Search results for: competitive

Authors: T. Niracharapa

Abstract:

The research studied and examined the competitiveness of the animation industry in Thailand. Data were collected based on articles, related reports and websites, news, research, and interviews of key persons from both public and private sectors. The diamond model was used to analyze the study. The major factor driving the Thai animation industry forward includes a quality workforce, their creativity and strong associations. However, discontinuity in government support, infrastructure, marketing, IP creation and financial constraints were factors keeping the Thai animation industry less competitive in the global market.

Keywords: Animation, competitiveness, digital content, Thailand.

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Authors: Jacobus A. A. Lazenby

Abstract:

As a result of the ever-changing environment and the demands of rganisations- customers, it is important to recognise the importance of some important managerial challenges. It is the sincere belief that failure to meet these challenges, will ultimately contribute to inevitable problems for organisations. This recognition requires from managers and by implication organisations to be engaged in ethical behaviour, identity awareness and learning organisational behaviour. All these aspects actually reflect on the importance of intellectual capital as the competitive weapons for organisations in the future.

Keywords: Ethical behaviour, identity awareness, learningbehaviour.

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Authors: Lars A. L. Giske, Ola J. Mork, Emil Bjoerlykhaug

Abstract:

The design of fish processing equipment greatly impacts how easy the cleaning process for the equipment is. This is a critical issue in fish processing, as cleaning of fish processing equipment is a task that is both costly and time consuming, in addition to being very important with regards to product quality. Even more, poorly cleaned equipment could in the worst case lead to contaminated product from which consumers could get ill. This paper will elucidate how equipment design changes could improve the work for the cleaners and saving money for the fish processing facilities by looking at a case for product design improvements. The design of fish processing equipment largely determines how easy it is to clean. “Design for cleaning” is the new hype in the industry and equipment where the ease of cleaning is prioritized gets a competitive advantage over equipment in which design for cleaning has not been prioritized. Design for cleaning is an important research area for equipment manufacturers. SeaSide AS is doing continuously improvements in the design of their products in order to gain a competitive advantage. The focus in this paper will be conveyors for internal logistic and a product called the “electro stunner” will be studied with regards to “Design for cleaning”. Often together with SeaSide’s customers, ideas for new products or product improvements are sketched out, 3D-modelled, discussed, revised, built and delivered. Feedback from the customers is taken into consideration, and the product design is revised once again. This loop was repeated multiple times, and led to new product designs. The new designs sometimes also cause the manufacturing processes to change (as in going from bolted to welded connections). Customers report back that the concrete changes applied to products by SeaSide has resulted in overall more easily cleaned equipment. These changes include, but are not limited to; welded connections (opposed to bolted connections), gaps between contact faces, opening up structures to allow cleaning “inside” equipment, and generally avoiding areas in which humidity and water may gather and build up. This is important, as there will always be bacteria in the water which will grow if the area never dries up. The work of creating more cleanable design is still ongoing, and will “never” be finished as new designs and new equipment will have their own challenges.

Keywords: Cleaning, design, equipment, fish processing, innovation.

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Authors: Han-yuh Liu, Chia-yen Wu

Abstract:

Truly successful bloggers, navigating the public to know them, often use their blogs as a way to better communicate with customers. Integrating with marketing tools, storytelling can be regarded as one of the most effective ways that businesses can follow to gain competitive edge. Even though the literature on marketing contains much discussion of traditional vehicles, the issue of business blogs applying storytelling has, as yet, received little attention. In the exploration stage, this paper identifies four storytelling disciplines and then presents a road map to business blogging. This paper also provides a two-path framework for blog storytelling and initiates an issue for further study.

Keywords: Storytelling, business blog, blog content, blog position, blog navigation.

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Authors: K. Knüppel, G. Meyer, P. Nyhuis

Abstract:

The increasing interconnectedness and complexity of  production processes raise the susceptibility of production systems to  failure. Therefore, the ability to respond quickly to failures is  increasingly becoming a competitive factor. The research project  "Sustainable failure management in manufacturing SMEs" is  developing a methodology to identify failures in the production and  select preventive and reactive measures in order to correct failures  and to establish sustainable failure management systems.

 

Keywords: Failure categorization, failure management, logistic performance, production optimization.

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Authors: Jihane Abdessadak, Hicham Achelhi, Kamal Reklaoui

Abstract:

For any company or organization, change must be natural and binding in order to evolve its business, protect its durability and remain competitive. "Adapt or disappear". But how often managers, leaders or employees develop astonishing ideas that could improve several aspects of the organization and the feedback is less that encouraging and people give unrealistic judgments just to escape change. In this paper, we are going to discuss what we do know about change and resistance to change and what we can do to tame this phenomenon and, above all, the main steps that can follow an idea man in the delicate and decisive implementation of innovations.

Keywords: Innovation, change, resistance to change/innovation, barriers to innovation, levers of innovation.

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Authors: Revaz Gvelesiani

Abstract:

The intrinsic contradictions of entrepreneurship development and self-development strategies complicate the task of reaching compliance between the state economic policy and the company entrepreneurship policy: on the one hand, there is a contradiction between the social and the competitive order within economic order policy and on the other hand, the contradiction exists between entrepreneurship strategy and entrepreneurship culture within entrepreneurship policy.

Keywords: Economic Order Policy, Entrepreneurship, Development Contradictions, Self-Development Contradictions.

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Authors: Hyung-Keun Jee, Sung-Uk Jung, Jang-Hee Yoo

Abstract:

To increase reliability of face recognition system, the system must be able to distinguish real face from a copy of face such as a photograph. In this paper, we propose a fast and memory efficient method of live face detection for embedded face recognition system, based on the analysis of the movement of the eyes. We detect eyes in sequential input images and calculate variation of each eye region to determine whether the input face is a real face or not. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is competitive and promising for live face detection.

Keywords: Liveness Detection, Eye detection, SQI.

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Authors: Changjin Xu

Abstract:

In this paper, using the Gaines and Mawhin,s continuation theorem of coincidence degree theory on time scales, the existence of periodic solutions for a two-prey one-predator system is studied. Some sufficient conditions for the existence of positive periodic solutions are obtained. The results provide unified existence theorems of periodic solution for the continuous differential equations and discrete difference equations.

Keywords: Time scales, competitive system, periodic solution, coincidence degree, topological degree.

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Authors: Pieter C. M. Cornelis

Abstract:

(European) theme parks invest approximately 10 percent of their yearly turnover into new rides and park improvements. Without these investments these parks assume not to be a very competitive and appealing daytrip for their target audiences. However, the impact of investments in attracting new visitors is not well-known and seems to differ dramatically between parks. This paper presents a case study from the Netherlands in which a small amusement park applied a suggested, not yet proven, investment method. The results of the investment are discussed in (a) the form of return on investment and (b) the success of the predictions with regard to this investment. Suggestions for future research are presented.

Keywords: Entertainment industry, innovation, investments, theme parks.

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Authors: Haiyan Wang

Abstract:

Business interpreting talents are in badly need for local economic development, but currently there are problems of traditional business interpreting training mode in China. In view of the good opportunity for college business interpreters provided by international trading center development in Qingdao China and with the aim of being in line with market demand and enhancing business interpreters' employment competitive advantage, this paper aims to explore how to cultivate interdisciplinary business interpreting talents based on market demand.

Keywords: Interdisciplinary talents, business interpreting, market demand.

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Authors: L. Richter, J. Lübkemann, P. Nyhuis

Abstract:

In order to remain competitive in what is a turbulent environment; businesses must be able to react rapidly to change. The past response to volatile market conditions was to introduce an element of flexibility to production. Nowadays, what is often required is a redesign of factory structures in order to cope with the state of constant flux. The Institute of Production Systems and Logistics is currently developing a descriptive and causal model for the redesign of plant structures as part of an ongoing research project. This article presents the first research findings attained in devising this model.

Keywords: Causal model, change driven factory redesign, factory planning, plant structure.

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Authors: Zuzana Crhova, Karel Kolman, Drahomíra Pavelkova

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Knowledge is considered as an important asset which can help organizations to create competitive advantage. The necessity of taking care of these assets is more important in these days – in days of turbulent changes in business environment. Knowledge could facilitate adaption to constant changes. The aim of this paper is to describe how the knowledge sharing can be supported in the manufacturing companies. The methods of case studies and grounded theory were used to present information gained by carrying out semistructured interviews. Results show that knowledge sharing is supported in very similar ways in respondent companies.

Keywords: Case Study, Human Resource Management, Knowledge, Knowledge Sharing.

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Authors: Anouch Mkhitarian

Abstract:

The article examines an opportunity of corruption restriction exercised by international business community in Russia. Integration of Russian economy into the international business does not reduce corruption inside the country. Foreign actors investing in Russia under the condition of obtaining their required rates of returns will be reluctant to harm their investments by involving into anticorruption activities. Furthermore, many Russian firms- competitive advantage could be directly related to their corruption connections. In this case, foreign investments would only accentuate corrupt companies- success by supporting them financially

Keywords: Corrution, FDI, Russian Federation

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Authors: Smajo Bisanovic, Mensur Hajro, Muris Dlakic

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This paper presents one comprehensive modelling approach for maintenance scheduling problem of thermal power units in competitive market. This problem is formulated as a 0/1 mixedinteger linear programming model. Model incorporates long-term bilateral contracts with defined profiles of power and price, and weekly forecasted market prices for market auction. The effectiveness of the proposed model is demonstrated through case study with detailed discussion.

Keywords: Maintenance scheduling, bilateral contracts, market prices, profit.

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Authors: X. Vecino, J. M. Cruz, A. Moldes

Abstract:

The disposal and the treatment of sewage sludge is an expensive and environmentally complex problem. In this work, a lipopeptide biosurfactant extracted from corn steep liquor was used as ecofriendly and cost-competitive alternative for the mobilization and bioremediation of fluorene in sewage sludge. Results have demonstrated that this biosurfactant has the capability to mobilize fluorene to the aqueous phase, reducing the amount of fluorene in the sewage sludge from 484.4 mg/Kg up to 413.7 mg/Kg and 196.0 mg/Kg after 1 and 27 days respectively. Furthermore, once the fluorene was extracted the lipopeptide biosurfactant contained in the aqueous phase allowed the biodegradation, up to 40.5% of the initial concentration of this polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon.

Keywords: Fluorene, lipopeptide biosurfactant, mobilization, sewage sludge.

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Authors: Nadezhda Nikolaeva, Tatyana Alexandrova, Alexandr Alexandrov

Abstract:

Processing of high-silicon bauxite on the base of the traditional clinkering method is related to high power consumption and capital investments, which makes production of alumina from those ores non-competitive in terms of basic economic showings. For these reasons, development of technological solutions enabling to process bauxites with various chemical and mineralogical structures efficiently with low level of thermal power consumption is important. Flow sheet of the studies on washability of ores from the Timanskoe and the Severo-Onezhskoe deposits is on the base of the flotation method.

Keywords: Low-quality bauxite, resource-saving technology, optimization, aluminum, conditioning of composition, separation characteristics.

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Authors: Dawei Lin

Abstract:

This research proposes an Interactive 3D Experience to enhance customer value in the fantasy era. As products reach maturity, they become more similar in the range of functions that they provide. This leads to competition via reduced retail price and ultimately reduced profitability. A competitive design method is therefore needed that can produce higher value products. An Enhanced Value Experience has been identified that can assist designers to provide quality products and to give them a unique positioning. On the basis of this value opportunity, the method of Interactive 3D Experience has been formulated and applied to the domain of retail furniture. Through this, customers can create their own personalized styling via the interactive 3D platform.

Keywords: Interactive 3D experience, enhanced valueexperience, value opportunity, personalized styling.

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Authors: Nerey H. Mvungi, Mosses Makoko

Abstract:

In today-s highly globalised and competitive world access to information plays key role in having an upper hand between business rivals. Hence, proper protection of such crucial resource is core to any modern business. Implementing a successful information security system is basically centered around three pillars; technical solution involving both software and hardware, information security controls to translate the policies and procedure in the system and the people to implement. This paper shows that a lot needs to be done for countries adapting information technology to process, store and distribute information to secure adequately such core resource.

Keywords: security, information systems, controls, technology, practices.

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Authors: A. Bocevska, G. Todorov, T. Neshkov

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New developed approach for Functional Cost Analysis (FCA) based on virtual prototyping (VP) models in CAD/CAE environment, applicable and necessary in developing new products is presented. It is instrument for improving the value of the product while maintaining costs and/or reducing the costs of the product without reducing value. Five broad classes of VP methods are identified. Efficient use of prototypes in FCA is a vital activity that can make the difference between successful and unsuccessful entry of new products into the competitive word market. Successful realization of this approach is illustrated for a specific example using press joint power tool.

Keywords: CAD/CAE environment, Functional Cost Analysis (FCA), Virtual prototyping (VP) models.

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Authors: Asim N., M. Mazhar Manzoor, Shariq A.

Abstract:

Knowledge is renowned as a significant component for sustaining competitive advantage and gives leading edge in business. This study emphasizes towards proper and effectuate utilization of internal and external (both either explicit or tacit) knowledge comes from stakeholders, highly supportive to combat with the challenges and enhance organizational productivity. Furthermore, it proposed a model under context of IRSA framework which facilitates the organization including flow of knowledge and experience sharing among employees. In discussion section an innovative model which indulges all functionality as mentioned in analysis section.

Keywords: Effective Decision-Making, Internal & ExternalKnowledge, Knowledge Management, Tacit & Explicit Knowledge.

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Authors: K. Eryesil, O. Esmen, A. Beduk

Abstract:

In this study, it has been studied to determine the relationship between business performance and strategic flexibility, which is defined to be the strategic choice that provides the ability of rapidly responding the changes of the dynamic environment of the companies, for having competitive advantages. In this context a field study has been conducted over 56 companies, which are active in informatics and electronics sectors in TEKNOKENT. As a result of the study it has been determined that; strategic flexibility has an effect on business performance and there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between strategic flexibility and business performance.

Keywords: Sustainable Competition Advantage, Strategic Flexibility, Firm Performance, TEKNOKENT.

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Authors: Tim Klemke, Peter Nyhuis

Abstract:

In today-s turbulent environment, companies are faced with two principal challenges. On the one hand, it is necessary to produce ever more cost-effectively to remain competitive. On the other hand, factories need to be transformable in order to manage unpredictable changes in the corporate environment. To deal with these different challenges, companies use the philosophy of lean production in the first case, in the second case the philosophy of transformability. To a certain extent these two approaches follow different directions. This can cause conflicts when designing factories. Therefore, the Institute of Production Systems and Logistics (IFA) of the Leibniz University of Hanover has developed a procedure to allow companies to evaluate and design their factories with respect to the requirements of both philosophies.

Keywords: Factory planning, lean production, transformability

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Authors: Chihab BenMoussa

Abstract:

Firms have invested heavily in knowledge management (KM) with the aim to build a knowledge capability and use it to achieve a competitive advantage. Research has shown, however, that not all knowledge management projects succeed. Some studies report that about 84% of knowledge management projects fail. This paper has integrated studies on the impediments to knowledge management into a theoretical framework. Based on this framework, five cases documenting failed KM initiatives were analysed. The analysis gave us a clear picture about why certain KM projects fail. The high failure rate of KM can be explained by the gaps that exist between users and management in terms of KM perceptions and objectives

Keywords: Knowledge management, barriers to knowledge management, Knowledge-gaps, supply-driven approach to knowledge management.

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Authors: Markéta Gregušová, Vladimíra Schindlerová, Ivana Šajdlerová, Petr Mohyla, Jan Kedroň

Abstract:

Company managers are always looking for more and more opportunities to succeed in today's fiercely competitive market. To maintain your place among the successful companies on the market today or to come up with a revolutionary business idea is much more difficult than before. Each new or improved method, tool, or approach that can improve the functioning of business processes or even of the entire system is worth checking and verification. The use of simulation in the design of manufacturing systems and their management in practice is one of the ways without increased risk, which makes it possible to find the optimal parameters of manufacturing processes and systems. The paper presents an example of use of simulation for solution of the bottleneck problem in the concrete company.

Keywords: Practical applications, business processes, systems, simulation.

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Authors: Rajesh Gupta, Anish Sachdeva, Arvind Bhardwaj

Abstract:

Shippers are concentrating on the core competency to stay competitive and outsourcing the logistic activities to the third party who is expert in this field. This third party logistics (3PL) is drawing the due attention at government, industrial, academicians and practitioner-s levels. If the logistics cost in India can be brought down from the current level of 13% of GDP to 9% (level in the U.S.), the savings would be around Rs 3 lakh crore approximately per annum. But the problem with the shippers is to select the suitable 3PL provider. Various criteria for selection of 3PL have been listed in the literature which are discussed in the present literature review. Every shipper will select the criteria suitable to its own requirement which have to be dynamically reviewed time to time so as to fit in the ever changing environment.

Keywords: 3PL, criteria, shipper, outsourcing

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Authors: G. Petruzzelli, F. Pedron, I. Rosellini, E. Tassi, F. Gorini, B. Pezzarossa, M. Barbafieri

Abstract:

Mercury adsorption on soil was investigated at different ionic strengths using Ca(NO3)2 as a background electrolyte. Results fitted the Langmuir equation and the adsorption isotherms reached a plateau at higher equilibrium concentrations. Increasing ionic strength decreased the sorption of mercury, due to the competition of Ca ions for the sorption sites in the soils. The influence of ionic strength was related to the mechanisms of heavy metal sorption by the soil. These results can be of practical importance both in the agriculture and contaminated soils since the solubility of mercury in soils are strictly dependent on the adsorption and release process.

Keywords: Heavy metals, bioavailability, remediation, competitive sorption.

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Authors: Heejung Lee

Abstract:

In a highly competitive environment, it becomes more important to shorten the whole business process while delivering or even enhancing the business value to the customers and suppliers. Although the workflow management systems receive much attention for its capacity to practically support the business process enactment, the effective workflow modeling method remain still challenging and the high degree of process complexity makes it more difficult to gain the short lead time. This paper presents a workflow structuring method in a holistic way that can reduce the process complexity using activity-needs and formal concept analysis, which eventually enhances the key performance such as quality, delivery, and cost in business process.

Keywords: Workflow management, reengineering, formal concept analysis.

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Authors: H. Izadbakhsh, M.Hour Ali, A. Amirkhani, A. Montazeri, M. Saberi

Abstract:

The after–sales activities are nowadays acknowledged as a relevant source of revenue, profit and competitive advantage in most manufacturing industries. Top and middle management, therefore, should focus on the definition of a structured business performance measurement system for the after-sales business. The paper aims at filling this gap, and presents an integrated methodology for the after-sales network performance measurement, and provides an empirical application to automotive case companies and their official service network. This is the first study that presents an integrated multivariate approach for total assessment and improvement of after-sale services.

Keywords: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Automotive companies, After-sale services.

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Authors: M. Hoxha, V. Capra, C. Buccellati, A. Sala, C. Cena, R. Fruttero, M. Bertinaria, G. E. Rovati

Abstract:

Today COXIBs are used in the treatment of arthritis and many other painful conditions in selected patients with high gastrointestinal risk and low cardiovascular (CV) risk. Previously, we have identified an unexpected mechanism of action of a traditional non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) (diclofenac) and a specific inhibitor of cyclooxygenase-2 (COXIB) (lumiracoxib) demonstrating that they possess weak competitive antagonism at the thromboxane receptor (TP). We hypothesize that modifying the structure of a known COXIB so that it becomes also a more potent TP antagonist will preserve the anti-inflammatory and gastrointestinal safety typical of COXIBs and prevent the CV risk associated with long term therapy.

Keywords: Cyclooxygenase, inflammation, lumiracoxib, thromboxane A2.

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