Search results for: sustainability strategy
588 Maintenance Management System for Upstream Operations in Oil and Gas Industry: Case Study
Authors: Wan Hasrulnizzam Wan Mahmood, Mohd Nizam Ab Rahman, Husiah Mazli, Baba Md Deros
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This paper explores the plant maintenance management system that has been used by giant oil and gas company in Malaysia. The system also called as PMMS used to manage the upstream operations for more than 100 plants of the case study company. Moreover, from the observations, focus group discussion with PMMS personnel and application through simulation (SAP R/3), the paper reviews the step-by-step approach and the elements that required for the PMMS. The findings show that the PMMS integrates the overall business strategy in upstream operations that consist of asset management, work management and performance management. In addition, PMMS roles are to help operations personnel organize and plan their daily activities, to improve productivity and reduce equipment downtime and to help operations management analyze the facilities and create performance, and to provide and maintain the operational effectiveness of the facilities.
Keywords: Maintenance, Oil and Gas Industry, Upstream Operations
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12508587 Potentials and Influencing Factors of Dynamic Pricing in Business: Empirical Insights of European Experts
Authors: Christopher Reichstein, Ralf-Christian Härting, Martina Häußler
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With a continuously increasing speed of information exchange on the World Wide Web, retailers in the E-Commerce sector are faced with immense possibilities regarding different online purchase processes like dynamic price settings. By use of Dynamic Pricing, retailers are able to set short time price changes in order to optimize producer surplus. The empirical research illustrates the basics of Dynamic Pricing and identifies six influencing factors of Dynamic Pricing. The results of a structural equation modeling approach show five main drivers increasing the potential of dynamic price settings in the E-Commerce. Influencing factors are the knowledge of customers’ individual willingness to pay, rising sales, the possibility of customization, the data volume and the information about competitors’ pricing strategy.Keywords: E-commerce, empirical research, experts, Dynamic Pricing (DP), influencing factors, potentials.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1411586 Investigation of Passive Solutions of Thermal Comfort in Housing Aiming to Reduce Energy Consumption
Authors: Josiane R. Pires, Marco A. S. González, Bruna L. Brenner, Luciana S. Roos
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The concern with sustainability brought the need for optimization of the buildings to reduce consumption of natural resources. Almost 1/3 of energy demanded by Brazilian housings is used to provide thermal solutions. AEC sector may contribute applying bioclimatic strategies on building design. The aim of this research is to investigate the viability of applying some alternative solutions in residential buildings. The research was developed with computational simulation on single family social housing, examining envelope type, absorptance, and insolation. The analysis of the thermal performance applied both Brazilian standard NBR 15575 and degree-hour method, in the scenery of Porto Alegre, a southern Brazilian city. We used BIM modeling through Revit/Autodesk and used Energy Plus to thermal simulation. The payback of the investment was calculated comparing energy savings and building costs, in a period of 50 years. The results shown that with the increment of envelope’s insulation there is thermal comfort improvement and energy economy, with a pay-back period of 24 to 36 years, in some cases.
Keywords: Civil construction, design, thermal performance, energy, economic analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1905585 Improving Sales through Inventory Reduction: A Retail Chain Case Study
Authors: M. G. Mattos, J. E. Pécora Jr, T. A. Briso
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Today's challenging business environment, with unpredictable demand and volatility, requires a supply chain strategy that handles uncertainty and risks in the right way. Even though inventory models have been previously explored, this paper seeks to apply these concepts on a practical situation. This study involves the inventory replenishment problem, applying techniques that are mainly based on mathematical assumptions and modeling. The primary goal is to improve the retailer’s supply chain processes taking store differences when setting the various target stock levels. Through inventory review policy, picking piece implementation and minimum exposure definition, we were able not only to promote the inventory reduction as well as improve sales results. The inventory management theory from literature review was then tested on a single case study regarding a particular department in one of the largest Latam retail chains.
Keywords: Inventory, distribution, retail, risk, safety stock, sales, uncertainty.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1802584 Chronic Consumer States Influencing Compulsive Consumption
Authors: K. Prakash Vel, Lif Miriam Hamouda
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Consumer behaviour analysis represents an important field of study in marketing. Particularly strategy development for marketing and communications will be more focused and effective when marketers have an understanding of the motivations, behaviour and psychology of consumers. While materialism has been found to be one of the important elements in consumer behaviour, compulsive consumption represents another aspect that has recently attracted more attention. This is because of the growing prevalence of dysfunctional buying that has raised concern in consumer societies. Present studies and analyses on origins and motivations of compulsive buying have mainly focused on either individual factors or groups of related factors and hence a need for a holistic view exists. This paper provides a comprehensive perspective on compulsive consumption and establishes relevant propositions keeping the family life cycle stages as a reference for the incidence of chronic consumer states and their influence on compulsive consumption.Keywords: Chronic consumer states, compulsive consumption, family life cycle
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1377583 An Enhanced Situational Awareness of AUV's Mission by Multirate Neural Control
Authors: Igor Astrov, Mikhail Pikkov
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This paper focuses on a critical component of the situational awareness (SA), the neural control of depth flight of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). Constant depth flight is a challenging but important task for AUVs to achieve high level of autonomy under adverse conditions. With the SA strategy, we proposed a multirate neural control of an AUV trajectory using neural network model reference controller for a nontrivial mid-small size AUV "r2D4" stochastic model. This control system has been demonstrated and evaluated by simulation of diving maneuvers using software package Simulink. From the simulation results it can be seen that the chosen AUV model is stable in the presence of high noise, and also can be concluded that the fast SA of similar AUV systems with economy in energy of batteries can be asserted during the underwater missions in search-and-rescue operations.
Keywords: Autonomous underwater vehicles, multirate systems, neurocontrollers, situational awareness.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1919582 An Implicit Methodology for the Numerical Modeling of Locally Inextensible Membranes
Authors: Aymen Laadhari
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We present in this paper a fully implicit finite element method tailored for the numerical modeling of inextensible fluidic membranes in a surrounding Newtonian fluid. We consider a highly simplified version of the Canham-Helfrich model for phospholipid membranes, in which the bending force and spontaneous curvature are disregarded. The coupled problem is formulated in a fully Eulerian framework and the membrane motion is tracked using the level set method. The resulting nonlinear problem is solved by a Newton-Raphson strategy, featuring a quadratic convergence behavior. A monolithic solver is implemented, and we report several numerical experiments aimed at model validation and illustrating the accuracy of the proposed method. We show that stability is maintained for significantly larger time steps with respect to an explicit decoupling method.Keywords: Finite element method, Newton method, level set, Navier-Stokes, inextensible membrane, liquid drop.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1286581 A Study of Recycle Materials to Develop for Auto Part
Authors: Sittichai Kaewkuekool, Vanchai Laemlaksakul
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At the present, auto part industries have become higher challenge in strategy market. As this consequence, manufacturers need to have better response to customers in terms of quality, cost, and delivery time. Moreover, they need to have a good management in factory to comply with international standard maximum capacity and lower cost. This would lead companies to have to order standard part from aboard and become the major cost of inventory. The development of auto part research by recycling materials experiment is to compare the auto parts from recycle materials to international auto parts (CKD). Factors studied in this research were the recycle material ratios of PU-foam, felt, and fabric. Results of recycling materials were considered in terms of qualities and properties on the parameters such as weight, sound absorption, water absorption, tensile strength, elongation, and heat resistance with the CKD. The results were showed that recycling materials would be used to replace for the CKD.
Keywords: International auto parts, recycling materials.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2054580 Optimal Power Allocation to Diversity Branches of Cooperative MISO Sensor Networks
Authors: Rooholah Hasanizadeh, Saadan Zokaei
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In the context of sensor networks, where every few dB saving counts, the novel node cooperation schemes are reviewed where MIMO techniques play a leading role. These methods could be treated as joint approach for designing physical layer of their communication scenarios. Then we analyzed the BER performance of transmission diversity schemes under a general fading channel model and proposed a power allocation strategy to the transmitting sensor nodes. This approach is then compared to an equal-power assignment method and its performance enhancement is verified by the simulation. Another key point of the contribution lies in the combination of optimal power allocation and sensor nodes- cooperation in a transmission diversity regime (MISO). Numerical results are given through figures to demonstrate the optimality and efficiency of proposed combined approach.Keywords: Optimal power allocation, cooperative MISO scheme, sensor networks, diversity branch.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1400579 Control of Building Ventilation with CO2 Gas Sensors Based on Doped Magnesium Ferrite Nanoparticles for the Development of Construction and Infrastructure Industry
Authors: Maryam Kiani, Abdul Basit Kiani
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To develop construction and infrastructure industry, sensors are highly desired to control building ventilation. Zinc doped magnesium ferrite nanoparticles (Z@MFO) (Zn = 0.0, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4) were prepared in this paper. Structural analyses confirmed the formation of spinel cubic nanostructures. X-Ray diffraction (XRD) data represent high reactive surface area due to small average particle size about 15 nm, which efficiently influences the gas sensing mechanism. The gas sensing property of Z@MFO for several gases was obtained by measuring the resistance as a function of different factors, such as composition and response time in air and in presence of gas. The sensitivity of spinel ferrite to CO2 at room temperature has been compared. The Z@MFO nano-structure exhibited high sensitivity represented good response time of (~1 min) to CO2, demonstrated that the material can be used in the field of gas sensors with high sensitivity and good selectivity at room temperature to control building ventilation. CO2 gas sensors play a vital role in ensuring the safety, comfort, and sustainability of modern building environments.
Keywords: MgFe2O4 nanoparticles, synthesis, gas sensing properties, X ray differentiation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 168578 Fuzzy Logic Controlled Shunt Active Power Filter for Three-phase Four-wire Systems with Balanced and Unbalanced Loads
Authors: Ahmed A. Helal, Nahla E. Zakzouk, Yasser G. Desouky
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This paper presents a fuzzy logic controlled shunt active power filter used to compensate for harmonic distortion in three-phase four-wire systems. The shunt active filter employs a simple method for the calculation of the reference compensation current based of Fast Fourier Transform. This presented filter is able to operate in both balanced and unbalanced load conditions. A fuzzy logic based current controller strategy is used to regulate the filter current and hence ensure harmonic free supply current. The validity of the presented approach in harmonic mitigation is verified via simulation results of the proposed test system under different loading conditions.Keywords: Active power filters, Fuzzy logic controller, Power quality
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1980577 Strategic Risk Issues for Film Distributors of Hindi Film Industry in Mumbai: A Grounded Theory Approach
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The purpose of the paper is to address the strategic risk issues surrounding Hindi film distribution in Mumbai for a film distributor, who acts as an entrepreneur when launching a product (movie) in the market (film territory).The paper undertakes a fundamental review of films and risk in the Hindi film industry and applies Grounded Theory technique to understand the complex phenomena of risk taking behavior of the film distributors (both independent and studios) in Mumbai. Rich in-depth interviews with distributors are coded to develop core categories through constant comparison leading to conceptualization of the phenomena of interest. This paper is a first-of-its-kind-attempt to understand risk behavior of a distributor, which is akin to entrepreneurial risk behavior under conditions of uncertainty.Keywords: Entrepreneurial Risk Behavior, Film Distribution Strategy, Hindi Film Industry, Risk.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2600576 An Interference Reduction Strategy for TDD-OFDMA Cellular Systems
Authors: Koudjo M. Koumadi, Kester Quist-Aphetsi, Robert A. Sowah, Amevi Acakpovi
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Downlink/Uplink (DL/UL) time slot allocation (TSA) in time division duplex (TDD) systems is generally uniform for all the cells. This TSA however is not efficient in case of different traffic asymmetry ratios in different cells. We first propose a new 3-coordinate architecture to identify cells in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) system where each cell is divided into three sectors. Then, this coordinate system is used to derive a TSA for symmetric traffic. Mathematical analysis and simulations are used to show that the proposed TSA outperforms the traditional all uniform type of TSA in terms of total intercellular interference, even under uniform symmetrical traffic. Two adaptation strategies are further proposed to adjust the proposed TSA to asymmetrical traffic with different DL/UL traffic ratios in different cells. Further simulation results show that the adaptation strategies also yield higher signal-to-interference ratio (SIR).
Keywords: Crossed TSA, different-entity interference, same-entity interference, uniform TSA
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2221575 A Study of Feedback Strategy to Improve Inspector Performance by Using Computer Based Training
Authors: Santirat Nansaarng, Sittichai Kaewkuekool, Supreeya Siripattanakunkajorn
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The purpose of this research was to study the inspector performance by using computer based training (CBT). Visual inspection task was printed circuit board (PCB) simulated on several types of defects. Subjects were 16 undergraduate randomly selected from King Mongkut-s University of Technology Thonburi and test for 20/20. Then, they were equally divided on performance into two groups (control and treatment groups) and were provided information before running the experiment. Only treatment group was provided feedback information after first experiment. Results revealed that treatment group was showed significantly difference at the level of 0.01. The treatment group showed high percentage on defects detected. Moreover, the attitude of inspectors on using the CBT to inspection was showed on good. These results have been showed that CBT could be used for training to improve inspector performance.
Keywords: Training, Feedback, Computer based Training (CBT)
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1412574 The Features of Formation of Russian Agriculture’s Sectoral Structure
Authors: Natalya G. Filimonova, Mariya G. Ozerova, Irina N. Ermakova
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The long-term strategy of the economic development of Russia up to 2030 is based on the concept of sustainable growth. The determining factor of such development is complex changes in the economic system which may be achieved by making progressive changes in its structure. The structural changes determine the character and the direction of economic development, as well as they include all elements of this system without exception, and their regulated character ensures the most rapid aim achievement. This article has discussed the industrial structure of the agriculture in Russia. With the use of the system of indexes, the article has determined the directions, intensity, and speed of structural shifts. The influence of structural changes on agricultural production development has been found out. It is noticed that the changes in the industrial structure are synchronized with the changes in the organisation and economic structure. Efficiency assessment of structural changes allowed to trace the efficiency of structural changes and elaborate the main directions for agricultural policy improvement.
Keywords: Russian agriculture system, sectoral structure, organizational and economic structure, structural changes.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1328573 Six Sigma in Mexican Manufacturing Companies
Authors: Diego Tlapa, Jorge Limón, Yolanda Báez, Julián Aguilar
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This work is about Six Sigma (SS) implementation in Mexico by using an empirical study. Main goals are to analyze the degree of importance of the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) of SS and to examine if these factors are grouped in some way. A literature research and a survey were conducted to capture SS practitioner’s viewpoint about CSFs in SS implementation and their impact on the performance within manufacturing companies located in Baja California, Mexico. Finally, a Principal Component Analysis showed that nine critical success factors could be grouped in three components, which are: management vision, implementation strategy, and collaborative team. In the other hand, SS’s success is represented by cost reduction, variation reduction, experience and self-esteem of the workers, and quality improvement. Concluding remarks arising from the study are that CSFs are changing through time and paying attention to these nine factors can increase SS’s success likelihood.
Keywords: Six sigma, Critical Success Factors, Factor Analysis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1924572 Humor Roles of Females in a Product Color Matrix
Authors: Jin-Tsann Yeh, Chyong-Ling Lin
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Healthcare providers sometimes use the power of humor as a treatment and therapy for buffering mental health or easing mental disorders because humor can provide relief from distress and conflict. Humor is also very suitable for advertising because of similar benefits. This study carefully examines humor's widespread use in advertising and identifies relationships among humor mechanisms, female depictions, and product types. The purpose is to conceptualize how humor theories can be used not only to successfully define a product as fitting within one of four color categories of the product color matrix, but also to identify compelling contemporary female depictions through humor in ads. The results can offer an idealization for marketing managers and consumers to help them understand how female role depictions can be effectively used with humor in ads. The four propositions developed herein are derived from related literature, through the identification of marketing strategy formulations that achieve product memory enhancement by adopting humor mechanisms properly matched with female role depictions.Keywords: Humor mechanisms, Female role depiction, Product types.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2036571 Policy of Tourism and Opportunities of Development of Wellness Industry in Georgia
Authors: G. Erkomaishvili, R. Gvelesiani, E. Kharaishvili, M. Chavleishvili
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The topic reviews the situation existing currently in Georgia in the field of tourism in conditions of globalization: Touristic resources, the paces of development of the tourism infrastructure, tourism policy, possibilities of development of the Wellness industry in Georgia, that is the newest direction of the medical tourism. The factors impeding the development of the industry of tourism, namely – existence of the conflict zones, high rates of the bank credits, deficiencies associated with the tax laws, a level of infrastructural development, quality of services, deficit in the competitive staff, increase of prices in the peak seasons, insufficient promotion of the touristic opportunities of Georgia on the international markets are studied and analyzed. Besides, the level of development of tourism in Georgia according to the World Economic Forum, aspects of cooperation with the European Union, etc., is reviewed. As a result of these studies, a strategy of development of tourism and one of its direction – Wellness industry in Georgia, is introduced with the relevant conclusions, on which basis the recommendations are provided.
Keywords: Tourism, Tourism Policy, Wellness Industry.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2841570 An Improvement of PDLZW implementation with a Modified WSC Updating Technique on FPGA
Authors: Perapong Vichitkraivin, Orachat Chitsobhuk
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In this paper, an improvement of PDLZW implementation with a new dictionary updating technique is proposed. A unique dictionary is partitioned into hierarchical variable word-width dictionaries. This allows us to search through dictionaries in parallel. Moreover, the barrel shifter is adopted for loading a new input string into the shift register in order to achieve a faster speed. However, the original PDLZW uses a simple FIFO update strategy, which is not efficient. Therefore, a new window based updating technique is implemented to better classify the difference in how often each particular address in the window is referred. The freezing policy is applied to the address most often referred, which would not be updated until all the other addresses in the window have the same priority. This guarantees that the more often referred addresses would not be updated until their time comes. This updating policy leads to an improvement on the compression efficiency of the proposed algorithm while still keep the architecture low complexity and easy to implement.Keywords: lossless data compression, LZW algorithm, PDLZW algorithm, WSC and dictionary update.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1615569 Real Time Object Tracking in H.264/ AVC Using Polar Vector Median and Block Coding Modes
Authors: T. Kusuma, K. Ashwini
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This paper presents a real time video surveillance system which is capable of tracking multiple real time objects using Polar Vector Median (PVM) and Block Coding Modes (BCM) with Global Motion Compensation (GMC). This strategy works in the packed area and furthermore utilizes the movement vectors and BCM from the compressed bit stream to perform real time object tracking. We propose to do this in view of the neighboring Motion Vectors (MVs) using a method called PVM. Since GM adds to the object’s native motion, for accurate tracking, it is important to remove GM from the MV field prior to further processing. The proposed method is tested on a number of standard sequences and the results show its advantages over some of the current modern methods.
Keywords: Block coding mode, global motion compensation, object tracking, polar vector median, video surveillance.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 737568 Challenges Facing Housing Developers to Deliver Zero Carbon Homes in England
Authors: M. Osmani, A. O'Reilly
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Housebuilders in England have been the target of numerous government policies in recent years promoting increased productivity and affordability. As a result, the housebuilding industry is currently faced with objectives to improve the affordability and sustainability of new homes whilst also increasing production rates to 240,000 per year by 2016.Yet amidst a faltering economic climate, the UK Government is forging ahead with the 'Code for Sustainable Homes', which includes stringent sustainable standards for all new homes and sets ambitious targets for the housebuilding industry, the culmination of which is the production of zero carbon homes by 2016.Great uncertainty exists amongst housebuilders as to the costs, benefits and risks of building zero carbon homes. This paper examines the key barriers to zero carbon homes from housebuilders- perspective. A comprehensive opinion on the challenges to deliver zero carbon homes is gathered through a questionnaire survey issued to the major housing developers in England. The study found that a number of cultural, legislative, and financial barriers stand in the way of the widespread construction of zero carbon homes. The study concludes with several recommendations to both the Government and the housebuilding industry to address the barriers that hinder a successful delivery of zero carbon homes in England.
Keywords: Zero carbon homes, Code for Sustainable Homes, housebuilders, England
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2071567 Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM): A Simplified Alternative for Implementing SCRM for Small and Medium Enterprises
Authors: Paul W. Murray, Marco Barajas
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Recent changes in supply chains, especially globalization and collaboration, have created new risks for enterprises of all sizes. A variety of complex frameworks, often based on enterprise risk management strategies have been presented under the heading of Supply Chain Risk Management (SCRM). The literature on promotes the benefits of a robust SCRM strategy; however, implementing SCRM is difficult and resource demanding for Large Enterprises (LEs), and essentially out of reach for Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This research debunks the idea that SCRM is necessary for all enterprises and instead proposes a simple and effective Vendor Selection Template (VST). Empirical testing and a survey of supply chain practitioners provide a measure of validation to the VST. The resulting VSTis a valuable contribution because is easy to use, provides practical results, and is sufficiently flexible to be universally applied to SMEs.
Keywords: Multiple Regression Analysis, Supply Chain Management, Risk Assessment, Vendor Selection.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2827566 Exit Strategies from The Global Crisis
Authors: Petr Teply
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While the form of crises may change, their essence remains the same (such as a cycle of abundant liquidity, rapid credit growth, and a low-inflation environment followed by an asset-price bubble). The current market turbulence began in mid-2000s when the US economy shifted to imbalanced both internal and external macroeconomic positions. We see two key causes of these problems – loose US monetary policy in early 2000s and US government guarantees issued on the securities by government-sponsored enterprises what was further fueled by financial innovations such as structured credit products. We have discovered both negative and positive lessons deriving from this crisis and divided the negative lessons into three groups: financial products and valuation, processes and business models, and strategic issues. Moreover, we address key risk management lessons and exit strategies derived from the current crisis and recommend policies that should help diminish the negative impact of future potential crises.Keywords: exist strategy, global crisis, risk management, corporate governance
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2071565 Screening of Strategic Management Criterions in Hospitals Using Delphi-Fuzzy Method
Authors: Helia Moayedi, Mahdi Moaidi
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Nowadays, the managing and planning of hospitals is facing many problems. Failure to recognize the main criteria for strategic management to ensure long-term hospital performance can lead to many health problems. To achieve this goal, a qualitative-quantitate method titled Delphi-Fuzzy has been applied. This strategy makes it possible for experts to screen among the most important criteria in strategic management. To conduct this operation, a statistical society consisting of 20 experts in Ahwaz hospitals has been questioned. The final model confirms the key criterions after three stages of Delphi. This model provides the possibility to focus on the basic criteria and can determine the organization’s main orientation.
Keywords: Delphi-Fuzzy Method, hospital management, long-term planning, qualitative-quantitate method, screening of strategic criteria, strategic planning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 698564 A Program for Solving problems in Inorganic Chemistry based on Knowledge Base
Authors: Nhon Van Do, Nam Hoai Le, Vien Chan Luong
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The Model for Knowledge Base of Computational Objects (KBCO model) has been successfully applied to represent the knowledge of human like Plane Geometry, Physical, Calculus. However, the original model cannot easyly apply in inorganic chemistry field because of the knowledge specific problems. So, the aim of this article is to introduce how we extend the Computional Object (Com-Object) in KBCO model, kinds of fact, problems model, and inference algorithms to develop a program for solving problems in inorganic chemistry. Our purpose is to develop the application that can help students in their study inorganic chemistry at schools. This application was built successful by using Maple, C# and WPF technology. It can solve automatically problems and give human readable solution agree with those writting by students and teachers.Keywords: artificial intelligence, automated problem solving, knowledge base system, knowledge representation, reasoning strategy, education software/educational applications.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2467563 An Empirical Study of Taiwan-s Hospital Foundation Investment in Corporate Social Responsibility and Financial Performance
Authors: Hsiu-Pi Lin, Wen-Chen Huang, Hui-Fang Chen, Yan-Pin Ke
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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a new trend of business governance. Few research studies on CSR published in Taiwanese academia, especially for medical settings, we were interested in probing the relationship of CSR and financial performance in medical settings in Taiwan. The results illustrate that: (1) a time delay effect exists with a lag between CSR effort and its performance in the hospital foundation, (2) input into the internal domains of CSR will be helpful to improve employee productivity in the hospital foundation, and (3) input into the external domains of CSR will be helpful in improving financial performance in the hospital foundation. This study overviews CSR in the medical industry in Taiwan and the relationship of CSR and financial performance. Discussions of possible implications from the study results are applied to consult the CSR concept that will be transferred into a business strategy for the organization manager.Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), financialperformance, hospital foundation,
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2031562 Sub-Image Detection Using Fast Neural Processors and Image Decomposition
Authors: Hazem M. El-Bakry, Qiangfu Zhao
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In this paper, an approach to reduce the computation steps required by fast neural networksfor the searching process is presented. The principle ofdivide and conquer strategy is applied through imagedecomposition. Each image is divided into small in sizesub-images and then each one is tested separately usinga fast neural network. The operation of fast neuralnetworks based on applying cross correlation in thefrequency domain between the input image and theweights of the hidden neurons. Compared toconventional and fast neural networks, experimentalresults show that a speed up ratio is achieved whenapplying this technique to locate human facesautomatically in cluttered scenes. Furthermore, fasterface detection is obtained by using parallel processingtechniques to test the resulting sub-images at the sametime using the same number of fast neural networks. Incontrast to using only fast neural networks, the speed upratio is increased with the size of the input image whenusing fast neural networks and image decomposition.
Keywords: Fast Neural Networks, 2D-FFT, CrossCorrelation, Image decomposition, Parallel Processing.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2164561 An Investigation on Thermo Chemical Conversions of Solid Waste for Energy Recovery
Authors: Sharmina Begum, M. G. Rasul, Delwar Akbar
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Solid waste can be considered as an urban burden or as a valuable resource depending on how it is managed. To meet the rising demand for energy and to address environmental concerns, a conversion from conventional energy systems to renewable resources is essential. For the sustainability of human civilization, an environmentally sound and techno-economically feasible waste treatment method is very important to treat recyclable waste. Several technologies are available for realizing the potential of solid waste as an energy source, ranging from very simple systems for disposing of dry waste to more complex technologies capable of dealing with large amounts of industrial waste. There are three main pathways for conversion of waste material to energy: thermo chemical, biochemical and physicochemical. This paper investigates the thermo chemical conversion of solid waste for energy recovery. The processes, advantages and dis-advantages of various thermo chemical conversion processes are discussed and compared. Special attention is given to Gasification process as it provides better solutions regarding public acceptance, feedstock flexibility, near-zero emissions, efficiency and security. Finally this paper presents comparative statements of thermo chemical processes and introduces an integrated waste management system.Keywords: Gasification, Incineration, Pyrolysis, Thermo chemical conversion.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3272560 Mining of Interesting Prediction Rules with Uniform Two-Level Genetic Algorithm
Authors: Bilal Alatas, Ahmet Arslan
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The main goal of data mining is to extract accurate, comprehensible and interesting knowledge from databases that may be considered as large search spaces. In this paper, a new, efficient type of Genetic Algorithm (GA) called uniform two-level GA is proposed as a search strategy to discover truly interesting, high-level prediction rules, a difficult problem and relatively little researched, rather than discovering classification knowledge as usual in the literatures. The proposed method uses the advantage of uniform population method and addresses the task of generalized rule induction that can be regarded as a generalization of the task of classification. Although the task of generalized rule induction requires a lot of computations, which is usually not satisfied with the normal algorithms, it was demonstrated that this method increased the performance of GAs and rapidly found interesting rules.
Keywords: Classification rule mining, data mining, genetic algorithms.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1583559 Evaluation of Environmental, Technical, and Economic Indicators of a Fused Deposition Modeling Process
Authors: M. Yosofi, S. Ezeddini, A. Ollivier, V. Lavaste, C. Mayousse
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Additive manufacturing processes have changed significantly in a wide range of industries and their application progressed from rapid prototyping to production of end-use products. However, their environmental impact is still a rather open question. In order to support the growth of this technology in the industrial sector, environmental aspects should be considered and predictive models may help monitor and reduce the environmental footprint of the processes. This work presents predictive models based on a previously developed methodology for the environmental impact evaluation combined with a technical and economical assessment. Here we applied the methodology to the Fused Deposition Modeling process. First, we present the predictive models relative to different types of machines. Then, we present a decision-making tool designed to identify the optimum manufacturing strategy regarding technical, economic, and environmental criteria.
Keywords: Additive manufacturing, decision-makings, environmental impact, predictive models.
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