• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.506-512
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• 2013

Since the amendment of the law on the private sector investment in social infrastructure in January of 2005, the government has been actively promoting Build-Transfer-Lease (BTL) projects. Notably, most new educational facilities have been built as BTL projects. For these facilities, the unit cost per unit area has been applied to predict construction costs. However, since construction costs are mostly managed after the detailed design phase, the costs can be estimated incorrectly. For this reason, cost management is needed in the planning phase, with a sound approximate estimate to prevent the wasteful use of funds. To address this shortcoming, this study aims to develop a quantity prediction model for education facilities using regression analysis in the planning phase. The developed model is focused on the required quantities of reinforced concrete and bricks. In order to achieve the objective, the data of 44 educational facility projects collected from Gyeonggi-do was used in the regression model. This study can be utilized by major stakeholders to accurately predict construction costs by estimating the appropriate quantities of reinforced concrete and bricks in the planning design phase.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.261-272
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• 2014

Home appliances go through a couple of packaging stages from the plant to consumers. The primary packaging, inner packaging for each part, happens for protection after products leave the plant. The secondary packaging happens in the unit of product, ensuring cushioning packaging to protect products from movement. The final tertiary packaging is for transportation and delivery. Each stage of product packaging, however, costs a lot of money because of disposable packaging materials used in each stage including vinyl, tapes, Styrofoam, and corrugated cardboards. Discarded packaging materials also cause environmental problems. In an effort to come up with a measure to solve those problems, this study proposed a plan to minimize logistics costs with semi-permanent packaging materials to replace disposable ones including Styrofoam, vinyl, and corrugated cardboards in the stages of inner packaging, cushioning packaging, product unit-based packaging, and transportation. The study also developed a model to cut down logistics costs by reducing various packaging stages including the primary, secondary, and tertiary stage only to the secondary one through module-type products instead of the transportation- and delivery-type ones, as well as demonstrated the excellence of the study through numerical analysis.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2006

This paper analyzes how levels of logistics standardization are related to logistics costs. The study surveyed ratios of standard pallet use in order to measure levels of firms' standardization in logistics management. Research focused on how firms' logistics costs were related to their levels of logistics standardization and ratios of standard pallet use. After measuring use of standard pallets and logistics costs, optimal levels of logistics standardization were estimated based on survey data. Logistics costs and standardization were more related to labor than to freight volume or export. Results indicated that firms could reduce logistics costs by raising levels of logistics standardization; optimal levels of standard pallet use out of Korean firms' total manufacturing cargo volume were estimated at 44.26% for multi-standard pallets and 57.99% for a single standard pallet (a unit load system). The study demonstrated that adopting a single standard pallet results in better cost saving logistics systems than use of multi-standard pallet types. These results may explain why firms pursue standardization in logistics systems.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.77-98
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• 2022

This paper empirically verifies that the types of capital adjustment costs serve as an important mechanism in relation to investment decision-making after confirming that the investment dispersion of Korean firms is pro-cyclical and can affect business cycles. Specifically, it is found through empirical methods using corporate financial data that capital adjustment costs generally assumed to take a quadratic form in macroeconomics are asymmetric and irreversible in the Korean economy. In particular, capital adjustment costs are empirically proven to cause investment dispersion to expand given that the substitution effect of the marginal value to the marginal cost for one unit of investment in the inter-temporal investment decision is affected by that cost with regard to the resale of owned equipment assets, as opposed to new investments in equipment assets. We ultimately show, albeit indirectly, that investment dispersion can affect business cycles as capital adjustment costs influences investment decisions. What is implied is that the capital adjustment cost is not merely an exogenously deep parameter that fits the dynamics of business cycles in a macroeconomic model but could instead be a policy variable that can be endogenized through government policies.

• Clean Technology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.263-272
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• 2019

Air pollutants have a high impact on everyday life as well as on human health; therefore, new technologies such as low-emission vehicles and add-on systems for air pollutant reduction are needed for our society. However, the environmental benefits and costs of those technologies are not taken into account in existing economic feasibility assessments, which is a barrier that needs to be overcome for green technology to achieve wide dissemination and fast penetration in the market. Thus, this study develops a methodology to assess the economic feasibility of an air pollutant reduction technology by taking into account the social costs from air pollutants and carries out a case study to validate the methodology. Because the social unit costs for air pollutants have not been evaluated yet in South Korea, the methodology uses the social unit costs evaluated for the European Union that are then converted to those for South Korea based on the measuring criteria for vehicle emission gases, parity purchasing price, foreign currency exchange rate, and customer price index. The social unit costs for South Korea are used to assess economic feasibility. A case study was performed to assess the economic feasibility of a dual fuel system using diesel and compressed natural gas by taking into account social costs from air pollutants as well as economic costs. This study could contribute to assessing the true economic feasibility of green technology, projects, and policy related with air pollutant reduction.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.1 no.1 s.1
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• pp.80-86
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• 2000

The future costs of energy and the cost of the repair of apartment buildings are expected to rise continuously in proportion to the initial costs. Therefore it has become important for these increasing costs to be incorporated and reflected in the design of the building. Systems such as structure and services for the buildings remain constant, but a number of the walls and windows can vary and thus have a major influence on the total construction and running costs of a building. The critical factor in the apartment unit design for the optimization of life cycle cost (LCC) is the ratio of the x and y axis of the walls in the unit plan. This paper demonstrates how to achieve the optimal size and thus optimize the LCC of the building.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 1998

Analysis of practice variations has been one of important issues in trying to contain costs as well as to manage quality in health care. This study was conducted to provide statistical model for analysing variations in inpatient costs by type of hospitals. Four K-DRGs including Cesarean section, appendectomy, cataract extraction, and pediatric pneumonia with CC class 0 were selected, and means and dispersions of inpatient procedure and operation costs were simultaneously compared between type of hospitals. The results indicated that joint modelling of means and dispersions by gamma distribution was a very useful analytic tool for identifying factors which might have relationship with variations in inpatient costs. This model can be expanded to test the significance of several independent variables in analysing cost variations. In surgical conditions, means and unit variations of procedure and operation costs showed consistent pattern which was tertiarty hospital, general hospital, and hospital in descending order. Different findings were identified in pediatric pneumonia, from which mean and unit variation of procedure and operation cost was the highest in general hospital. The practical implication of this difference could not be drawn from this study. It will be done by further sophisticated researches. In order to develop health policy for cost containment and quality management in Korea, it is essential to find out manageable factors affecting variations in practice patterns which include characteristics of population, providers, regions, and so on. The statistical model presented in this study will give health services researchers useful insights for future investigations in analysing cost variations.

• International Journal of Highway Engineering
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• v.8 no.2 s.28
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• pp.49-54
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of expansion joint spacing (slab size) on the life cycle costs of owning Portland Cement Concrete (PCC) airfield pavements. Previous research has shown that slab size has a statistically significant impact on pavement performance. A probabilistic life cycle cost analysis was performed to determine if the effect of slab size on pavement performance would affect the total cost of ownership of PCC pavements. Data from 48 Pavement Condition Index (PCI) inspections of military and civilian airfields were used to develop probability-of-distress-by-condition curves, which were then used to develop probabilistic cost-of-repair-by-condition curves. A present worth life cycle cost analysis was then performed for various slab sizes, using construction costs, rehabilitation costs, and maintenance costs. Maintenance costs were determined by assuming a condition deterioration rate appropriate for each slab size and applying the cost-by-condition curves. The probabilistic cost-of-repair-by-condition curves indicated that smaller slabs are more expensive to repair on a unit cost basis. Life cycle cost analysis showed that larger slabs have a higher total cost of ownership than smaller slabs due to a faster rate of deterioration.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.106-116
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• 2012

This paper aims to develop the adequate quality cost model at a company which delivers ICT(information communication technology) services. One particular business unit was in the first instance selected and quality costs were then analysed at an organization level, for a department and for specific processes. Some areas were determined for quality improvement at each level and their causes were also investigated. However, the existing PAF(prevention, appraisal and failure) models reveled some limitations because the ICT services company included the different number of large and complicated business processes. The PAF model did not sufficiently highlight the detailed causes of failure costs. It did not also stimulate the relevant department's strong responsibility to improve such problems. Both micro PAF and process cost models were proposed in order to cope with this. In final, it explains the relationship between six sigma and quality costing, suggesting how to use the quality costing results as a means of promoting either continuous improvement or innovation in a case company.

• KIEE International Transactions on Power Engineering
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• v.12A no.1
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• pp.31-35
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• 2002

This paper presents a new operation scheme of UPFC to minimize both generation costs and active power losses in a normal operation state of power system. In a normal operation, cost minimization is a matter of primary concern among operating objectives. This paper considers two kinds of costs, generation costs and transmission losses. The total generation cost of active powers can be minimized by optimal power flow, and active power losses in the transmission system can be also minimized by power flow control of UPFC incorporated with minimization of generation costs. In order to determine amounts of active power reference of each UPFC required for the cost minimization, an iterative optimization algorithm based on the power flow calculation using the decoupled UPFC model is proposed. For verification of the proposed method, intensive studies have been performed on a 3-unit 6-bus system equipped with a UPFC.