Appliance Market Research Articles

Production Planning Support System of Repair Parts for Home Electric Appliances

After-sales service practice is important at the home electrical appliance market in Japan. We developed a service parts supply system which forecasts the demand of service parts and can control service parts inventory better than conventional manual control. We are deploying this system to Mitsubishi's home electrical appliance factories. The system has been achieving the stable supply and inventory reduction of service parts. It also contributes to improving business efficiency.

Appliance energy standards in Europe

In recent years there has been a revival of interest in appliance energy efficiency standards in Europe, in particular within the European Union 1 (EU). This paper summarizes the activity that has occurred across continental Europe, from the EU to Russia, but focuses principally on Western Europe. The paper discusses the components of residential electricity demand by end use and the role played by appliances, the energy consumption and energy efficiency trends for selected appliances, the European appliance market, the development of the EU's mandatory energy labelling scheme and some of its results, the testing and certification institutions in Europe, the EU's mandatory minimum energy efficiency standards proposal for refrigerators and freezers but current preference for voluntary agreements, the maximum energy consumption standards in Russia, the Swiss target-value approach, and the savings potentials of appliance energy efficiency standards for ‘cold’ appliances, ‘wet’ appliances, leaking electricity, electric motors, and office lighting. Since this paper was written (in 1995), the EU has passed legislation to introduce mandatory minimum energy efficiency standards for refrigerators and freezers that will enter into effect in 1999. The standards are set at a level intended to ensure that models sold after 1999 will, on average, require 15% less energy than the average of models sold between 1991 and 1992 after normalization for storage volume and cooling service. Despite these activities, the paper demonstrates that there remains a huge potential to save energy cost-effectively. 1 The former European Community (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, UK) became the European Union (EU) after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993. A year later Sweden, Austria and Finland opted to join. The former European Community is referred to as the EC-12 in this paper.

Dynamics of appliance energy efficiency in Sweden

We discuss the results of a time-dynamic analysis of household appliance electricity use and efficiency improvement in Sweden. We focus on refrigerators and freezers but also consider washing machines and other appliances. In our scenarios, we consider minimum performance standards that remove the least efficient products from the market, as well as public procurement (technology push) to accelerate the high-efficiency appliance market. The scenarios show that, while current efficiency trends are likely to keep appliance energy use roughly constant, progressive performance standards could reduce consumption by about 35% by 2010. This level of savings is based on new-model consumption savings of nearly 70%, but not all of the efficiency improvement translated into energy savings because of an increased number of units and the time required to remove older units from service. Moving the high-efficiency end of the market via the public procurement process accelerates energy-saving potential earlier in time and is particularly effective in combination with energy performance standards.

SELLING THE MECHANIZED HOUSEHOLD:

This article reports a content analysis of advertisements for household goods appearing in Ladies Home Journal between 1909-1910 and 1980, with the aim of understanding the ideological campaign that characterized the years in which households were mechanized and women's domestic labor transformed in the United States. More Journal ads featured directives about housework than descriptions of the product; they emphasized work performance far more frequently than liberation from housework, and they also promoted service to family. These findings supplement other evidence that advertisers' efforts to create a market for household appliances and other means of domestic labor involved promotion of an ideology about housework that reinforced women's dedication to it.

Modeling Energy Demand and Socioeconomic Development Of Taiwan

Taiwan lacks a natural energy endowment. Its energy demands have dramatically increased with the growth of the economy and standard of living during the past two decades. Based on the new socioeconomic development policy for the next two decades, the government of Taiwan has devoted special attention and effort to improving various social and environmental problems affecting the country’s overall quality of life. The increasing rate of household energy demand will slow down as the market for electrical appliances reaches a saturation point and as the energy efficiency of appliances is improved. Transportation policies call for energy conservation during the next two decades by raising energy use efficiency. The industrial sector has also implemented energy conservation measures by raising energy efficiency and by diagnosing and improving energy-use. Based on these concepts and by developing a new set of assumptions, several translog models are calibrated for forecasting energy demand and socioeconomic development in the next two decades.

A Low Cost Dedicated Microprocessor Forms the Heart of an Electronic Control System for Appliance Applications

This paper outlines the design concepts and principles of operation of a microprocessor LSI circuit which combines the advantages of electronic control with flexibility allowing a solid state electronic control system to directly compete with the present electromechanical control systems for appliance applications. For this particular study the paper limits itself to discussions around the bulk domestic appliance market i.e. that part made up of clothes washers and dishwashers only, although the same principles are applicable to a wide range of appliance and other applications.

Consumer Instalment and Home-Mortgage Debt

CONSUMER investment-the expenditures for durable goods and newhome construction-exceeded $360 billion in the decade 1946-55. This is more than 50 per cent greater than business investment in plant and equipment during the same period. In addition, consumers spent large sums for existing homes and used cars. These expenditures have been a significant source of strength throughout the postwar economy. The strong and persistent consumer demand for homes and durables has reflected such well-known factors as the large backlog of needs that accumulated during the depression and war periods and the generally high level of new household formation which resulted from population growth, a high marriage rate, undoubling of families, and net migrations from farm to city and city to suburban areas. Desire and need, however, are not sufficient to create actual demand. It takes purchasing power, particularly for such high-cost items as homes, automobiles, and major household appliances. The rise in after-tax income has been one source of the high postwar demand for consumer investment goods. Disposable income of consumers has risen over 70 per cent in the past decade. Rising income, along with some redistribution in their favor, has resulted in a sharp increase in the number of families in the middle-income brackets. Families with incomes of $3,000 a year and over have more than doubled since 1945, and those with incomes of $5,000 and over have increased more than fourfold. Inasmuch as families in the $3,000 and over income bracket constitute the bulk of the market for new homes, automobiles, and major household appliances, the postwar rise in incomes has greatly broadened the market for these high-cost items. Instalment credit has been another significant force in translating desire for high-cost durables into actual purchases. Credit enables one to spend tomorrow's income today, and consumers have been dipping into tomorrow's income in a big way. Consumer instalment and homemortgage debt have soared to an all-time peak. The combined total exceeded $116 billion at the end of 1955, in contrast to only $21 billion a decade earlier. During 1955 instalment debt increased 24 per cent, and home-mortgage debt 17 per cent (see Table 1). It is not surprising, therefore, that concern has been aroused over both the rate of increase and the debt burden of consumers. The postwar in consumer instalment and home-mortgage debt reflects not only the factors mentioned earlier but also a more widespread use of credit by consumers. The use of instalment credit to buy durables and homes might well be labeled a growth institution. Evidence to this effect is the steadily increasing proportion of new cars bought on credit during the postwar period, which rose from 29 per cent of the total cars purchased in 1947 to 65 per cent in 1955. In the last two decades much progress has been made irn adapting the terms of consumer financing to the needs both of *The author is Financial Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The views expressed in this article are those of the author. He is indebted, however, to some of his colleagues for helpful suggestions; to Mrs. Evelyn Allin for preparation of the statistical material; and to Charles Mustoe for typing and editing the manuscript.

Market Analysis: A Case Study (a review)

The article reviewed dealt with the market for electrical appliances, which was found to depend on continued favorable (and dropping) electricity rates and adequate wiring. The article finds conditions for increasing appliance sales to be bright.

Market Analysis: A Case Study

AVORABLE electric rates in a given area are the first characteristics determining the market possibilities for electric ranges and electric storage water heaters. Adequate wiring, while applying only to specific buildings, designates the minimum electric supply equipment at the point of installation, and ranks next to rates as a market influence. Unlike electric refrigerators, food mixers and other socket appliances effected only slightly by rates, the range and water heater present a highly specialized problem to commercial marketing which is directly concerned with basic public utility operating policies, transportation of solid fuel, laws of the several states regarding trade practices, combination which have large gas property investments as well as electric operations, and several other fundamental economic factors which definitely remove these two products from the class of plug-in appliances requiring only a convenient outlet. In I931 there were slightly more than 20 million meters installed in dwelling units in the United States, yet only eight million electric meters had rates low enough to permit electric range installations. By I94I there were 25 million electric meters and 24 million (96 per cent) had rates for electric ranges. Three cents a kwh is considered favorable, and the 1941 national average was 2.2 cents per kwh. However, there are rates as low as one cent per kwh, so even though the utility industry has recognized the revenue value of this major appliance, our market study becomes more complicated because some rates are more favorable than others. The electric storage water heater found a rate market later than the range, but has been developing even more rapidly during recent years. Only 23 per cent of the electric meters were available in I935. Today approximately 70 per cent of the meters have a rate suitable for operation of a storage water heater. Domestic meters with 1.5 cents per kwh. or less rate, are considered favorable. As mentioned, the foregoing may have the deceptive appearance of simplifying the market situation from the commercial research point of view. Actually, this rapidly shifting scene on the nation's basic domestic electric rates has caused complexities requiring increased intensity in market study. For example, each of the several hundred operating utilities across the nation has its own rate and operating policy. However, each of them does not necessarily serve an identifiable geographic area. The properties vary in size from village municipal plants with a diesel driven generator, to vast business managed systems serving millions of residential and thousands of industrial customers. While rates and service conditions are widely different, even between companies adjacent to one another, they are invariably determined by public bodies; and while they change, lower rates do not always mean a ready market for appliances. Adequate wiring for ranges and water

The future of electricity in agriculture

In postwar agricultural production electricity is destined to be a tremendous force. First postwar market for electrical appliances will be the farm, says this author, and food and agriculture will be a predominating influence in the making of the permanent peace to follow the war. The electrical industry should recognize the importance of this developing market and prepare to cope with agriculture's problems.