Production Cost Efficiency Research Articles

Exploring Production Function and Cost Efficiency Decomposition with VRS Assumption in China's Iron and Steel Industry

The study presents an empirical efficiency analysis for China's iron and steel industry by applying data envelopment analysis. From a theoretical perspective, an improved method is proposed to allow decision makers to select the production function between linear and exponential forms under the assumption of variable returns-to-scale. From a practical perspective, the paper attempts to explore the production function form of 15 representative iron and steel companies in China. Furthermore, the cost efficiency is decomposed into technical efficiency and allocative efficiency in this context. Some suggestions are put forward to improve inefficient companies.

Efficiency enhancement using voltage biasing for ferroelectric polarization in dye-sensitized solar cells

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are one of the most promising third generation solar cells that have been extensively researched over the past decade as alternative to silicon-based solar cells, due to their low production cost and high energy-conversion efficiency. In general, a DSSC consists of a transparent electrode, a counter electrode, and an electrolyte such as dye. To achieve high power-conversion efficiency in cells, many research groups have focused their efforts on developing efficient dyes for liquid electrolytes. In this work, we report on the photovoltaic properties of DSSCs fabricated using a mixture of TiO2 with nanosized Fe-doped bismuth lanthanum titanate (nFe-BLT) powder). Firstly, nFe-BLT powders were prepared using a high-energy ball milling process and then, TiO2 and nFe-BLT powders were stoichiometrically blended. Direct current (DC) bias of 20MV/m was applied to lab-made DSSCs. With the optimal concentration of nFe-BLT doped in the electrode, their light-to-electricity conversion efficiency could be improved by ∼64% compared with DSSCs where no DC bias was applied.

MENINGKATKAN KEUNGGULAN BERSAING USAHA KECIL DAN MENENGAH (UMKM)

The economy of Sukabumi Regency from year to year is heavily influenced by development of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The SMEs are in the sector of service, trade and manufacture. Each year, the SMEs in Sukabumi Regency keep increased and can even be absorbing labor big enough. SMEs in the Regency of Sukabumi have proven resilience when it occurred Economic Crisis of 1998. Only the SME sector that survived from the collapse of the economy, while the bigger sectors were broken by the crisis. However, the creation of employment by the SMEs in Sukabumi Regency and the amazing of the SMEs in defending themselves from the economic crisis, not accompanied with quality increase of their development mainly in the case of competitive advantage. Competitive advantage of SMEs in Sukabumi Regency generally operates experiencing problems. The problems are subscription with inefficiency of the cost, products without the unique which have the effect on the lack of competitiveness, and lack of concentration on the certain segments. The study provides findings that SMEs are business cultivated by many people, and SMEs become one of many hopes of society for improving their economical welfare. Thus, SMEs must have a competitive advantage in order to achieve solution to fix the economy of society. SMEs will have a competitive advantage if notice of at least 4 (four) elements namely: cost efficiency, product differentiation, rapid response and market focus. the components can be sorted based on the priority, as follows: product differentiation, market focus, cost efficiency and rapid response.

A SIMPLE Pipeline for Mapping Point Mutations.

A forward genetic screen is one of the best methods for revealing the function of genes. In plants, this technique is highly efficient, as it is relatively easy to grow and screen hundreds or thousands of individuals. The cost efficiency and ease of data production afforded by next-generation sequencing have created new opportunities for rapid mapping of induced mutations. Current mapping tools are often not user friendly, are complicated, or require extensive preparation steps. To simplify the process of mapping new mutations, we developed a pipeline that takes next-generation sequencing fastq files as input, calls on several well-established and freely available genome-analysis tools, and outputs the most likely causal DNA changes. The pipeline has been validated in Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) and can be readily applied to other species, with the possibility of mapping either dominant or recessive mutations.

Thermoeconomic assessment of a micro cogeneration system with LNG cold utilization

Few studies have been reported for the small scale LNG regasification units in power generation systems although many applied LNG cold utilization systems exist for the large scale regasification plants. Impact of the LNG cold utilization system is investigated for the micro cogeneration systems thermoeconomically. An exergy-cost matrix is generated for the systems, which then compared to the conventional micro cogeneration systems. Ambient air temperature and compressor pressure ratio are analyzed. The required work for the LNG pump is found to be neglected in overall cycle analyses. In the cogeneration case, the exergetic and energetic efficiencies are roundly two and three times higher than the single power generation case. The exergoeconomic factor is roundly 26.8% less in the LNG cold utilized system while the relative cost is 75% higher in the conventional case. The LNG cold utilization increases the levelized product costs about 1.7 times at the pressure ratio of 3.64. A graphic-based single objective optimization is conducted by determining unit product cost and exergetic efficiency as the objectives. The maximum relative unit product cost difference is found at 308.15 K while the minimum relative exergetic efficiency difference is at 288.15 K. We suggest system improvements through the thermoeconomic evaluation.

GREEN CONCEPTS AND MATERIAL FLOW COST ACCOUNTING APPLICATION FOR COMPANY SUSTAINABILITY

Health equipment and furniture become a complementary factor for good health services to the communities. Management of health equipment and furniture is started by manufacturers within the industry scope and sustainable business processes. This study aimed to apply green concepts and MFCA at PT XYZ, and to analyze their effects on the dimensions of the company sustainability. To measure the effects of green concepts and MFCA on the dimensions of corporate sustainability, a multiple regression analysis was used. The analysis showed that they gave significant effects from the results of the F test, t test and probability test. From these results, a number of suggestions for improvement of production process performance as managerial implications for maintaining the stability of the company sustainability index were formulated.Keywords: efficiency and effectiveness of production cost, green concepts, the company sustainability, material flow cost accounting

Meningkatkan Efisiensi dan Profitabilitas pada Usaha Tani Bawang Merah di Kabupaten Brebes

Onion Agriculture has benefited farmers, but the benefits are very small ascompared with production costs that have been published. This is consistent with the results of research Rosyadi (2009) which states that the level of profit is not sufficient to meet the needs of peasant household economy. Or in other words, onion farm in the location of the study did not provide significant benefits for the economy of peasant households. To solve the problems encountered, partner activities and implementation team agreed that this method is appropriate is the format of training and consultancy services “Implementation of Working Capital Management At the Onion Farm.” Indicators of success of this activity can be seen from some important things that are revealed through in-depth interview participants. Based on in-depth interview is known that onion farmers to understand the importance of working capital management and practice how to manage working capital well, efficiently and effectively. IbM event has implications for government policy for the district soon realized: (a) the availability of new varieties that productive, adaptive and resistant to pests or diseases, (b) availability of production technology and management of quality seeds, the concept of quality assurance and standardization as the first step to build a national seed industry a strong and independent, (c) Availability of environmentally friendly agricultural technologies and efficient by utilizing local resources in an optimal and sustained to produce horticultural products are the opportunities and open to the emergence of a modern and efficient industrial facilities in various regions, (d ) The availability of pest or disease control technology based on the use of natural enemies and reducing synthetic pesticides as low as possible, (e) The availability of postharvest technology for efficient packaging, conservation of fresh quality, product diversification is associated with increased value-added horticultural industry. So the activity is generally considered a success based on in-depth interviews that reveal some things about: (i) working capital management with a good, efficient and effective, (ii) pass the cost efficiency of production, (iii) allocating cash and stock in order to maintain the sustainability of agricultural onion, ( iv) understand and can do proper financial planning and benefits of capital budgeting and (v) increase the working capital of onion farming.

Bottom-up engineering of thermoelectric nanomaterials and devices from solution-processed nanoparticle building blocks.

The conversion of thermal energy to electricity and vice versa by means of solid state thermoelectric devices is extremely appealing. However, its cost-effectiveness is seriously hampered by the relatively high production cost and low efficiency of current thermoelectric materials and devices. To overcome present challenges and enable a successful deployment of thermoelectric systems in their wide application range, materials with significantly improved performance need to be developed. Nanostructuration can help in several ways to reach the very particular group of properties required to achieve high thermoelectric performances. Nanodomains inserted within a crystalline matrix can provide large charge carrier concentrations without strongly influencing their mobility, thus allowing to reach very high electrical conductivities. Nanostructured materials contain numerous grain boundaries that efficiently scatter mid- and long-wavelength phonons thus reducing the thermal conductivity. Furthermore, nanocrystalline domains can enhance the Seebeck coefficient by modifying the density of states and/or providing type- and energy-dependent charge carrier scattering. All these advantages can only be reached when engineering a complex type of material, nanocomposites, with exquisite control over structural and chemical parameters at multiple length scales. Since current conventional nanomaterial production technologies lack such level of control, alternative strategies need to be developed and adjusted to the specifics of the field. A particularly suitable approach to produce nanocomposites with unique level of control over their structural and compositional parameters is their bottom-up engineering from solution-processed nanoparticles. In this work, we review the state-of-the-art of this technology applied to the thermoelectric field, including the synthesis of nanoparticles of suitable materials with precisely engineered composition and surface chemistry, their combination and consolidation into nanostructured materials, the strategies to electronically dope such materials and the attempts to fabricate thermoelectric devices using nanoparticle-based nanopowders and inks.

Paper-based cell culture platform and its emerging biomedical applications

Paper has recently attracted increasing attention as a substrate for various biomedical applications. By modifying its physical and chemical properties, paper can be used as an alternative to conventional cell culture substrates. Because it can be stacked into a three-dimensional (3D) structure, which can better mimic the in vivo cell microenvironment. Paper has shown great potential as a 3D cell culture platform for developing normal and diseased models. This platform gives precise control over extracellular matrix (ECM) composition as well as cell distribution and precise analysis of the interactions between cells. Paper-based platforms have been applied for pathophysiological studies and therapeutic intervention studies. In this paper, we first discuss the modifications of the physical and chemical properties of paper to develop various 2D and 3D cell culture platforms. We then review the applications of paper-based cell culture platforms for the construction of in vitro disease models, drug screening, and cell cryopreservation applications. Because of its advantages such as biocompatibility, eco-friendliness, cost efficiency, and ease of large-scale production, we believe that paper-based cell culture platforms would play an important role in the fields of biomedicine.

Capacity expansion and cost efficiency improvement in the warehouse problem

AbstractThe warehouse problem with deterministic production cost, selling prices, and demand was introduced in the 1950s and there is a renewed interest recently due to its applications in energy storage and arbitrage. In this paper, we consider two extensions of the warehouse problem and develop efficient computational algorithms for finding their optimal solutions. First, we consider a model where the firm can invest in capacity expansion projects for the warehouse while simultaneously making production and sales decisions in each period. We show that this problem can be solved with a computational complexity that is linear in the product of the length of the planning horizon and the number of capacity expansion projects. We then consider a problem in which the firm can invest to improve production cost efficiency while simultaneously making production and sales decisions in each period. The resulting optimization problem is non‐convex with integer decision variables. We show that, under some mild conditions on the cost data, the problem can be solved in linear computational time. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 63: 367–373, 2016

Thermal Aggregation of Calcium-Fortified Skim Milk Enhances Probiotic Protection during Convective Droplet Drying.

Probiotic bacteria have been reported to confer benefits on hosts when delivered in an adequate dose. Spray-drying is expected to produce dried and microencapsulated probiotic products due to its low production cost and high energy efficiency. The bottleneck in probiotic application addresses the thermal and dehydration-related inactivation of bacteria during process. A protective drying matrix was designed by modifying skim milk with the principle of calcium-induced protein thermal aggregation. The well-defined single-droplet drying technique was used to monitor the droplet-particle conversion and the protective effect of this modified Ca-aggregated milk on Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG. The Ca-aggregated milk exhibited a higher drying efficiency and superior protection on L. rhamnosus GG during thermal convective drying. The mechanism was explained by the aggregation in milk, causing the lower binding of water in the serum phase and, conversely, local concentrated milk aggregates involved in bacteria entrapment in the course of drying. This work may open new avenues for the development of probiotic products with high bacterial viability and calcium enrichment.

Possible Applications of 3D Printing Technology on Textile Substrates

3D printing is a rapidly emerging additive manufacturing technology which can offer cost efficiency and flexibility in product development and production. In textile production 3D printing can also serve as an add-on process to apply 3D structures on textiles. In this study the low-cost fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique was applied using different thermoplastic printing materials available on the market with focus on flexible filaments such as thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) or Soft PLA. Since a good adhesion and stability of the 3D printed structures on textiles are essential, separation force and abrasion resistance tests were conducted with different kinds of printed woven fabrics demonstrating that a sufficient adhesion can be achieved. The main influencing factor can be attributed to the topography of the textile surface affected by the weave, roughness and hairiness offering formlocking connections followed by the wettability of the textile surface by the molten polymer, which depends on the textile surface energy and can be specifically controlled by washing (desizing), finishing or plasma treatment of the textile before the print. These basic adhesion mechanisms can also be considered crucial for 3D printing on knitwear.

Constructing Relationship between Software Metrics and Code Reusability in Object Oriented Design

The role of design pattern in the form of software metric and internal code architecture for object-oriented design plays a critical role in software en-gineering in terms of production cost efficiency. This paper discusses about code reusability that is a frequently exercised cost saving methodology in IT produc-tion. After reviewing existing literatures towards study on software metrics, we found that very few studies are witnessed to incline towards code reusability. Hence, we developed a simple analytical model that establishes relationship between the design components of standard software metric and code reusability using case studies of three software projects (Customer Relationship Management project, Supply Chain Management project, and Enterprise Relationship Management project). We also testify our proposal using stochastic based Markov model to find that proposed system can extract significant information of maximized values of code reusability with increasing level of uncertainties of software project methodologies.

Constructing Relationship between Software Metrics and Code Reusability in Object Oriented Design

The role of design pattern in the form of software metric and internal code architecture for object-oriented design plays a critical role in software en-gineering in terms of production cost efficiency. This paper discusses about code reusability that is a frequently exercised cost saving methodology in IT produc-tion. After reviewing existing literatures towards study on software metrics, we found that very few studies are witnessed to incline towards code reusability. Hence, we developed a simple analytical model that establishes relationship between the design components of standard software metric and code reusability using case studies of three software projects (Customer Relationship Management project, Supply Chain Management project, and Enterprise Relationship Management project). We also testify our proposal using stochastic based Markov model to find that proposed system can extract significant information of maximized values of code reusability with increasing level of uncertainties of software project methodologies.

English

Tanzanian produced rice is not competitive because of high production costs. To increase competitiveness will require improvements in production efficiency. This study was conducted to analyse production cost efficiency using cross sectional data (2013/2014 agricultural season) from 200 farmers that belong to four cooperative irrigation schemes in Coast and Morogoro regions. Two stage sampling and translog stochastic cost frontier were used for sampling and cost efficiency analysis, respectively. Production costs were estimated quantitatively using the enterprise budgeting technique. Study data suggest that total costs of production are US$315/MT. Rice output and prices for labour, fertilizer and irrigation water significantly affected costs of production. Unit cost of production were reduced by increasing rice productivity (p<0.05). Production efficiency was significantly influenced by farming experience, planting methods, frequency of weeding, degree of specialization and source of purchased inputs. These factors accounted for 82% of the variability in costs of production (p<0.05). A major conclusion is that production efficiency is reduced by high production costs relative to rice output produced, input prices, source of purchased inputs and other agricultural practices. Use of labour saving technologies, the purchase of inputs from irrigation scheme cooperatives and greater economies of scale resulting from increased specialization can increase profits. Key words: Cooperative, cost efficiency, irrigation scheme, rice, smallholder farming.

Prediction of tool wear in the blanking process using updated geometry

Predicting the die and tool replacement time in the blanking process is very important in terms of product quality and cost efficiency. In order to predict tool life, tool wear must be observed constantly and the product defect rate must be analyzed. In this study, a procedure to predict tool life during the blanking process is proposed. Tool wear is represented with the modified Archard wear model and the Lemaitre damage model for ductile fracture. These models express abrasive and fatigue wear, respectively. The surface geometry of a tool is updated based on the computed amount of wear to describe the phenomenon of realistic wear. Through the blanking process, the amount of wear that is measured and calculated is compared. The difference was found to be 7.2%. Using the calculated wear result, the tool replacement time was predicted and the wear prediction procedure was validated by performing a series of procedures using other process conditions.

Empirical Analysis of Economies of Scale and Cost Efficiency of Small-scale Maize Production in Niger State, Nigeria

This research presents empirical analysis of economies of scale and cost efficiency of small scale maize production in Niger State of Nigeria, using multi stage sampling technique to elicit farm level survey data from 120 farmers in the study area via interview and administration of validated pre-tested questionnaire. Cobb-Douglas Cost stochastic frontier function was used to analyze the data collected. The results shows that there is a relative presence of economies of scale among the farmers meaning that an average farm in the sampled area produce at a minimum cost considering the size of the farm which is an indication that they operates in stage II of production surface (stage of efficient utilization of resource). This was further collaborated by the mean cost efficiency of 0.96 obtained from the data analysis which shows that an average farm in the sample area was about 96 percent close to the frontier cost, indicating that they are relatively efficient in allocating their scarce resources. The result ofthe analysis indicate that presence of cost inefficiency effects in the maize production as depicted by the significant estimated gamma coefficient of about 0.98 and the generalized likelihood ratio test result obtained from the data analysis.

Machine Learning Algorithms in Heavy Process Manufacturing

In a global economy, manufacturers mainly compete with cost efficiency of production, as the price of raw materials are similar worldwide. Heavy industry has two big issues to deal with. On the one hand there is lots of data which needs to be analyzed in an effective manner, and on the other hand making big improvements via investments in cooperate structure or new machinery is neither economically nor physically viable. Machine learning offers a promising way for manufacturers to address both these problems as they are in an excellent position to employ learning techniques with their massive resource of historical production data. However, choosing modelling a strategy in this setting is far from trivial and this is the objective of this article. The article investigates characteristics of the most popular classifiers used in industry today. Support Vector Machines, Multilayer Perceptron, Decision Trees, Random Forests, and the meta-algorithms Bagging and Boosting are mainly investigated in this work. Lessons from real-world implementations of these learners are also provided together with future directions when different learners are expected to perform well. The importance of feature selection and relevant selection methods in an industrial setting are further investigated. Performance metrics have also been discussed for the sake of completion.

Constructing Relationship Between Software Metrics and Code Reusability in Object Oriented Design

The role of the design pattern in the form of software metric and internal code architecture for object-oriented design plays a critical role in software engineering regarding production cost efficiency. This paper discusses code reusability that is a frequently exercised cost saving methodology in IT production. After reviewing existing literature towards a study on software metrics, we found that very few studies are witnessed to incline towards code reusability. Hence, we developed a simple analytical model that establishes a relationship between the design components of standard software metric and code reusability using case studies of three software projects (Customer Relationship Management project, Supply Chain Management project, and Enterprise Relationship Management project). We also testify our proposal using stochastic based Markov model to find that proposed system can extract significant information of maximized values of code reusability with increasing level of uncertainties of software project methodologies.

Towards intelligent manufacturing, semantic modelling for the steel industry.

Product quality, cost efficiency, production flexibility and enhancement of industrial performance are the targets of the intelligent manufacturing vision. This raises new challenges for the development of automation and industrial IT solutions. In particular the availability of semantic description of data and data sources aligned with product, production and process information is a necessary condition for the realization of the objectives. This paper presents a generic ontology based approach for the semantic modelling of data sources establishing the basis for seamless information exchange.