• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.198-206
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• 2005

The single sourcing policy, in which an automobile manufacturer purchases identical or similar parts from one supplier, has an advantage of scale economy. Meanwhile, multiple sourcing policy, which allows procuring similar parts from multiple suppliers, has benefits of dispersing risks and promoting competition among suppliers. This paper analyzes the procurement policies by presenting a model of the Japanese automobile parts trade. It concludes that maturity of technology involved should be taken into account besides above-mentioned factors which have traditionally been recognized. For parts produced using evolving technologies, the single sourcing enhances purchaser’s benefits because of the scale economy in learning process. In the meantime, multiple sourcing is more beneficial to the purchaser if the parts are based on mature technologies. In either policy, if the technology involved is evolving, motivating suppliers by returning a great part of cost reduction as a reward to them may eventually increase profit for the purchaser. The conclusion supports the situation where the number of suppliers is being cut down as the trend of modularization and system deliveries of parts progresses in the auto parts industry, and suggests that returning part of benefits to parts suppliers may be encouraged from the viewpoint of auto manufacturers’ own interest.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.88-99
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• 1993

There has been investments by firms to protect workers' health and to improve their health status. Most of the investments are made on the ground of legal requirement. However many argue that the amount of investments made falls short of the legally required level. One of the reasons why firms are not active in undertaking required investments is that they are not certain whether such investment is economically beneficial to them or not. Using CBA (Cost-Benefit Analysis), this study investigates whether firms' investments on workers' health are economically justifiable or not. All kinds of expected costs and benefits are itemized and calculated, and costs are compared with benefits. The result shows that if firms fully undertake the legally required investments, total expected costs amount to W453.2 billion and expected benefits accruing to reductions from medical care costs, workers compensation costs, litigation costs in case of legal suit, work days lost, and etc. comes up to W2,086.8 billion. In other words, economic benefits from firms' investment on industrial health far outweighs their costs. As the economy grows, the probability of having various occupational disease increases. It is well conceivable from this study outcome that, the higher the probability, the greater the social loss would be, and the greater the benefits from proper investments on workers' health.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.24-34
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• 2015

The complexity arises in defining the construction quality due to its perception, based on inherent market conditions and their requirements, the diversified stakeholders itself and their desired output. A quantitative survey based approach was adopted in this constructive study. A questionnaire based survey was conducted, for the assessment of construction quality perception and expectations in the context of quality improvement technique. The survey feedback of professionals, from the leading construction organizations/companies of Pakistan were analyzed. The financial capacity, organizational structure, and construction experience of the construction firms formed basis for their selection. After statistical analysis of survey feedback it was found reliable and valid for the inferential purpose to the target population of construction professionals. The quality perception was found to be project scope oriented, considered as an excess cost for a construction project and keeping the rework minimum by qualifying the required quality tests, keeping the defects minimum by ensuring the specifications of supplied material. Any quality improvement technique was expected to address the financial aspects of the construction project for the employer and contractor, by increasing the profitability through reduction in overall cost, reduction in time, reduction in defects and improving the productivity in a construction project. The study is beneficial for the construction professionals to assess the prevailing construction quality perception and the expectations from implementation of any quality improvement technique in construction projects.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.826-839
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• 2014

Fire is a continuous threat to FPSO topside modules as large amounts of oil and gas are passing through the modules. As a conventional measure to mitigate structural failure under fire, passive fire protection (PFP) coatings are widely used on main structural members. However, an excessive use of PFP coatings can cause considerable cost for material purchase, installation, inspection and maintenance. Long installation time can be a risk since the work should be done nearly at the last fabrication stage. Thus, the minimal use of PFP can be beneficial to the reduction of construction cost and the avoidance of schedule delay. This paper presents a few case studies on how different applications of PFP have influence on collapse time of a FPSO module structure. A series of heat analysis and thermal elasto-plastic FE analysis are performed for different PFP coatings and the resultant collapse time and the amount of PFP coatings are compared with each other.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.34-41
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• 2015

Bonding strength of a thermal sprayed coating is difficult to measure using a conventional pull-off test method. Scratch test is a potential alternative testing method. An adhesive and a cohesive bond strength of the coating can be measured by the pull-off test while the scratch test performed on the cross-section of the thermal sprayed coating can only demonstrate the cohesive bond strength of the coating. Nevertheless, it is still beneficial to perform the scratch testing on the cross-section of the coating for the sake of comparison thus providing an alternative to the pull-off test. The scratch test method can reduce testing time and cost in the long run due to a significant cost reduction in consumables and energy and time saving from the curing step of the glue used in the pull-off test. This research investigates the possibility of using the scratch test to measure the cohesive bond strength of Mo/NiCrBSi composite coating. The results from the pull-off test and the scratch test indicate that the cohesive bond strengths of the Mo composite coating show similar trend and that the cohesive bond strength are increased when increasing NiCrBSi content.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.392-396
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• 2010

This study was conducted to examine the effect of HACCP implementation on the cost of medicine use, antibiotic utilization, and productivity of swine in Korea. Data were collected from forty-five swine farms before and after implementation of a HACCP system. The cost of medicine used, the number of different antibiotics used and the number of feeds containing antibiotic supplements added at the feed company tended to be lower (p>0.05) after HACCP implementation. Additionally, the number of feeds containing antibiotics supplemented at the farm was significantly lower after HACCP implementation (p<0.05). Moreover, the number of piglets born per sow per year and pigs marketed per sow per year were higher after HACCP implementation (22.0, 20.0) than before HACCP implementation (20.4, 18.9). These results suggest that implementation of HACCP systems on swine farms may provide beneficial effects such as reduction of medical expenses and improved productivity, as well as increased safety of livestock products for consumers.

• Journal of agriculture & life science
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.7-14
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• 2010

Alternative subirrigation way, capillary wick system (CWS) was tested to reduce labor cost, waste water, contamination of ground water, and use of fungicide compared to overhead irrigation system (OIS). CWS helped reduce remarkably the working hours for watering from 4 hours in OSI to just 5 minutes. Labor cost was saved 98% in CWS compared to OIS. By the physical characteristics of various growing media, 1 coconut coir+2 perlite (v/v) mixture was selected because it had an ideal distribution of three phase, e.g. 1 solid: 1 liquid: 2 gas phase. Medium mixture containing scoria had so high bulk and particle density to hurt root. In bark-containing medium, the liquid phase and the percent saturation of liquid phase with time elapsed was lower than that of other mixture. It meant that the mixture contained very low level of water. Application of CWS for cyclamen pot production played an important role in reducing the incident of fusarium wilt symptom from 18% in conventional over watering system to 4%. Cyclamen pot irrigated by capillary wick had shorter petiole and more leaves than those by overhead watering. As a result, this system was highly beneficial to get uniform pot products with high quality. It improved water and nutrient solution efficiency relative to conventional overhead irrigation system (OIS).

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.136-144
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• 2021

This study focuses on the necessity of MOT methods in companies, especially the utilization level. Based on the analysis structure of the previous study (2012), this study was conducted to compare the results with the previous results. We investigated the settlement level of MOT, the degree of necessity for MOT methods, the degree of actual use, and the Product Realization Process (PRP) for MOT-related researchers in electronic companies (n=184). It was confirmed that the higher the demand for MOT methods in the corporate field, the higher the utilization level (ratio). In particular, the need for and utilization of techniques such as Environmental Analysis, Business Opportunity Analysis, Project Feasibility Review, Roadmap, Risk Management was high. These methods were beneficial along with cost management and quality management techniques. The most challenging part of using MOT methods was the lack of systematic use, the absence of experts, and the difficulty in selecting suitable techniques. The necessity of opening subjects such as Creative Thinking, Communication, Teamwork, and Professional Ethics was high among the PRP subjects. Furthermore, the necessity of opening courses in Cost and Safety Design and Applied Statistics was higher than in the previous study.

• International Journal of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.243-248
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• 2022

Considering the current situation where cash transactions account for 51.5% of private consumption expenditure, it is very important to secure a tax base by exposing business operators' cash transactions. In the September 2011 national audit, it was pointed out that although a significant part of the investment amount of businesses (VAN operators, etc.) related to the issuance of cash receipts has been recovered, they are still supported through the state tax. At this point in time when a significant amount of the initial investment has been recovered, it is necessary to study a new way to support business operators through methods other than the tax credit method. This study proposes various methods to improve the current cash receipt system and describes the advantages and disadvantages of each method. The most important thing for the improvement of the cash receipt system is that the issuance of cash receipts should be beneficial to business operators. As a result of this study, the most desirable improvement method is to provide differential compensation for the discriminatory cost because the cost is different for each cash receipt operator. For this purpose, we analyze the best way to improve the cash receipt system is a tax credit method and a tax credit for maintenance costs.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.153-172
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• 1990

The present paper investigates the potential value of strategic antitrust policy in an oligopolistic international market. The market is characterized by a non-cooperative Cournot-Nash equilibrium and by asymmetry in costs among firms in the world market. The model is useful for two reasons. First, it is important in the context of policy-making to examine the conditions under which it may be beneficial to relax antitrust law to enhance competitiveness. Second, the explicit derivation of the level of cost-saving required for a gain in total domestic surplus provides an empirical rule for excluding industries that do not satisfy the requirements for a socially beneficial antitrust exemption. Results of the analysis include a criterion that tells how the cost-saving and concentration effects of a merger offset each other. The criterion is derived from fairly general assumptions on demand functions and is simple enough to be applied as a part of the merger guidelines. Another interesting policy implication of our analysis is that promoting mergers would not be a beneficial strategy in a net importing industry where cost-saving opportunities are thin. Cost-saving domestic mergers are more likely to increase national welfare in exporting industries. The best candidate industries for application of strategic antitrust policy are those with the following characteristics: (i) a large potential for efficiency enhancement; (ii) high market concentration at the world but not the domestic level; (iii) a high ratio of exports to imports. Recently, many policymakers and economists in Korea have also come to believe that the appropriate antitrust policy in an era of increased foreign competition may actually be to encourage rather than to prohibit domestic mergers. The Industry Development Act of 1986 and the proposed bill for Mergers and Conversions in the Financial Industry of 1990 reflect this changing perspective on antitrust policy. Antitrust laws may burden domestic firms in the sense that they have a more constrained strategy set. Expenditures to avoid antitrust attacks could also increase costs for domestic firms. But there is no clear evidence that the impact of antitrust policy is significant enough to harm the competitiveness of domestic firms. As a matter of fact, it is necessary for domestic financial institutions to become large in scale in this era of globalization. However, the absence of empirical evidence for efficiency enhancement from mergers suggests caution in the relaxation of antitrust standards.