Actor-Relational Planning in Deprived Areas: Challenges and Opportunities in Luchtbal Antwerpen,Belgium

In this article, we report and discuss our experience with actor-relational approaches (ARA) in the regeneration of a postwar housing estate in Luchtbal, Antwerp, Belgium. ARA are informed by post-structuralist ideas of space, complexity theory, and actor network theory. Although ARA itself is not new, the application of ARA to deprived area's such as Luchtbal is novel. We report how the approach has been elaborated, its process and outcome. We conclude with our evaluation from an insider's perspective.     

Unequal Regionalism: Regional Planning in China and England

This paper responds to the revival of regionalism in the past two decades by showing that such a re-emergence is unequal. Comparing the practice of regional planning in China and England, this paper has demonstrated that the party-state in China and the liberal-democratic state in England have responded differently to this revival and developed different framework for regional administration and planning. These variations have not only elaborated planners' concern about planning practice in a ‘context of difference’ from social dimension to geographical variations, but also echoed geographers' affirmation that global trends take on different characters in local setting.     

New Spatial Concepts Between Innovation and Lock-in: The Case of the Dutch Deltametropolis

It is often proclaimed that planning concepts serve an innovative function in the political process. They are praised as powerful tools that carry new insights and understandings into policy arenas. By examining the emergence and development of a new planning concept in the Dutch national spatial policy-making process, the deltametropolis concept, this paper questions this position. It argues that new spatial concepts tend to lose much of their innovative capacities when they enter the political arena and become encased in the traditional urban–rural planning discourse, thus reaffirming established planning orientations. The Dutch case of the deltametropolis illustrates that new spatial concepts may entail potential for innovation as much as for lock-in.     

考虑服务约束的第三方仓库收益与设计优化模型

第三方仓库作为服务提供商, 主要以期望收益最大化为目标, 但是必须满足一定的顾客服务标准。针对高需求环境, 考虑顾客服务水平约束, 提出了一个基于排队论的随机设计优化模型以使仓库的期望收益最大化。采用动态优化算法对模型求解, 选取实例进行了数值实验。结果显示, 模型的优化设计显著地提高了高需求环境下该第三方仓库的期望收益。在此基础上, 找到了服务约束的可行范围和有效范围, 为决策者制定服务标准提供了依据。     

Capacitated qualification management in semiconductor manufacturing

In semiconductor manufacturing, machines are usually qualified to process a limited number of recipes related to products. It is possible to qualify recipes on machines to better balance the workload on machines in a given toolset. However, all machines of a toolset do not have equal uptimes and may further suffer from scheduled and unscheduled downtimes. This may heavily impact an efficient recipe-to-machine qualification configuration. In this paper, we propose indicators for recipe-to-machine qualification management based on the overall toolset workload balance under capacity constraints. The models, deployed in industry, demonstrate that the toolset capacity must be considered while managing qualifications. Industrial experiments show how capacity consideration leads to an optimal qualification configuration and therefore capacity utilization.     

A Business Model Innovation Typology

An effective business model is the core enabler of any company's performance. Business model innovation is not only becoming more and more important due to increasing and globalizing competition, but also an enormous challenge, both theoretically and practically. Although many managers are eager to consider more disruptive changes to their business model, they often do not know how to articulate their existing or desired business model and, even less so, understand the possibilities for innovating it. One of the steps toward developing more theoretical insight and practical guidelines is the identification of types and the development of a typology of business model innovations. Ten retrospective case studies of business model innovations undertaken by two industrial companies provide the empirical basis for this article. We analyzed the characteristics of these innovations as well as their success rates. The findings suggest that there are indeed various business model innovation types, each with its own characteristics and challenges.     

控股股东代理成本、纳税筹划方案抉择及其市场价值:基于J有限公司的案例研究

纳税筹划是实务界与学术界共同关心的领域,现有研究大量讨论了公司纳税筹划行为的决定因素及其经济后果,但仍存在巨大争议。一方面,纳税筹划节约了现金流,提升股东价值;另一方面,代理问题使企业的纳税筹划方案更可能有利于控股股东或管理层,而非上市公司利益最大化,从而可能降低企业价值,最终纳税筹划方案的经济后果取决于上述两方面的共同作用。本文基于某上市公司(J有限公司)收购大股东土地案例,分析了代理成本影响公司税务决策的路径及其经济后果。本文发现,控股股东构造了较为复杂的股权转移交易方式,为上市公司和控股股东节约了大量税务成本。但由于代理成本的存在,在多种纳税筹划方案中,控股股东并未选择对上市公司最为有利的方案,而选择了能够取得现金最多,控股股东利益最大化的方案。进一步的研究发现,市场非常关注该企业的纳税筹划行为,与本文搜集的对照样本相比,尽管J公司的控股股东未选择最优的方案,但投资者仍给予了该纳税筹划行为以积极反应,提升了企业价值。本文为研究代理成本影响公司税务决策的机理提供了重要参考。     

The compatibility of durable goods with contingent generic consumables

Many durable products provide value only when used together with contingent services or consumable components, e.g. light fixtures (bulbs), printers (ink), electronics (batteries). Consumers need only have access to the contingent consumable components to continue to derive service from a durable. In fact, many firms rely primarily upon the revenues generated from the contingent services or consumables as the primary source of profitability, e.g. giving away the razors to make money on the blades. Such firms often invest considerable effort into making sure that consumers of their durables are held captive to their own branded consumables by impeding their access to generically available consumables. They do so by designing their products in such a way that they are not readily compatible with the generic consumables. We consider the implications of competition from third-party manufacturers that can provide generic consumables and the manufacturer’s production decisions of a durable good under such contingencies. This allows us to draw managerial insights about how a firm should decide on his product compatibility and production quantity when the generic contingent consumables enter the market.     

Setups and effective capacity: the impact of lot sizing techniques in an MRP environment

This study investigates how lot sizing techniques influence the profit performance, inventory level, and order lardiness of an assembly job shop controlled by MRP. Four single-level lot sizing techniques are compared by simulation analysis under two levels of master schedule instability and two levels of end item demand. A second analysis investigates the influence of a multilevel lot sizing technique, the generalized constrained-K (GCK) cost modification, on the four single-level techniques at low demand and low nervousness. The analyses reveal a previously unreported phenomenon. Given the same inventory costs, the single-level lot sizing techniques generate substantially different average batch sizes. The lot sizing techniques maintain the following order of increasing average batch size (and decreasing total setup time):

economic order quantity (EOQ)

period order quantity (POQ)

least total cost (LTC)

Silver-Meal heuristic (SML)

The causes for different average batch sizes among the lot sizing techniques are analysed and explained. Demand lumpiness, inherent in multilevel manufacturing systems controlled by MRP, is found to be a major factor. The number of setups each lot sizing technique generates is the primary determinant of profit performance, inventory level, and order tardiness. EOQ, a fixed order quantity technique, is less sensitive to nervousness than the discrete lot sizing techniques. EOQ_, however, generates the smallest average batch size, and, therefore, the most setups. Since setups consume capacity, EOQ, is more sensitive to higher demand. SML generates the largest average batch sizes, and is, therefore, less sensitive to increased demand. At low demand, the other lot sizing techniques perform better on all criteria. They generate smaller batches and, therefore, shorter actual lead times. The GCK cost modification increases the average batch size generated by each lot sizing technique. GCK improves the profit and customer service level of EOQ the lot sizing technique with the smallest batches. GCK causes the other lot sizing techniques to generate excessively large batches and, therefore, excessively long actual lead times.