Profitable Decisions Research Articles

Pricing: Making Profitable Decisions

Pricing: Making Profitable Decisions

Inside Greenspan's briefcase: investment strategies for profiting from key reports and data

This is a big-picture guide to the financial information that really matters, and how investors can use it. Fed chairman Alan Greenspan's infamous, packed-beyond-capacity briefcase has for years represented the definitive behind-the scenes collection of market-moving financial knowledge and economic reports. Inside Greenspan's Briefcase breaks the seal, examining the essential reports, data, and numbers that investors must know, and explaining what they generally mean to market insiders. A guide to determining which information bites are important, and then uncovering clues within those key reports and data, it helps investors look beyond chat-room gossip and media noise to make informed and profitable decisions. Robert Stein, a leading voice in today's financial community, explains how news and reports affect investor sentiment and market activity, and provides individual investors with an enhanced and finely honed awareness of global macroeconomic issues, as well as the more personal issues that affect long-term financial performance.

RTSS: An interactive decision support system for solving real time scheduling problems considering customer and job priorities with schedule interruptions

Scheduling is the process of organizing, choosing and timing resource usage in a facility (e.g. factory, hospital) to conclude all necessary activities for completing a job at a desired time. This is a common problem where there are multiple jobs and a variety of resources that are required to complete each one of them. The principal objectives in scheduling include efficient and effective resource utilization and improvement in overall system performance. Mathematical complexities in obtaining an optimal solution to scheduling problems force many assumptions into the existing solution. The importance and value of a customer or a job (based on historical data) are not included in such traditional solution procedures. In this paper, we present a decision support system (DSS) to solve scheduling problems that considers the value of a job and a customer. This real time scheduling system also permits many of the traditional assumptions and constraints of scheduling models to be relaxed. Schedule interruptions are permitted and the state of the facility is evaluated at the time of dispatching decisions. An expert system is used to generate alternatives in order to eliminate potential job lateness with reduced mathematical complexities of the scheduling algorithm. This DSS is developed as a tool for the decision maker to solve practical scheduling problems. Traditional research on dynamic job shop scheduling (DJSS) is largely based on combinatorial analysis. Unfortunately, the NP-complete nature of the problem forces many assumptions that limit the use of analytical methods in practical problem solving to be included in existing solution procedures. Customer and job priorities, based on historical data, are seldom included in scheduling models. Many complexities in solving scheduling problems can be reduced if restrictions on limiting resources can be modified in consultation with the decision maker. Such changes can alter the feasible solution space, and permit sound, profitable decisions to enter into the model. This technique is not practicable in a traditional mathematical approach to obtain a solution for the scheduling problem. In this paper, we present a decision support system for real time scheduling that not only allows changes in limiting resources but also permits planned and unplanned downtime of machines, customer order changes and utilization of equipment with multiple capabilities. Expert systems and solicited user input are used to modify resource constraints. This system combines the customer value, job value and the potential value of job and customer along with a traditional component of scheduling analysis to create a schedule. The impact of this system on classical job shop scheduling is also discussed.

Efficient Market Hypothesis and the Contrarian Trading Paradox

The investments industry is made up of two major groups of security analysts: fundamentalists and technicians. Fundamentalists make investment decisions by analysing a company's “fundamentals,” which are risk and performance factors specific to that firm. Technicians, on the other hand, believe that patterns in historical price and volume data for a stock can be used to make profitable trading decisions. In keeping with the latter approach, DeBondt and Thaler (1985, 1987) find evidence of price reversals in three‐year stock returns. Specifically, they determine that stock prices overreact to information, suggesting that a contrarian strategy of buying stocks that performed poorly in the past (i.e. losers) and selling stocks that performed well in the past (i.e. winners), produces significant abnormal returns. Additional support to this “overreaction phenomenon” is documented by Chan (1988), Lo and MacKinlay (1990), and Zarowin (1990).

CARIBBEAN VENEER COMPANY

Case study of a small company founded in 1987 by «amateur" entrepreneurs who entrusted their management to operational executives used to «command done» without considering the importance of a plan and without basic technical information. The objective is to apply operational research to a production process of a company seeking to establish a level of input-process-product combination that maximizes the company's income or profit and /or minimizes its operating costs. Simple and easily interpreted mathematical models are used. The case claims the importance of guiding the production manager towards basic analytical information that allows him to identify the current state of the company and its resources in order to make technically feasible and economically profitable decisions. It shows that the application of the operational investigation does not imply the modification of the installed capacity of the company; on the contrary, their solutions correct the greater or lesser use of that capacity, bringing the input-output relationship closer to the maximum usable, which implies greater profits.

Computer-Assisted Operations — A Practical Approach To Networking Field Computers

Abstract Computer Assisted Operations (CAO) is a computer network using new techniques and available technology to transfer information electronically between computing systems located in the field. Field computing systems have historically been data capture mechanisms developed to funnel data to a central computing facility. CAO is unique in that the network is designed for multi-directional data flow, enhancing computerized decision support to field personnel. Field staffs are given PCS at their field facilities for local decision support. A central PC, called a CAO Host, provides a repository of area data and local CAD network control at the operating centre. The Host recognizes each piece of data and knows which PCS on the network require a copy. For example, gas charts are integrated in a central office, and then passed via the network to the PC at the facility where the chart originated. The PC then uses the information in its facility, modeling programs. A pilot CAD installation was successfully tested at Amoco's Pembina Cardium operation. The pilot field locations do not have telephone communication. This does not present all obstacles because CAO user hand-held computers as the medium through which the network transfers data. Introduction Successful exploration and production companies consistently make profitable decisions in all areas of their business activities. The importance of effective decision making is not new, but the pace at which decisions must be made and executed is accelerating. Effective computing tools for decision support stimulate and sustain the competitive health of these companies. Systems professionals have done an admirable job in identifying and developing new computing opportunities in the office environment, and are now beginning to supply field operations with practical decision support systems. Reasons for the lack of computer use in field locations are many and varied, but a factor common to many operations is the absence of a computer infrastructure in remote field locations. Communications, processing power, and user support that are taken for granted in office environments are not readily available in many field requirements, field computer applications will become increasingly prevalent. Measured by new systems installed, field operations will be the largest growth sector of petroleum computing in the next decade. Field computing systems have historically been intended as monitoring systems. They are designed to capture data and then feed it to central systems. Little emphasis has been placed on providing information access back to field staff, particularly at locations remote from an area office. For example, Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems have been used for many years to gather data. SCADA systems are designed to funnel electronically monitored field data to central computing systems, however, field access to this information is generally limited to printed reports or occasional remote terminal access. Very few SCADA systems are designed to automatically communicate information to and from other computing systems in a network. New applications for on-site decision support have begun to proliferate, but have been limited by an inability to share information with other systems.

An Adaptive Utility Approach for Improved Use of Marketing Models

A decision-making approach integrating information from managerial experience with that provided by marketing models is proposed. The approach suggests that managers should learn to value more those marketing control variable levels that have been linked to favorable changes in performance in order to make more effective and profitable decisions.

Forecasting market prices

Previous research into forecasts of market prices has shown that sophisticated forecasts are futile for many markets. This paper reviews recent research and identifies those markets for which non-trivial forecasts can lead to profitable decisions. Particular attention is given to futures and options markets and to the application of non-linear time series models.

Purchase Lot Sizing Research for MRP Systems

The purchasing function is growing in importance in today's industrial economy. In many purchasing situations there are a number of conflicting considerations that influence the final purchasing decision. The professional purchasing person must make profitable buying decisions under these circumstances. The single item purchase lot sizing literature in the past has served as the foundation for developing and studying the requirements planning based models and techniques. The purchasing manager's methods for making quantity (lot size) decisions are examined. Significant literature on the subject is classified and a taxonomy provided. Variations within the purchase lot sizing literature are discussed. Purchase lot sizing literature has important limitations by focusing exclusively on lot sizing as the relevant criterion for making economic order size decisions. A logical extension would be to include, the economic performance of alternative lot size procedures in a capacitated Materials Requirement Planning (MRP) environment. Another extension should consider the economics of jointly ordering from one vendor.

Pricing: Making Profitable Decisions

Part I: Introduction. Part II: Prices and Demand. Part III: Determining Relevant Costs for Pricing. Part IV: Developing Pricing Strategies. Part V: Administering the Pricing Function. Part VI: Special Topics on Pricing. Part VII: Recommendations.

Book Review: Pricing: Making Profitable Decisions

Book Review: Pricing: Making Profitable Decisions

Economic Aspects of Motor Transportation in Marketing Livestock

AN IMPORTANT function of marketing livestock is the physical movement of the live animals from the farm to the market and/or to the packing plant. As livestock, in the present time, has to be transported either by railroad or by motor truck, shippers have to choose between these two alternative methods of transportation. Also, as there is no general rule to be relied upon for determining which method could be used to the greater advantage, shippers have to make a decision as to the mode of transport suitable to each set of circumstances the individual shipper is likely to encounter, i.e., the species of animal, the number of animals shipped, the particular destinations, the type of market (terminal vs. auction), etc. In order to reach profitable decisions, shippers have to make their comparison between railroads and trucks on the same basis. In comparing costs, for example, it is important to begin at the farm and to consider all items of expense until the shipment is delivered at the point at which the shipper ceases to be financially concerned with the process of getting the livestock to the receiver. Such costs include the actual money outlay for the transportation and expenses en route, together with losses from death, crippling, bruising, and tissue shrinkage of animals. In addition, service factors, which are not directly measurable in terms of money, such as convenience, should be taken into account. Such factors are largely a matter of individual judgment, and there cannot be any rule for how much they mean to different individuals. Livestock producers, especially the small producers, may find difficulty in reaching good decisions as to which method of transportation is better. They often need guidance in evaluating the various factors involved. Such guidance could be provided by farmers' organizations and experiment stations. In addition, farmers and shippers can benefit from the experience of their neighbors in the livestock industry by knowing the reasons behind the diversion of livestock traffic from rail to truck or vice versa and the advantages that have attracted shippers to use motor trucks instead of railroads.