Search results for: Market Segmentation

Authors: Wanda Luen-Wun Siu, Xiaowen Zhang

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This paper adopted a retrospective review of China’s assistance to Latin America from the 1950s to 2020. Findings suggested that China’s assistance to Latin America can be roughly divided into five stages: The 1950s to 1960s was the initial stage of China’s assistance to Latin America, mainly focusing on the establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba and other Latin American countries. The strategy has a strong ideological basis. The 1980s were the stage of development of China's aid to Latin America, which was characterized by consolidating and expanding diplomatic space, emphasizing the spirit of cooperation of equality, mutual benefit, and common development. The 1990s to 2000s marked the further development of diplomatic relations with Latin American countries, plus domestic market-oriented reforms, emphasizing the importance of economic considerations, and less ideological orientation; and this period also witnessed more Chinese state-owned enterprises going out to invest in Latin America. 2010-2019 marked the further development of Latin American relations. This paper contributes to the literature of diplomacy and health assistance to Latin America and highlights the importance of foreign aid and health assistance in sealing bilateral diplomatic relations.

Keywords: Broad Spectrum Assistance, China, Latin America, bilateral relations.

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Authors: Saeid Nahi, Seyed Mohammad Hossein Nabavi

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Nowadays, power systems, energy generation by wind has been very important. Noting that the production of electrical energy by wind turbines on site to several factors (such as wind speed and profile site for the turbines, especially off the wind input speed, wind rated speed and wind output speed disconnect) is dependent. On the other hand, several different types of turbines in the market there. Therefore, selecting a turbine that its capacity could also answer the need for electric consumers the efficiency is high something is important and necessary. In this context, calculating the amount of wind power to help optimize overall network, system operation, in determining the parameters of wind power is very important. In this article, to help calculate the amount of wind power plant, connected to the national network in the region Manjil wind, selecting the best type of turbine and power delivery profile appropriate to the network using Monte Carlo method has been. In this paper, wind speed data from the wind site in Manjil, as minute and during the year has been. Necessary simulations based on Random Numbers Simulation method and repeat, using the software MATLAB and Excel has been done.

Keywords: wind turbine, efficiency, wind turbine work points, Random Numbers, reliability

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Authors: Ren-Hua Kung, Jen-Chieh Liu , Chih-Teng Chang, Pei-Ti Chen

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The consumption capability of people in China has been a big issue to tourism business. Due to the increasing of China tourists, Taiwan-s government rescinded the category of people in China and opened up the non-stopped airline from China to Taiwan. The “one-day traveling style between China and Taiwan" has formed, hoping to bring business to Taiwan. Night market, which shows foreigners the very local character of Taiwan, contains various merchandise for consumers to purchase. With the increasing numbers of non-stopped airline, visiting Taiwan-s night markets has also been one of major activities to China-s tourists. The purpose of the present study is to understand the consumer behavior of China tourists in tourist night markets in Taipei and analyze that if their shopping motives cause the different shopping behaviors and post-purchase satisfaction and revisiting intention. The results reveled that for the China tourists, the motives of significant influence to the shopping behaviors. Also, the shopping behaviors significant influence to the whole satisfaction and the whole satisfaction significant influence to post-purchase behavior.

Keywords: Shopping Motivation, Shopping Behavior, Satisfaction, Post-Purchase Behavior

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Authors: Myint Myint Yi, Khin Sandar Linn, Marlar Kyaw

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This paper proposed a novel model for short term load forecast (STLF) in the electricity market. The prior electricity demand data are treated as time series. The model is composed of several neural networks whose data are processed using a wavelet technique. The model is created in the form of a simulation program written with MATLAB. The load data are treated as time series data. They are decomposed into several wavelet coefficient series using the wavelet transform technique known as Non-decimated Wavelet Transform (NWT). The reason for using this technique is the belief in the possibility of extracting hidden patterns from the time series data. The wavelet coefficient series are used to train the neural networks (NNs) and used as the inputs to the NNs for electricity load prediction. The Scale Conjugate Gradient (SCG) algorithm is used as the learning algorithm for the NNs. To get the final forecast data, the outputs from the NNs are recombined using the same wavelet technique. The model was evaluated with the electricity load data of Electronic Engineering Department in Mandalay Technological University in Myanmar. The simulation results showed that the model was capable of producing a reasonable forecasting accuracy in STLF.

Keywords: Neural network, Load forecast, Time series, wavelettransform.

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Authors: Yun Mi, Ko, Hye Jung, Joo

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This study develops a relation to explore the factors influencing management and technology capabilities in strategic alliances. Alliances between firms are recognizing increasingly popular as a vehicle to create and extract greater value from the market. Firm’s alliance can be described as the collaborative problem solving process to solve problems jointly. This study starts from research questions what factors of firm’s management and technology characteristics affect performance of firms which are formed alliances. In this study, we investigated the effect of strategic alliances on company performance. That is, we try to identify whether firms made an alliance with other organizations are differed by characteristics of management and technology. And we test that alliance type and alliance experiences moderate the relationship between firm’s capabilities and its performance. We employ problem-solving perspective and resource-based view perspective to shed light on this research questions. The empirical work is based on the Survey of Business Activities conducted from2006 to 2008 by Statistics Korea. We verify correlations between to point out that these results contribute new empirical evidence on the effect of strategic alliances on company performance.

Keywords: Problem solving process, strategic alliance.

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Authors: Manisha Chaudhary, Joydip Dhar, Govind Prasad Sahu

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A mathematical model is proposed considering the forest biomass density B(t), density of wood based industries W(t) and density of synthetic industries S(t). It is assumed that the forest biomass grows logistically in the absence of wood based industries, but depletion of forestry biomass is due to presence of wood based industries. The growth of wood based industries depends on B(t), while S(t) grows at a constant rate, independent of B(t). Further there is a competition between W(t) and S(t) according to market demand. The proposed model has four ecologically feasible steady states, namely, E1: forest biomass free and wood industries free equilibrium; E2: wood industries free equilibrium and two coexisting equilibria E∗1 , E∗2 . Behavior of the system near all feasible equilibria is analyzed using the stability theory of differential equations. In the proposed model, the natural depletion rate h1 is a crucial parameter and system exhibits Hopf-bifurcation about the non-trivial equilibrium with respect to h1. The analytical results are verified using numerical simulation.

Keywords: A mathematical model, Competition between wood based and synthetic industries, Hopf-bifurcation, Stability analysis.

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Authors: Parham Azimi, Mohammad Reza Ghanbari

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The dramatic increasing of sea-freight container transportations and the developing trends for using containers in the multimodal handling systems through the sea, rail, road and land in nowadays market cause general managers of container terminals to face challenges such as increasing demand, competitive situation, new investments and expansion of new activities and need to use new methods to fulfil effective operations both along quayside and within the yard. Among these issues, minimizing the turnaround time of vessels is considered to be the first aim of every container port system. Regarding the complex structure of container ports, this paper presents a simulation model that calculates the number of trucks needed in the Iranian Shahid Rajaee Container Port for handling containers between the berth and the yard. In this research, some important criteria such as vessel turnaround time, gantry crane utilization and truck utilization have been considered. By analyzing the results of the model, it has been shown that increasing the number of trucks to 66 units has a significant effect on the performance indices of the port and can increase the capacity of loading and unloading up to 10.8%.

Keywords: Container Terminal, Gantry Crane Utilization, Simulation, Vessel Turnaround Time

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Authors: Mohammad Soliman, Mohamed A. Abou-Shouk

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Knowledge management focuses on the development, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of information and expertise. It has become an important tool to improve performance in tourism enterprises. This includes improving decision-making, developing customer services, and increasing sales and profits. Knowledge management adoption depends on human, organizational and technological factors. This study aims to explore the concept of knowledge management in travel agents in Egypt. It explores the requirements of adoption and its impact on performance in these agencies. The study targets Category A travel agents in Egypt. The population of the study encompasses Category A travel agents having online presence. An online questionnaire is used to collect data from managers of travel agents. This study is useful for travel agents who are in urgent need to restructure their intermediary role and support their survival in the global travel market. The study sheds light on the requirements of adoption and the expected impact on performance. This could help travel agents identify their situation and the determine the extent to which they are ready to adopt knowledge management. This study is contributing to knowledge by providing insights from the tourism sector in a developing country where the concept of knowledge management is still in its infancy stages.

Keywords: Benefits, determinants, Egypt, knowledge management, travel agents.

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Authors: Rawaa H. El-Bidweihy, Hisham M. Abdelsalam, Ihab A. El-Khodary

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In an era where machines run and shape our world, the need for a stable, non-ending source of energy emerges. In this study, the focus was on the solar energy in Egypt as a renewable source, the most important factors that could affect the solar energy’s market share throughout its life cycle production were analyzed and filtered, the relationships between them were derived before structuring a Bayesian network. Also, forecasted models were built for multiple factors to predict the states in Egypt by 2035, based on historical data and patterns, to be used as the nodes’ states in the network. 37 factors were found to might have an impact on the use of solar energy and then were deducted to 12 factors that were chosen to be the most effective to the solar energy’s life cycle in Egypt, based on surveying experts and data analysis, some of the factors were found to be recurring in multiple stages. The presented Bayesian network could be used later for scenario and decision analysis of using solar energy in Egypt, as a stable renewable source for generating any type of energy needed.

Keywords: ARIMA, auto correlation, Bayesian network, forecasting models, life cycle, partial correlation, renewable energy, SARIMA, solar energy.

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Authors: Mnisi Blessing, Christopher Amoah

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The usage of modern technology is widespread in industrialised nations. The issue still pertains to developing countries since they struggle to use technology in the building sector. The study aims to identify the barriers to technology usage in quantity surveying firms. Quantity Surveyors were interviewed via Microsoft teams due to the dispersed nature of the participants. However, where the interview was not possible, the interview guide was emailed to the participants to fill in. In all, 12 participants were interviewed out of the 25 participants contacted. The data received were analysed using the content analysis process. The study's findings demonstrate that quantity surveyors have access to a wide range of technology that significantly enhances their project activities. However, quantity surveying companies are hesitant to use technology for several reasons, including the cost and maintenance associated with it. Other obstacles include a lack of knowledge, poor market acceptance, legal obstacles, and budgetary constraints. Despite the advantages associated with modern technology applications, quantity surveying firms are not using them, which may ultimately affect their work output. Therefore, firms need to re-examine these obstacles, inhibiting their adoption of technology in the work process to enhance their production. The study reveals the main hindrances to technology usage, which may help firms institute measures to address them.

Keywords: Technology usage barriers, technology implementation, technology acceptance, quantity surveying.

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Authors: Sylwia Wiewiorowska, Zbigniew Muskalski

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The article presents part of research on the development of nickel plated welding wire production technology, whose application will enable the elimination of the flaws of currently manufactured welding wires. The nickel plated welding wire will be distinguished by high quality, because the Ni layer which is deposited electrochemically onto it from acid baths is characterized by very good adhesion to the steel wire surface, while the ductile nickel well deforms plastically in the drawing process and the adhesion of the Ni layer increases in the drawing process due to the occurring process of diffusion between the Ni and the steel. The Ni layer obtained in the proposed technology, despite a smaller thickness than when the wire is coated with copper, is continuous and tight, thus ensuring high corrosion resistance, as well as unsusceptible to scaling, which should provide a product that meets requirements imposed by the market. The product will also reduce, to some extent, the amount of copper brought in to steel through recycling, while the wire coating nickel introduced to the weld in the welding process is expected, to a degree, to favorably influence its mechanical properties. The paper describes the tests of the process of nickel plating of f1.96 mm-diameter wires using various nickel plating baths with different process parameters.

Keywords: Steel wire, plating baths, welding process, coatings.

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Authors: A. Grilec, S. Petrak, M. Mahnic Naglic

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Technological development and the globalization in production and sales of clothing in the last decade have significantly influenced the changes in consumer relationship with the industrial-fashioned apparel and in the way of clothing purchasing. The Internet sale of clothing is in a constant and significant increase in the global market, but the possibilities offered by modern computing technologies in the customization segment are not yet fully involved, especially according to the individual customer requirements and body sizes. Considering the growing trend of online shopping, the main goal of this paper is to investigate the differences in customer perceptions towards online apparel shopping and particularly to discover the main differences in perceptions between customers regarding three different body sizes. In order to complete the research goal, the quantitative study on the sample of 85 Croatian consumers was conducted in 2017 in Zagreb, Croatia. Respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement according to a five-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). To analyze attitudes of respondents, simple and descriptive statistics were used. The main findings highlight the differences in respondent perception of 3D body scanning, using 3D body scanning in Internet shopping, online apparel shopping habits regarding their body sizes.

Keywords: Consumer behavior, online shopping, 3D body scanning.

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Authors: Shaheena Erkiah, Adjnu Damar Ladkoo

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Worldwide, improving tourism competitiveness has been on the agendas of many stakeholders of the hotel sector, and they seem to have agreed that one of the best ways to compete is via the implementation of electronic customer relationship management (e-CRM). In so doing, the organizations enjoy strategic positioning on the competitive market by managing better not only the customers but, other business components including knowledge and employee management. Over the recent years, the tourism industry in Mauritius has witnessed a drastic economic boom at international and national levels; providing a new outlook to boost business performance through existing and potential customers. E-CRM has been one of the management tools used to achieving this position. Thus, this insightful context- Mauritius- was opted for the study. The aim was to assess the effectiveness of e-CRM as a strategic tool in the hotel sector in Mauritius through the implementation of business strategy to create competitive advantage and impact on the business performance. To achieve the objectives of the study, a quantitative research methodology was adopted and the research revealed that e-CRM is indeed an effective strategic tool in the hotel industry in Mauritius that can provide a competitive advantage and impact positively on the organization’s performance.

Keywords: Customer, electronic, management, relationship, strategic.

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Authors: M. Sadoughi, R. Ehsani

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The aim of the present study is examining the relationship between conceptual organizational culture and the level of tolerance in employees of Islamic Azad University of Shahre Ghods. This research is a correlational and analytic-descriptive one. The samples included 144 individuals. A 24-item standard questionnaire of organizational culture by Cameron and Queen was used in this study. This questionnaire has six criteria and each criterion includes four items that each item indicates one cultural dimension. Reliability coefficient of this questionnaire was normed using Cronbach's alpha of 0.91. Also, the 25-item questionnaire of tolerance by Conor and Davidson was used. This questionnaire is in a five-degree Likert scale form. It has seven criteria and is designed to measure the power of coping with pressure and threat. It has the needed content reliability and its reliability coefficient is normed using Cronbach's alpha of 0.87. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and multivariable regression. The results showed among various dimensions of organizational culture, there is a positive significant relationship between three dimensions (family, adhocracy, bureaucracy) and tolerance, there is a negative significant relationship between dimension of market and tolerance and components of organizational culture have the power of prediction and explaining the tolerance. In this explanation, the component of family is the most effective and the best predictor of tolerance.

Keywords: Adhocracy, bureaucracy, organizational culture, tolerance.

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Authors: Sugiono, W. Ardiatna, H. Firdaus, N. Kusnandar, B. Utomo, J. A. Kadar

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It is desirable that most human food is warm when eaten, including when food is obtained by taking it away from the point of sale in disposable food packaging. However, such packaging does not retain heat for a long time, which is necessary to ensure the food remains warm when eaten. The study looked for single-use food packaging that could retain the heat of the food for a long time. The methodology for obtaining such packaging is either by modifying available packages on the market or by making new ones with materials that are easily obtained locally, then testing by loading the local food and measuring its temperature and the length of time until it reaches the lowest acceptable temperature for hot food (56°C). Packages made of plastic boxes lined with thin aluminum foil on the inside are the best way to keep food warm for up to 44 minutes from the time it is put in the package to the time the required temperature is reached. Moreover, packaging made of local common food paper, where the food was put in a transparent plastic bag inside the package, was found to be the simplest package that could retain heat for 82.31% as long as the best packaging could, in this study. Plastic boxes with thin aluminum foil inside were the best single-use food packaging in this study that served to keep hot food warm and fit for consumption.

Keywords: Aluminum foil, hot food, local food, packaging.

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Authors: Raed EL-Khalil, Hussein Zeaiter

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Managing and improving efficiency in the current highly competitive global automotive industry demands that those companies adopt leaner and more flexible systems. During the past 20 years the domestic automotive industry in North America has been focusing on establishing new management strategies in order to meet market demands. The lean management process also known as Toyota Manufacturing Process (TPS) or lean manufacturing encompasses tools and techniques that were established in order to provide the best quality product with the fastest lead time at the lowest cost. The following paper presents a study that focused on improving labor efficiency at one of the Big Three (Ford, GM, Chrysler LLC) domestic automotive facility in North America. The objective of the study was to utilize several lean management tools in order to optimize the efficiency and utilization levels at the “Pre- Marriage” chassis area in a truck manufacturing and assembly facility. Utilizing three different lean tools (i.e. Standardization of work, 7 Wastes, and 5S) this research was able to improve efficiency by 51%, utilization by 246%, and reduce operations by 14%. The return on investment calculated based on the improvements made was 284%.

Keywords: Lean Manufacturing, Standardized Work, Operation Efficiency and Utilization, Operations Management.

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Authors: Mouna Benfssahi, Zoubir El Felsoufi

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For many enterprises, the delocalization of a part or the totality of their supply chain to low cost countries is the best way to reduce costs and remain competitive against the growing globalized market. This new tendency is driven by logistics advantages, as well as, financial and tax discount offered by the host countries. The objective of this article is to examine the new financial challenges introduced by the project of base erosion and profits shifting (BEPS), published in 2015, and also their impact on the decision of delocalization. In fact, the strategy adopted by multinational firms for determining the transfer price (TP) of goods and services, as well as the shared amount of revenues and expenses have a major impact upon group profit and may contribute to divergent results. In order to get more profit, a coherent decision of delocalization should be based on an evaluation of all the operational and financial characteristics associated with such movement. Therefore, it is interesting to model these new constraints and integrate them in a more global decision model. The established model will enable to measure how much these financial constraints impact the decision of delocalization and will give new helpful directives for enterprise managers.

Keywords: Delocalization, intragroup transaction, multinational firms, optimization model, supply chain management, transfer pricing.

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Authors: Hadia Abdel Aziz, Raghda El Ebrashi

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Business models are shaped by their design space or the environment they are designed to be implemented in. The rapidly changing economic, technological, political, regulatory and market external environment severely affects business logic. This is particularly true for social enterprises whose core mission is to transform their environments, and thus, their whole business logic revolves around the interchange between the enterprise and the environment. The context in which social business operates imposes different business design constraints while at the same time, open up new design opportunities. It is also affected to a great extent by the impact that successful enterprises generate; a continuous loop of interaction that needs to be managed through a dynamic capability in order to generate a lasting powerful impact. This conceptual research synthesizes and analyzes literature on social enterprise, social enterprise business models, business model innovation, business model design, and the open system view theory to propose a new business model design process for social enterprises that takes into account the critical role of environmental factors. This process would help the social enterprise develop a dynamic capability that ensures the alignment of its business model to its environmental context, thus, maximizing its probability of success.

Keywords: Social enterprise, business model, business model design.

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Authors: Lo Kar Yin, Law Ka Mei

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Architectural, engineering, construction and operations (AECO) industry practitioners have been well adapting to the dynamic construction market from the fundamental training of its disciplines. As further triggered by the pandemic since 2019, great steps are taken in virtual environment and the best collaboration is strived with project teams without boundaries. With adoption of Building Information Modeling-based approach and qualitative analysis, this paper is to review quantity take-off (QTO) and cost estimation process through modeling techniques in liaison with suppliers, fabricators, subcontractors, contractors, designers, consultants and services providers in the construction industry value chain for automatic project cost budgeting, project cost control and cost evaluation on design options of in-situ reinforced-concrete construction and Modular Integrated Construction (MiC) at design stage, variation of works and cash flow/spending analysis at construction stage as far as practicable, with a view to sharing the findings for enhancing mutual trust and co-operation among AECO industry practitioners. It is to foster development through a common prototype of design and build project delivery method in NEC4 Engineering and Construction Contract (ECC) Options A and C.

Keywords: Building Information Modeling, cost estimation, quantity take-off, modeling techniques.

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Authors: Mei-Fang Wu, Shu-Li Wang, Tsung-Yueh Lu, Feng-Tsung Cheng

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Strengthening core competitiveness is the main goal of enterprises in a fierce competitive environment. Accurate cost information is a great help for managers in dealing with operation strategies. This paper establishes a profitability management mechanism that applies the Activity-Based Benefit approach (ABBA) to solve the profitability for each customer from the market. ABBA provides financial and non-financial information for the operation, but also indicates what resources have expired in the operational process. The customer profit management model shows the level of profitability of each customer for the company. The empirical data were gathered from a case company operating in the leather industry in Taiwan. The research findings indicate that 30% of customers create little profit for the company as a result of asking for over 5% of sales discounts. Those customers ask for sales discount because of color differences of leather products. This paper provides a customer’s profitability evaluation mechanism to help enterprises to greatly improve operating effectiveness and promote operational activity efficiency and overall operation profitability.

Keywords: Activity-based benefit approach, customer profit analysis, leather industry, profitability management mechanism.

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Authors: Dalia Suša Vugec, Ana-Marija Stjepić, Darija Ivandić Vidović

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Digital transformation is one of the latest trends on the global market. In order to maintain the competitive advantage and sustainability, increasing number of organizations are conducting digital transformation processes. Those organizations are changing their business processes and creating new business models with the help of digital technologies. In that sense, one should also observe the role of business process management (BPM) and its maturity in driving digital transformation. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to investigate the role of BPM in digital transformation process within one organization. Since experiences from practice show that organizations from financial sector could be observed as leaders in digital transformation, an insurance company has been selected to participate in the study. That company has been selected due to the high level of its BPM maturity and the fact that it has previously been through a digital transformation process. In order to fulfill the goals of the paper, several interviews, as well as questionnaires, have been conducted within the selected company. The results are presented in a form of a case study. Results indicate that digital transformation process within the observed company has been successful, with special focus on the development of digital strategy, BPM and change management. The role of BPM in the digital transformation of the observed company is further discussed in the paper.

Keywords: Business process management, case study, Croatia, digital transformation, insurance company.

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Authors: Jonathan D. Morales M., Ramón Silva R.

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The purpose of this project is to carry out an analysis and determine the profile of actual lean manufacturing processes in the Metropolitan Area of Bucaramanga. Through the analysis of qualitative and quantitative variables it was possible to establish how these manufacturers develop production practices that ensure their competitiveness and productivity in the market. In this study, a random sample of metallurgic and wrought iron companies was applied, following which a quantitative focus and analysis was used to formulate a qualitative methodology for measuring the level of lean manufacturing procedures in the industry. A qualitative evaluation was also carried out through a multivariate analysis using the Numerical Taxonomy System (NTSYS) program which should allow for the determination of Lean Manufacturing profiles. Through the results it was possible to observe how the companies in the sector are doing with respect to Lean Manufacturing Practices, as well as identify the level of management that these companies practice with respect to this topic. In addition, it was possible to ascertain that there is no one dominant profile in the sector when it comes to Lean Manufacturing. It was established that the companies in the metallurgic and wrought iron industry show low levels of Lean Manufacturing implementation. Each one carries out diverse actions that are insufficient to consolidate a sectoral strategy for developing a competitive advantage which enables them to tie together a production strategy.

Keywords: Lean manufacturing, metallurgic industry, production line management, productivity.

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Authors: Mohd Sukri Hassan, Ahlam Inayatullah Badrul Munir, M. Husaini A. Rahman

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Halal authentication and verification in supplement capsules are highly required as the gelatine available in the market can be from halal or non-halal sources. It is an obligation for Muslim to consume and use the halal consumer goods. At present, real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is the most common technique being used for the detection of porcine and bovine DNA in gelatine due to high sensitivity of the technique and higher stability of DNA compared to protein. In this study, twenty samples of supplements capsules from different products with different Halal logos were analyzed for porcine and bovine DNA using RT-PCR. Standard bovine and porcine gelatine from eurofins at a range of concentration from 10^-1 to 10^-5 ng/µl were used to determine the linearity range, limit of detection and specificity on RT-PCR (SYBR Green method). RT-PCR detected porcine (two samples), bovine (four samples) and mixture of porcine and bovine (six samples). The samples were also tested using FT-IR technique where normalized peak of IR spectra were pre-processed using Savitsky Golay method before Principal Components Analysis (PCA) was performed on the database. Scores plot of PCA shows three clusters of samples; bovine, porcine and mixture (bovine and porcine). The RT-PCR and FT-IR with chemometrics technique were found to give same results for porcine gelatine samples which can be used for Halal authentication.

Keywords: Halal, real-time PCR, gelatin, FTIR and chemometrics.

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Authors: Salah Alrabeei, Mohammad Yousuf

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The goal of option pricing theory is to help the investors to manage their money, enhance returns and control their financial future by theoretically valuing their options. Modeling option pricing by Black-School models with jumps guarantees to consider the market movement. However, only numerical methods can solve this model. Furthermore, not all the numerical methods are efficient to solve these models because they have nonsmoothing payoffs or discontinuous derivatives at the exercise price. In this paper, the exponential time differencing (ETD) method is applied for solving partial integrodifferential equations arising in pricing European options under Merton’s and Kou’s jump-diffusion models. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm is used as a matrix-vector multiplication solver, which reduces the complexity from O(M2) into O(M logM). A partial fraction form of Pad`e schemes is used to overcome the complexity of inverting polynomial of matrices. These two tools guarantee to get efficient and accurate numerical solutions. We construct a parallel and easy to implement a version of the numerical scheme. Numerical experiments are given to show how fast and accurate is our scheme.

Keywords: Integral differential equations, L-stable methods, pricing European options, Jump–diffusion model.

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Authors: Marco Leite, J. M. Vilas-Boas da Silva, Isabel Duarte de Almeida

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New Product Development (NPD) has got its roots on an Engineering background. Thus, one might wonder about the interest, opportunity, contents and delivery process, if students from soft sciences were involved. This paper addressed «What to teach?» and «How to do it?», as the preliminary research questions that originated the introduced propositions. The curriculum-developer model that was purposefully chosen to adapt the coursebook by pursuing macro/micro strategies was found significant by an exploratory qualitative case study. Moreover, learning was developed and value created by implementing the institutional curriculum through a creative, hands-on, experiencing, problem-solving, problem-based but organized teamwork approach. Product design of an orange squeezer complying with ill-defined requirements, including drafts, sketches, prototypes, CAD simulations and a business plan, plus a website, written reports and presentations were the deliverables that confirmed an innovative contribution towards research and practice of teaching and learning of engineering subjects to non-specialist operations managers candidates.

Keywords: Teaching Engineering to Non-specialists, Operations Managers Education, Teamwork, Product Design and Development, Market- driven NPD, Curriculum development.

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Authors: Dorota Kobus-Ostrowska

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Work for everyone, especially for person with disability is a condition in independence; it secures basic needs and develops manual and intellectual capabilities. The work is a source of income, and it builds and strengthens of self-esteem and competence. The purpose of this article is to identify work as an important factor in everyone’s life, despite Polish disabled persons rarely having the chance to undertake a job. In order to achieve this purpose, two methods were used: comparative and qualitative. The theoretical part of this article is based on studies of a wide range of Polish and foreign literature devoted to the issue of the occupational development of people with disabilities. The article was also enriched with the institutional and legal analysis types of support for people with disabilities in Poland. Currently, a Polish person with disability who wants to enter or return to the labor market is under a special protection. Those entities employing workers with disabilities may obtain a subsidy for the salary of a person with disabilities. Unfortunately, people with disability in Poland rarely participate in the workforce. The factors that contribute to this include the difficulty in obtaining work, the uncertainty of keeping it, and the low salary offered. Despite that domestic and foreign literature highlight the important role of disabled people as a workforce, very few people with disability in Poland are economically active.

Keywords: Disabled person, work, employer, rehabilitation.

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Authors: Ibrahim S AlNomay, Alaa Jaber, Ghada AlNasser

Abstract:

A learning management system (commonly abbreviated as LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, and reporting of training programs, classroom and online events, e-learning programs, and training content (Ellis 2009). (Hall 2003) defines an LMS as \"software that automates the administration of training events. All Learning Management Systems manage the log-in of registered users, manage course catalogs, record data from learners, and provide reports to management\". Evidence of the worldwide spread of e-learning in recent years is easy to obtain. In April 2003, no fewer than 66,000 fully online courses and 1,200 complete online programs were listed on the TeleCampus portal from TeleEducation (Paulsen 2003). In the report \" The US market in the Self-paced eLearning Products and Services:2010-2015 Forecast and Analysis\" The number of student taken classes exclusively online will be nearly equal (1% less) to the number taken classes exclusively in physical campuses. Number of student taken online course will increase from 1.37 million in 2010 to 3.86 million in 2015 in USA. In another report by The Sloan Consortium three-quarters of institutions report that the economic downturn has increased demand for online courses and programs.

Keywords: LMS, Interactive Materials, Exam Centers, Learning Outcomes

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Authors: Ming-Ta Yang, Jyh-Cherng Gu, Po-Chun Lin, Yen-Lin Huang, Chun-Wei Huang, Jin-Lung Guan

Abstract:

Since IEC61850 substation communication standard represents the trend to develop new generations of Substation Automation System (SAS), many IED manufacturers pursue this technique and apply for KEMA. In order to put on the market to meet customer demand as fast as possible, manufacturers often apply their products only for basic environment standard certification but claim to conform to IEC61850 certification. Since verification institutes generally perform verification tests only on specific IEDs of the manufacturers, the interoperability between all certified IEDs cannot be guaranteed. Therefore the interoperability between IEDs from different manufacturers needs to be tested. Based upon the above reasons, this study applies the definitions of the information models, communication service, GOOSE functionality and Substation Configuration Language (SCL) of the IEC61850 to build the concept of communication protocols, and build the test environment. The procedures of the test of the data collection and exchange of the P2P communication mode and Client / Server communication mode in IEC61850 are outlined as follows. First, test the IED GOOSE messages communication capability from different manufacturers. Second, collect IED data from each IED with SCADA system and use HMI to display the SCADA platform. Finally, problems generally encountered in the test procedure are summarized.

Keywords: GOOSE, IEC61850, IED, SCADA.

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Authors: Dong-Jae Kang, Nam-Woo Kim, Duk-Joo Son, Sung-In Jung

Abstract:

According to dramatic growth of internet services, an easy and prompt service deployment has been important for internet service providers to successfully maintain time-to-market. Before global service deployment, they have to pay the big cost for service evaluation to make a decision of the proper system location, system scale, service delay and so on. But, intra-Lab evaluation tends to have big gaps in the measured data compared with the realistic situation, because it is very difficult to accurately expect the local service environment, network congestion, service delay, network bandwidth and other factors. Therefore, to resolve or ease the upper problems, we propose multiple cloud based GPES Broker system and use case that helps internet service providers to alleviate the above problems in beta release phase and to make a prompt decision for their service launching. By supporting more realistic and reliable evaluation information, the proposed GPES Broker system saves the service release cost and enables internet service provider to make a prompt decision about their service launching to various remote regions.

Keywords: GPES Broker system, Cloud Service Broker, Multiple Cloud, Global performance evaluation service (GPES), Service provisioning

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Authors: A. Hortacsu, A. Tektas

Abstract:

This paper aims to develop a model that assists the international retailer in selecting the country that maximizes the degree of fit between the retailer-s goals and the country characteristics in his initial internationalization move. A two-stage multi criteria decision model is designed integrating the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Goal Programming. Ethical, cultural, geographic and economic proximity are identified as the relevant constructs of the internationalization decision. The constructs are further structured into sub-factors within analytic hierarchy. The model helps the retailer to integrate, rank and weigh a number of hard and soft factors and prioritize the countries accordingly. The model has been implemented on a Turkish luxury goods retailer who was planning to internationalize. Actual entry of the specific retailer in the selected country is a support for the model. Implementation on a single retailer limits the generalizability of the results; however, the emphasis of the paper is on construct identification and model development. The paper enriches the existing literature by proposing a hybrid multi objective decision model which introduces new soft dimensions i.e. perceived distance, ethical proximity, humane orientation to the decision process and facilitates effective decision making.

Keywords: Analytic hierarchy process, culture, ethics, goal programming, retail foreign market selection.

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