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Carbon emissions are receiving greater scrutiny in many countries due to international forces to reduce anthropogenic global climate change. Carbon taxation is one of the most common carbon emission regulation policies, and companies must incorporate it into their production and pricing decisions. Activity-based costing (ABC) and the theory of constraints (TOC) have been applied to solve product mix problems; however, a challenging aspect of the product mix problem involves evaluating joint manufactured products, while reducing carbon emissions and environmental pollution to fulfill social responsibility. The aim of this paper is to apply ABC and TOC to analyze green product mix decision-making for joint products using a mathematical programming model and the joint production data of pharmaceutical industry companies for the processing of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in drugs for medical use. This paper illustrates that the time-driven ABC model leads to optimal joint product mix decisions and performs sensitivity analysis to study how the optimal solution will change with the carbon tax. Our findings provide insight into ‘sustainability decisions’ and are beneficial in terms of environmental management in a competitive pharmaceutical industry.

A particular decision-making process that is needed by most firms who produce joint products is the one requiring an assessment of desirability of further processing joint products beyond the split-off point. The purpose of this paper is to develop an algorithm for optimizing a joint products further processing decision under the theory of constraints. To fit the jointly produced characteristic of joint products and the sequential produced characteristic between each joint product and its further processing product, the algorithm is composed of seven steps. These steps consider every bottleneck resource to the decision-making process by computing a priority ratio to establish its priority sequence. According to the priority sequence of the most constrained resource, the initial master production schedule is developed. Then, the following steps find the best path to reach the optimal solution under the guidance of all bottleneck resources. Due to its accessibility and comprehensibility, the TOC-based algor...

Companies declare that quality or customer satisfaction is their top priority in order to keep and attract more business in an increasingly competitive marketplace. The cost of quality (COQ) is a tool which can help determine the optimal level of quality investment. COQ analysis enables organizations to identify measure and control the consequences of poor quality. This study attempts to identify the COQ elements across the enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation phases for the ERP implementation services of consultancy companies. The findings provide guidance to project managers on how best to utilize their limited resources. In summary, we suggest that project teams should focus on “value-added” activities and minimize the cost of “non-value-added” activities at each phase of the ERP implementation project. Key words: Services, ERP implementation services, quality standard, service quality standard, cost of quality, project management, project quality management, project financial management.

The implementation team problem is one of the critical elements lead to ERP project failure. The purpose of this research is to explore the relationship between team risk factors and IT governance. The IT governance includes five important domains, that is, IT strategic alignment, IT value delivery, IT resource management, IT risk management, and IT performance management. Our research results indicate that, among five domains of IT governance, strategic alignment is the most important area. As for the team risk factors, two main team risk factors are “Lack of cross-functional team members” and “IT members’ lack of specialized knowledge required by the ERP project”. Companies that encountered these team risk factors during ERP project implementation have lower IT governance achievement level than those that did not. It is suggested that Corporations should train their IT members in specialized ERP knowledge and set up a cross-functional team for ERP implementation in order to achieve effective IT governance.

The arginine at position 148 is highly conserved in the inward rectifier K+ channel family. Increases of external pH decrease the single-channel conductance in mutant R148H of the Kir2.1 channel (arginine is mutated into histidine) but not in the wild type channel. Moreover, in 100 mM external K+, varying external pH induced biphasic changes of open channel noise, which peaks at around pH 7.4 in the R148H mutant but not in the wild type channel. The maximum single-channel conductances are higher in the wild type channel and R148H mutant at pH 6.0 than those in the R148H mutant at pH 7.4. However, the maximal conductance is achieved with much lower external [K+] for the latter. Interestingly, the single-channel conductances and open channel noise of the wild type channel at pH 6. 0 and the R148H mutant at pH 6.0 and 7.4 become the same in [K+] = 10 mM. These results indicate that the residue at position 148 is accessible to the external H+ and probably is involved in the formation of two K+ binding sites in the external pore mouth. Effective repulsion between permeating K+ ions in this area requires a positive charge at position 148, and such K+-K+ interaction is the essential mechanism underlying high K+ conduction rate through the Kir2.1 channel pore.

Interactions of Ba2+ with K+ and molecules contributing to inward rectification were studied in the cloned inward rectifier K+ channels, Kir2.1. Extracellular Ba2+ blocked Kir2.1 channels with first-order kinetics in a Vm-dependent manner. At Vm more negative than -120 mV, the Kd-Vm relationship became less steep and the dissociation rate constants were larger, suggesting Ba2+ dissociation into the extracellular space. Both depolarization and increasing [K+]i accelerated the recovery from extracellular Ba2+ blockade. Intracellular K+ appears to relieve Ba2+ blockade by competitively slowing the Ba2+ entrance rate, instead of increasing its exit rate by knocking off action. Intracellular spermine (100 microM) reduced, whereas 1 mM [Mg2+]i only slightly reduced, the ability of intracellular K+ to repulse Ba2+ from the channel pore. Intracellular Ba2+ also blocked outward IKir2.1 in a voltage-dependent fashion. At Vm >/= +40 mV, where intrinsic inactivation is prominent, intracellular Ba2+ accelerated the inactivation rate of the outward IKir2.1 in a Vm-independent manner, suggesting interaction of Ba2+ with the intrinsic gate of Kir2.1 channels.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are used to provide companies with integrated information for operations management and decision-making. An ERP implementation project may become a troubled project at any stage during the life cycle of the project. We must detect and correct the causes of a project’s problems before it fails. This study investigated troubled ERP implementation projects, sought the root causes of the troubled projects and determined what actions could be taken to turn around the troubled projects. We used case study methodology. The purpose of this study was to help determine whether a project is troubled and summarise possible management methods for saving a project, while it is still possible or cancelling it with minimal negative impact.

The 21st century is an era of globalisation. With the rapid changes in the global economic environment, many companies are aware that they need to promote their competitiveness by adopting more information technology, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP). Implementing ERP into a company is difficult, let alone implementing a global ERP system. The purpose of this paper was to demonstrate how to successfully implement a global ERP rollout by using the case study method. The lessons learned from this effort should help to support further academic and practitioner literature, especially in the area of global ERP rollout.