Technical Note: Formulas for Perpetual Gradients

Virtually all engineering economy texts include the formula to find the present worth of a perpetual annuity, but only two seem to include the similar formula for a perpetual arithmetic gradient. This note adds a new formula for the present worth of a perpetual geometric gradient. Though no cash flow stream really lasts forever, there are many infrastructure projects whose lives are long enough to be economically “forever.” In addition, many endowment problems would be more realistic if they assumed a perpetual geometric gradient. Moreover, the simplicity of the formula may help practitioners and students develop a feel for the economics of long-lived gradients.     

Technical Note: Constructing Tornado Diagrams with Spreadsheets

Tornado diagrams are a classic tool of sensitivity analysis for decision analysis, yet engineering economy texts and TEE articles rarely include them. It is suggested that this is due to apparent barriers in constructing them—particularly for problems with positive and negative values. While the texts and articles may not represent typical engineering economy practice, they certainly lay the foundation for it. This note summarizes how to construct tornado diagrams in Excel. A template for constructing these diagrams is available from the author at aftge@uaa.alaska.edu.     

二甲基亚砜项目的技术经济论证

二甲基亚砜是极为重要的溶剂,市场潜力巨大。我国现有的装置远不能满足日益增长及出口创汇的需要。为此从其用途、生产方法、供需预测、经济评价等七个方面分析了依托大型石化企业建设这一精细化工产品的可能性与必要性。     

构建适应技术改造项目管理的软环境

从建立规章制度、组织机构、管理队伍、考核机制、约束机制和信息管理系统等方面,论述如何构建适应技术改造项目管理的软环境。     

Manufacturing strategy: Defining the missing link

The primary objective of strategy is to develop and support a lasting competitive advantage. In manufacturing industries, substantial focus has been given during the early eighties to the importance of the manufacturing function's contribution to overall corporate success, and yet the apparent lack of attention (historically) to achieving that potential contribution. In this article, characteristics of competitive advantage in manufacturing firms are described, a general framework for relating such advantage to corporate, business and functional levels of strategy is given, and an approach for pursuing that potential is outlined.     

Defining market boundaries

This study shows how spatial information about product supply and demand can be used to determine the geographic extent of markets. It demonstrates that markets thus defined allow finer-grained measurement of competitive conditions than is possible using conventional approaches. Two procedures are developed and contrasted: one, called a natural market approach, is drawn from the Industrial Organization economics literature; the second, called an enactment approach, is associated with the open systems perspective on organizations. Applied to a set of hospitals in the San Francisco Bay area, geographic market boundaries established in these ways are shown to lead to finely defined markets, and to reveal strong variation in competitive conditions across the area—variation not detectable if conventional approaches to market definition are used. It is shown that these approaches have applications beyond geographic market definition, and can also be applied to define markets in term of product or service types.     

京沪高铁供电工程统一技术标准的有关问题探讨

随着电气化铁路的快速发展,配套供电工程的建设任务将十分繁重。通过分析京沪高铁牵引站供电方案设计中反映的问题。为提高电气化铁路安全可靠供电水平。全面有序开展电气化铁路供电方案研究工作,推进电气化铁路供电工程标准化建设,建议加强对电气化铁路供电统一技术标准的研究;从有利于开展供电方案研究和供电工程前期工作出发,探讨牵引站供电方案设计的技术原则。     

Technical Note: New Depreciation Rules from the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002 and their Impact on Capital Investment

United States President George W. Bush recently signed an economic stimulus bill into law entitled the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act. The law issues a number of directives aimed at increasing corporate capital expenditures in hopes of revitalizing a sagging economy. In this article, we focus on the increased amount of depreciation allowed in the first year following a qualifying capital investment. Specifically, an “additional” 30% of depreciation is allowed in the first year for ail personal property assets (20-year asset classes or less). This is clearly a significant change. Here, we derive “new” depreciation tables for personal property classes with the adjusted rule, both for MACRS and AMACRS, and illustrate the impact on capital investment decisions.     

Defining and developing competence: A strategic process paradigm

In this paper, competence is defined in operational terms as the degree to which the firm or its subunits can reliably meet or exceed objectives. Two antecedents to competence (and thus competitive advantage) are then developed and defined. These are the ‘comprehension’ of the management team working on developing competence and the ‘deftness’ of their task execution. Empirical results from a study of 160 new initiatives in 40 organizations from 16 countries suggest that: (1) it is feasible to operationalize and measure these constructs; (2) comprehension and deftness are important correlates of an organization's degree of competence as defined; and (3) a process-centered paradigm for understanding competence development shows promise.     

Focus on Europe: Defining telecommunication or bounding the ethereal

To Europeans the sight of a quasi-legal body, the US Federal Communications Commission, holding hearings to define the boundary between computing and telecommunication may easily seem absurd. However that distinction, and the distinction between those services and broadcasting, is crucial in both Europe and North America. Previous practical distinctions have been based on technology and so inevitably become obsolete. The US process for achieving a distinction may appear cumbersome, but it does outline the problem and the importance of the underlying issues. Europeans cannot be complacent about the need for such a definition or smug about the superiority of a regulatory process that appears to avoid that need.     

桂林电厂以大代小技改工程贮灰场灰水处理的研究

针对桂林电厂以大代小技改工程贮灰场灰水处理存在的问题进行分析研究,并提出新的处理方法和方案.     

基于离群值分析的技改工程造价合理区间的研究

随着电力需求的不断增长,电网设备技术改造的投入越来越大,如何更好地确定电网技改工程合理造价区间,有效地指导生产技改项目投资控制和精益管理工作成为亟待解决的问题.文章提出了一种基于离群值的电网技改工程造价合理区间的研究方法,选取某省电力公司近五年已完技改项目的工程造价数据为样本,借助SPSS软件,采用狄克逊检验、格拉布斯...     

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Editor's Note

Review of Industrial Organization -     

Technical entrepreneurship: a cis-Atlantic view

Studies of technical entrepreneurship outside North America are in their infancy. This paper draws together some of the little research which has been conducted in Europe and discusses to what extent the American research findings apply in a very different business environment.