Content and Access Provision in a Discrete Competition Model

The non-rival, non-excludable and infinitely expansible characteristics of digital goods with marginal cost of zero strongly favours the use of bundling strategies. Theoretical tractability requires most models in the current literature to make highly stylized assumptions, rarely observed or anticipated in the real-life situations, motivating inquiry. This paper considers a competition model in which: * the firms, consumers and differentiated products are finite in number; * prices are discrete and not continuous; * consumers may purchase multiple items in a single product category where the degree of complementarity or substitutability of the product categories can also vary across consumers; and * where consumer-specific cost savings are obtained when purchasing multiple items from the same firm. Approximate solutions are obtained through numerical simulation. Firms act in concert to maximise the total firm revenue. Our main finding is that the interplay between maximal firm revenue, consumer surplus and prices is very complex and that high firm revenue and high consumer surplus are not antithetic. It suggests also that consumer surplus and market concentration are not necessarily related. Many market outcomes that are observed may be due to chance rather than design as diverse outcomes can accompany situations that are, to the firms, difficult to distinguish.

Energy Analysis via Value Stream Mapping: A case study of an Automotive Weld Plant

Over the past few decades, Lean Manufacturing (LM) has been the pinnacle of strategies applied for cost and waste reduction. However as the search for competitive advantage and production growth continues, there is a growing consciousness towards environmental preservation. With this consideration in mind this research investigates and applies Value Stream Mapping (VSM) techniques to aid in reducing environmental impacts of manufacturing companies. The research is based on empirical observation within the Chassis weld plant of Company X. The observation focuses on the weld operations and utilizes the cross member line of Auxiliary Cross as a point of study. Using various measuring instruments to capture the emissions emitted by the weld and service equipment, data is collected. The data is thereafter visualised via an Environmental Value Stream Map (EVSM) using a 7-step method. It was found that the total lead-time to build an Auxiliary Cross equates to 16.70 minutes and during this process is emitted. It was additionally found that the UPR x LWR stage of the process indicated both the highest cycle time and carbon emissions emitted and provides a starting point for investigation on emission reduction activity. The EVSM aids in the development of a method that allows quick and comprehensive analysis of energy and material flows. The results of this research are important to practitioners and academics as it provides an extension and further capability of Lean Manufacturing tools. Additionally, the EVSM provides a gateway into realising environmental benefits and sustainable manufacturing through Lean Manufacturing.

Vehicle routing decision support for a local retailer

One of the most challenging decisions that has to made routinely by dispatch managers at distribution centres of warehousing and distribution businesses in the retail sector involves the assignment of delivery vehicles to service customers exhibiting demand for retail goods and the subsequent routing of these delivery vehicles to the various customers and back again. Perhaps surprisingly, these dispatch managers do not always use vehicle routing software to schedule goods deliveries to customers, instead often relying on teams of human schedulers who perform this task manually. The reason for not using such software is usually a perception that it may be difficult to integrate the software with existing enterprise resource planning systems already in use. In such cases, estimates of potential costs savings that may be brought about by such software is often required before the dispatch department will risk the significant step towards investing in vehicle routing planning software. Dispatch managers may then employ these cost savings estimates in cost-benefit trade-off analyses. This paper contains a practical case study in which the potential cost savings of a vehicle routing optimisation approach are quantified for a large retail distribution centre in the South African Western Cape in a bid to support its decision as to whether or not to invest in vehicle routing planning software.

Estimating net ideal cycle time for body-in-white production lines

In the automotive industry, a Body in White (BIW) refers to the first step, the basic structure, in the production of a vehicle. Once a BIW production line has been built, the (maximum) capacity is fixed and throughput is therefore limited by the equipment specified during the design phase. The main metric used to inform the production line design is the Net Ideal Cycle Time (NICT). Unfortunately, the state of practice to estimate the NICT is a basic heuristic that does not account for production variation. In this paper, we challenge the current estimation approach by proposing an alternative that assumes actual production to follow a Weibull distribution. The proposed model is derived and estimated from empirical data. The results suggest that BIW production lines have traditionally been designed with too low a capacity, resulting in planned throughput rarely being achieved. On the other hand, increasing the design capacity implies a higher initial investment. In this paper it is demonstrated that the higher investment required is offset by reduced losses, resulting in more reliable planning and returns.