Selection Model in Buyer-Supplier Relationships

This paper proposes a new method of selecting appropriate buyer supplier relationships (BSR) for specific projects. Because it is almost impossible in reality to establish mathematical relationships between the BSR attributes and the factors of a project, the concept of relationship indices (RI) is introduced to quantify such BSR which are in turn established through design of experiments. Based on the experimental results, the contributions of project factors, known as factors relationship worths (RW...

Impact analysis of supplier relationship on supply chain resilience using biological cellular resilience theory

A supply chain resilience model is established based on the biological cellular resilience theory to analyze the impact of the supplier relationship on supply chain resilience. A scenario where the market demand is changed suddenly by some undesired events is considered. The results reveal that enhancing collaboration with a more resilient supplier can significantly improve supply chain resilience and reduce supply chain losses. It is also found that enhancing the supplier relationship can significantly benefit supply chain resilience if the collaborative intensity is relatively low, and it has less effect if supply chain members have already collaborated closely. Thus, enhancing the supplier relationship to a limited intensity is a relatively effective and economic method to strengthen supply chain resilience.

Comparison on neural networks and support vector machines in suppliers' selection

Suppliers＇ selection in supply chain management （SCM） has attracted considerable research interests in recent years. Recent literatures show that neural networks achieve better performance than traditional statistical methods. However, neural networks have inherent drawbacks, such as local optimization solution, lack generalization, and uncontrolled convergence. A relatively new machine learning technique, support vector machine （SVM）, which overcomes the drawbacks of neural networks, is introduced to provide a model with better explanatory power to select ideal supplier partners. Meanwhile, in practice, the suppliers＇ samples are very insufficient. SVMs are adaptive to deal with small samples＇ training and testing. The prediction accuracies for BPNN and SVM methods are compared to choose the appreciating suppliers. The actual examples illustrate that SVM methods are superior to BPNN.

Study on Transformer Magnetic Biasing Control Method for AC Power Supplies

This paper presents a novel transformer magnetic biasing control method for high-power high-performance AC power supplies. Serious consequences due to magnetic biasing and several methods to overcome magnetic biasing are first discussed. The causes of the transformer magnetic biasing are then analyzed in detail. The proposed method is based on a high-pass filter inserted in the forward path and the feedforward control. Without testing magnetic biasing of transformer, this method can eliminate magnetic biasing of transformer completely in real-time waveform feedback control systems though the zero error of the Hall effect sensors varies with time and temperature. The method has already been employed in a 90KVA AC power supply. It is shown that it offers improved performance over existing ones. In this method, no sensors are used such that the zero error of the Hall effect sensors has not any influence on the system. It is simple to design and implement. Furthermore, the method is suitable for various power applications.

Emergency management of nursing human resources and supplies to respond to coronavirus disease 2019 epidemic

Objective:To introduce the emergency management of nursing human resources and supplies of a large general hospital when facing the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19).Method:The Nursing Department of the hospital fully executed its functional authority to establish a three-level echelon of sustainable support,allocate human recourses dynamically,organize pre-service training,supervise the key working steps,formulate positive incentive methods,and deploy medical supplies scientifically.Result:By taking these strategies,the hospital effectively improved the coping capacity of the nursing team and played a positive role in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.Conclusion:The emergency management of nursing human resources and material resources for COVID-19 of the hospital is successful.But several deficiencies were identified as well,which indicated that the hospital needs to establish an efficient emergency management system,and pay attention to the practice of nursing emergency plans to enhance coping capacities in public health emergencies.

CLINICAL VALUE OF SERUM TUMOR SUPPLIED GROUP OF FACTOR IN DIAGNOSIS OF EPITHELIAL OVARIAN CANCER

Objective: To evaluate the clinical value of serum tumor supplied group of factor (TSGF) in diagnosis of epithelial ovarian cancer. Methods: The serum TSGF was tested in 69 patients with epithelial ovarian cancer, 28 patients with benign ovarian lesion and 61 healthy women. The serum levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and CA125 were determined in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer and in those with benign ovarian lesion. The correlations of TSGF with VEGF and CA125 were investigated. Results: The serum level of TSGF in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer was obviously higher than in patients with benign ovarian lesion and in healthy women (P<0.01). The serum level of TSGF in patients with epithelial cancer was associated with stage and grade. TSGF was highest in stage III, followed by stage IV, and was lowest in stage I-II. The TSGF level was lower in well-differentiated tumors and was higher in poorly differentiated tumor. There were no significant difference among diagnostic value of TSGF, VEGF, and CA125 in differentiation between epithelial ovarian cancer and benign ovarian lesion (P>0.05). The serum level of TSGF and VEGF and CA125 in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer showed positive correlation (P<0.01, P<0.05, respectively). Conclusion: There is no marked difference in diagnostic value among TSGF, VEGF and CA125. TSGF has a certain value in diagnosis of epithelial ovarian cancer, and is helpful to distinguish epithelial ovarian cancer from benign ovarian lesion.

Reducing the minimum output power of soft-switching inverter arc welding power supplies

The full-bridge zero-voltage and zero-current switching inverter, which can adjust the output power by keeping the duty-cycle of lagging arm constant, changing the duty-cycle of leading arm, is a common circuit topology of soft-switching inverter arc welding power supplies. However, the output power still remains a certain value when the duty-cycle of leading arm decreases to zero. The working-mode of soft-switching inverter and the waveforms of major parameters with the condition of duty-cycle of leading arm being zero are studied in this paper. U-1 characteristic experiments prove that the minimum output power of soft-switching circuit, which depends on the charged voltage of capacitors in parallel with leading arm, can be decreased by reducing the duty-cycle of lagging arm. By switching working-modes between half-bridge and full-bridge, the output power can swing from zero to the power rating.

Supplier Selection Fuzzy Model in Supply Chain Management:Vietnamese Cafe Industry Case

Supplier selection is a vital part of the supply chain and is also a current issue that concerns businesses today as supplier quality directly affects the operations of the organization.Choosing the right supplier can help businesses increase productivity,competitiveness in the market,and profits without having to lower the quality of the products.However,choosing a supplier is not a simple matter,it requires businesses to consider many aspects about their suppliers.Therefore,the goal of this study is to propose an integrated model consisting of two models:Fuzzy Analytics Network Process(Fuzzy-ANP)model and Weighted Aggregated Sum Product Assessment(WASPAS)to solve the problem above.The Fuzzy-ANP model was developed to evaluate the weightings of the supplier selection criteria,and the WASPAS Model was used to rank the suppliers.An example of supplier selection in the coffee industry in Vietnam was studied to validate the model,namely 5 main criteria,with 16 sub-criteria,and 7 suppliers.The model test results show that the Fuzzy ANP and WASPAS integration model was suitable.In future,these developing models can apply to other industries or integrate with other models.

Applications of Green Design in Office Supplies

Humans' immoderate exploit of natural resources causes a crisis to their own living environment. Besides the hazards from industry and agriculture production process, a large of garbage produced in people's daily work also destroy the ecological environment. Everyday office supplies consume considerably increasing resources. Green design indicates people's reflection on the worse environment and ecology inflicted by modern technological culture. Therefore, applying green design to office supplies, big resources consumers, has a profound and practical meaning in improving our living environment.

Research on supplier evaluation and selection based on fuzzy hierarchy analysis and grey relational analysis

Considering the disadvantages of selecting evaluation index of supplier based on old purchase relation and in view of transformation of relation between manufacture and supplier under the dynamic, cooperative, competitive and quickly response environment, research on supplier selection evaluation was presented based on enterprise capability, cooperation degree and service level from the perspective of cooperative partnership and coordination, and the evaluation index system was established. A more objective and veracious supplier selection and evaluation method based on fuzzy analysis hierarchy process and grey relational analysis was developed, and then empirical research on electric equipment manufacturer was explored to analyze the supplier selection and evaluation.

On the‘ENGO+focal firm’governance strategies of pollution of small and medium suppliers

Presently,the environmental pollution problem,especially that of the small and medium-sized enterprises,has become a bottleneck restricting the high-quality development of China’s economy.It is imperative to accelerate the construction of a collaborative governance system with multiple subject participation.The behavior modes of Environmental Non-governmental Organizations(ENGOs),a key player in environmental care,in collaborating with core enterprises to control pollution from small and medium-sized suppliers should be explored.Therefore,we constructed a collaborative governance system consisting of ENGOs,focal firms and small and medium-sized suppliers.Then a two-stage game model was established to analyze the strategies of the governance system.Specifically,we studied the collaborative green cooperation strategy and antagonistic pressure supervision strategy between ENGOs and focal firms,analyzed factors influencing the strategic choices of each subject,and gave the advantages of the cooperation strategies through further comparisons.The results showed that:Under the cooperation strategy,ENGOs provided knowledge of environmental protection to the focal firms,then both the audit efforts of focal firms and the environmental protection efforts of small and medium-sized suppliers were effectively improved.Since ENGOs could not fully obtain the pollution information of small and medium-sized suppliers or accurately trace it from their downstream focal firms,it was difficult to drive the supply chain’s endogenous governance by this external monitoring of ENGOs,making the effect of pressure supervision strategy limited.The effectiveness of green cooperation strategy was positively correlated with the knowledge absorption capacity of focal firms,the unit product revenue,and the focal firms'violation penalties for small and medium-sized suppliers.When ENGOs'violation penalties for small and medium-sized suppliers were higher,or the reputation loss of focal firms was higher,more unfavorable conditions of green cooperation strategy could be achieved.Accordingly,ENGOs should choose to cooperate with focal firms with strong knowledge absorption ability and high profit per product;focal firms should learn environmental protection knowledge to improve the screening standards and review capabilities,and promote the achievement of green cooperation strategy conditions by strengthening active information disclosure;the government should promote the collaboration between ENGOs and focal firms by issuing environmental guidelines.

TOCO total assessment tool for decision-making on IP supplier selection

According to the Total Cost of Ownership concept (TOCO), the selection criterion of international procurement suppliers can be classified into two levels, namely Macroeconomic decision-making level and Microeconomic decision-making level. In this paper, a new quantitative method is put forward to accomplish the task of total assessment on the Microeconomic level which analyses all of the quantitative and qualitative factors with regard to the supplier selection. A Microsoft Excel based new application kit named TOCO Total Assessment Tool is introduced. It can calculate the direct cost and the indirect cost conveniently and can help to evaluate the performance of candidate suppliers. To use the tool, the first module called Total Cost Analysis Module is introduced to calculate the total cost of supplier selection, and then the second module named Supplier Evaluation Module is used to evaluate the performance of each supplier. Finally, the results from these two modules are transferred to the Final Comparison Module to get the final decision-making results. In this paper, the supplier selection related factors are discussed; the method of using the tool is illustrated in detail. It is shown that scientific usage of the TOCO Total Assessment Tool can make the decision-making processes of supplier selection in international procurement transparent, easily calculated, and objective. At the end, a practical case is given to clarify the procedure of using the tool.

Measuring the influences of supplier selection and supply chain tasks on firm performance among manufacturing firms in India

The primary objective of this research is to empirically probe the various aspects and variables that have been already addressed in the previous literature related to supplier selection criterion, supply effort management and firm performance. Further, this research aims to develop a measurement framework and pragmatically prove the framework through a measurement model. First, a factor structure for various constructs is made and the initial validity is determined from practicing managers and academicians. This research employs survey method and the data is collected from 358 supply chain professionals working in manufacturing firms in India. A measurement model is developed and proved with various tests of reliability and validity. Finally, three major latent constructs were formulated, namely, criterion of supplier selection, supply effort management and firm performance. The factor scores of these latent variables were used for further analysis. A six-stage approach was followed in the analysis of data. Firm performance was regressed against supplier selection criterion and supply effort management. The results indicate that the predictive variable has positive and significant effect on firm performance and they do not have any interaction and multicollinearity effects.

Farm produce prices rise on reduced supplies

Xinhua reported on March 20 that prices of major farm produce monitored by the government rose as snow falls interrupted supplies,the Ministry of Commerce said.The wholesale prices of 18 staple vegetables rose 3.2 percent from one week earlier,and the prices have increased 9.

Strategies for Improving Gas Supplies for Sustainable Power Generation in Ghana

Technologies for gas conversion have attracted more serious attention, but energy efficiency, supply deficiencies, as well as other risks undermining the gas supply industry, make it difficult to achieve sustainability in gas supply in Ghana. This study explored strategies for improving supplies for sustainable power generation in Ghana. Specifically, the study investigates the risks associated with the gas supply industry and also investigates strategies for improving gas supplies in Ghana. A descriptive study that applied both qualitative and quantitative tools was applied to data collection and analysis to allow for an in-depth analysis of the findings of the research. The population was concentrated on the regulators (Energy Commission) and consumers (VRA and Sunon Asogli, and GNGC/Eni in the supply domains. In all, 357 population was targeted with a sample of 151. Probability (simple random sampling) and non-probability (purposive) sampling approaches were applied to source participants for the study. Statistical inferential tools that guided the analysis included means, standard deviation, Relative Importance Index (RII). The study identified issues of power sector debt due to the weak financial background of the gas supply sector, poor infrastructure, issues of corruption created by delays, poor transparency and weak regulatory framework as key risk factors in the gas supply industry in Ghana. The study also concluded that strategies to support the drive to achieve sustainability in the gas supply industry should involve a planned action towards providing regular and improved infrastructure in transportation and gas supply pipelines to enhance the visibility of the local gas industry and to also meet both domestic and industrial demand for gas products. Again, there should be the establishment and maintenance of functional gas-related policies and regulators, as well as an emergency supply plan to address any shocks that may tend to impact the gas supply industry in Ghana.

Free-Pass Model to Manage Quality Relationships With Suppliers： An Italian Case Study

In order to be competitive in today＇s challenging business environment, manufacturing companies must have the ability to effectively integrate internal functions within a company and effectively link them to the external operations of suppliers and supply chain members. This could be done thanks to the implementation of an effective Supply Chain Management System. The aim of the research is to contribute to the literature panorama on Lean Supply Chain Management through the analysis of a case study of Alpha, Italian company in the arm industry, which has developed a new model called ＂Free-Pass＂, and to give a useful, realistic tool, expendable by companies that want to open up to Lean Supply Chain. A qualitative approach has been chosen, based on a longitudinal, single case study; a semi-structured interview has been carried out per year, with the company＇s Quality Manager from 2009, the year in which the ＂Free-Pass＂ model has been implemented, until 2016. Relevant secondary data were also used such as company reports, web site, and performance quantitative data. The implementation of the Free-Pass model across the company leads to a great change, both in terms of the transformation of the production process in a process flow ＂pulled＂, both at the organizational level, with the reduction of hierarchical levels, the process orientation, cross-functional teams, the streamlining of functions, and above all, the involvement of suppliers. This implied a radical change in thinking from management and from all the staff and a true ＂cultural revolution＂ for the company itself and for its suppliers, but it bought to both financial and organizational benefits. In conclusion the research has shown the importance of implementing quality relationships with suppliers based on trust and cooperation in order to achieve mutual benefits. The value of the research is given by the definition of a new model of Lean Supply Chain as an important tool of operation management which is expendable by companies.

Design of a System for Auto-patrolling Power Supplies and Displaying Beam Status In HIRFL

A practical application for patrolling the device’s status and displalying beam status of HIRFL has been described.With regard to the kinds of the controlled devices,the system consists of two parts:First,the alarm system is applied to monitor all power supplies,which are decomposed into six groups in accordance with their positions for the convenience of user’s operation.The amount of magnet lens and power supplies of

Lean Construction in Supply Chain Management： Supplier and Buyer Relationship in Social Housing

To the accomplishment of this article, we have chosen, as a case study, a small Goiana construction company that acted in the market of social housing. The main goal of this work is to analyze the fundamental aspects related to the management of the flow of supplies in civil construction to achieve a greater streamlining of logistic processes involved in supplying material. A checklist was developed for the purpose of data collection, and it was applied by means of an interview with the person in charge of the purchase department of the enterprise. In addition, this person is the engineer of the site. Taking into account the exploratory feature of this research, the construction site was visited so that some issues, such as quality aspects, losses, cleanliness and organization, could be observed. This on-site data collection visit was carried out through visual analyses and photographs. The obtained results were subdivided into a quantitative and a qualitative analysis. In this way, it was possible to see that the production process still has many phases to be improved. What is more, it was possible to see that the construction company knows its flaws and necessities to improve its processes although the final result does not have the expected quality. Being aware of this need for improvement, the construction company aims at having an affordable price product to the target public, especially when it is associated to an image that shows quality.

Unit 4 of Guddu Thermal Power Plant in Pakistan operates successfully A unit supplied by China

The Guddu Thermal Power Plant of WAPDA is a main fossil powerplant in Pakistan,among which unit 4 with 210 MW in capacity suppliedby China,went into operation in 1986.Two 110 MW boiler-turbine-generator units and one 9 MW gas turbine-generator unit of phase Ⅰ projectof the power plant,provided by Skoda Export Co.of Czechoslovakia,wereput into operation in 1974,while one 210 MW boiler-turbine-generatorunit of phase Ⅱ,provided by the Technical Export Corporation of theSoviet Union,was put into operation in 1980.For the phase Ⅲ,one 210 MW boiler-turbine-generator unit,Which

CSR Pulsed Switching Power Supplies

In 2001, CSR power supply system made a great progress. Three prototypes were designed for CSR quadruple and correct magnet. Three different companies provided the three prototypes, but the same circuit-chopper were employed. The simplified diagram is showed in Fig.1. All pulsed switching power supply prototypes were tested successfully before the end of 2001.