costing, QFD and VE is an essential technique in managing the costs of production process. Findings also imply that integration of the three techniques provides a competitive cost advantage to companies.

Product System Design – to Household Massage Design as An Example

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wang Huabin

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Explain what is the system design and the applications of System design in the product design process. Using The whole idea and systems design methods to analyze the design of household hand massage，Use a chart image to explain that Household hand massage products in the influence of user and the environment, the influence of large system environment for the product. The use of components of the system to anatomy product design. Each system components has a link between and mutual correlation.

Designing Product Families

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Per Erik Elgård; Miller, Thomas Dedenroth

1998-01-01

Manufacturing companies that operate with products aimed at different market segments and applications are experiencing an increasing demand from customers who expect products to be tailored to their exact needs rather than accepting general products based on average customer needs. This trend ha......: Variety, Design Principles, and Product Maturity.......Manufacturing companies that operate with products aimed at different market segments and applications are experiencing an increasing demand from customers who expect products to be tailored to their exact needs rather than accepting general products based on average customer needs. This trend has...... led to a new business paradigm, "mass customization", where companies strive to provide highly customized products while still maintaining the efficiency of the classical mass production enterprise. One of the key factors in mass customization has been efficient use of product platforms...

Firms’ behavior in conditions of imperfect competitive environments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ján Kantor

2007-12-01

Full Text Available This article deals with the analysis of market structure on the imperfect competitive market, measuring market power, its effect on the price of products and reasons for origin of imperfect competition at the market. Described are the market conditions issues and possibilities of their manufacturing influence on the market price with graphical expressions. Prices are higher and capacity of production is lower. It characterizes monopoly, oligopoly, and monopolistic competition. With its content it expresses, that imperfect competitive environment differs from perfect competition environment disparity of demand curve and in the market economics it has a more frequent application.

Costing and competition.

Science.gov (United States)

Bates, K; Brignall, S

1994-01-01

Working for patients established a new system of contracts between providers and purchasers of healthcare, with prices based on full costs, avoiding cross-subsidization. The new regime necessitates greatly improved costing systems, to improve the efficiency of service provision by creating price competition between providers. Ken Bates and Stan Brignall argue that non-price competition also occurs, with providers 'differentiating' on quality of service/product, flexibility or innovation.

The analysis of export commodity competitiveness in Central Java Province at period 2011-2015

Science.gov (United States)

Elysi, M. G.; Darsono; Riptanti, E. W.

2018-03-01

This study aims to determine the competitiveness of furniture export in Central Java Province Indonesia in terms of comparative and competitive advantages and to formulate the strategies to enhance the competitiveness of furniture export in Central Java Province. Descriptive analytic method was used for this research. Data used in this research are primary and secondary data. Data were analyzed using RCA (Revealed Comparative Advantage), TSI (Trade Specialization Index) and SOAR (Strength, Opportunity, Aspiration, Result). The results showed that furniture commodity in Central Java Province had strong comparative competitiveness with the value of RCA>1 and had strong competitiveness with positive index values in the range of 0 to 1. Based on SOAR analysis, strategy measures can be formulated, namely maintaining the existing and expanding targeted markets, improving product designs (innovations) and improving raw materials efficiency.

Product Differentiation and Brand Competition in the Italian Breakfast Cereal Market: a Distance Metric Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paolo Sckokai

2013-03-01

Full Text Available This article employs a nation-wide sample of supermarket scanner data to study product and brand competition in the Italian breakfast cereal market. A modified Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS, that includes Distance Metrics (DMs as proposed by Pinkse, Slade and Brett (2002, is estimated to study demand responses, substitution patterns, own-price and cross-price elasticities. Estimation results provide evidence of some degree of brand loyalty, while consumers do not seem loyal to the product type. Elasticity estimates point out the presence of patterns of substitution within products sharing the same brand and similar nutritional characteristics.

New design concepts for energy-conserving buildings. Results of a national competition among students in schools of architecture

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

None

1982-01-01

The National Student Competition in Energy Conscious Design held among professional schools of architecture in 1976 is documented. Fifty-five schools participated, submitting 115 entries; twelve were chosen as finalists. Details are presented on the twelve winning designs and excerpts from the remaining 103 entries are published. (MCW)

Innovations for competitiveness: European views on "better-faster-cheaper"

Science.gov (United States)

Atzei, A.; Groepper, P.; Novara, M.; Pseiner, K.

1999-09-01

The paper elaborates on " lessons learned" from two recent ESA workshops, one focussing on the role of Innovation in the competitiveness of the space sector and the second on technology and engineering aspects conducive to better, faster and cheaper space programmes. The paper focuses primarily on four major aspects, namely: a) the adaptations of industrial and public organisations to the global market needs; b) the understanding of the bottleneck factors limiting competitiveness; c) the trends toward new system architectures and new engineering and production methods; d) the understanding of the role of new technology in the future applications. Under the pressure of market forces and the influence of many global and regional players, applications of space systems and technology are becoming more and more competitive. It is well recognised that without major effort for innovation in industrial practices, organisations, R&D, marketing and financial approaches the European space sector will stagnate and loose its competence as well as its competitiveness. It is also recognised that a programme run according to the "better, faster, cheaper" philosophy relies on much closer integration of system design, development and verification, and draws heavily on a robust and comprehensive programme of technology development, which must run in parallel and off-line with respect to flight programmes. A company's innovation capabilities will determine its future competitive advantage (in time, cost, performance or value) and overall growth potential. Innovation must be a process that can be counted on to provide repetitive, sustainable, long-term performance improvements. As such, it needs not depend on great breakthroughs in technology and concepts (which are accidental and rare). Rather, it could be based on bold evolution through the establishment of know-how, application of best practices, process effectiveness and high standards, performance measurement, and attention to

Feasibility and Competitiveness of the Further Nuclear Energy Production in Lithuania

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gylys, S.; Ziedelis, S.; Klevas, V.

2006-01-01

The newest results gained during analysis of perspectives and technical - economical conditions of nuclear energy usage continuation in Lithuania are presented. After the compulsory premature closure of Ignalina NPP the negative power balance and the shortage of power generating capacity can emerge in the energy sector of Lithuania. This problem can arise already in 2010. Depending on rate of growth of economy the extent of shortage of power generating capacity can range from -50 MW to -583 MW with evident trend for further growing. The positive power balance could be restored if new nuclear power plant (NPP) or new combined cycle gas turbine power plants (CCGT PP) are erected. Feasibility and competitiveness of the new NPP and CCGT PP are compared, analysed and evaluated. Analysis is performed taking into account volume of investments for construction, level of discount rate, forecast of changes of the price of primary energy sources, possible loading level of a new power plant. At the case of low plant loading level (7000 hours per year) the electricity production costs are almost the same for NPP and for CCGT PP. However, increasing the plant's loading level up to 8000 hours per year changes the ratio of electricity production costs to positive for NPP. Comparison of expenses for fuel and total expenses shows unchallenged priority of NPP against CCGT PP. Estimating the forthcoming inevitable growth of price for natural gas, economic advantage of nuclear energy production seems to be obvious. The future energy balance for Baltic states, NORDEL countries, Germany and Russia is also analysed. Deficit of electricity is foreseen in Baltic states and NORDEL countries already after 2007, in Russia - after 2010. Even Central and South European countries (especially those, which are planning to cancel usage of nuclear energy) are forecasting shortage of electricity in 2015 - 2020 years. Such situation in European energy market could be treated as additional argument for

Dupont Analysis of An Information Technology Enabled Competitive Advantage

OpenAIRE

Nustini, Yuni

2009-01-01

The transformation of business caused by e-business and e-commerce applications of the internet and related technologies demonstrates that information systems and information technologies are essential ingredients for business survival and success. The most often cited benefit of IT are integrating business process, increasing efficiency, sales, productivity, and competitiveness. This study is designed for determining where managers considering investment in information technology (IT) projec...

Dupont Analysis of an Information Technology Enabled Competitive Advantage

OpenAIRE

Nustini, Yuni

2003-01-01

The transformation of business caused by e-business and e-commerce applications of the internet and related technologies demonstrates that information systems and information technologies are essential ingredients for business survival and success. The most often cited benefit of IT are integrating business process, increasing efficiency, sales, productivity, and competitiveness. This study is designed for determining where managers considering investment in information technology (IT) projec...

Land use competition for production of food and liquid biofuels. An analysis of the arguments in the current debate

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rathmann, Regis; Szklo, Alexandre; Schaeffer, Roberto [Energy Planning Program, Graduate School of Engineering, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Centro de Tecnologia, Bloco C, Sala 211, Cidade Universitaria, Ilha do Fundao, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 21941-972 (Brazil)

2010-01-15

This article analyses the current state of the debate over competition for land use, by means of an index of the main arguments in favor and against the production of liquid biofuels and the impacts on food production. Based on this index, an analytic framework is constructed to establish the causal relations indicated by the existing studies on this competition. We find that the emergence of agro-energy has altered the land use dynamic, albeit not yet significantly, with a shift of areas traditionally used to grow foods over to crops to produce biofuels. This has been contributing to raise food prices in the short run. However, it is probable that this is not the only factor determining this trend, nor will it last over the long run. The challenge is to conciliate the production of biofuels with the production of foods in sustainable form. (author)

COMPETITIVENESS OF UKRAINIAN FOOD ENTERPRISES. FEATURES OF ASSESSMENT.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. Stasiukova

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Competitiveness of a product is a main factor for its commercial success in the market with a largenumber of manufacturers of similar products. The article describes features of assessment and analysis offood enterprises products. It offers an evaluation algorithm and the ways of competitiveness improvement.

Assessing Competition in Philippine Markets

OpenAIRE

Aldaba, Rafaelita M.

2008-01-01

This paper reviews the current empirical literature on competition and market structure of Philippine industries. It shows that weak competition is one of the fundamental factors that explain limited growth, productivity, and employment in the economy. Philippine experience has shown that reforms such as trade liberalization, deregulation, and privatization, while necessary, are not sufficient to foster effective competition. The success of these reforms depends on the creation of a competiti...

Designing Visceral, Behavioural and Reflective Products

Science.gov (United States)

Aftab, Mersha; Rusli, Helen Agustin

2017-09-01

Designers and manufacturers often see consumption as the primary objective of a product - with implications such as discarded products, obsolete wastes, and ecological degradation. The paper aims to find the answer to the question, how emotional design can adapt the discarded and undesirable products into something valuable in a long term? This paper presents a framework combining Chapman's theory and Norman's theory on three levels of emotional design to highlight what long lasting connection with products entails. A design approach is presented combing the Wabi Sabi philosophy that promotes the celebration of decay and damage. This is used as one of the design principles for the experiments conducted on discarded products. Through constant user interaction before, during and after the experiments the evaluation of design as an agent of transformation is done. The user conducted the evaluation based on the Kansei elements of looks, sound, smell, and feel of the product. The experiments confirmed that a long-term value is only achieved through redesigning and reconstructing the perception of people towards products on a reflective level, rather than the visceral and behavioural elements of the product. The research found attachment to the visceral and behavioural elements of a product instead of an emotional one was causing users to discard products faster than required. The research indicated that many people, including designers and manufacturers, are unconsciously focusing on usability (behavioural level) and physical look (visceral level) of a product that are easily replaced, than on a meaningful way (reflective level) to create and maintain long-lasting emotions. The research concluded with a proposition towards digitization of products which could perhaps be an all round solution to make products more appropriate to human emotions. Digitization could give products the ability to capture, store and then communicate the stories, journey and memories back, in

Current and future competitiveness of bioenergy - Conceptions about competitiveness

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ling, E.; Lundgren, K.; Maartensson, Kjell

1998-01-01

It is important to visualize the conceptions that guide the behaviour of the actors within the energy system to be able to, in an efficient manner, increase the share of renewable energy in the energy mix. A major issue is to elucidate explicit and implicit presumptions within judgements on the competitiveness of bioenergy. This study focuses on how conceptions of bioenergy in the form of patterns of thinking, influence whether bioenergy can become competitive. The aim of the study is to develop a framework that will enable an increased understanding of the competitiveness of bioenergy today and in the future. The conceptions that the actors of the energy system uphold are studied and analysed. The conceptions of the actors are seen as key factors for the understanding of the function of the energy system and accordingly also for the understanding of the competitiveness of bioenergy. The over-all method perspective in the study is an actor approach. The actors' conceptions have been identified from interviews with 30 significant actors within the energy system. The material from the interviews has been synthesised into nine ideal types of actors. These nine 'model actors' are seen as representing the whole material and form the basis for the further analysis of the competitiveness of bioenergy as depending on patterns of thinking called logics. Three idealized logics are developed. The three logics developed in the study are production logic, market logic and socio-economic logic. (Upholders of the logics rank energy sources after production cost, profitability, and socio-economic legitimacy, respectively.) The logics co-exist within the different parts of the energy system. A single person can even uphold more than one logic. The three logics have however different weight in different organisations and in different parts of the energy system. Finally, the study proposes an enlarged description of the competitiveness of bioenergy in three dimensions: price

THE COMPETITIVENESS OF TEXTILE INDUSTRY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

PRUNEA ANA

2014-05-01

Full Text Available The role of this paper is to highlight the position of the European players in the textile market and the challenges to which they are subjected. In this paper are presented ways, taking the „diamond" model of M. Porter and are adapted to the situation of the textile market. These adaptations have outlined the main existing problems and the possible solutions that can ensure the long-term competitive advantage. Gaining a competitive advantage based on innovation, the development of production and outsourcing strategies using the "diamond" model of M. Porter, we can say that is one of the viable solutions for gaining competitive advantages necessary for proper European companies to face competition from countries outside Europe. As developing countries do not meet certain environmental standards or norms of European law, but in terms of product innovation and development of new materials, they do not have the necessity for technology. We conducted an analysis of the factors that play a key role in the production of textiles, representing how they are used in the favor of European companies such investments to be supplemented can be found in how these factors act on the total costs.

Examining the role of export competitive advantages on export performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yeganeh Alimohammadi

2014-04-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates the role of export competitive advantage on export performance in food industry. The proposed study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among 280 randomly selected experts in food industry and Cronbach alpha has been calculated as 0.827. The study has applied factor analysis to find important factors influencing export performance. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity have been performed to validate the results and they both validated the questionnaire. The results of the survey have determined six effective groups including product development, e-commerce, marketing planning, organizational performance, competitiveness and supply chain management.

Data-driven battery product development: Turn battery performance into a competitive advantage.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sholklapper, Tal [Voltaiq, Inc.

2016-04-19

Poor battery performance is a primary source of user dissatisfaction across a broad range of applications, and is a key bottleneck hindering the growth of mobile technology, wearables, electric vehicles, and grid energy storage. Engineering battery systems is difficult, requiring extensive testing for vendor selection, BMS programming, and application-specific lifetime testing. This work also generates huge quantities of data. This presentation will explain how to leverage this data to help ship quality products faster using fewer resources while ensuring safety and reliability in the field, ultimately turning battery performance into a competitive advantage.

Novel ergonomic postural assessment method (NERPA) using product-process computer aided engineering for ergonomic workplace design.

Science.gov (United States)

Sanchez-Lite, Alberto; Garcia, Manuel; Domingo, Rosario; Angel Sebastian, Miguel

2013-01-01

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) that result from poor ergonomic design are one of the occupational disorders of greatest concern in the industrial sector. A key advantage in the primary design phase is to focus on a method of assessment that detects and evaluates the potential risks experienced by the operative when faced with these types of physical injuries. The method of assessment will improve the process design identifying potential ergonomic improvements from various design alternatives or activities undertaken as part of the cycle of continuous improvement throughout the differing phases of the product life cycle. This paper presents a novel postural assessment method (NERPA) fit for product-process design, which was developed with the help of a digital human model together with a 3D CAD tool, which is widely used in the aeronautic and automotive industries. The power of 3D visualization and the possibility of studying the actual assembly sequence in a virtual environment can allow the functional performance of the parts to be addressed. Such tools can also provide us with an ergonomic workstation design, together with a competitive advantage in the assembly process. The method developed was used in the design of six production lines, studying 240 manual assembly operations and improving 21 of them. This study demonstrated the proposed method's usefulness and found statistically significant differences in the evaluations of the proposed method and the widely used Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) method.

Improving the design of competitive bidding in Medicare Advantage.

Science.gov (United States)

Cawley, John H; Whitford, Andrew B

2007-04-01

In 2003, Congress passed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, which required that in 2006 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) implement a system of competitive bids to set payments for the Medicare Advantage program. Managed care plans now bid for the right to enroll Medicare beneficiaries. Data from the first year of bidding suggest that imperfect competition is limiting the success of the bidding system. This article offers suggestions to improve this system based on findings from auction theory and previous government-run auctions. In particular, CMS can benefit by adjusting its system of competitive bids in four ways: credibly committing to regulations governing bidding; limiting the scope for collusion, entry deterrence, and predatory behavior among bidders; adjusting how benchmark reimbursement rates are set; and accounting for asymmetric information among bidders.

Improving designer productivity. [artificial intelligence

Science.gov (United States)

Hill, Gary C.

1992-01-01

Designer and design team productivity improves with skill, experience, and the tools available. The design process involves numerous trials and errors, analyses, refinements, and addition of details. Computerized tools have greatly speeded the analysis, and now new theories and methods, emerging under the label Artificial Intelligence (AI), are being used to automate skill and experience. These tools improve designer productivity by capturing experience, emulating recognized skillful designers, and making the essence of complex programs easier to grasp. This paper outlines the aircraft design process in today's technology and business climate, presenting some of the challenges ahead and some of the promising AI methods for meeting these challenges.

Socio-Cultural Factors and International Competitiveness

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Madara Apsalone

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Socio-cultural factors – shared values, norms and attitudes are significant, but less acknowledged sources of international competitiveness. Previous studies have found socio-cultural factors positively affecting various aspects of international competitiveness – entrepreneurship, innovation, productivity and international cooperation. These factors are more sustainable and less affected by external environment changes in comparison with the traditional factors. Socio-cultural factors provide an opportunity to develop competitiveness strategies based on unique advantages. This research aims to explore the impact of socio-cultural factors on international competiveness in small, open economies. Analysing relationship between 400 socio-cultural indicators and competitiveness indicators such as productivity, economic development, business and government efficiency, innovation capacity and infrastructure in 37 countries, six socio-cultural factors have emerged: Collectivism and Hierarchy; Future, Cooperation and Performance Orientation, Self-expression, Monochronism and Rationality, Economic Orientation and Social structure. The first factor – Collectivism and Hierarchy – tends to reduce the international competitiveness; the other five affect it positively.

39 CFR 3.9 - Establishment of rates and classes of competitive products of general applicability.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 39 Postal Service 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Establishment of rates and classes of competitive products of general applicability. 3.9 Section 3.9 Postal Service UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE THE BOARD OF... demonstrating compliance with the standards of 39 U.S.C. 3633(a). (b) Pursuant to § 6.6(f) of these bylaws, the...

Product Life Design: Notes for course 41627

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

McAloone, Timothy Charles; Andreasen, Mogens Myrup

2003-01-01

- and ecological specifications, life cycle-oriented quality, whole life costs. - Product life systems, "the meeting", relational properties, the role of the human operator. - Modelling of the product and the product life cycle, computer modelling. - The score model, Integrated Product Development, Life Cycle...... Engineering, Concurrent Engineering. - The importance of the product concept, explicit life phase concepts. - Modelling of meetings, "universal virtues", simulation. - Product modelling, Product Data Management, life cycle databases, design history, documentation. - The structure and the content of the DFX......The course in product life design is designed to give an understanding of the phenomena of life cycle and product life thinking, the role of product design in fitting to product life systems and thus achieving sound product life perspectives. The course aims at developing an ability in the student...

MEASURING COMPETITIVENESS OF ECONOMIC ENTITIES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

MUNGIU-PUPĂZAN MARIANA CLAUDIA

2013-12-01

Full Text Available A competitive structure of a national economy is influenced by the competitiveness of each of the actors made the national economy. In other words, to achieve competitive economic structure shall contribute all sectors of the national economy and hence all branches of the national economy, all organizations within each branch. Thus, the productive sectors of the economy contribute by increasing their competitiveness, GDP growth, added value, while other branches making a contribution through activity, increased quality of life (health, culture, social in training skilled labor (education to ensure effective functioning of the judiciary, protection of private property and citizen safety, lower crime rate (police, reducing the risk of political instability, increasing social cohesion, social disparities (richness and extreme poverty, and discrimination against women and minority groups. Human resources are probably the most important factor determining the competitiveness of an area. The ability of a country to move up the value chain is closely related to human resource capability. In understanding the competitive evaluation is important to assess not only in terms of education, improvement, skills and work experience, but also in terms of other attributes, more difficult to measure, as entrepreneurial relationships, creativity and risk tolerance. Secondly, we must accept that individual productivity is determined by external factors. Latent potential of the individual can develop when the person moves to another environment that provides better and more opportunities. Currently structural changes to remain competitive obtaining essential parameters of the Romanian economy to cope with competitive pressures of the single European market.

HOW COFFEE COMPANIES CAN STAY COMPETITIVE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

RALUCA DANIELA RIZEA

2014-04-01

Full Text Available The coffee shop industry in the U.S. includes 20,000 stores with combined annual revenue of about $11 billion. Major companies include Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, Caribou, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and Diedrich (Gloria Jean’s. The industry is highly concentrated at the top and fragmented at the bottom: the top 50 companies have over 70 percent of industry sales. Coffee is one of the world’s largest commodities. The top green coffee producing countries are Brazil, Colombia, and Vietnam. Many grower countries are small, poor developing nations that depend on coffee to sustain local economies. The U.S. is the world’s largest importer of green coffee beans and the largest consumer of coffee. The main objective of this study is to investigate the competitive strategies that U.S. coffee franchise companies adopt considering customers’ expectations and industry best practices. In order to achieve this objective, a best practice benchmarking analysis was performed taking into account the top U.S. coffee companies This analysis showed that product and service innovation are necessary in order to stay competitive in the market and attract new or to keep existing customers successfully. Many customers focus on the special atmosphere each store has and which is characterized by the location, music, interior design, seating or whether internet access is provided. Particularly for specialty coffee shops it is important not to sell only the beverage but the whole experience. Coffee shops have to establish a unique image that prevents customers from buying products from another shop or use home-brewing systems which are also on the rise in American households. In addressing the increased level of competition, every company’s focus should be on differentiating from the rest of the market in every possible business segment (products, atmosphere, location, image etc..

Duopoly price competition on markets with agricultural products

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marie Prášilová

2011-01-01

Full Text Available A situation, in which two firms compete, is in the economic theory described by duopoly models. Market equilibrium on the duopoly market is formed in a reciprocal adjustment process of market prices and materialized market opportunities. The goal of the analysis is to find out whether the agricultural products market is significantly influenced by appearance of duopolies, what form they have and if they can fundamentally influence the price level of food. That food chain stores endeavour to mutually adapt food product prices is generally known; it is set especially by the inelastic demand for the mentioned goods on the side of consumers, i.e., by the need to demand basic food. Duopoly reactions to price competition in food chain stores are particularly strong in the case of commodities of milk and tomatoes, where the reactions and approximation of prices can be clearly seen. Based on statistical research it is obvious that the reactions are most reflected on sales of the food chain stores Billa and Albert. To identify specific reactions of price duopoly at retail chains the ANOVA statistical method was used. The firm’s duopoly behaviour as such on the food market need not be a subject for applying punishment from the antimonopoly bureau, if it does not have the cartel agreement character. An example can be the identical potato prices inquiry in the supermarkets of food chain stores.

Energy Production from Biogas: Competitiveness and Support Instruments in Latvia

Science.gov (United States)

Klāvs, G.; Kundziņa, A.; Kudrenickis, I.

2016-10-01

Use of renewable energy sources (RES) might be one of the key factors for the triple win-win: improving energy supply security, promoting local economic development, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The authors ex-post evaluate the impact of two main support instruments applied in 2010-2014 - the investment support (IS) and the feed-in tariff (FIT) - on the economic viability of small scale (up to 2MWel) biogas unit. The results indicate that the electricity production cost in biogas utility roughly corresponds to the historical FIT regarding electricity production using RES. However, if in addition to the FIT the IS is provided, the analysis shows that the practice of combining both the above-mentioned instruments is not optimal because too high total support (overcompensation) is provided for a biogas utility developer. In a long-term perspective, the latter gives wrong signals for investments in new technologies and also creates unequal competition in the RES electricity market. To provide optimal biogas utilisation, it is necessary to consider several options. Both on-site production of electricity and upgrading to biomethane for use in a low pressure gas distribution network are simulated by the cost estimation model. The authors' estimates show that upgrading for use in a gas distribution network should be particularly considered taking into account the already existing infrastructure and technologies. This option requires lower support compared to support for electricity production in small-scale biogas utilities.

Energy Production from Biogas: Competitiveness and Support Instruments in Latvia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Klāvs G.

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Use of renewable energy sources (RES might be one of the key factors for the triple win-win: improving energy supply security, promoting local economic development, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The authors ex-post evaluate the impact of two main support instruments applied in 2010-2014 – the investment support (IS and the feed-in tariff (FIT – on the economic viability of small scale (up to 2MWel biogas unit. The results indicate that the electricity production cost in biogas utility roughly corresponds to the historical FIT regarding electricity production using RES. However, if in addition to the FIT the IS is provided, the analysis shows that the practice of combining both the above-mentioned instruments is not optimal because too high total support (overcompensation is provided for a biogas utility developer. In a long-term perspective, the latter gives wrong signals for investments in new technologies and also creates unequal competition in the RES electricity market. To provide optimal biogas utilisation, it is necessary to consider several options. Both on-site production of electricity and upgrading to biomethane for use in a low pressure gas distribution network are simulated by the cost estimation model. The authors’ estimates show that upgrading for use in a gas distribution network should be particularly considered taking into account the already existing infrastructure and technologies. This option requires lower support compared to support for electricity production in small-scale biogas utilities.

NEW APPROACHES TO EXPORT COMPETITIVENESS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alina Petronela NEGREA

2015-04-01

Full Text Available The economic literature and the political discourse typically look at international competitiveness mainly by the means of export market shares. However, globalisation, production fragmentation and the growing importance of global value chains (GVCs increasingly challenge traditional approaches of export competitiveness and call for a more accurate and disaggregated level of analysis. Due to the growing fragmentation of production, a country exports now include a significant amount of imports of intermediate goods which are part of the export value. In this case, a simple analysis of the evolution of exports can distort the international competitive position of a country. The article suggests a new approach based on the value-added content of international trade measured by means of global value chain analysis.

Community Based Competitive Employment Preparation of Developmentally Disabled Persons: Factors Contributing to Success.

Science.gov (United States)

Stodden, Robert A.; Browder, Phyllis M.

The paper describes a demonstrative project designed to help 52 mentally retarded or otherwise developmentally disabled adults obtain and maintain competitive employment. The trainees were first evaluated in a situational assessment covering seven areas: (1) attendance and stamina, (2) independence, (3) productivity, (4) learning style, (5) work…

Green Power Marketing in Retail Competition: An Early Assessment

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wiser, R. (LBL); Fang, J.; Porter, K.; Houston, A. (NREL)

1999-02-26

Green power marketing-the business of selling electricity products or services based in part on their environmental values-is still in an early stage of development. This Topical Issues Brief presents a summary of early results with green power marketing under retail competition, covering both fully competitive markets and relevant direct access pilot programs. The brief provides an overview of green products that are or were offered, and discusses consumers' interest in these products. Critical issues that will impact the availability and success of green power products under retail competition are highlighted.

Green Power Marketing in Retail Competition: An Early Assessment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kevin Porter; Ryan Wiser

1999-01-01

Green power marketing-the business of selling electricity products or services based in part on their environmental values-is still in an early stage of development. This Topical Issues Brief presents a summary of early results with green power marketing under retail competition, covering both fully competitive markets and relevant direct access pilot programs. The brief provides an overview of green products that are or were offered, and discusses consumers' interest in these products. Critical issues that will impact the availability and success of green power products under retail competition are highlighted

Techno-Economic Comparison of Onshore and Offshore Underground Coal Gasification End-Product Competitiveness

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Natalie Christine Nakaten

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Underground Coal Gasification (UCG enables the utilisation of coal reserves that are currently not economically exploitable due to complex geological boundary conditions. Hereby, UCG produces a high-calorific synthesis gas that can be used for generation of electricity, fuels and chemical feedstock. The present study aims to identify economically competitive, site-specific end-use options for onshore and offshore produced UCG synthesis gas, taking into account the capture and storage (CCS and/or utilisation (CCU of resulting CO 2 . Modelling results show that boundary conditions that favour electricity, methanol and ammonia production expose low costs for air separation, high synthesis gas calorific values and H 2 /N 2 shares as well as low CO 2 portions of max. 10%. Hereby, a gasification agent ratio of more than 30% oxygen by volume is not favourable from economic and environmental viewpoints. Compared to the costs of an offshore platform with its technical equipment, offshore drilling costs are negligible. Thus, uncertainties related to parameters influenced by drilling costs are also negligible. In summary, techno-economic process modelling results reveal that scenarios with high CO 2 emissions are the most cost-intensive ones, offshore UCG-CCS/CCU costs are twice as high as the onshore ones, and yet all investigated scenarios except from offshore ammonia production are competitive on the European market.

Method for alignment of product and production concepts

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Rasmus; Kvist, Morten; Mortensen, Niels Henrik

2005-01-01

The right use of modular product architectures can help companies provide a great variety of customized products at a competitive price level, by reuse of knowledge, components, processes and utilization of economies of scale in many of the activities that are necessary to provide products...... for customers. Modular product architectures often serve as a basis for several products often referred to as product families. One or more product families may constitute a substantial amount of the total product portfolio of a company, and it is, therefore, of the greatest importance that concepts...... and solutions are evaluated thoroughly throughout the design phases because any design fault is likely to propagate to a large part of the business. Developing modular product architectures is therefore also the task of ensuring a fit between the products that can be made on the basis of the architecture...

COMPETITIVENESS - KEY ISSUES OF THE ROMANIAN ECONOMY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gabriela-Liliana, CIOBAN

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Based on the theory that competitiveness plays an increasingly powerful role in creating prosperity, wealth, a large number of economists, researchers, scientists, highlight a number of approaches aimed, on the one hand, on the analysis of competitiveness at national or regional level, and on the other hand, on the ability of local firms to achieve competitive products and to commercialize them in the extern markets. In this context we aim to analyze and develop strategies and methods to help identify competitive areas at a national level. This is necessary because in our opinion the competitiveness of a company and / or country is more than wealth itself; it means a systematic process of wealth creation, plus a social system in which most citizens have access to material wealth. We consider in this respect that a country cannot automatically be considered competitive only if it is rich in natural resources. In our view, a competitive country creates wealth through labor, talent and organization and thus it manages to have a productive and creative potential making it independent of material resources.

International design competition. Formula student Germany; Internationaler Konstruktionswettbewerb. Formula Student Germany

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Liebl, Johannes; Siebenpfeiffer, Wolfgang (eds.)

2011-11-15

Within the International Design Competition 2011 at the Hockenheimring (Federal Republic of Germany) the following contributions were presented: (1) Formula Student Germany - Experience the Future (Tim Hannig); (2) Live at the Hockenheimring 2011; (3) Cutaway Model of the FSC Winning Car - The GFR11c by the Global Formula Racing Team of the DHBW Ravensburg; (4) Formula Student Racecar with Selective Cylinder Deactivation (Alexander Titz); (5) Construction of a crankshaft for the RS11 (Stefan Buhl); (6) The Wheel Design of the ARG 11 (Megan Rotondo); (7) Cutaway Model of the FSE Winning Car - The DUT11 by the DUT Racing Team of the Delft University of Technology; (8) Formula Student Electric - E-Scrutineering (Ann-Christin Bartoelke); (9) Development of an E-motor for Formular Student Electric (Urs Leuthold); (10) The Battery Management System of the FHWT04e (Andreas Hagemeyer); (11) Overall Results 2011 at a Glance; (12) Show your Colours; (13) Formula Student Germany visiting China (Alia Pierce).

Perception of Aesthetics in Consumer Products

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Perez Mata, Marta; Ahmed-Kristensen, Saeema; Yanagisawa, Hideyoshi

2013-01-01

In today´s highly saturated consumer markets, competition among products is high. Emotional design, kansei engineering and aesthetics are tools increasingly used to make products stand out from their competitors. This study investigates how the desire to own a product is related to the perceptions...

Competition and power pooling in the electricity industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jasinski, P.; Yarrow, G.; Fusaro, P.

1995-01-01

Two contributions to the debate on power pooling and competition in the electricity supply industry are presented. In the first, the situation in England and Wales where power pooling was introduced shortly before privatization is analysed. Pooling has existed for many years in the USA but as an inter-generator arrangement designed to optimize production and costs. The British system sought in addition to establish a spot market in which bulk buyers as well as bulk suppliers could participate. There are however obvious weaknesses in the pool as a competitive market and it is argued that a combination of pooling arrangements and longer-term bilateral supply contracts are more likely to offer the prospect of workably competitive and efficient outcomes. The second contribution discusses how competitive markets will evolve in the USA under the new regime of less onerous regulation heralded by the Energy Policy Act if 1992 and the emergence of electricity trading markets which followed. In particular, the proposal by the California Public Utility commission favouring a mandatory Poolco is examined. Poolco would operate the transmission grid and dispatch generating plants while the utilities would retain ownership of transmission facilities and be required to supply the pool. This is seen as representing only partial deregulation and not to be consistent with moves to further competition and encourage free markets. (U.K.)

COMPETITIVENESS OF INDONESIAN TEA IN INTERNATIONAL MARKET

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jauhar Samudera

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Since 2000, Indonesian tea has experienced a lot of problems such as land use change of plantation, lower selling prices, and low productivity. The objectives of this study are to analyze the competitiveness of tea in Indonesia and formulate priority improvements that can support the increasing competitiveness of Indonesian tea. The methods used to analyze the competitiveness were the Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA and the Export Product Dynamics (EPD, and to formulate strategies to increase competitiveness, Importance Performance Analysis (IPA was applied. Based on RCA, the types of Indonesian tea which have strong competitiveness are HS 090 210 and HS 090240. The EPD analysis showed that only tea of HS 090210 is in the rising star position, while the HS 090220, HS 090230 and HS090240 tea types are on the retreat position. Based on IPA, sub-determinants which are priority to improve are in quadrant A (under act consisting of five sub-factors, namely the availability of human resources with the capbility of production management, marketing and possess an entrepreneurial spirit; availability and ease of access to capital; strengthening of the structure of Indonesian tea agribusiness; the government policies in improving domestic demand conditions and in encouraging the development of tea processing industry.Keywords: competitiveness, tea, RCA, EPD, IPA

Cooperative design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schmidt, Kjeld

1998-01-01

In the contemporary world, engineers and designers face huge challenges as they shift towards novel organizational concepts such as ‘concurrent engineering’ in order to manage increasing product diversity so as to satisfy customer demands while trying to accelerate the design process to deal...... they are facing. On one hand, designers need highly flexible ‘coordination mecha-nisms’ that can support horizontal coordination of large-scale distributed design projects, and on the other hand design organizations require versatile and ubiquitous infrastructures to be able to manage their ‘common informa...... with the competitive realities of a global market and decreasing product life cycles. In this environment, the coordination and integration of the myriads of interdependent and yet distributed and concurrent design activities becomes enormously complex. It thus seems as if CSCW technologies may be indispensable...

Profit-Sharing – A Tool for Improving Productivity, Profitability and Competitiveness of Firms?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fibirova Jana

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The importance of appropriate utilization of rewards for performance is still growing and therefore this type of rewards can be seen as a significant part of a total rewards package. Companies that are able to appropriately implement rewards for performance may gain competitive advantage over their competitors, but successful implementation requires a good knowledge of these rewards. The main aim of this paper is to contribute to the growth of this knowledge by identifying possible positive and negative impacts of profit-sharing on various areas that are important for the performance of a company, nevertheless, addressed are also macroeconomic consequences of profit-sharing. Furthermore, a comprehensive and up-to-date review of the relevant literature is provided, under-researched areas are identified and suggestions for further research are given. To accomplish these goals, we applied methods of bibliometric analysis to the articles indexed in ISI Web of Knowledge to identify the most important articles, authors and topics. According to our findings, the majority of studies report a neutral or positive impact of profit-sharing on productivity and profitability. This impact may be achieved by direct influence of profit-sharing on productivity of employees (due to the dependence of their pay on profit, but it seems that yet more important are various mediating mechanisms, especially effects on employment stability, absenteeism, quits and related issues, as well as effects on attitudes of employees and on relationships between employees. We argue that a well-designed profit-sharing plan is crucial for its success, but it is a relatively under-researched problem.

Green Product Development with Consumer Heterogeneity under Horizontal Competition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bing Xu

2018-06-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we explore the pricing and greenness issues of two competitive firms without and with consumer heterogeneity. We derive and compare the optimal solutions and profits employed by firms under different scenarios. Then, we identify the effects of consumer heterogeneity under different competition intensities. The analytical results reveal that if market competition is at a relatively low level, we find that: (i when the greenness sensitivity of consumers with no preference is sufficiently small, more consumers have high environmental awareness, and companies easily achieve their environmental goals as well as economic goals; (ii when the greenness sensitivity of consumers with no preference is at a medium level, as the fraction of consumers with high environmental awareness increases, and the firm might achieve economic goals at the cost of reducing environmental goals; and (iii when the greenness sensitivity of consumers with no preference is at a high level, the fraction of consumers with high environmental awareness increases, but firms might have more difficulty achieving their environmental and economic goals. On the other hand, if the market competition is at a relatively high level, the presence of consumer heterogeneity can help improve environmental goals, but make achievement of economic goals difficult.

THE MECHANISM FOR IMPLEMENTING THE STRATEGY OF COMPETITIVENESS INCREASE OF THE ORGANIZATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Николай Петрович ГРИНЧЕНКО

2017-03-01

Full Text Available The mechanism of the organizational competitiveness increase, which is employed to enhance the organizational structure, has been performed in the research. The principles ensuring the product competitiveness have been pointed out. The involvement of the strategic marketing service organizational structure which aims to optimize the information flows for the development of the managerial decisions has been proved.  The generalized structure of strategic marketing services focused on medium-sized and large enterprises has been proposed. The proposed strategic marketing service develops strategic standards for all production parameters on the first stage of organizational product life cycle. Employing the innovation management methods, it prepares the exclusive values for all production parameters to turn them into an organizational competitiveness according to the following scheme: exclusive value, competitive advantages of products, competitiveness of products and organization competitiveness. Strategic Marketing Service together with top managers performs: the strategic vision and organization mission development, the tree of long-term objectives development, the strategy of the organization competitiveness improvement development, projects formation, control, and implementation. The Strategic Marketing Service Management is based on the strategic management functions implementation while performing the strategy of organizational competitiveness increase. The mechanism structure of the strategy of organizational competitiveness increase that will effectively perform the strategic management decisions and convert the exclusive values into the organizational competitiveness has been proposed.

Designing a concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) system in adjunct with a silicon photovoltaic panel for a solar competition car

Science.gov (United States)

Arias-Rosales, Andrés.; Barrera-Velásquez, Jorge; Osorio-Gómez, Gilberto; Mejía-Gutiérrez, Ricardo

2014-06-01

Solar competition cars are a very interesting research laboratory for the development of new technologies heading to their further implementation in either commercial passenger vehicles or related applications. Besides, worldwide competitions allow the spreading of such ideas where the best and experienced teams bet on innovation and leading edge technologies, in order to develop more efficient vehicles. In these vehicles, some aspects generally make the difference such as aerodynamics, shape, weight, wheels and the main solar panels. Therefore, seeking to innovate in a competitive advantage, the first Colombian solar vehicle "Primavera", competitor at the World Solar Challenge (WSC)-2013, has implemented the usage of a Concentrating Photovoltaic (CPV) system as a complementary solar energy module to the common silicon photovoltaic panel. By harvesting sunlight with concentrating optical devices, CPVs are capable of maximizing the allowable photovoltaic area. However, the entire CPV system weight must be less harmful than the benefit of the extra electric energy generated, which in adjunct with added manufacture and design complexity, has intervened in the fact that CPVs had never been implemented in a solar car in such a scale as the one described in this work. Design considerations, the system development process and implementation are presented in this document considering both the restrictions of the context and the interaction of the CPV system with the solar car setup. The measured data evidences the advantage of using this complementary system during the competition and the potential this technology has for further developments.

Policy Design for Competitive Retail Electric Institutions: Artificial Intelligence Representations for a Common Property Resource Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Pandit, Nitin S.

The U.S. electricity industry is being restructured to increase competition. Although existing policies may lead to efficient wholesale institutions, designing policies for the retail level is more complex because of intricate interactions between individuals and quasi-monopolistic institutions. It is argued that Hirshman's ideas of "exit" and "voice" (Hirshman, 1970) provide powerful abstractions for design of retail institutions. While competition is a known mechanism of "exit," a novel design of the "voice" mechanism is demonstrated through an artificial intelligence (AI) based software process model. The process model of "voice" in retail institutions is designed within the economic context of electricity distribution -- a common property resource (CPR), characterized by technological uncertainty and path-dependency. First, it is argued that participant feedback (voice) has to be used effectively to manage the CPR. Further, it is noted that the decision process, of using participant feedback (voice) to incrementally manage uncertainty and path-dependencies, is non-monotonic because it requires the decision makers to often retract previously made assumptions and decisions. An AI based process model of "voice" is developed using an assumption-based truth maintenance system. The model can emulate the non-monotonic decision making process and therefore assist in decision support. Such a systematic framework is flexible, consistent, and easily reorganized as assumptions change. It can provide an effective, formal "voice" mechanism to the retail customers and improve institutional performance.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN THE ENTERPRISE PERFORMANCE

OpenAIRE

PRUNEA Ana Daniela

2014-01-01

Rapid changes in market characteristics and the technological innovations are common and faster challenges, resulting in products, processes and technologies. The competitive advantage is volatile, difficult to obtain and more difficult to maintain and strengthened with consumers who through their individual choices polarization confirms the recognition performance and award competitive advantages, thus causing the competitive ranking of companies present in a particular market. The competiti...

By-products by design

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Collins, Richard

2011-01-01

Full text: Some mining by-products that are currently stockpiled or disposed of could be put to use preventing nutrients from entering river systems, helping reduce the potential for algal blooms. A joint project between CSIRO and the Western Australia (WA) Department of Water investigated a range of spent materials from mining and industry to determine their ability to filter nutrients from natural waters or to treat wastewater. “The largely unexploited by-product materials we generate in Western Australia could be developed as 'designer' contaminant adsorbents,” said CSIRO project leader Dr Grant Douglas. The use of abundant, low-cost wastes generated from mineral processing, in particular, offers a potentially cost- effective and environmentally-friendly strategy for removing nutrients. “The productive use of the by-products also has the potential to reduce the environmental footprint of mining and mineral processing industries by lowering by-product stockpiles,” he said. But the key benefits are in water; not only improving the health of surface waters but, by facilitating reuse, also easing the competition for water resources in an increasingly climate constrained part of the country. Re-use of industrial by-products in WA is currently considered on a case-by-case basis rather than regulated according to established standards. The project aimed to inject some rigour by characterising for the first time the nutrient, trace element uptake and acid neutralising capacity of a range of low-cost by-products (see Fact File). It also underpinned the development of a draft protocol for screening similar by-products in the future. The comprehensive characterisation included identification and procurement, and basic characterisation of by-products included major and trace element geochemistry, mineralogy, radioactivity, geochemical modelling and leachate chemistry and toxicity. These inherent properties and suitability of by-products for potential environmental

[Competition and prices in the Mexican pharmaceutical market].

Science.gov (United States)

Molina-Salazar, Raúl E; González-Marín, Eloy; Carbajal-de Nova, Carolina

2008-01-01

The forms of market competition define prices. The pharmaceutical market contains submarkets with different levels of competition; on the one hand are the innovating products with patents, and on the other, generic products with or without trade names. Innovating medicines generally have monopolistic prices, but when the patents expire prices drop because of competition from therapeutic alternatives. The trade name makes it easier to maintain monopolistic prices. In Mexico, medicine prices in the private market are high--according to aggregated estimates and prices for specific medicines--which reflect the limitations of pharmaceutical market competition and the power of the trade name. The public segment enjoys competitive prices using the WHO strategy for essential medicines on the basis of the Essential List.

Market responses to HMOs: price competition or rivalry?

Science.gov (United States)

McLaughlin, C G

1988-01-01

Although competition for consumers is increasing in the health care sector, there is disagreement about whether it is resulting in cost containment, as its supporters have argued it would. In part this stems from a confusion between price competition, which under ideal circumstances leads to the production of services at the lowest possible cost, and nonprice competition--or rivalry--which under many circumstances will lead to increased costs. In this paper, I examine the evidence about the competitive response to the growing presence of health maintenance organizations in the health care marketplace. The available evidence suggests that providers are responding not with classical cost-containing price competition but, instead, with cost-increasing rivalry, characterized by increased expenditures to promote actual or perceived product differentiation.

Enhancing the economic competitiveness of the Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Paavola, M.

1996-01-01

The two 710 MWe BWRs at Olkiluoto in Finland have been running for the past ten years with a capacity factor of over 90%. The success of these reactors in being competitive with various forms of fossil fuel power production is attributed to a number of key factors. Of these, the most important is that the staff of the utility and contractors and suppliers personnel are well trained, committed and able to learn new things. Strict safety regulations contribute to competitiveness because the good practice required and the need to keep the plant in mint condition lead to fewer production interruptions and to lower operational costs in the long run. Continuous investment in updating the plant is necessary to maintain high productivity throughout its lifetime. A long-term operational plan coupled with carefully prepared maintenance outages and high quality workmanship also helps to ensure good performance. Better fuel designs and high quality have enabled the plant output to be increased while stabilising or reducing fuel costs. Money for waste management has been reserved since the start of plant operation so that economic production can be ensured during the latter part of the plant lifetime. (UK)

Competitividade da cadeia produtiva da madeira de eucalipto no Brasil Competitiveness of the Brazilian eucalyptus production chain

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Naisy Silva Soares

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Este trabalho teve como objetivo geral analisar a competitividade da cadeia produtiva da madeira de eucalipto no Brasil, comparando diferentes sistemas de produção, por meio da matriz de análise política (MAP. Pelos resultados, conclui-se que a lucratividade privada e social da produção e comercialização da madeira de eucalipto foi positiva e maior em áreas motomecanizáveis; os produtores brasileiros foram penalizados por políticas públicas adotadas para o setor; a produção em áreas motomecanizáveis apresentou-se mais competitiva e menos exposta aos efeitos negativos das políticas públicas; e os produtores nacionais tiveram seus lucros reduzidos.The present work aimed to analyze the competitiveness of the eucalyptus productive chain in Brazil, comparing different production systems, through a policy analysis matrix (PAM. Based on the results obtained, it was concluded that the private and social profitability of the production and commercialization of eucalyptus was positive and greater in flat areas; Brazilian producers were penalized by the public policies adopted for the sector; the production in flat areas was more competitive and less exposed to the negative effects of public policies; and national producers had decreased profits.

Design Compass

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Stokholm, Marianne Denise J.

2006-01-01

Design is moreover recognised as an important strategic tool in achieving competitive business´, products and services in a global market. As design becomes a more complex matter, due to a general increase in knowledge, requirements and internationalisation, more professions are involved....... As such it acts a managing tool for both leaders and participants in the design process. This paper builds on long term practical experiment with development and use of a simple tool to support management of complex design matters in diverse groups. Concerning education it has supported the development of new...

Design innovativeness and product sales' evolution

OpenAIRE

Rubera, Gaia

2015-01-01

In the last decade, design innovation has gained increasing prominence in the marketplace, with a growing number of firms innovating not only through technology but also through novel product forms (i.e., design). However, while the effect of technological innovation on product sales is a heavily studied topic, a defining theory of how design innovation influences product sales is still missing. This paper provides demand- and supply-side theories to formulate a set of coherent hypothes...

New Vistas in Chemical Product and Process Design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhang, Lei; Babi, Deenesh Kavi; Gani, Rafiqul

2016-01-01

Design of chemicals-based products is broadly classified into those that are process centered and those that are product centered. In this article, the designs of both classes of products are reviewed from a process systems point of view; developments related to the design of the chemical product......, its corresponding process, and its integration are highlighted. Although significant advances have been made in the development of systematic model-based techniques for process design (also for optimization, operation, and control), much work is needed to reach the same level for product design....... Timeline diagrams illustrating key contributions in product design, process design, and integrated product-process design are presented. The search for novel, innovative, and sustainable solutions must be matched by consideration of issues related to the multidisciplinary nature of problems, the lack...

Leadership vs. Management From Competitive Intelligence Perspective

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Valeriu Ivan

2015-05-01

Full Text Available This paper brings into attention a less studies topic: the analysis and intelligence productionspecificity – as competitive intelligence process stage – given that the beneficiary is practicing classic management or leadership. The contextualization of the issue imposed us to separate the two concepts from the current debates perspective regarding the relationship between management and leadership. We did this in respect of the competition and competitiveness. Although that report is not clearly and definitively established, we tried to identify the main characteristics and essential differences in the approach of the actionable information needs. The obtained results were correlated with the competitive intelligence cycle stages, in order to identify the approach similarities and differences for each stage. Subsequently, we suggested models of possible approaches in the information analysis and intelligence production activity in order for the resulted informational product to fulfil their role as decision support in competitiveness augmenting.

Novel Ergonomic Postural Assessment Method (NERPA) Using Product-Process Computer Aided Engineering for Ergonomic Workplace Design

Science.gov (United States)

Sanchez-Lite, Alberto; Garcia, Manuel; Domingo, Rosario; Angel Sebastian, Miguel

2013-01-01

Background Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) that result from poor ergonomic design are one of the occupational disorders of greatest concern in the industrial sector. A key advantage in the primary design phase is to focus on a method of assessment that detects and evaluates the potential risks experienced by the operative when faced with these types of physical injuries. The method of assessment will improve the process design identifying potential ergonomic improvements from various design alternatives or activities undertaken as part of the cycle of continuous improvement throughout the differing phases of the product life cycle. Methodology/Principal Findings This paper presents a novel postural assessment method (NERPA) fit for product-process design, which was developed with the help of a digital human model together with a 3D CAD tool, which is widely used in the aeronautic and automotive industries. The power of 3D visualization and the possibility of studying the actual assembly sequence in a virtual environment can allow the functional performance of the parts to be addressed. Such tools can also provide us with an ergonomic workstation design, together with a competitive advantage in the assembly process. Conclusions The method developed was used in the design of six production lines, studying 240 manual assembly operations and improving 21 of them. This study demonstrated the proposed method’s usefulness and found statistically significant differences in the evaluations of the proposed method and the widely used Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) method. PMID:23977340

COMPETITIVENESS FOR SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nelu Eugen POPESCU

2014-04-01

Full Text Available The current economic environment puts pressure on all national economies which struggle to improve their competitiveness and innovativeness in a sustainable way. This article aims to present the current state of the competitiveness by reviewing the main literature and worldwide researches, in order to provide a brief overview of the determinants that drive productivity and economic success at global and national level, taking into consideration the entrepreneurial activity for a country’s competitiveness and economic growth. The paper identifies the ways in which efficiency driven countries can improve their policies and get a better return on their investments, underlining a set of competitiveness enhancing policies (measures that can be implemented by public and private institutions in order to strengthen the economic fundamentals of the economies.

Capital Structure, Strategic Competition, and Governance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

T.T. Nguyen (Thuy Thu)

2008-01-01

textabstractThis thesis consists of four studies on the interactions of capital structure and product market competition, and on several aspects of governance, firm financing and growth. The first study investigates how competitive behavior and market uncertainty affect the capital structure of a

Analysis of the JSF Engine Competition

Science.gov (United States)

2012-09-01

development and planned production relative to the F136, the differences were not significant enough to saddle the F136 with a competitive disadvantage ... disadvantage of the F136 at the first competitive lot to be smaller than those calculated for earlier successful competition programs. Once we...SDD contracts by evaluating F135 and F136 schedule projections  Focused on Initial Flight Release ( IFR ) and Initial Service Release (ISR

The evolution of siderophore production as a competitive trait.

Science.gov (United States)

Niehus, Rene; Picot, Aurore; Oliveira, Nuno M; Mitri, Sara; Foster, Kevin R

2017-06-01

Microbes have the potential to be highly cooperative organisms. The archetype of microbial cooperation is often considered to be the secretion of siderophores, molecules scavenging iron, where cooperation is threatened by "cheater" genotypes that use siderophores without making them. Here, we show that this view neglects a key piece of biology: siderophores are imported by specific receptors that constrain their use by competing strains. We study the effect of this specificity in an ecoevolutionary model, in which we vary siderophore sharing among strains, and compare fully shared siderophores with private siderophores. We show that privatizing siderophores fundamentally alters their evolution. Rather than a canonical cooperative good, siderophores become a competitive trait used to pillage iron from other strains. We also study the physiological regulation of siderophores using in silico long-term evolution. Although shared siderophores evolve to be downregulated in the presence of a competitor, as expected for a cooperative trait, privatized siderophores evolve to be upregulated. We evaluate these predictions using published experimental work, which suggests that some siderophores are upregulated in response to competition akin to competitive traits like antibiotics. Although siderophores can act as a cooperative good for single genotypes, we argue that their role in competition is fundamental to understanding their biology. © 2017 The Author(s). Evolution © 2017 The Society for the Study of Evolution.

The 21st annual intelligent ground vehicle competition: robotists for the future

Science.gov (United States)

Theisen, Bernard L.

2013-12-01

The Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC) is one of four, unmanned systems, student competitions that were founded by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). The IGVC is a multidisciplinary exercise in product realization that challenges college engineering student teams to integrate advanced control theory, machine vision, vehicular electronics and mobile platform fundamentals to design and build an unmanned system. Teams from around the world focus on developing a suite of dual-use technologies to equip ground vehicles of the future with intelligent driving capabilities. Over the past 21 years, the competition has challenged undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. students with real world applications in intelligent transportation systems, the military and manufacturing automation. To date, teams from over 80 universities and colleges have participated. This paper describes some of the applications of the technologies required by this competition and discusses the educational benefits. The primary goal of the IGVC is to advance engineering education in intelligent vehicles and related technologies. The employment and professional networking opportunities created for students and industrial sponsors through a series of technical events over the fourday competition are highlighted. Finally, an assessment of the competition based on participation is presented.

Backbone cup – a structure design competition based on topology optimization and 3D printing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhu Ji-Hong

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This paper addresses a structure design competition based on topology optimization and 3D Printing, and proposes an experimental approach to efficiently and quickly measure the mechanical performance of the structures designed using topology optimization. Since the topology optimized structure designs are prone to be geometrically complex, it is extremely inconvenient to fabricate these designs with traditional machining. In this study, we not only fabricated the topology optimized structure designs using one kind of 3D Printing technology known as stereolithography (SLA, but also tested the mechanical performance of the produced prototype parts. The finite element method is used to analyze the structure responses, and the consistent results of the numerical simulations and structure experiments prove the validity of this new structure testing approach. This new approach will not only provide a rapid access to topology optimized structure designs verifying, but also cut the turnaround time of structure design significantly.

Innovations in Mechatronic Products and Mass Customization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Habib, Tufail; Jørgensen, Kaj Asbjørn; Nielsen, Kjeld

2011-01-01

as a product type and new inventions have resulted in drastic changes in design and development of mechatronic products. Conventional mechanical systems are enhanced by mechatronic systems. In this paper, the particular structure and properties of mechatronic products compared to conventional mechanical......Mass Customization (MC) has been recognized as a successful strategy in the design and development of products tailored to customer needs. Global competition demands new products with added functionalities, as in the case of mechatronic products. These products are becoming more and more important...

A Systematic Optimization Design Method for Complex Mechatronic Products Design and Development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jie Jiang

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Designing a complex mechatronic product involves multiple design variables, objectives, constraints, and evaluation criteria as well as their nonlinearly coupled relationships. The design space can be very big consisting of many functional design parameters, structural design parameters, and behavioral design (or running performances parameters. Given a big design space and inexplicit relations among them, how to design a product optimally in an optimization design process is a challenging research problem. In this paper, we propose a systematic optimization design method based on design space reduction and surrogate modelling techniques. This method firstly identifies key design parameters from a very big design space to reduce the design space, secondly uses the identified key design parameters to establish a system surrogate model based on data-driven modelling principles for optimization design, and thirdly utilizes the multiobjective optimization techniques to achieve an optimal design of a product in the reduced design space. This method has been tested with a high-speed train design. With comparison to others, the research results show that this method is practical and useful for optimally designing complex mechatronic products.

Value allocation to stakeholder employees and its effect on the competitiveness of the banking sector

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Isac de Freitas Brandão

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Purpose – This paper investigates the relationship between corporate social responsibility practices geared towards stakeholder employees and the competitiveness and productivity of Brazilian banks. Design/methodology/approach – We carried out two association statistical analyses between the proxies of competitiveness and the variables that indicated of internal social responsibility: the JonckheereTerpstra test and regression analysis with Feasible Generalized Least Squares (FGLS modeling. The sample is made up of 21 banks listed in BM&FBovespa over the 2010-2014 period. Findings – The survey shows that corporate social responsibility practices geared towards employees impact the financial performance of banks. Employees’ salaries positively affected financial performance,and the latter was negatively affected by the rate of outsourcing, both explained by greater employee productivity. Employee turnover and female participation in management and governance bodies are directly related to competitiveness indicators, in a negative and positive way, respectively, with no regard to employee productivity. Originality/value – Banks that offer better CSR practices to their employees present greater financial gains and increased employee productivity. There are specific items that have the potential to lead to a competitive status, adding value to businesses and employees. This research argues that managers should identify the CSR practices that add value to their companies and the benefits derived from value allocation to employees.

Competitive nuclear production on the nordic deregulated electricity market

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bohl, T.

2000-01-01

The Nordic electricity market has been partly deregulated since 1994. Today only Denmark follows the timetable recommended by the European Union, while Sweden, Norway and Finland are completely deregulated. As in most countries, the production of electricity is deregulated while the distribution is still a monopoly. This deregulation of the electricity market has created a new situation for plant life management. In order to be competitive on the market it is important to cut cost down a level when the nuclear power companies earn money again. All means to cut cost have to be used while still maintaining safety and the possibilities for operation over at least 40+ years. The possibilities to invest in modernization are limited to the absolutely necessary modifications. All investments must be very thoroughly questioned and the money can only be spent where most benefit is gained. This means new prerequisites for the absolute necessary long-strategic planning. New safety requirements from the authorities have to be discussed between the industry and the authority. The requirement cost must be compared to the benefit to safety. The authority is today requested to carry out such analyses and do so in most cases. Since the electricity market is international the requirements of the authorities must be harmonized on the whole market. The political threat against nuclear power is serious in many countries and it is important to continue working with public acceptance and lobbying. Especially in Sweden a lot of effort is spent on trying to change the taxation of nuclear power. In the near future increasing electricity demand will make the prices go up to a level when nuclear power companies earn money again. The very serious worries about climate change will also strengthen the competitiveness of nuclear power. (author)

Productive Agglomerations of Suppliers in the Automotive Industry: A Way to Maximize Competitiveness in Supply Chain Management.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patricia Guarnieri

2006-08-01

Full Text Available The objective of this paper is to identify how the automotive industries maximize the competitiveness in supply chain management through the constitution of entrepreneurial productive agglomerations of suppliers. For this purpose, an applied research was carried out, and the technical procedure utilized was bibliographic review based in some researches about Brazilian industrial condominiums. Thus, through the constitution of entrepreneurial agglomerations of suppliers in automotive industry it is possible to obtain logistic advantages in the transporting, stocking and warehousing activities. Besides, it is possible to maximize the supply chain management competitiveness through the establishment of trust and lasting relationships between the components of the whole chain.

The competitiveness of medicinal plants in Central Java Indonesia

Science.gov (United States)

Riptanti, E. W.; Qonita, R. A.; Fajarningsih, R. U.

2018-03-01

Indonesia hold a potential opportunity to be a pharmaceutical production country. In the other side, Indonesia facing agriculture product and market competition internationally and domestically. Improving competitiveness of specific products are aimed to hit the export market and also to be able to compete with import products in domestic market. Considering Indonesian market opportunity, therefore we perform this study aiming to examine the competitiveness of medicinal plants in Central Java area. The basic method applied in this study was descriptive and data sources are primary and secondary data. Data were analyzed using Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) and Trade Specialization Index (TSI) approaches. According to the study, we reveal that medicinal plant commodities in Central Java province have average score 8.52, indicating a strong comparative advantage in global markets, while the commodities appear to have average score of 0.97 at 0 to 1 range, representing a strong competitiveness. Those results are attributed to natural and environmental condition, as well as high demand of global market. This competitiveness will encourage traditional/modern medicinal industries in global market.

Competition in the health system: good news and bad news.

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, R H

1996-01-01

Competition among health plans, hospitals, and physicians has taken place in fifteen health care markets primarily on the basis of price and secondarily on network breadth and style of care. In most markets, competition resulted in lower (or slowly growing) premium prices. Within a type of plan product, competition was leading to similar prices and networks and was reducing product differentiation among health plans. Competition was not taking place on the basis of measured and reported quality of care, which limited the capacity of employers and enrollees to make informed health plan choices. As a result, there was a substantial gap between competition as envisioned by the architects of the managed competition model and competition as it is evolving today.

Towards a theory of product design specifications

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Claus Thorp; Andreasen, Mogens Myrup

2004-01-01

, which express the customers¿ need and perception of value. In this paper we will scrutinize this assumption. We outline the roles and tasks of the product design specification in order to identify the requirements on a theory of product design specifications and we identify existing theory elements....... In the design methodology literature we find guidelines and methods to compile a product design specification. The contributions are based on the common underlying assumption that it is meaningful and the only feasible approach to interpret the result of a need analysis into a set of technical specifications...... to build such a theory of product design specifications upon....

The Benefits of Franchising and Vertical Disintergration in Monopolistic Competition for Locationally Differentiated Products

OpenAIRE

Nicholas Economides

1993-01-01

A model of franchising competition in locationally differentiated products is constructed. A franchisor (upstream firm) collects a marginal transfer fee per unit of output sold by a franchisee (downstream firm). For example, the marginal transfer fee can be realized as a markup on variable inputs supplied by the franchisor. A franchisor also collects a lump-sum rent (commonly called "franchising fee") from each franchisee. Acting in the first stage, a franchisor can manipulate the degree of c...

CONCEPTUAL APPROACH OF COMPETITIVENESS AND INTERDEPENDENCE BETWEEN COMPETITION AND COMPETITIVENESS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tatiana GUTIUM

2017-11-01

Full Text Available This article is devoted to analysis of interdependence and correlation between competition and competitiveness, and competition’s consequences. The author analysed some authors’ visions on competitiveness, and common features between theories of competition and competitiveness. Using the synthetic indicator elaborated by author has been evaluated the competitiveness of domestic goods on the internal and external market. At the end of this article, the author has developed proposals to increase competitiveness.

New Vistas in Chemical Product and Process Design.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Lei; Babi, Deenesh K; Gani, Rafiqul

2016-06-07

Design of chemicals-based products is broadly classified into those that are process centered and those that are product centered. In this article, the designs of both classes of products are reviewed from a process systems point of view; developments related to the design of the chemical product, its corresponding process, and its integration are highlighted. Although significant advances have been made in the development of systematic model-based techniques for process design (also for optimization, operation, and control), much work is needed to reach the same level for product design. Timeline diagrams illustrating key contributions in product design, process design, and integrated product-process design are presented. The search for novel, innovative, and sustainable solutions must be matched by consideration of issues related to the multidisciplinary nature of problems, the lack of data needed for model development, solution strategies that incorporate multiscale options, and reliability versus predictive power. The need for an integrated model-experiment-based design approach is discussed together with benefits of employing a systematic computer-aided framework with built-in design templates.

Competition protection and Philip Kotler’s strategic recommendations

OpenAIRE

Fornalczyk, Anna

2011-01-01

P. Kotler’s recommendations of modern marketing tell managers how to achieve and maintain a dominant market position. Some of the recommended activities may, however, infringe European and Polish competition law. Objections are not raised by market success achieved as a result of high product quality, good customer care, high market shares, continuous product improvements, new product release, entry onto fast growing markets, and exceeding customer expectations. Competition law...

A product design framework for a circular economy

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Van den Berg, M.R.; Bakker, C.A.

2015-01-01

The paper provides a circular economy framework from a product design perspective with tools to aid product designers in applying circular product design in practice. Design research for circular economy has so far mainly been limited to referring to existing fields of research such as design for

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF COMPETITIVENESS FACTORS OF REGIONS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

O. V. Bakanach

2015-01-01

Full Text Available In the conditions of market economy the competition is the main driving force of economic growth. The idea about existence of the interregional competition isn't conventional and demands the proof. The phenomena allowing to state existence of the interregional competitive relations which are realized through system of prerequisites of political, economic, legal and technological character were for this purpose studied. Competitiveness – one of the most important characteristics of the territory which level directly influences formation of positive tendencies in development of subjects of the Russian Federation. Productive indicators of level of competitiveness of the region are: a gross regional product on one occupied in economy, production of a gross regional product for one ruble of fixed assets, a gross regional product for one ruble of investments, a share of balanced financial result in a gross regional product. On the basis of private indicators the Pattern method received an integrated indicator of level of competitiveness of region. The quantitative assessment of the factors determining distinctions of regions of the Russian Federation by competitiveness level allowed to define that the competitiveness variation in the territory of regions in the greatest measure depends on a variation of number of graduates of educational institutions with higher education on 1000 people and the specific weight of investments into the enterprises occupied with mining. Regional values of competitiveness are most elastic relatively the specific weight of own investments, that is increase of this indicator for 1 % causes increase of competitiveness for 0.9 %. The practical importance of this work is caused by possibility of application of results of research by federal and regional executive authorities as information representation when developing programs of increase of level of competitiveness of regions of the Russian Federation. Besides, it is

Marketing Aspect of Banking Competition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nieizviestna Olena V.

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The aim of the article is to study the need for application of marketing tools in order to improve competitiveness and competitive advantages of banks. By analyzing, systematizing and summarizing the scientific works of many scientists, the relationship between the competitiveness of the commercial bank and its share in the banking market has been discovered. In the process of studying the integration of the strategy of maximizing customer satisfaction in the practice of strategic competition in the banking market there was presented the author’s position regarding the need to take into account the structure of the customer loyalty, as it is it that helps to properly distribute the bank’s marketing efforts. It has been proved that the technology of bank marketing should not only include the systems of identifying customer needs, creation of new financial products, but also contribute to the formation of the multi-factor strategic model of competitive strategy of the bank competitive development. It has been proposed to use the SWOT-analysis in order to effectively manage the bank’s competitiveness.

Production and competition in the European electric sector. 4. report from the research project 'renewable energy in the community's internal market'

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kjersgaard, A.

1997-01-01

The aim is to elucidate the dynamic interactive pricing, competition and market mechanisms that are valid for the European electric power market. The perspective in the report is to analyse the vertical flow of substance and values of energy, the interaction of the actors, and the economic relations. The first link in the vertical chain is the energy raw materials supplies: the reserves and production of fossil and nuclear fuels and the relation to globalization of electricity production. The next link is the production of electricity: the production technologies used and their positioning, the importance of large trans-national utilities in relation to technological changes. The third link is the market and the changes of the market between production, transmission, distribution and consumption of electricity, and the consequences of these changes. Two horizontal regulating sectional views are analysed: The European Union regulations of the electric power sector and the Danish regulations of power supplies. Finally, production and competition of electric power from renewable energy sources, i.e. wind power, in a future European energy market is put into perspective. (LN) 134 refs

Trade Liberalization and the Degree of Competition in International Duopoly

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ashournia, Damoun; Hansen, Per Svejstrup; Hansen, Jonas Worm

2013-01-01

This paper analyzes how a reduction in trade costs influences the possibility for firms to engage in international cartels, and hence how trade liberalization affects the degree of competition. We consider a particular intra-industry trade model amended to allow for firms producing differentiated...... products. Our main finding is that trade liberalization may have an anti-competitive effect. We find that there is no unique relation between a reduction in trade costs and the degree of competition. When products are differentiated, a lowering of trade costs is pro-competitive if trade costs are initially...... high, but anti-competitive if trade costs initially are low. Hence, trade policy is not necessarily a substitute for competition policy...

Competitive strategies of late followers in auto industry: Case study Hyundai-Kia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rakita Branko

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This paper analyzes competitive strategy of late followers in auto industry in the case of Hyundai Kia Auto Group (HKAG. The global economic crisis has had a strong impact on the leaders in auto industry. HKAG took advantage of the crisis and increased sales and global market share at the expense of the leaders in the industry. We found that during the crisis the company achieved excellent results thanks to innovative marketing and sales strategies combined with top quality, product design and productivity. Growing competition and changes in business environment in the post-crisis period jeopardized the future growth of the company. The company reacted to the changes in business environment by shifting the focus to the luxury segment and green vehicles, by launching independent luxury brand Genesis and by scaling up investment in R&D.

Model based process-product design and analysis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gani, Rafiqul

This paper gives a perspective on modelling and the important role it has within product-process design and analysis. Different modelling issues related to development and application of systematic model-based solution approaches for product-process design is discussed and the need for a hybrid...... model-based framework is highlighted. This framework should be able to manage knowledge-data, models, and associated methods and tools integrated with design work-flows and data-flows for specific product-process design problems. In particular, the framework needs to manage models of different types......, forms and complexity, together with their associated parameters. An example of a model-based system for design of chemicals based formulated products is also given....

Improving the competitiveness of catering enterprises through innovative food

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

O. G. Stukalo

2017-01-01

Full Text Available To date, the problem of increase of competitiveness of the enterprise is becoming increasingly important. The market situation depends largely on the status and results of competition. The restaurant business today is developing rapidly. Restaurateurs understand how important it is to plan a strategy for long-term survival and adapt to a rapidly changing environment. In this article the concept of competitiveness, given the types of competition, also examines the factors influencing competitiveness of the enterprise. The proposed way to increase the competitiveness of catering enterprises through innovation in a particular product. The concept of innovation and describes its types. In our case, product innovation is the introduction of gluten-free foods in the menu of public catering enterprises. The need for diet and preventive products due to the overall health status of the population. In the country are progressing alimentary-dependent diseases, which arise from the imbalance of the diet. Conducted marketing study revealed the acute problem of import dependence for gluten-free products on the consumer market. Was investigated the technological aspects of replacement of wheat flour in which gluten, linseed and rice flour in the production of muffins functional orientation. The formula has been developed free cupcake “Flax-rice”, which is presented in the article. On the catering market is a small number of institutions have in their menu gluten-free options, and they are mainly concentrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In other Russian regions this niche is free. The article presents the way of distribution of products and the calculation of the basic indicators of efficiency of production of gluten-free cupcakes with a capacity.

Engineering Changes in Product Design - A Review

Science.gov (United States)

Karthik, K.; Janardhan Reddy, K., Dr

2016-09-01

Changes are fundamental to product development. Engineering changes are unavoidable and can arise at any phase of the product life cycle. The consideration of market requirements, customer/user feedbacks, manufacturing constraints, design innovations etc., turning them into viable products can be accomplished when product change is managed properly. In the early design cycle, informal changes are accepted. However, changes become formal when its complexity and cost increases, and as product matures. To maximize the market shares, manufacturers have to effectively and efficiently manage engineering changes by means of Configuration Control. The paper gives a broad overview about ‘Engineering Change Management’ (ECM) through configuration management and its implications in product design. The aim is to give an idea and understanding about the engineering changes in product design scenario to the new researchers. This paper elaborates the significant aspect of managing the engineering changes and the importance of ECM in a product life cycle.

Meat export competitiveness of European Union countries on global markets

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Štefan Bojnec

2014-10-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this research is to provide insight into the export competitiveness of meat products of the European Union (EU-27 member states on global markets. The revealed comparative advantage index is used to analyze the levels, compositions, and evolutions in patterns of development in the export competitiveness of meat products and their levels of stability at the product level. Except for some niche meat products, a larger number of the EU-27 member states have experienced comparative disadvantages on global markets over the analysed years of 2000 to 2011. The revealed comparative advantages on the global markets are the most robust for Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Denmark, Poland, Cyprus and Hungary. The revealed comparative advantage indices and their survival rates differ across the meat product groups. The heterogeneity in export competitiveness of the EU-27 member states suggests the importance of the differentiation of meat products in competitive export specialization on global markets.

COMPETITIVENESS IN SERVICES, DRIVING FORCE OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

RAMONA PÎRVU

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The competitiveness of a nation is ensured by the profitable activity of firms. They strengthen their position in the domestic and international markets through global strategies whose purpose is to increase productivity and maintain it at a high level. For this, the company must take into account both the internal economic environment which ensures operating conditions and the external economic environment’s development. The five competitive forces determine the industry’s profitability because they configure firms’ selling prices, production costs and investments needed to be competitive in the field. The threat of new competitors limits the potential profit since they involve new production units and the opportunities for market expansion. Economic strength of the buyers and bidders attracts profits to them. Rivalry among existing competitors erodes profits by increasing costs of competition (like advertising, selling expenses or those required for research and development. The presence of substitutive goods or services limits competitors’ prices through buyers’ transfer phenomena limiting and eroding market share of industry / firm in the total production output.

Analysis of the Competitive Potential of Bioethanol in Colombia: An approach from Michael Porter's 5 Competitive Forces

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ramirez Velasquez, Alejandro; Montoya R, Ivan Alonso; Montoya Restrepo, Alexandra

2012-01-01

The search for alternative energy production and consumption require a look into the industry of biofuels such as bioethanol as an alternative energy to overcome the disadvantages generated by the traditional methods of production and consumption, especially in the political, environmental and social issues and generate competitive advantages compared to other primary energy sources. In the present document, and from the Michael Porter five (5) Forces model is detailed an evaluation of the bioethanol industry as an alternative fuel and is described how attractive or competitive may become the industry today. To achieve this purpose, an evaluation of the competitive forces was proposed to a group of experts, using a Likert scale. Thus, it was evaluated the potential usefulness of the proposal.

Quality Response and Competitiveness of Fish Exports in Oman

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

L. Zaibet

2000-06-01

Full Text Available Received trade theory presumes an important role for increasing returns to scale, product-differentiation, and quality as determinants of trade flows. In a global world, exports can only be expanded if a nation is competitive in terms of cost and quality of traded products. Food safety and quality systems, such as HACCP or ISO 9000, are indirectly included in international agreements (GATT as facilitators of trade. These systems may lead to cost leadership and product improvement, which are key factors to higher competitiveness and sustained benefits in international markets. This paper estimates a modified Armington model that links product differentiation and safety programs to market shares, i.e. competitiveness.

Competition Experiments for Legume Infection Identify Burkholderia phymatum as a Highly Competitive β-Rhizobium

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martina Lardi

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Members of the genus Burkholderia (β-proteobacteria have only recently been shown to be able to establish a nitrogen-fixing symbiosis with several legumes, which is why they are also referred to as β-rhizobia. Therefore, very little is known about the competitiveness of these species to nodulate different legume host plants. In this study, we tested the competitiveness of several Burkholderia type strains (B. diazotrophica, B. mimosarum, B. phymatum, B. sabiae, B. symbiotica and B. tuberum to nodulate four legumes (Phaseolus vulgaris, Macroptilium atropurpureum, Vigna unguiculata and Mimosa pudica under our closely defined growth conditions. The assessment of nodule occupancy of these species on different legume host plants revealed that B. phymatum was the most competitive strain in the three papilionoid legumes (bean, cowpea and siratro, while B. mimosarum outcompeted the other strains in mimosa. The analysis of phenotypes known to play a role in nodulation competitiveness (motility, exopolysaccharide production and additional in vitro competition assays among β-rhizobial strains suggested that B. phymatum has the potential to be a very competitive legume symbiont.

Competitive pressures on income distribution in China

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pan, H.

1999-01-01

to explore what perfect competition would do to income distribution in China. The research analyzes this question by determining personal income distribution under hypothetical, perfectly competitive conditions, where factors are rewarded according to their marginal productivities. Comparison with

Green energy criteria and life cycle assessment in assessing environmental competitiveness of energy products

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maelkki, H.; Hongisto, M.; Turkulainen, T.; Kuisma, J.; Loikkanen, T.

1999-01-01

The liberalisation of energy markets has increased the need to enlarge the information base of fuel chains, to evaluate the environmental quality of energy products transparently and to communicate results in a credible way. The preparedness of energy purchasers, producers and sellers to support energy choices of their customers and to meet the information requirements of various stake holders can be strengthened. The environmental impacts related to energy products are turning into a significant dimension of competitiveness. Possibilities to promote market-driven environmental protection mechanisms and to construct incentives, which cover the whole energy production system exist and can be supported. Knowledge of environmental impacts of various energy products can be increased by means of several supplementary instruments like eco-profiles, environmental labels and life cycle assessments of products. Life cycle assessment forms a systematic basis of information, which supports the environmental communications directed to various stake holders. In this study selected public LCA-studies concerning energy production have been compared, criteria of green energy have been charted and their outlook has been assessed. In addition the development of an LCA- based relative environmental performance indicator system, which supports various transparent comparisons, has been outlined. The mapping of methodological differences of published LCA-studies regarding various energy alternatives proves, that there is differences e.g. in allocation principles, system boundaries, and age of source information and in many other details. These discrepancies should be known, because they also affect the results. That is why the use of available LCA studies as a basis for comparative assertions may be problematic. The renewability of an energy source is a threshold requirement in eco-energy criteria formulated and introduced by Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian nature conservation

Quality of agricultural-food products as a factor of the Republic of ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Jane

2011-08-03

Aug 3, 2011 ... encourages manufacturers and processors of agricultural products to offer a ... AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION COMPETITIVENESS. Serbia has .... quality, modest design and packaging, products have uncertain sale in the ...

Mechatronics design principles for biotechnology product development.

Science.gov (United States)

Mandenius, Carl-Fredrik; Björkman, Mats

2010-05-01

Traditionally, biotechnology design has focused on the manufacture of chemicals and biologics. Still, a majority of biotechnology products that appear on the market today is the result of mechanical-electric (mechatronic) construction. For these, the biological components play decisive roles in the design solution; the biological entities are either integral parts of the design, or are transformed by the mechatronic system. This article explains how the development and production engineering design principles used for typical mechanical products can be adapted to the demands of biotechnology products, and how electronics, mechanics and biology can be integrated more successfully. We discuss three emerging areas of biotechnology in which mechatronic design principles can apply: stem cell manufacture, artificial organs, and bioreactors. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Planning the amount of construction work by modelling the industry competitive field

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Panteleeva Margarita

2017-01-01

Full Text Available The article gives the author’s interpretation of concepts such as the model of competitive field and competitive market conditions in the field, and shows how to quantify the competitive field provided adequate statistical base for the operation of enterprises in market competition. The authors offer a competitively construction company with a model of the competitive field, which gives the following definition: a model of a competitive field is a graph crossing function of the life cycle of concrete products construction companies. However, the model cannot afford to manage the process, it only helps to visualize the situation. To control you need to select a specific element of the model, which can be quantified. The authors make it through the competitive field, which is defined as a closed path created by the intersection of functions depending on the market price of the construction product by product positioning in the market of the time. For a quantitative analysis of the competitive field size must use the main economic-mathematical methods and types of statistical analysis of competition.

Competition for cores in remanufacturing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bulmus, Serra Caner; Zhu, Stuart X.; Teunter, Ruud

2014-01-01

We study competition between an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and an independently operating remanufacturer (IO). Different from the existing literature, the OEM and IO compete not only for selling their products but also for collecting returned products (cores) through their acquisition

Advancing the competitive future of nuclear power through partnerships

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pryor, Charles W.

2002-01-01

Full text: The emergence of competitive markets, coupled with significant environmental benefits, will create a period of tremendous opportunity and enhanced value for commercial nuclear power plants, both existing plants and those on the immediate horizon. The challenge for nuclear plant owners and operators is to reduce costs and improve performance in order to improve the plants net earnings stream and remain competitive with other forms of generation. In his remarks, Dr. Pryor will examine the excellent performance of nuclear plants worldwide and look at the significant value yet to be captured from existing plants. Continued capacity factor improvement driven primarily by shorter outages will help, but new business practices will be needed in the future to achieve competitive production costs of around 1cent/kwh at the bus bar. Dr. Pryor will explore innovative approaches to resource sharing and integration that already are paying dividends worldwide. Beyond this immediate need for greater cooperative efforts is the necessity of longer-range strategies implementing advanced technologies in new plant designs. Although energy demand and environmental benefits are driving renewed interest in nuclear power, the cost challenge for new plants remains significant. Dr. Pryor will discuss the cost challenge, new designs that are available to meet market demand, and the role of utility/supplier partnerships in current and future new plant projects. (author)

Enhancing product robustness in reliability-based design optimization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhuang, Xiaotian; Pan, Rong; Du, Xiaoping

2015-01-01

Different types of uncertainties need to be addressed in a product design optimization process. In this paper, the uncertainties in both product design variables and environmental noise variables are considered. The reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) is integrated with robust product design (RPD) to concurrently reduce the production cost and the long-term operation cost, including quality loss, in the process of product design. This problem leads to a multi-objective optimization with probabilistic constraints. In addition, the model uncertainties associated with a surrogate model that is derived from numerical computation methods, such as finite element analysis, is addressed. A hierarchical experimental design approach, augmented by a sequential sampling strategy, is proposed to construct the response surface of product performance function for finding optimal design solutions. The proposed method is demonstrated through an engineering example. - Highlights: • A unifying framework for integrating RBDO and RPD is proposed. • Implicit product performance function is considered. • The design problem is solved by sequential optimization and reliability assessment. • A sequential sampling technique is developed for improving design optimization. • The comparison with traditional RBDO is provided

Product design pattern based on big data-driven scenario

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Conggang Yu

2016-07-01

Full Text Available This article discusses about new product design patterns in the big data era, gives designer a new rational thinking way, and is a new way to understand the design of the product. Based on the key criteria of the product design process, category, element, and product are used to input the data, which comprises concrete data and abstract data as an enlargement of the criteria of product design process for the establishment of a big data-driven product design pattern’s model. Moreover, an experiment and a product design case are conducted to verify the feasibility of the new pattern. Ultimately, we will conclude that the data-driven product design has two patterns: one is the concrete data supporting the product design, namely “product–data–product” pattern, and the second is based on the value of the abstract data for product design, namely “data–product–data” pattern. Through the data, users are involving themselves in the design development process. Data and product form a huge network, and data plays a role of connection or node. So the essence of the design is to find a new connection based on element, and to find a new node based on category.

THE PRODUCT DESIGN PROCESS USING STYLISTIC SURFACES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arkadiusz Gita

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The increasing consumer requirements for the way what everyday use products look like, forces manufacturers to put more emphasis on product design. Constructors, apart from the functional aspects of the parts created, are forced to pay attention to the aesthetic aspects. Software for designing A-class surfaces is very helpful in this case. Extensive quality analysis modules facilitate the work and allow getting models with specific visual features. The authors present a design process of the product using stylistic surfaces based on the front panel of the moped casing. In addition, methods of analysis of the design surface and product technology are presented.

REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN THE COMPETITIVENESS OF FARMS IN POLAND

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anna Nowak

2016-09-01

Full Text Available The aim of the study is to assess the competitiveness of the regional diversity of farms in Poland. The study was conducted on a sample of commodity holdings participating in the Polish FADN in 16 voivodeships for the years 2010–2012. The study was based on indicators of competitiveness in terms of production factors and results. Research shows that labour resources and the eff ectiveness of their use are important aspects of regional diversity of competitiveness of farms. In regions where this factor is present in excess (Małopolskie, Świętokrzyskie, Mazowieckie, Łódzkie and Lubelskie voivodeships, labor productivity was relatively low. These regions are also characterized by lower production potential expressed by the agricultural area of an average farm. The greatest competitive advantages in terms of production profi tability were achieved by farms in Dolnośląskie voivodeship, where there were also some of the highest rates of profi tability of assets.

The 20th annual intelligent ground vehicle competition: building a generation of robotists

Science.gov (United States)

Theisen, Bernard L.; Kosinski, Andrew

2013-01-01

The Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC) is one of four, unmanned systems, student competitions that were founded by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). The IGVC is a multidisciplinary exercise in product realization that challenges college engineering student teams to integrate advanced control theory, machine vision, vehicular electronics and mobile platform fundamentals to design and build an unmanned system. Teams from around the world focus on developing a suite of dual-use technologies to equip ground vehicles of the future with intelligent driving capabilities. Over the past 20 years, the competition has challenged undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. students with real world applications in intelligent transportation systems, the military and manufacturing automation. To date, teams from over 80 universities and colleges have participated. This paper describes some of the applications of the technologies required by this competition and discusses the educational benefits. The primary goal of the IGVC is to advance engineering education in intelligent vehicles and related technologies. The employment and professional networking opportunities created for students and industrial sponsors through a series of technical events over the four-day competition are highlighted. Finally, an assessment of the competition based on participation is presented.

Current and future competitiveness of renewable energy carriers - Conceptions about competitiveness

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lundgren, K.

1998-01-01

The dissertation draws attention to the fact that in the world today 80% of the resources that are used are limited - non renewable energy carriers - and because of the long time between planning and doing (carrying out) within the energy sector, it is worthwhile from the long-term perspective to steer early on towards more sustainable solutions, such as renewable energy carriers. The State and the market have begun to adjust to concepts such as 'competitiveness', which can be viewed as containing both feasibility and legitimacy aspects - the state through different regulations and environmental taxes and environmental fees, and actors on the market that marginally produce/choose renewable energy carriers. The overlying methodology in the dissertation is an actor's viewpoint. This viewpoint brings forth, in turn, two different views, the analytical and the interpretative. The dissertation presents different stances within the energy sector: commercial production logic, commercial sustainability logic, and the socio-economic sustainability logic. By drawing one's attention to how one has the possibility to create (enact) his own reality, it is possible to highlight how organisations can increase their competitiveness by being conscious of their own view and others, logic, which in turn forms their views about competitiveness, which in turn determines which projects will materialize. Enterprises and individuals create a description of reality together through a dialectic process, i.e. by developing an environmental management system that contains elements of environmental auditing, environmental performance indicators, and environmental labelling, which 'reveal' the production conditions that lie behind the actualization of the final product. An example is the product, 'green' electricity, which, in spite of the fact that the final product - electricity - is identical irrespective of the production method, just at the moment can be sold at different prices according

Politics design of cleaner production in the electric sector for the energy scenarios of Colombia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Figueroa P, Woody; Smith Q, Ricardo

2001-01-01

Cleaner production (PML) in Colombia has been implemented as an agreement of wills between the companies of different productive sectors and the Colombian environment ministry. In the electric sector, the agreement of PML has been implemented with successes and difficulties. A concern that exists today among the companies of the electric sector involved in the agreement is about its long-term viability. Supported in the planning tool of scenarios, an analysis of the possible futures of PML in the Colombian electric sector, using the energy scenarios for Colombia (UPME, 2000), is made. PML policies are designed that will allow to analyze its long-term implementation. This work seeks to contribute in the long-term analysis about the evolution and tendencies of PML in the Colombian electric sector, according with the markets dynamics, trends and competitiveness that are gaining space in the international community

CAD/CAM: improved design quality, increased productivity

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Evans, D. E.; England, J.

1980-01-01

Maintaining productivity levels while assuring the quality of engineering products grows increasingly more difficult and costly for industries such as the energy industry which are heavily committed to product design. The man/machine interface made possible through the development of computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) technology can be applied to the design process as a tool for increased control to assure the quality of the final engineering product. The quality-control aspects of CAD/CAM technology are addressed in this presentation.

From product centered design to value centered design: understanding the value-system

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Randmaa, Merili; Howard, Thomas J.; Otto, T.

Product design has focused on different parameters through history- design for usability, design for manufacturing, design for assembly etc. Today, as the products get bundled with service, it is important to interconnect product, service and business model design to create synergy effect and offer...... more value for the customer for less eford. Value and understanding the value-system needs to be in the focus of business strategy. Value can be created, exchanged and perceived. It can be tangible (physical products, money) or intangible (information, experience, relationships, service). Creating...... value is usually a co-creation process, where customers, suppliers and manufacturers all have their part. This paper describes a paradigm shift towards value-based thinking and proposes a new methodology for understanding and analysing the value system....

Thermochemical production of liquid fuels from biomass: Thermo-economic modeling, process design and process integration analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tock, Laurence; Gassner, Martin; Marechal, Francois

2010-01-01

A detailed thermo-economic model combining thermodynamics with economic analysis and considering different technological alternatives for the thermochemical production of liquid fuels from lignocellulosic biomass is presented. Energetic and economic models for the production of Fischer-Tropsch fuel (FT), methanol (MeOH) and dimethyl ether (DME) by means of biomass drying with steam or flue gas, directly or indirectly heated fluidized bed or entrained flow gasification, hot or cold gas cleaning, fuel synthesis and upgrading are reviewed and developed. The process is integrated and the optimal utility system is computed. The competitiveness of the different process options is compared systematically with regard to energetic, economic and environmental considerations. At several examples, it is highlighted that process integration is a key element that allows for considerably increasing the performance by optimal utility integration and energy conversion. The performance computations of some exemplary technology scenarios of integrated plants yield overall energy efficiencies of 59.8% (crude FT-fuel), 52.5% (MeOH) and 53.5% (DME), and production costs of 89, 128 and 113 Euro MWh -1 on fuel basis. The applied process design approach allows to evaluate the economic competitiveness compared to fossil fuels, to study the influence of the biomass and electricity price and to project for different plant capacities. Process integration reveals in particular potential energy savings and waste heat valorization. Based on this work, the most promising options for the polygeneration of fuel, power and heat will be determined in a future thermo-economic optimization.

Micro Products - Product Development and Design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Hans Nørgaard

2003-01-01

Innovation within the field of micro and nano technology is to a great extent characterized by cross-disciplinary skills. The traditional disciplines like e.g. physics, biology, medicine and engineering are united in a common development process that can only take place in the presence of multi......-disciplinary competences. One example is sensors for chemical analysis of fluids, where chemistry, biology and flow mechanics all influence the design of the product and thereby the industrial fabrication of the product [1]. On the technological side the development has moved very fast, primarily driven by the need...... of the electronics industry to create still smaller chips with still larger capacity. Therefore the manufacturing technologies connected with micro/nano products in silicon are relatively highly developed compared to the technologies used for manufacturing micro products in metals, polymers and ceramics. For all...

A Contradiction-Based Approach for Innovative Product Design

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ko Yao-Tsung

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Without creativity in design there is no potential for innovation. This paper investigates the role of contradictions in enhancing creativity in product design. Based on the inventive principles of TRIZ, this paper presents a novel design method by integrating technical and physical contradiction analysis methods into the conceptual design activities of new product development (NPD. Despite the recognized importance of innovative design, there is a lack of the systematic and effective design-thinking process that can covers all conceptual design activities. To address this gap, a sharper and fundamental model of the problem-solving is created for innovative product design based on the contradiction-oriented concept. Eventually, one case study is employed to illustrate the method and the result validates that it can help designers produce more creative outcomes in product design.

Product design pattern based on big data-driven scenario

OpenAIRE

Conggang Yu; Lusha Zhu

2016-01-01

This article discusses about new product design patterns in the big data era, gives designer a new rational thinking way, and is a new way to understand the design of the product. Based on the key criteria of the product design process, category, element, and product are used to input the data, which comprises concrete data and abstract data as an enlargement of the criteria of product design process for the establishment of a big data-driven product design pattern’s model. Moreover, an exper...

World competitiveness and agriculture

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. van Zyl

1997-07-01

Full Text Available Against the background of a changing environment in which market factors and greater world trade and competitiveness are increasingly becoming the only criteria for success, a framework for the analysis of world competitiveness is initially developed. This is followed by a discussion on the growth of productivity in agriculture, as well as an exposition of the role of agricultural research. Thirdly, price factors and the terms of trade are discussed, followed by a summary of policy implications.

Product lifecycle management through innovative and competitive business environment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Valentina Gecevska

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Product Lifecycle Management (PLM is the process of managing the whole life cycle of a product starting from generating an idea, concept description, business analyzes, product design and solution architecture and technical implementation, to the successful entrance to the market, service, maintenance and product improvement. At present, a wide range of stakeholders including consumers, regulators, shareholders and public bodies are demanding that companies address product management through all life cycle in a more comprehensive and sustainable way. However, even if a company actually wishes innovate its processes for improving the way to account for project management, it will face relevant difficulties to deal with different guidelines, tools and methods currently addressing the matter from various points of view. The purpose of this paper is to review literature on PLM from an operational point of view with the objective to help companies to answer to the main market needs.

Detailed design of product oriented manufacturing systems

OpenAIRE

Silva, Sílvio Carmo; Alves, Anabela Carvalho

2006-01-01

This paper presents a procedure for the detailed design and redesign of manufacturing systems within a framework of constantly fitting production system configuration to the varying production needs of products. With such an approach is achieved the design of Product Oriented Manufacturing Systems – POMS. This approach is in opposition to the fitting, before hand, of a production system to all products within a company. In this case is usual to adopt a Function Oriented Manufactur...

Design of Continuous Crystallizers for Production of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Capellades Mendez, Gerard; Christensen, Troels V.

The production of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) is conducted primarily in batch processes. This manufacturing approach is reinforced by a patent-driven business model and the need to minimize the process development times for newly patented drugs. However, the regulatory and business...... environments are now changing. The increasing costs of drug development, combined with the strict regulations and the competition from generic manufacturers, have pushed pharmaceutical companies to seek cheaper and more sustainable production methods. Transition from batch to Continuous Pharmaceutical...

Cork Design : A Design Action Intervention Approach Towards Sustainable Product Innovation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mestre, A.C.C.M.

2014-01-01

The study Cork Design: A Design Action Intervention Approach Towards Sustainable Product Innovation comprises the systematic implementation of sustainable product innovation within the Portuguese cork sector, through action research. Cork is a natural, recyclable, non-toxic, and renewable resource,

Wood-energy market impact on competition, procurement practices, and profitability of landowners and forest products industry in the U.S. south

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Conrad, Joseph L. IV.; Bolding, M. Chad; Smith, Robert L.; Aust, W. Michael

2011-01-01

Recent emphasis on producing energy from woody biomass has raised questions about the impact of a wood-energy market on the U.S. South's wood supply chain. We surveyed wood-energy facilities, fibermills, sawmills, private landowners, and government landholders to investigate the expected impact of a vibrant wood-energy market on the southern wood supply chain. Specifically, our study was designed to document potential competition for resources, wood supply chain profitability, and landowner willingness to sell timber to energy facilities. Results indicate that wood-energy facilities and traditional mills were not competing for raw material on a large scale at the time of the study, but competition is expected over the next decade. Almost 90% of fibermills reported that traditional forest industry mills should enter the wood-energy market, but most were skeptical that the new market would improve profitability. Ninety percent of responding landowners reported a willingness to sell to energy facilities if the right price is offered and all of those who had already sold timber to an energy facility were satisfied with the experience. Only 3.5% of respondents were unwilling to sell timber to an energy company, and only one of these respondents listed timber production as a primary objective, which indicates those who would not harvest timber for energy, may be unlikely to harvest timber for other purposes also. This study suggests that the southern wood supply chain is in position to profit from a wood-energy market; however, concerns remain about the coexistence of the forest products and wood-energy industries. (author)

When Product Life Cycle Meets Customer Activity Cycle

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tan, Adrian Ronald

2007-01-01

Manufacturing companies have traditionally focused their efforts on designing, developing and producing products to offer on the market. Today global competition and demands for greater company responsibility of products throughout their entire life cycle are driving manufacturing companies to sh...

Selection and development of advanced nuclear fuel products