Predicting project approvals: A case of grants from the National Science Council of Taiwan

Project selection is an important task for organizations in achieving their missions using limited budgets and resources. Whether or not a project will be approved is also of primary concern to the applicants. This paper predicts whether a project will be approved for cases where the criteria for evaluating it are known while the scoring system is not. The idea is to construct a frontier function for the approved projects from past performance on the criteria. The relative distance between a proposed project and the frontier serves as an indicator of the possibility that the project will be approved. Data from the Management II Division of the National Science Council of Taiwan in the Topic Research Project are collected to illustrate this approach. From the percentile of the distance measure, an applicant is able to predict the possibility that their project will be approved. Since professors with different levels of experience and different research areas have different research performance, these factors are taken into account in the prediction. A Malmquist productivity index analysis is also conducted to investigate the performance improvement of the applicants in research between two periods.     

Linking long-term capacity management for manufacturing and service operations

For firms that combine manufacturing and service operations in one system, the task of managing capacity is not straightforward. New goods and services may not have the same set of competitive priorities, and the models and concepts available in the literature for service operations differ from those for manufacturing operations. We address this problem and review the concepts and models for capacity management in the long term in both streams of literature, i.e. manufacturing and services, to develop a unified framework for manufacturing and service operations. The framework creates transparency between new goods manufacturing and service operations, since the same long-term capacity management structure is used for both product types, as well as between capacity strategy and planning strategy, since new goods and services are treated simultaneously. In the framework, the concepts of chase and level strategies are redefined for service operations to allow for integration with manufacturing operations. A case study demonstrates the usefulness of the integrated approach for long-term capacity management.     

中国马克思主义者对亚细亚生产方式理论态度的变迁

马克思亚细亚生产方式理论传入中国,引起了中国思想界的广泛兴趣,也产生了众多的争议。从20世纪20年代到现在,中国思想界对马克思亚细亚生产方式理论进行了三次大的讨论。如以1978年十一届三中全会为界,中国马克思主义者对马克思亚细亚生产方式理论的态度经历了从＂回避＂到＂回归＂的变迁。无论是前期的＂回避＂还是后期的＂回归＂,可以说都是多种因素综合作用的结果。     

Pricing decisions in a multi-criteria setting for product recovery facilities

Unpredictability in the arrival time and quantity of discarded products at product recovery facilities (PRFs) and varying demand for recovered components contribute to the volatility in their inventory levels. Achieving profit under such capricious inventory levels and stringent environmental legislations remains a challenge to many PRFs. This paper presents a multi-criteria decision model to determine a pricing policy that can simultaneously address two issues: stabilize inventory fluctuations and boost profits. The model considers that PRFs passively accepts discarded products as well as acquires them proactively if necessary. Under a multi-criteria setting, the current work determines prices of reusable and recyclable components to maximize revenue and minimize product recovery costs. A genetic algorithm is employed to solve the multi-criteria decision making problem. Sensitivity analysis is performed to investigate the effect of sorting yield, disassembly yield, and reusable component yield on the profits, prices, inventory levels, and disposal quantities.     

Joint modified block replacement and production/inventory control policy for a failure-prone manufacturing cell

This paper considers a joint preventive maintenance (PM) and production/inventory control policy of an unreliable single machine, mono-product manufacturing cell with stochastic non-negligible corrective and preventive delays. The production/inventory control policy, which is based on the hedging point policy (HPP), consists in building and maintaining a safety stock of finished products in order to respond to demand and to avoid shortages during maintenance actions. Without considering the impact of preventive and corrective actions on the overall performance of the production system, most authors working in the reliability and maintainability domains confirm that the age-based preventive maintenance policy (ARP) outperforms the classical block-replacement policy (BRP). In order to reduce wastage incurred by the classical BRP, we consider a modified block replacement policy (MBRP), which consists in canceling a preventive maintenance action if the time elapsed since the last maintenance action exceeds a specified time threshold. The main objective of this paper is to determine the joint optimal policy that minimizes the overall cost, which is composed of corrective and preventive maintenance costs as well as inventory holding and backlog costs. A simulation model mimicking the dynamic and stochastic behavior of the manufacturing cell, based on more realistic considerations of the real behavior of industrial manufacturing cells, is proposed. Based on simulation results, the joint optimal MBRP/HPP parameters are obtained through a numerical approach that combines design of experiment, analysis of variance and response surface methodologies. The joint optimal MBRP/HPP policy is compared to classical joint ARP/HPP and BRP/HPP optimal policies, and the results show that the proposed MBRP/HPP outperforms the latter. Sensitivity analyses are also carried out in order to confirm the superiority of the proposed MBRP/HPP, and it is observed that for practitioners, the proposed joint MBRP/HPP offers not only cost savings, but is also easy to manage, as compared to the ARP/HPP policy.     

The EPQ with partial backordering and phase-dependent backordering rate

In previous work we established a closed-form optimal stocking strategy for an EPQ model with partial backordering at a constant rate β. Here we extend this work to allow for the possibility that the percentage of demand backordered will increase when production starts again. We show how our previous model can be adapted to find the optimal decision variable values for this new assumption and develop the condition that the initial value of β must meet for partial backordering to be optimal.     

Supply chain configuration for diffusion of new products: An integrated optimization approach

We develop an integrated/hybrid optimization model for configuring new products’ supply chains while explicitly considering the impact of demand dynamics during new products’ diffusion. The hybrid model simultaneously determines optimal production/sales plan and supply chain configuration. The production and sales plan provides decisions on the optimal timing to launch a new product, as well as the production and sales quantity in each planning period. The supply chain configuration provides optimal selection of options and safety stock level kept at each supply chain function. Extensive computational experiments on randomly generated testbed problems indicate that the hybrid modeling and solution approach significantly outperforms non-hybrid alternative modeling and solution approaches under various diffusion and supply chain topologies. We provide insights on optimal production/sales plan and supply chain configuration for new products during their diffusion process. Also, managerial implications relevant to effectiveness of the hybrid approach are discussed.     

我国农产品物流要素贡献率实证研究

本文根据1991-2005年我国农产品物流行业投入产出数据,利用生产函数拟合法对影响农产品物流行业发展的劳动力、资本、技术三大要素贡献率进行计算与分析:资本投入和技术进步是推动我国农产品物流行业增长的主要力量,劳动要素对农产品物流行业的贡献相对有限。我国农产品物流行业面临劳动要素贡献低,而资本、技术要素虽贡献率高但起点较低的困境。因此必须完善硬件设施、提高技术水平和劳动者素质。     

Multi-item EOQ inventory model with varying holding cost under two restrictions: A geometric programming approach

In this paper we provide a simple method to determine the inventory policy of multiple items having varying holding cost using a geometric programming approach. The varying holding cost is considered to be a continuous function of the order quantity. The EOQ inventory model with constant holding cost and the classical EOQ inventory model without constraints are derived.     

中原地区农村生活污染整治的博弈分析

选取中原农村地区具有代表性的市县为研究对象,分析农村生活污染整治的低效原因。根据污染整治的三大参与者——村民、农村保洁员和基层政府的行为分别建立静态、动态博弈模型进行分析,找出农村生活污染整治的制约因素,并提出生活污染整治的建议。结果表明:要有效整治农村生活污染,需加强对村民的环保意识教育,树立保护环境的责任感和使命感,并积极倡导村民之间相互监督,杜绝"搭便车"现象;建立良好的信誉环境,营造"保护环境光荣,污染环境可耻"的社会氛围,提高环境保护者的信誉得益;成本是影响各主体参与污染整治积极性的重要因素,政府应宏观调控加大奖惩措施,且环境保护应由上至下、从中央到地方层层落实。