In almost all of the organizations, the cost for acquiring and maintaining the inventory takes a considerable portion of the management budget, and thus a certain constraint is set upon the budget itself. The previous studies on inventory control for each item that aimed to improve the fill rate, backorder, and the expenditure on inventory are fitting for the commercially-operated SCM, but show some discrepancies when they are applied to the spare parts for repairing disabled systems. Therefore, many studies on systematic approach concept considering spare parts of various kinds simultaneously have been conducted to achieve effective performance for the inventory control at a lower cost, and primarily, METRIC series models can be named. However, the past studies were limited when dealing with the probability distributions for representing the situation on demand and transportation of the parts, with the (S-1, S) inventory control policy, and so on. To address these shortcomings, the Continuous Time Markov Chain (CTMC) model, which considers the phase-type distributions and the (s, Q) inventory control policies to best describe the real-world situations inclusively, is presented in this study. Additionally, by considering the cost versus the system availability, the optimization of the inventory level, based on this model, is also covered.

This research empirically investigated the influence factors on the adoption of environmental management systems (EMS) in Korean manufacturing firms. In this study, the external factors (cause factors), the internal factors (facilitating factors) and the firm specific characteristics were integrally considered. In the factor analysis, the third item (regional society) of the external factors and the first item (environmental law) of government regulation were confounded with the items of the other factors. Thus, the confounded items were removed. In the second factor analysis, no items were replicated. The results of a multiple regression analysis showed that the influence factors such as government regulation, normative pressure, top management support, environmental strategy and employees' recognition, and ratio of large shareholders have a significant impact on the construction of EMS. However, the effects of the other firm specific characteristics were not statistically significant. We also examined whether both the number of environmental personnel and the allocation of environmental resources, which are directly related with the adoption of EMS, have a moderating impact on the relationships between other internal factors and the construction of EMS. With a subgroup analysis, the moderating roles of the number of environmental personnel were empirically confirmed. Through a multiple regression analysis, the direct effects of the external factors on the adoption or construction of the internal factors were demonstrated. The effects of government regulation, normative pressure and imitative pressure on the internal factors were significant and positive. Finally, in this study, the fact that the adoption of EMS can improve the environmental performance of a firm was also empirically found.

It is important to maintain on operational availability of aircraft during wartime. The KF-16 fighter, the backbone of the ROKAF (Republic Of Korea Air Force), has a single engine. Therefore, the engine has a critical influence on operational availability. The purpose of this study is to estimate optimal levels of spare part inventories concerning both engines and modules. That is provided by linear programming methods utilizing a developed meta-model. For drawing out the meta-model, we develop a simulation model which can consider wartime demands. In the previous study, $2^k$ factorial design method is used to check the influence of each independent variable. That method requires relatively many scenarios because every extreme value combination of independent variables should be checked. However, this study adopts NOLH (Nearly Orthogonal Latin Hypercube) as an experimental design. By adopting NOLH, this study increases not only efficiency but also accuracy. That is proven by comparing the validity of the developed meta-model on both experimental designs. This study also utilizes the OptQuest simulation tool in ARENA to derive the optimal level of spare stocks. By comparing the result of OptQuest to that of the developed meta-model, the validity of this study is secured.

With the huge concerns on the inefficiency of public enterprises, particularly a significant amount of debt, an increasing number of studies have been carried out to analyze the levels of inefficiency and investigate the causes of that inefficiency. However, very limited range of analytical methodologies have been used in the efficiency analysis and moreover, the effects of external factors have been little addressed. This study explores the efficiency of urban railway corporations in Korea by utilizing a method of stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). In particular, the potential effects of external factors including residential and floating populations of a station were statistically analyzed. A total of seven Korean urban railway corporations were selected to compare each other in terms of operational efficiency. The results present three important findings. First, the Cobb-Douglas model was found to be more valid for SFA compared to the Translog model. Second, the efficiencies of urban railway corporations in Seoul and Busan are relatively high whereas those of Daejeon and Gwangju are very low in efficiency in the area of sales revenue. In an aspect of number of transport of passengers, Gwangju Metro also showed the lowest efficiency. Third, the external factors are significantly associated with the efficiency, indicating that the efficiencies of Daejeon Metro and Gwangju Metro would increase while the efficiency of Seoul Metro would decreases when the external variables are excluded in the efficiency analysis. The results provide several meaningful implications for managers of the urban railway corporations as well as policy makers who are attempting to resolve the inefficiency problems of public enterprises.

This paper considers a single machine scheduling problem to determine release and processing times where both the release times and processing times are linearly decreasing functions of resources. The objective is to minimize the sum of the associated resource consumption cost and scheduling cost including makespan, sum of completion times, maximum lateness, or sum of lateness. This paper proves that the scheduling problem is NP-hard in the strong sense even if the release times are constant.

There is a growing need for technology transactions between the technology providers, who develop technologies, and the technology consumers, who purchase and commercialize technologies, to be smooth, when technologies, as intangible assets, are traded as items that can be purchased and sold. In response to these challenges, this study examines new approaches to assessing the fair market value of technologies. Because corporations are the main force behind technology development and commercialization in the existing business environment, applying one valuation method to technology assets is viable; however, as the subjects of technology development and technology commercialization are separate, the need for price negotiations between the subjects of technology transaction has grown. Moreover, as the investigations into and the application of transaction prices have been performed separately by technology providers, technology consumers, and technology assessment financial institutions, the research on technology valuation methods has shown that there are differences in perceived transaction prices between the subjects involved. This research presents a new method, appropriate to technology transactions; unlike existing methods, it grants option values to the technology provider and newly defined key variables to the technology consumer.

This study looks for the service factors influencing to conversion among the domestic telecommunication companies and finds out the effect which the switching benefit affect the customer satisfaction and the switching intention. Eight service factors of the telecommunication company such as usability, call quality, terminal quality, auxiliary service, rates, after service, application and brand image are selected and verified using the structural equation model. Auxiliary service, rates and brand image give positive (+) effects to the customer's satisfaction, but the application gives negative (-) effects to the customer's satisfaction. Switching benefit affects significantly to the switching intention, but not to the customer satisfaction. The customer satisfaction gives a positive effect to the switching intention. The telecommunication service factors influence to customer satisfaction and switching intention, and switching benefit also influences to switching intention. It was analyzed that the significant influencing service factors were a little different among the telecommunication companies.