Search

Business competition in the service sector in Indonesia makes the queuing model very important. This paper aims to find the optimal queuing model at the XYZ counter area service. The average customer arrival time in the ongoing XYZ model simulation with only one entry is 34.1 seconds. With three queue lines and three cashiers each accommodated with ten samples, the duration of service for each cashier independently is 61.4 seconds, 53.2 seconds, and 68.4 seconds. The number of customers served is 4 out of 16. This fact shows that this queue is not adequate for optimal service. The researchers made two simulation models for counter row reduction in this study. First, the researcher made two entries, four queue lines, and four counters. The number of customers served is 24 out of 67, which makes the first model has an effectiveness of 35.82%, which is more advanced than the effectiveness of the current model. Second, the researcher makes one entry, one queue line1, and one counter1. The number of customers served was 5 out of 16, making the alternative model 31.25% effective, which is also ahead of the current model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure of a market is determined by the number of active firms in it. Over time, this number is affected by the exit of existing firms, called incumbents, and entries of new firms, called entrant. In this paper, we considered a market governed by the Cobb-Douglas utility function such that the demand function is isoelastic. Each firm is assumed to produce a single homogenous product under a constant unit cost. Furthermore, firms are assumed to be boundedly rational in adjusting their outputs at each period. A firm is considered to exit the market if its output is negative. In this paper, the market is assumed to have zero barrier-toentry. Therefore, the exiting firm can reenter the market if its output is positive again, and new firms can enter the market easily. Based on these assumptions and rules, a mathematical model was developed and numerical simulations were run using Matlab. By setting certain values for the parameters in the model, initial numerical simulations showed that in the long run, the number of firms that manages to survive the market varies between zero to 30. This initial result is consistent with the idea that a zero barrier-to-entry may produce a perfectly competitive market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Government of Indonesia is trying to accelerate infrastructure projects to increase national economic growth. One of the infrastructure projects is the Trans Sumatera Toll Road (TSTR), built spans across Sumatera Island from the north to the southern part of the island, about 2,704 km. The developed connectivity is expected to increase regional economic growth and competitiveness on the island of Sumatera. This paper aims to identify the leading economic sectors in the region that the TSTR will pass by considering the northern part of Sumatera as the focus of the study. The location quotient (LQ) method was used to determine the leading economic sector in the province in the northern part of Sumatera by using the gross regional domestic product (GRDP). This study shows that regencies and cities in the Provinces of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam and North Sumatera have the potential to contribute to regional economic growth, with the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sectors in both provinces as the leading sectors. With the existence of TSTR, it is expected to be able to increase the regional economy by accelerating the mobility of goods from these leading sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text is a preface to the "Advances in Polymer Technology 2023 Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Plastics Technology." The symposium, held in Aachen, Germany in September 2022, focused on advancements in plastics technology. The volume contains selected papers from the event, which highlight the importance of scientific research in the face of rapid technological change. The papers cover a range of topics, including material research, process innovations, and algorithmic optimization, with the goal of driving technological change in the plastics technology industry. The preface is written by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christian Hopmann and Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Rainer Dahlmann. [Extracted from the article]

The paper is devoted to game-theoretical control problems motivated by economic decision making situations arising in realization of large-scale projects, such as designing and putting into operations the new gas or oil pipelines. A non-cooperative two player game is considered with payoff functions of special type for which standard existence theorems and algorithms for searching Nash equilibrium solutions are not applicable. The paper is based on and develops the results obtained in [1]–[5]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Usually, market models analyse competition between firms with either quantity or price as decision's variables. This paper analyses the effects of production subsidies in both mixed and privatized duopolies, in which one firm (the public one) sets the production output and the other one (the private firm) sets the price. Furthermore, we assume that both firms take their decisions simultaneously. We analyse unsubsidized and subsidized policies in both mixed and private markets. This analysis allows us to show that if optimal subsidies are used before but not after privatization, then privatization lowers social welfare. Furthermore, if optimal subsidies are used before and after privatization, then privatization also lowers social welfare, but increases the value of the subsidy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we consider a competition in both mixed and privatized markets, in which the firms set prices in a sequential way. We study the effects of optimal production subsidies in both mixed and privatized duopoly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays competitive neural network has been widely used in the pattern recognition, classification and other aspects, and show the great advantages compared with the traditional clustering methods. But the competitive neural networks still has inadequate in many aspects, and it needs to be further improved. Based on the learning Vector Quantization Network proposed by Learning Kohonen [1], this paper resolve the issue of the large training error, when there are "blind" spots in a network through the introduction of threshold value learning rules and finally programs the realization with Matlab. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presently service organizations are challenged by fierce global competition, new technology and changing customer demands. These trends force service sectors to adapt environmental factors and places innovation at the core of their competitive strategy. On the other hand, service sectors challenge to deliver value memorable experiences and complete "service solutions" while lowering costs and keep sustainable. Despite, many studies have attempted to explore the factors that help toward environmental sustainability in the manufacturing sector, the service sector has not yet received a considerable attention in all world countries generally and in developing countries particularly. Thus, this paper aims to explore the factors that help to attain environmental sustainability in the service sector. A qualitative case study through semi-structured interview conducted with twenty managers from AirAsia to explore the factors that are related to environmental sustainability and green services. Besides, secondary data from document analysis was reviewed to gain more comprehensive understanding and triangulate the interview data. The finding of this paper emphasizes to three important factors namely institutional factors, process factors and result factors that each factor contain sustainability and innovations to promote competitive green service in the marketplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demand of fossil fuels, including oil, gas, and coal has been increasing with the rapid development of developing countries such as China and India. U.S., Japan, EU, and Korea have been making efforts to transfer to low carbon and green growth economics for sustainable development. And they also have been measuring to cope with climate change and the depletion of conventional fuels. Advanced nations implemented strategic energy technology development plans to lead the future energy market. Strategic energy technology development is crucial alternative to address the energy issues. This paper analyze the relative competitiveness of hydrogen energy technologies in case of hydrogen production and storage technologies from 2006 to 2010. Hydrogen energy technology is environmentally clean technology comparing with the previous conventional energy technologies and will play a key role to solve the greenhouse gas effect. Leading nations have increasingly focused on hydrogen technology R&D. This research is carried out the relative competitiveness of hydrogen energy technologies employed by an integrated fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (Fuzzy AHP) and The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) approaches. We make four criteria, accounting for technological status, R&D budget, R&D human resource, and hydrogen infra. This research can be used as fundamental data for implementing national hydrogen energy R&D planning for energy policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Making progress basically, a fundamental issue for the construction companies to get by in a highly competitive industry. From time to time, industry players are facing stiff and tough competition due to large number of players, whether existing or new players involved from various background and track record. Furthermore, the large numbers of component deciding the competitiveness of contractors, whose organization structures and governance have turned out to be more muddled. Different construction companies have their own unique criteria which may differ from one to another. The enormous amount of issues needs to bring down to manageable numbers so that measures can be identified and scrutinized to enhance competitiveness. This paper discusses the result from the critical investigation from past studies in the Asian countries, namely China, India, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. Several fundamental factors have been identified as CSFs in construction companies in respective country. Also highlighted a critical survey based upon various literatures written on this subject where critical success factors (CSFs) as a yardstick to gauge the relationship among CSFs in various construction companies in the Asian region. Far reaching estimation of an organization's performance and resulting input to its supervision is crucial for business change. Estimation additionally empowers organizations to be contrasted from one another on the premise of institutionalized data, permitting best practices to be distinguished and connected more widely. Different countries have their own set of critical success factors (CSFs) which may differ in term of priority and at the same time share common elements of success factor in accomplishment as a construction companies. The study, which is exploratory in nature, embraced the content investigation and inductive technique to accomplish its objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study an international market model in which the home government imposes a tariff on the imported goods. The model has two stages. In the first stage, the home government chooses an import tariff to maximize a function that cares about the home firm's profit and the total revenue. Then, the firms engage in a Cournot or in a Stackelberg competition. We compare the results obtained in the three different ways of moving on the decision make of the firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the robust optimization for production planning is considered. The most important objectives of introduced research include: to analyze a capacitated lot-sizing problem (CLSP) on a rolling horizon basis, to prove the uniqueness of worst-case demand distribution in terms of competitive analysis, to construct a method to calculate a competitive ratio of online algorithms with different length of rolling horizon interval. To describe the process of production, mathematical model of CLSP was chosen (includes associated production and holding costs) [1]. In this paper we consider the rolling horizon approach for the optimization. To measure the effectiveness of the algorithm and guarantee the robust solution, we use terms 'online and offline algorithms' and the concept of competitive ratio from competitive analysis [2]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distance education continues to grow as a methodology for the delivery of course content in higher education in India as well as abroad. To manage this growing demand and to provide certain flexibility, there must be certain strategic planning about the use of ICT tools. Value chain analysis is a framework for breaking down the sequence of business functions into a set of activities through which utility could be added to service. Thus it can help to determine the competitive advantage that is enjoyed by an institute. To implement these business functions certain visual representation is required. UML allows for this representation by using a set of structural and behavioral diagrams. In this paper, the first section defines a framework for value chain analysis and highlights its advantages. The second section gives a brief overview of related work in this field. The third section gives a brief discussion on distance education. The fourth section very briefly introduces UML. The fifth section models value chain of distance education using UML. Finally we discuss the limitations and the problems posed in this domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The manufacturing world is facing major pressures due to the globalization of markets. Increasing competition forces companies to be lean, agile and global. Lean manufacturing (LM) has been formulated in response to the fluctuating and competitive business environment. An LM company considered to be efficient, because the activities performed in the company are deemed to add value to the customer. In this study, a review of 85 researches is carried out, forty percent of them are papers related to LM in Malaysia. It is concluded that LM implementation has a positive effect on Malaysian organizational performance, as reflected in operational, financial, business, and environmental measures. Although LM made its first appearance in the automotive industry, it is seen that it is now practiced in a wide range of industrial sectors. It is also observed that numerous obstacles are faced in the implementation of LM in Malaysia, including employee, management, and financial obstacles. Moreover, the lack of understanding LM considered as the key obstacle facing the Malaysian industries. There is a need of serious attention from the companies to overcome the identified obstacles. All the stake-holders (internal employees and external suppliers) need to collaborate and work together to ensure the success of LM implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electricity is one of the important energy sources. A sufficient supply of electricity is vital to support a country's development and growth. Due to the changing of socio-economic characteristics, increasing competition and deregulation of electricity supply industry, the electricity demand forecasting is even more important than before. It is imperative to evaluate and compare the predictive performance of various forecasting methods. This will provide further insights on the weakness and strengths of each method. In literature, there are mixed evidences on the best forecasting methods of electricity demand. This paper aims to compare the predictive performance of univariate time series models for forecasting the electricity demand using a monthly data of maximum electricity load in Malaysia from January 2003 to December 2013. Results reveal that the Box-Jenkins method produces the best out-of-sample predictive performance. On the other hand, Holt-Winters exponential smoothing method is a good forecasting method for in-sample predictive performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese economy has fallen into a long downturn called "The Lost Two Decades" after the collapse of bubble economy in early 1990s. Many companies could not gain competitive advantages although they conducted various management reforms to restore their competitiveness. The companies that have played the main role of the Japanese economy growth until then have lost the sustained competitive advantage. Moreover, they have struggled in the global market even now. On the other hand, Japanese automobile companies have high competitiveness and market share due to their advanced technology development. It is considered that personnel groups engaged in research and development of their companies cannot turn into core rigidity and the structure also hinders new core capabilities. In addition, there is a hypothesis that the close relationships with many suppliers contribute to acquisition of competitive advantage. Therefore, this paper focuses on the collaboration relationships with suppliers and core rigidity of human resources related to research and development as the analysis factors. First, we analyze the composition and core rigidity degree of human resources involved in technology development by social network analysis using patent information, which represents the research and development capability. Second, we analyze the degree of collaboration among companies based on the hypothesis that advanced technology development can be executed by joint research and developments with many kinds of suppliers. As a result, features of close collaboration with suppliers and high core rigidity rate in the Japanese automobile industry are clarified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new location problem of competitive facilities, e.g. shops, with uncertainty and vagueness including demands for the facilities in a plane. By representing the demands for facilities as fuzzy random variables, the location problem can be formulated as a fuzzy random programming problem. For solving the fuzzy random programming problem, first the α-level sets for fuzzy numbers are used for transforming it to a stochastic programming problem, and secondly, by using their expectations and variances, it can be reformulated to a deterministic programming problem. After showing that one of their optimal solutions can be found by solving 0-1 programming problems, their solution method is proposed by improving the tabu search algorithm with strategic oscillation. The efficiency of the proposed method is shown by applying it to numerical examples of the facility location problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological innovation is characterized by the substitution of new technologies for full-fledged ones in the development of new products, processes and techniques. Global TV market is seeing a price down-spiral for FPD(Flat Panel Display)-TVs, replacement of CRT by LCD, and consumer’s defection to larger screen. The LCD-TV market started in Japan from 2003 and took off globally from 2005. LCD panel production is moving toward larger sizes. In the 35″–39″ size market, the price/performance ratio of LCD-TV is better than that of PDP. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the demand function of worldwide big-size (35″–39″) TVs including LCD and PDP with an explicit consideration of market competition. The demand function was estimated using Lotka-Volterra model, a famous competitive diffusion model. The results exhibit a kind of predator-prey relationship, in which the PDP market was hunted by LCD product. In addition, the coefficients of difference equations of Lotka-Volterra model in this analysis are also used to forecast the future market of the big-size LCD and PDP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate a duopoly market describing the competition between two firms that produce goods of the same kind, under the assumption that their cost functions are proportional to the amounts produced. When the proportionality factor is constant, it has been found that the model always leads to a stable equilibrium point. In this paper, we introduce cost functions that include periodic driving, which models fluctuations of prices that determine the production costs of a firm. In contrast to the undriven case, we find that the equilibrium point destabilizes and all solutions rapidly converge to a stable quasiperiodic attractor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether a new technology can successfully compete against an established one, and either hold its own or indeed replace the older technology depends on many factors, not least of which is the ability of the innovators to anticipate how the market and the existing firms will react to the newcomer. In this paper, we describe and contrast the behaviours of a quadratic recurrence relation derived from a Lotka-Volterra competition model with that of a similar system which has an anticipatory capability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bidding competition of international projects is more and more fierce currently. However, China started late relatively in the field, it is still lack of experience in the aspect of participation in bidding of international projects, and more effective bidding quotation system is not formed till present. Therefore, China can not win through systemic bidding quotation methods compared with many powerful bidding enterprises in the international field. Research on the field is also focused by many aspects as a result. It is urgent to solve related problems. Game theory is combined for analyzing the effectiveness and operability of bidding quotation models mainly based on current situation of bidding market in China international projects during research process in the paper. The research starts with the perspective of bidders for analyzing their game with tenderers and other bidders. The results have operational value aiming at bidders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of learning organization was originally developed as a result of the pressures facing modern organizations and enables them to remain competitive in the business environment. The concept refers to organization that facilitates the learning of its members and continuously transforms itself. Furthermore, in a learning organization, not only are all the members, as individual persons, continually learning, but also the organization itself is highly adaptable. Research and discussions concerning the adoption of learning organization into educational institutions contexts has been broadly acceptable. However, bringing the concept into specific education institutions such as engineering education is very limited. The main problem on the adoptions is, while the change into learning organization needs fundamental changes, the schools mostly do not organically develop into learning organizations. In order to address this problem, transformation is an appropriate strategy to accelerate change towards LO. Through transformation--instead of just a reform-- engineering education institutions will be able to accomplish a fundamental change, a change that alters the system in fundamental ways, offering a dramatic shift in direction and requiring new ways of thinking and acting. Based on these arguments, discussions in this paper will include: engineering education institution (EEI) as a learning organization, challenges in the transformation of EEI to be learning organizations, and transformational strategy to accelerate changes of EEI into LO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider domestic and international competitions with one public leader firm and one follower private firm, producing complementary goods and competing on prices. We compare the results obtained in both models. Furthermore, we examine the impacts of privatization on consumer surplus and on social welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid introduction of new product into the market has resulted in growing competition between retailers. Nowadays, retailers compete with one another in order to increase revenue and to maintain their position in the marketplace. This situation has forced the retailers to enhance their strategic management as well as creating competitive advantages. Generally, this situation can be observed in highly demanded product such as fashion goods and high technology electronic devices (smart phone, notebook). The consequence from the intense competition and new product introduction is difficulties in retailers pricing management. Retailers are now facing with complexity in making decisions on suitable pricing strategies and discount level for new product in association with the product life cycle. Thus, this research aims to investigate the suitable discount pricing strategies that can be integrated in every phase of product life cycle. This paper presents relationships between the discount pricing and the stages in the product life cycle in the form of conceptual diagram and mathematical expression. A system dynamic approach is used for developing the conceptual diagram and formulating the mathematical expression for the discount pricing strategies to visualize the relationship between discount pricing and product life cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Selecting and evaluating the right vendors is imperative for an organization's global marketplace competitiveness. Improper selection and evaluation of potential vendors can dwarf an organization's supply chain performance. Numerous studies have demonstrated that firms consider multiple criteria when selecting key vendors. This research intends to develop a new hybrid model for vendor selection process with better decision making. The new proposed model provides a suitable tool for assisting decision makers and managers to make the right decisions and select the most suitable vendor. This paper proposes a Hybrid model based on Structural Equation Model (SEM) and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) for long-term strategic vendor selection problems. The five steps framework of the model has been designed after the thorough literature study. The proposed hybrid model will be applied using a real life case study to assess its effectiveness. In addition, What-if analysis technique will be used for model validation purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several factors will influence the contribution of nuclear energy to the future energy mix. Among them, the most important are the degree of global commitment to greenhouse gas reduction, continued vigilance in safety and safeguards, technological advances, economic competitiveness and innovative financing arrangements for new nuclear power plant constructions, the implementation of nuclear waste disposal, and, last but not least, public perception, information and education. The paper presents an overview of the current nuclear energy situation, possible development scenarios, of reactor technology, and of non-electric applications of nuclear energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Physician Induced Demand (PID) exists when the physician influences a patient’s demand for care against the physician’s interpretation of the best interests of the patient. In the sector of health economics, the problem related to the PID is a long-debated topic among the experts. In order to investigate whether the competition among physicians can control Physician Induced Demand (PID), this paper chooses two institutions in China located in Guangzhou and make a comparison between them. The internal and external conditions of two agencies are almost the same except the pressure of competition faced by physicians. As one of the institutions aims at serving high-end consumers, it has to compete with other hospitals in order to attract patients with enough ability to pay. Through the comparison of the average hospitalization costs (AHC), the strength of PID can be evaluated. According to the result, the AHC indicator in the institution with fierce competition is lower than that in another institution. That’s to say physicians face to the pressure of competition can effectively control PID. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Game theory is the mathematical framework for analyzing strategic interactions in conflict and competition situations. In recent years quantum game theory has earned the attention of physicists, and has emerged as a branch of quantum information theory [1]. With the aid of entanglement and linear superposition of strategies, quantum games are shown to yield signifcant advantage over their classical counterparts. In this paper we explore optimal and equilibrium solutions to quantum minority games. Initial states with different level of entanglement are investigated. Focus will be on 4 and 6 player games with some N-player generalizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue for clear separation of the exchange problem from the exchange paradox to avoid confusion about the subject matter of these two distinct problems. The exchange problem in its current format belongs to the domain of optimal decision making-it doesn't make any sense as a game of competition. But it takes just a tiny modification in the statement of the problem to breathe new life into it and make it a practicable and meaningful game of competition. In this paper, we offer an explanation for paradoxical priors and discuss adaptive strategies for both the house and the player in the restated exchange problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Logistics function as an important role in business operation. Due to the increasing competition in this industry, organization should make sure the business logistics is efficient and effective. In achieving the increase in performance and indirectly increase the profit of an organization, logistics is an important element that need be taken into consideration seriously. This paper investigates the effect of innovative, marketing and supportive capability towards logistics performance, the study has been conducted in towards the SME organization in area of Putrajaya. 117 respondents from SME's were collected to identify the relationship of innovative, marketing and supportive capability towards the logistics performance. Hence, factor analysis was done includes the correlation and regression analysis to examine relationship that exists. The findings identify that that innovative, marketing and supportive capability that contribute to logistics performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate endogenous roles in a competition between a nonprofit firm and a for-profit firm in a homogeneous goods market, by allowing two production periods. We find that the Cournot-type equilibrium and one Stackelberg-type equilibrium where the nonprofit firm becomes the follower exist; however, another tackelberg-type equilibrium where the nonprofit firm becomes the leader does not exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies employ qualitative approach to explore the industrial clusters; however, few research has objectively quantified the evolutions of industry clustering. The purpose of this paper is to quantitatively analyze clustering among IC design, IC manufacturing as well as IC packaging and testing industries by using the foreign direct investment (FDI) data. The Lotka-Volterra system equations are first adopted here to capture the competition or cooperation among such three industries, thus explaining their clustering inclinations. The results indicate that the evolution of FDI into China for IC design industry significantly inspire the subsequent FDI of IC manufacturing as well as IC packaging and testing industries. Since IC design industry lie in the upstream stage of IC production, the middle-stream IC manufacturing and downstream IC packing and testing enterprises tend to cluster together with IC design firms, in order to sustain a steady business. Finally, Taiwan IC industry’s FDI amount into China is predicted to cumulatively increase, which supports the industrial clustering tendency for Taiwan IC industry. Particularly, the FDI prediction of Lotka-Volterra model performs superior to that of the conventional Bass model after the forecast accuracy of these two models are compared. The prediction ability is dramatically improved as the industrial mutualism among each IC production stage is taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Selling Generator Set (Genset) in B2B market, distributors assisted manufacturers to sell products. This is caused by the limited resources owned by the manufacturer for adding service elements. These service elements are needed to enhance the competitiveness of the generator sets. Some genset distributors often sell products together with supports to their customers. Industrial distributor develops services to meet the needs of the customer. Generator set distributors support machines and equipment produced by manufacturer. The services delivered by the distributors could enhance value obtained by the customers from the equipment. Services provided to customers in bidding process, ordering process of the equipment from the manufacturer, equipment delivery, installations, and the after sales stage. This paper promotes framework to measure Product Service System (PSS) of Generator Set distributors in delivering their products and services for the customers. The methodology of conducting this research is by adopting the perspective of the providers and customers and by taking into account the tangible and intangible products. This research leads to the idea of improvement of current Product Service System of a Genset distributor. This research needs further studies in more detailed measures and the implementation of measurement tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the increasing global business competitiveness, most organizations have attempted to determine the suitable external parties to support their core and non-core competency, particularly, in IT project outsourcing. The IT supplier selection is required to apply multi-criteria which comprised tangible criteria and intangible criteria in consider optimal IT supplier. Most researches attempted to identify optimal criteria for selecting IT supplier, however, the criteria cannot be the considered common criteria support the variety of IT outsourcing. Therefore, the study aimed to identify a common set of criteria being used in the various types of IT outsourcing. The common criteria are constructed by multicriteria and success criteria, which were collected by literature review with comprehensive and comparative approach. Consequently, the researchers are able to identify a common set of criteria adopted in the variety of selection problem IT outsourcing supplier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Network capability is the enterprise's capability to set up, manage, maintain and use a variety of relations between enterprises, and to obtain resources for improving competitiveness. Tourism in China is in a transformation period from sightseeing to leisure and vacation. Scenic spots as well as tourist enterprises can learn from some other enterprises in the process of resource development, and build up its own network relations in order to get resources for their survival and development. Through the effective management of network relations, the performance of resource development will be improved. By analyzing literature on network capability and the case analysis of Wuxi Huishan Ancient Town, the role of network capacity in the tourism resource development is explored and resource development path is built from the perspective of network capability. Finally, the tourism resource development process model based on network capacity is proposed. This model mainly includes setting up network vision, resource identification, resource acquisition, resource utilization and tourism project development. In these steps, network construction, network management and improving network center status are key points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The causes of the increase in soybean commodity prices is due to scarcity on the supply side which is proven to be able to make the government to explore the problem and make it solution. The objective of this research is to find out the value chain of soybean production from upstream to downstream and to know the institutional model of soybean supply management. The results of the analysis using the value chain and SWOT indicate that the strategy for increasing soybean production towards soybean self-sufficiency is through simultaneous empowerment of all parameters of the production technology component so that the synergistic impact can be felt at the level of the farmer subsystem as a producer and the small processing industry subsystem as consumers and the community consuming processed products. soya bean. Changes in people's consumption patterns have placed soybeans not only as a source of vegetable protein, but also as a source of functional food and have high economic competitiveness. Soybeans have strategic value in increasing national food security in a sustainable manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to investigate the innovative development of Ukrainian agricultural enterprises in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The article presents the organizational and economic mechanism of innovative provision of competitive development of agrarian enterprises on the basis of the Fourth Industrial Revolution through inter-sectoral integration and development of digital agriculture to stimulate the diffusion of innovations, the implementation of the program of innovative entrepreneurship in the countryside, the formation of a symbiotic-complementary system of activation of technological and managerial innovations. It is proved that the basis of organizational and economic mechanism of innovative investing is creation of favourable business environment for realization of innovation-investment projects by agricultural enterprises, stimulation of integration of scientific developments and results of strategic management into production, formation of market competitive advantages in the long run. It is proved that the development of agrarian enterprises in Ukraine occurs under the conditions of radical economic changes aimed at strengthening the economic management methods and innovative component of their functioning. The aim of such transformation is to achieve economic growth and balance of functioning; ensuring the organic combination of the interests of business entities; transformation of scientific and technological progress into the main factor of economic growth; creation of conditions for realization of consumer priority in economic relations. Innovative changes in the functioning of agricultural enterprises contribute to the solution of the issues of technological and technological renewal, innovation-marketing development and economic growth.Increasing the competitiveness of enterprises in the agrarian sector of the Ukrainian economy, their timely adaptation to changes in the competitive environment, the formation of sustainable competitive advantages based on the most complete alignment of strategic capabilities of enterprises with internal potential and unused reserves, maximal synergies of the efficiency of work in a competitive market are also directly dependent on the technological renewal and diffusion of innovation.Taking into account the contradictions of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it can be concluded that mankind can be saved from the stagnation only by collective mind which is capable to transform the absence of work and reduction of human's employment into means of social and personal development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The power industry has a long history of credit problems, and the power industry has credit problems such as power users defaulting on electricity bills before the new electricity reform. With the reform of the power system, the credit problems in the power industry will be more complicated. How to effectively avoid the risk factors existing in the course of market operation and how to safeguard the fairness and standardization of market operation is an urgent problem to be solved. This paper first describes the credit risk in power market, and analyzes the components of credit risk identification in power market, puts forward suggestions on power market risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To win the global competition and sustain the business, small and medium enterprise shall implement a reliable information technology application to support their customer data base, production and sales as well as marketing management. This paper addresses the implementation of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in small and medium enterprise, CV. Densuko Jaya. It is a small and medium enterprises in Semarang, Central Java, Republic of Indonesia deal with rubber processing industry supply chain. ADDIE model utilized in study to setup the CRM functionality at these enterprises. The aim of the authors is to present the benefits resulting from the application of CRM technologies at these enterprises to solve their chronicle issues in the field of integrated customer data base, production management process and sales automation in order to boost their business in the near future. Training and coaching have been delivered to the enterprises staffs and management to ensure that they can execute the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study Bertrand and Cournot oligopoly models with incomplete information about rivals' costs, where the uncertainty is given by a uniform distribution. We compute the Bayesian-Nash equilibrium of both games, the ex-ante expected profits and the ex-post profits of each firm. We see that, in the price competition, even though only one firm produces in equilibrium, all firms have a positive ex-ante expected profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation is an immensely important activity for increasing a firm's competitiveness and performance so that it can contribute to the national economy. The open innovation philosophy has been employed as one of the most attractive topics in the last decades corresponding to the knowledge-based economy. This highlights collaborative product development with supply chain integration to be executed in the business context with various forces. The objectives of this study were to identify the critical collaboration factors and current issues for project selection in collaborative product development with supply chain integration in technology-based industrial innovation, which is a new dimension missing in the existing literature. In order to control the characteristics of technology, the petrochemical industry was explored, and extensive literature reviews were conducted in order to identify critical factors and to generate a conceptual framework. Semi-structured interviews with a purposive sampling of experts were conducted in order to identify the key factors to be considered for project selection as well as the key issues to be avoided. The force field analysis concept was applied to the project selection tunnel model to propose a new construct in the collaborative product development context for original theory building. The study suggests validating the model in order to strengthen theory development and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality of fresh vegetables will decrease rapidly once they are being delivered. Thus, it directly linked with customer satisfactions. In this case, the distribution method is used traditional delivery plan. It used driver intuitions to choose the distributions route. Following this method, the optimize travel distance and effective time delivery are difficult to reached. However, this traditional delivery plan must be changed win the global competition. One of method what is fit to solves this problem is vehicle routing problem (VRP). VRP is a method that focuses on minimizing the transportation cost of finished goods. Moreover, it also aims to design best coordination in delivery planning. Hereby, VRP using an artificial intelligent algorithm based on Large Neighbourhood Search (LNS) with Time Windows (VRPTW) has implemented to solve the problem. This real case has been satisfactory. The optimizing route construction was capable of increasing the solution quality of the route. The optimization had reach was 1.37%. Total distance decreased from 596.65 KM became 588.45 KM or shorter 8.2 KM from previous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific tourism is an emerging economic activity that might contribute to the development of strategies to improve territorial competitiveness and cohesion. This study aims to identify some methodological options for the operationalization of scientific tourism guidelines, namely identifying and valuing resources as well as evaluating the community involvement in the process. Initially, a theoretical-conceptual framework was developed relating four structuring dimensions of analysis: territory, territorial competitiveness and cohesion, tourism and public policy. Four new concepts were also considered: perfect resources, territorial coherence, economic and territorial singularities. Since the classification and evaluation of resources are a key aspect in the development of the process to construct positive strategies to territorial competitiveness and cohesion, whose object is scientific tourism, methodological contributions were made to do so, namely through Contingent Valuation Method by applying a questionnaire with Willingness to Pay questions. Finally, a Portuguese case study was presented as an illustration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the problem of multi-criteria optimization of business project control in the presence of several technologies for their implementation. On the basis of network modeling in this article, an economic-mathematical model and a method for solving the problem of multicriteria optimization of the control of the process of implementing business projects in the presence of several technologies are proposed. The practical example shows the formation of network models, the calculation of their parameters, the critical paths and the optimal time for implementing the selected technologies of the business project. Also shown is the choice of the optimal technology from a set of possible technologies for the implementation of the project, taking into account the time and cost of performing the work. Network economic and mathematical modeling is a tool to increase the company's competitiveness. The proposed model and method of solving the problem of control business projects can serve as a basis for the development, creation and application of appropriate computer information systems to support the adoption of control decisions by businessmen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results of various recent analyses of commercial banking trends show that proper classification of borrowers is fundamental for the development of a successful business. The increasing competition in both banking system and non-bank institutions requires the use of modern market strategies and individual customer approaches. One of the main priorities in the banking sector is to improve customer segmentation and take it into account in the design and distribution of new products. A common tool to improve competitiveness is the designing of a special range of products and services targeting loyal customers or offering them special discounts for existing products. This represents the socalled "loyalty program", which includes the issuance of various types of cards for such customers. Three clusters (segments) of loyal borrowers: "platinum," "gold," and "silver," are identified in the present work, using K-means clustering. A database of 100 borrowers from a commercial bank branch that took secured consumer loans is analyzed. The clients are defined as loyal based on their credit history (they have less than 3 missed payments for the last year). Three variables are used for their segmentation. Initially, the initial segmentation variables are taken as input data for the analysis, and further study on standardized segmentation variables is carried out. The potential segmentation strategies are formulated depending on the leading segmentation variable. A comparative analysis of the results of both methods examined (with initial and standardized segmentation variable) and of a two-step clustering (obtained in a previous study from one of the authors) is made within each of the strategies. It is specified which type of cluster analysis suits best to each of the strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of economy, the development of logistics enterprises in China is also facing a huge challenge, especially the logistics enterprises generally lack of core competitiveness, and service innovation awareness is not strong. Scholars in the process of studying the core competitiveness of logistics enterprises are mainly from the perspective of static stability, not from the perspective of dynamic evolution to explore. So the author analyzes the influencing factors and the evolution process of the core competence of logistics enterprises, using the method of system dynamics to study the cause and effect of the evolution of the core competence of logistics enterprises, construct a system dynamics model of evolution of core competence logistics enterprises, which can be simulated by vensim PLE. The analysis for the effectiveness and sensitivity of simulation model indicates the model can be used as the fitting of the evolution process of the core competence of logistics enterprises and reveal the process and mechanism of the evolution of the core competence of logistics enterprises, and provide management strategies for improving the core competence of logistics enterprises. The construction and operation of computer simulation model offers a kind of effective method for studying the evolution of logistics enterprise core competence. Key words: Logistics Enterprises Core Competence; Service Innovation; System dynamics modeling and simulation; Vensim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some industry export competitiveness indices are dependent on the first-order moments of the data but not the second-order moment. As the main form of second-order moment, variances can be used for evaluation of export competitiveness. According to the conditional variance of exports growth rate and the GARCH models, industry export competitiveness can be divided into three categories: strong, General and weak States. Using the GARCH models for export competitiveness research can meet the need of horizontal comparison and longitudinal analyses. The empirical study of the export competitiveness of wind energy industry among some nations have shown that, it is feasible and effective for using GARCH model method to study on export competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currency plays an important role in economic transactions of Indonesian society. In order to guarantee the availability of currency, Bank Indonesia needs to develop demand and supply planning of currency. The purpose of this study is to get model and predict inflow and outflow of currency in KPW BI Region IV (East Java) with ARIMA method, time series regression and ARIMAX. The data of monthly inflow and outflow is used of currency in KPW BI Surabaya, Malang, Kediri and Jember. The observation period starting from January 2003 to December 2014. Based on the smallest values of out-sample RMSE and SMAPE, ARIMA is the best model to predict the outflow of currency in KPW BI Surabaya and ARIMAX for KPW BI Malang, Kediri and Jember. The best forecasting model for inflow of currency in KPW BI Surabaya, Malang, Kediri and Jember chronologically as follows are calendar variation model, transfer function, ARIMA, and time series regression. These results indicates that the more complex models may not necessarily produce a more accurate forecast as the result of M3-Competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constructing a classification tree is sometimes complicated due to outliers occur in the data. Eliminating the outliers is the simplest option, but some important information will lose. Alternatively, one may make some amendments on the value of outliers, but the amended value is arguable in term of its suitability for classification purposes. We describe a strategy in order to identify and to handle the outliers in the process of constructing a classification tree. A Winsorised approach is suggested in estimating the impurity of the data prior to the splitting of each node of a tree. The proposed estimator provides a splitting value that resistant towards outliers in the data hence influences the performance based on plug in error rate of the tree. We examine the proposed idea on some real data sets represent various sizes of sample. The performance indicates that the proposed strategy is competitive, and sometimes shows better performance than traditional tree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]