Search

Pocas empresas del sector floricultor colombiano hacen una gestión de sus inventarios, lo que redunda en quiebres de stock, tiempos muertos en operaciones clave de la poscosecha, incumplimientos de las órdenes de ventas y daños en la flor. Por esto, se plantea como objetivo general simular el proceso de inventarios manejado en la poscosecha de rosa (Rosa sp.), con el fin de encontrar oportunidades de mejora. Este trabajo de investigación fue un estudio de caso realizado en una empresa exportadora de ramos de rosa de Cundinamarca, ya que este departamento es el que tiene el mayor volumen de producción de flores tipo exportación a nivel nacional. Para ello, se seleccionó la poscosecha de rosa por los indicadores de producción bajos. De esta manera, se planteó una investigación descriptiva y exploratoria, y se hizo una modelación del proceso de inventarios, con ayuda de los jefes y un análisis de tiempos y de probabilidad de ocurrencia de las tareas involucradas. Posteriormente, se hizo la simulación con el tiempo de ciclo de proceso de inventario en Bizagi Modeler®, llevando a cabo un total de 36 réplicas. Esto dio como resultado un tiempo total de ciclo de proceso de inventarios de 9.684 minutos para la temporada de San Valentín, encontrando que el 44 % de las actividades pueden ser optimizadas. Finalmente, se concluye que, con la simulación del proceso de inventarios, se pueden encontrar actividades de no valor agregado, sirviendo de insumo en la elaboración de estrategias de mejora.

In this document we present an analysis of the revenues generated, the total costs and average costs incurred by Chile's highway concessionaires between the years of 1995 and 2014. We have collected financial data from the Chilean Assets and Insurances Authority's website, and with this data, we have determined that the highway concessions system (as a whole) generated revenues of around 25,137 million dollars and incurred total costs of 21,193 million dollars during this period. Therefore, they have gained a profit of 3944 million dollars. Moreover, the accumulated investment by 2014 was approximately 12,000 million dollars and, therefore, the capital revenue was 26%. However, since the concessionaires' capital structure, in general, considers 20% as equity and 80% as debt, then the equity's return rate could have been over 100%. Additionally, we estimated the average costs (unitary costs), and found that this industry presents natural monopoly characteristics because its average cost decreases as vehicle flow increases. Furthermore, we compared the average costs of main concessionaires with their weighted average fares and discovered that some of fares are over valuated between 30 and 330%.

The study proposes a measure of semantic similarity to solve the wide variety of business process recovery problems, these measures allow to compare the processes of business models useful for reuse, redesign or reengineering process. A metric that demonstrates the similarity between a reference model or fragment of it is proposed. These metrics focus on the activities that make up a business process and are developed through three measures: syntactic, linguistic and semantic similarities. The results show that the proposed measure is suitable for reuse purposes in manufacturing processes, being a useful tool in the area of knowledge management and process administration.

Purpose: This article analyzes the value of information and coordination in a closed loop supply chain (CLSC) and discusses the benefits of a global or local optimization approach and the impact of uncertainty. Methodology: A theoretical dyadic closed loop supply chain is analyzed where the manufacturer re-manufactures products returned by customers, producing &ldquo, as good as new products&rdquo, for the retailer. Twelve coordination scenarios were analyzed. For the definition of these scenarios, a framework based on two criteria was proposed: value of information and perimeter of decision making. Findings: Information on returns leads to lower costs than information on demand. In the presence of complete or partial coordination between the actors in the supply chain, it is preferable to have low product return rates. However, if we are in the complete absence of coordination, high rates of return are more convenient as they function as a buffer against uncertainties. The perimeter of decision making (global or local optimization) does not significantly improve the supply chain performance in relation to its costs. Only the exchange of information improves its performance. Therefore, companies should make efforts to exchange information, first, on their lot sizes, then on their returns and finally, on the customer demand. Originality: The novelty of our work relies on an analysis of the closed loop supply chain performance with the simultaneous presence of information, coordination, and uncertainty.

This letter to the editor describes the surge of “photo-friendly” stacks of stones as an emerging tourism-associated threat to rock-dwelling biodiversity., We acknowledge the support from ARDITI—Madeira’s Regional Agency for the Development of Research, Technology and Innovation (grant M1420-09-5369-FSE-000002) to R. Rocha.

This research proposes a new distribution system of goods in the historical center of the city of Santiago, Chile. For the design of the urban logistic system, the methodology city logistics and last mile are used. This design incorporates to the freight transport flexible solutions that improve the efficiency of the distribution process and trade supply, minimizing the environmental impact of the atmospheric pollution (AP). The proposal was made through the data collection, the characterization of the sector and the diagnosis of the urban logistics processes. The analysis of the factors allowed to evaluate the costs of the AP negative externalities. The causes were used as design criteria for the proposals, with the aim of improving the quality of life of the city users. The physical location selection of the Cross-Docking was made through an optimization model of maximum coverage. The optimization algorithm of the nearest neighbor was proposed for vehicle routing. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to generate a ranking of the best non-polluting vehicles to be used in the zone. Finally, the results obtained allowed a 53 ton decrease in carbon dioxide in the square kilometer and reduced 1103 h of interruptions per year in the vehicular congestion of the sector.

This article presents an intelligent system for container stacking based on fuzzy logic. The method establishes a defined criterion for accepting or rejecting in real time an entry request to the stacking areas of the port in Valparaiso, Chile. A case study based on expert knowledge illustrates the proposed method with real data. First, the optimum solution is determined for a problem of maximization of entries, based on historical records from the traffic and information center of Valparaiso Port. Second, this solution is used to establish a strategy for making “the best possible decisions.” The combination of the optimization and the fuzzy results (which consider the type of cargo, prices, and capacity) is performed at two levels. First, the optimization results are used as feed for the fuzzy system to determinate a ratio of future acceptances. Second, the optimization results are compared to the fuzzy system results in order to estimate a parameter to establish the minimal percentage value for accepting a request. As a result, a proper use of the stacking area is achieved, which results in an increase of profits and revenue management.

In this paper, we present the cost of capital estimation for highway concessionaires in Chile. We estimated the cost of equity and the cost of debt and determined the capital structure for each one of twenty-four concessionaires that operate highways. We based our estimations on the developments of Sharpe (1964), Modigliani and Miller (1958), and Maquieira (2009), which were also compared with the Brusov et al. (2015) developments. We collected stock prices for different highway concessionaires around the world from Google Finance and Reuters’ websites in order to determine the Beta of equity using a representative company. After that, we estimated the cost of equity considering Hamada (1969) and a Capital Asset Pricing Model. Then, we estimated the cost of capital using the cost of debt and the capital structure of Chile’s highway concessionaires. With all above, we were able to determine the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) for highway concessions which ranges from 5.49 to 6.62%.

The measure of complexity of Lempel-Ziv (LZC) is used for the analysis of time series generated by dynamic systems with the objective of determining its complexity. This work measures LZC of different series coming from periodic functions, probabilistic functions, and chaotic systems. Later, these metrics of complexity are applied to the average of the number of parts in the waiting line in a manufacturing workshop. The results demonstrate the efficiency of the LZC to establish the level of the dynamic behavior of the manufacturing systems, through the time series.

In this article we analyze quantitatively the gains of coordination in a closed loop supply chain context for different levels of uncertainty about returns. The novel characteristic of this study is to evaluate quantitatively the value of coordination for operational decisions (in the context of inventory management decisions). Thus, we find it interesting to verify its validity in the reverse logistics setting. We observe principally that the works in this area, according to some authors, use approaches such as game theory or contracting. This leads us to believe that there is a gap in the studies on the influence of coordination in relation to operational decisions such as inventory management. One of the more important characteristics of the closed loop supply chain context is the addition of uncertainties about returns. This heightens our interests on the analysis of this topic. We show through a numerical experiment the convenience of global coordination in a closed loop supply chain for different levels of uncertainty. Finally, we observe that the value of coordination, as uncertainty increases, slightly decreases.

The article describes initiatives concerning social responsibility carried out by Chilean universities and the way these initiatives are incorporated into their strategic processes. The main goal is to determine opportunities and limitations wherein a university could take advantages of its role as social developer to impel sustainable development in the community it is inserted in. In this context, to face the huge competition existing in the Chilean higher education system, education institution have had to discover the role played by social responsibility as a powerful source of competitive advantage allowing them to keep a determined viability and to generate value in the “market”. This work is the result of an exploratory research built on the basis of literature and experience, through observation and participation in the Chilean system of higher education. The present document is limited regarding experimental data. Future research must examine exploration factors and correlation among them for experimental research. Results show competitive advantages for universities by maximizing their contributions to social causes, thus expressing greater commitments towards the community, which yields by providing better visibility throughout time. Key words: Social responsibility, ethics, competitive advantages, higher education, Chile.

Patients on immunosuppressive therapy are at increased risk of developing tuberculosis. We report a 39-year-old female with an ulcerative colitis receiving prednisone, azathioprine and azulfidine that was admitted to hospital due to fever, anemia, diarrhea and hematochezia. A chest CT scan showed multiple miliary micronodular images diffusely distributed and mediastinal enlarged lymph nodes with central necrosis, suggestive of disseminated tuberculosis. Antituberculous treatment was started but discontinued and the patient was treated as a bronchiolitis obliterans with methylprednisolone pulses and discharged. She was readmitted in shock one week later and died. After her death cultures for Mycobacterium tuberculosis were informed as positive. The clinical picture of the patient is known as sepsis tuberculosa gravissima.

SFRH/BPD/85276/2012 UID/ELT/00657/2013 Os textos de planeamento editorial (tábuas bibliográficas, prefácios, posfácios, comentários, listas, etc.) de Fernando Pessoa. A figura ficcional do autor, crítico e tradutor Thomas Crosse dentro desse corpus específico; referenciação e caracterização dos textos que lhe são atribuídos e das restantes ocorrências do seu nome no espólio pessoano em consideração. publishersversion published

Background Outpatient scheduling has a significant impact on the perceived quality of service by the users and the efficient use of resources in the health system. There are mathematical methods that assist in solving this problem, but are seldom applied. Aim To propose decision rules that are based on the own conditions of each institution and indicate which appointment system is the most suitable for the decision makers. Material and methods Through computer simulation, the effect of a wide range of decision and environmental factors over the appointment systems performance was assessed, in order to determine how these factors affect them. Results Considering performance indicators associated to the patient's satisfaction and resources utilization, scheduling shorter length patients (e.g. check-up patients) in the beginning of the working day resulted to be in the efficient solutions frontier, as well as scheduling patients in one person blocks (shifting to multiple patient blocks only if resources utilization indicators are prioritized). Conclusions Performance indicators are more sensitive to the sequence used to schedule different length patients, rather than the number of patients scheduled per block. Moreover, decision rules based on the institution priorities are proposed, which are quite robust to environmental factors.

Patients on immunosuppressive therapy are at increased risk of developing tuberculosis. We report a 39-year-old female with an ulcerative colitis receiving prednisone, azathioprine and azulfidine that was admitted to hospital due to fever, anemia, diarrhea and hematochezia. A chest CT scan showed multiple miliary micronodular images diffusely distributed and mediastinal enlarged lymph nodes with central necrosis, suggestive of disseminated tuberculosis. Antituberculous treatment was started but discontinued and the patient was treated as a bronchiolitis obliterans with methylprednisolone pulses and discharged. She was readmitted in shock one week later and died. After her death cultures for Mycobacterium tuberculosis were informed as positive. The clinical picture of the patient is known as sepsis tuberculosa gravissima.

Outpatient scheduling has a significant impact on the perceived quality of service by the users and the efficient use of resources in the health system. There are mathematical methods that assist in solving this problem, but are seldom applied.To propose decision rules that are based on the own conditions of each institution and indicate which appointment system is the most suitable for the decision makers.Through computer simulation, the effect of a wide range of decision and environmental factors over the appointment systems performance was assessed, in order to determine how these factors affect them.Considering performance indicators associated to the patient's satisfaction and resources utilization, scheduling shorter length patients (e.g. check-up patients) in the beginning of the working day resulted to be in the efficient solutions frontier, as well as scheduling patients in one person blocks (shifting to multiple patient blocks only if resources utilization indicators are prioritized).Performance indicators are more sensitive to the sequence used to schedule different length patients, rather than the number of patients scheduled per block. Moreover, decision rules based on the institution priorities are proposed, which are quite robust to environmental factors.