Postponement in New Product Introduction

Agility has now been a main research topic in the l it erature. There is much written on agility mainly focusing on manufacturing p rocess and strategic processes. However, we argue that new product introduction should call for agility as well due to uncertainty about technological advances and customers’ demand. A technological superiority alone may not guarantee succe ss for new product introduction. We focus on the role of postponement for two ma in processes in new product introduction: new product development and new produc t launch. Postponement enables designers to incorporate the most current technol ogical advances and user needs as these co-evolve with the development process. Postponement can also significantly reduce risk associated with new product lau nch. It thus can be expected that postponement will be increasingly employed in new product introduction.

Green Drug Supply Chain Investigation by Time-Market Balance and Risk

The quality of pharmaceutical products plays a crucial role in healthcare systems such as hospitals for better patient services. Drug Supply Chain Management requires approaches to uncertainty and risk consideration. This study is a comprehensive multi-objective mathematical model considering the uncertainties and potential reserves in supply and medicine. The proposed model includes three general objective functions that minimize total production costs, including the costs of transportation, maintenance, breakdown, collection, and disposal of waste. The model also maximizes the quality of potential storage. The results show the proposed method has a high quality to solve the model and leads to the optimization of the results to provide the drug supply chain for the proposed example. We have identified three important risks and uncertainties in addressing drug supply planning: the indefinite duration of the licensing process, the risk of a forced brand change, and indefinite repayment levels that lead to varied demand diversification. The results of comparison with other multi-objective optimization methods in existing articles also show better performance of the proposed model. A significant cost reduction results from implementing our model instead of using the over-storage role to estimate the volume of active drug elements, as seen in today’s industry.

Key Techniques for the Development of Web-Based PDM System

Some key techniques for the development of web-based product data management （PDM） system are introduced. The four-tiered B/S architecture of a PDM system-BITPDM is introduced first, followed by its design and implementation, including virtual data vault, flexible coding system, document management, product structure and configuration management, workflow/process and product maturity management. BITPDM can facilitate the activities from new product introduction phase to manufacturing, and manage the product data andtheir dynamic changing history. Based on Microsoft. NET, XML, web service and SOAP techniques, BITPDM realizes the integration and efficient management of product information.

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO CNAIC'S PRODUCTION FACILITIES

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Bridging reliability and operations management for superior system availability:Challenges and opportunities

Recently,firms have begun to handle the design,manufacturing,and maintenance of capital goods through a consolidated mechanism called the integrated product-service system.This new paradigm enables firms to deliver high-reliability products while lowering the ownership cost.Hence,holistic optimization models must be proposed for jointly allocating reliability,maintenance,and spare parts inventory across the entire value chain.In the existing literature,these decisions are often made fragmentally,thus resulting in local optimality.This study reviews the extant works pertaining to reliability-redundancy allocation,preventative maintenance,and spare parts logistics models.We discuss the challenges and opportunities of consolidating these decisions under an integrated reliability-maintenance-inventory framework for attaining superior system availability.Specific interest is focused on the new product introduction phase in which firms face a variety of uncertainties,including installed base,usage,reliability,and trade policy.The goal is to call for tackling the integrated reliability-maintenance-inventory allocation model under a nonstationary operating condition.Finally,we place the integrated allocation model in the semiconductor equipment industry and show how the firm deploys reliability initiatives and after-sale support logistics to ensure the fleet uptime for its global customers.

Study on Causes of Differences in Tax Burden of Value-Added Tax from the Perspective of Industrial Linkage

It is of great practical significance to analyze the differences of actual tax burden value-added tax(VAT)from the perspective of industrial linkage for accelerating the construction of a modern industrial system and promoting the formation of a new development pattern.This paper explains the differences and causes of the actual VAT tax burden in the manufacturing industry from the perspective of industrial linkage.According to the research results,the closer the intermediate input connection between an industry and other industries,the lower the actual VAT tax burden it bears.The characteristics of production network have a moderating effect on the relationship between the linkage of the manufacturing industries and the actual VAT tax burden.For the industries in the center of the production network,a stable backward linkage weakens the influence of industrial linkage on their actual tax burden.It is difficult for industries located in the spillover block to reduce their tax burden by adjusting the linkage of intermediate goods.In addition,highly linked manufacturing enterprises can also reduce their actual VAT tax burden by tax avoidance,tax shifting,adjusting the types of intermediate inputs and so on.Smoothing the domestic production network of the manufacturing industry and optimizing the VAT burden bearing mechanism of each manufacturing sub-industry will help promote the stable growth of the manufacturing industry and healthy development of the macro economy in China.