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The popular “beer game” illustrates the bullwhip effect where a small perturbation in downstream demand can create wild swings in upstream product flows. The purpose of this paper is to present a methodical framework to measure the bullwhip effect and evaluate its impact.

This paper illustrates a framework using SKU-level data from an industry-leading manufacturer, its distributors, end-users and suppliers.

Firms benefit from tracking multiple intra-firm bullwhips and from tracking bullwhips pertinent to specific products, specific suppliers and specific customers. The framework presented in this paper enables managers to pinpoint bullwhip sources and mitigate bullwhip effects.

This paper presents a framework for methodically measuring and tracking intra-firm and inter-firm bullwhips.

A disconnect exists between what is known and taught regarding the bullwhip effect and how it is actually tracked and managed in practice. This paper aims to reduce this gap. For the various products analyzed herein, the authors show how using this framework has the potential to reduce delivered product cost by 2 to 15 per cent.

Properly managing the bullwhip leads to lower inventories and potentially lower product prices while simultaneously increasing firm profits.

This paper presents a novel approach to systematically tracking intra-firm bullwhips along with bullwhips specific to a given supplier or customer.

This paper aims to contrastively investigate the antioxidant behavior and tribological performance of a novel multifunctional additive (PBT) and dialkyldithiophosphate (ZDDP) in complex lithium grease (CLG).

PBT was successfully synthesized through esterification reaction. The antioxidant behavior of PBT and ZDDP was investigated by thermal analysis, and meanwhile, their tribological performance was evaluated by Optimol SRV-IV oscillating reciprocating friction and wear tester (SRV-IV test) and MRS-1J four-ball tester (Four-ball test). Furthermore, their anticorrosion ability was determined by copper strip corrosion test.

Four-ball tests showed that the extreme pressure property of PBT was a little inferior to that of ZDDP. Besides, all the other results demonstrated that PBT showed more superior antioxidation stability, friction-reduction and antiwear ability, as well as anticorrosion performance than ZDDP.

This work provides a study of hindered phenol derivative as a multifunctional additive in lubricant grease, which can contribute to the development of substitution of ZDDP.

Discusses the 6th ITCRR, its breadth of textile and clothing research activity, plus the encouragement given to workers in this field and its related areas. States that, within the newer research areas under the microscope of the community involved, technical textiles focuses on new, ‘smart’ garments and the initiatives in this field in both the UK and the international community at large. Covers this subject at length.

The purpose of this paper was to attempt to confirm the root cause of wafer damage issue by heavy Al wire wedge bonding and propose some permanent solutions for it.

The infra red–optical beam-induced resistance change (IR-OBIRCH) analysis defines the position of an abnormal hotspot. A cross section and an scanning electron microscope (SEM) confirmed the wafer damage issue and its position. Based on the position of wafer damage, the wedge tool with different life and Al buildup was checked found to be on the wedge tool. Finite element analysis (FEA) modeling analysis and simulation experiment guarantee the Al buildup, and low wedge deformation thickness (WDT) can cause the wafer damage issue. Finally, design of experiment (DOE) experiments are designed to optimize wedge tool dimension and wedge-bond parameters to eliminate wafer damage issue.

Wafer damage issue caused the Vpwr-OUTPUT leakage issue by IR-OBIRCH analysis. Al buildup was found on wedge tool with different life and its size gets larger along with the increase in wedge tool life. Low WDT and bigger Al buildup can cause the wafer damage. Designing new wedge tool and parameters optimization can increase WDT.

Because of the limitation of time and resources, finite element method (FEM) modeling and wedge tool dimension could not be studied more deeply.

This paper sets an example on how to find out the root cause of wafer damage by a step-by-step analysis and put forward a quick solution accordingly for the issue.

Logistical facility location decisions can make a crucial difference in the success or failure of a company. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have recently become a very popular decision support system to help deal with facility location problems. However, until recently, GIS methodologies have not been fully embraced as a way to deal with new facility location problems in business logistics. This research makes a framework for categorizing empirical facility location problems based on the intensity of the involvement of GIS methodologies in decision making. This framework was built by analyzing facility location models and GIS methodologies. The research results revealed the depth of the embracement of GIS methodologies in logistics for determining new facility location decisions. In the new facility location decisions, spatial data inputs are almost always coupled with the visualization of the problems and solutions. However, the usage of GIS capability solely (i.e. suitability analysis) for problem solving has not been embraced at the same level. In most cases, the suitability analysis is used together with special optimization models for choosing among the multiple alternatives.

This paper aims to first analyze the reasons of a brick-wooden building tilts in Yunnan province in China. Then, a jacking method which combines the stress release methods and the excavation of stress release trench were put forward.

This method uses the anchor static pile to guarantee the safety of the building in the process of rectifying.

The practice showed that the inclination rate of the building was stable in the process of jacking, which proved the efficiency of the proposed method.

It has a great value for similar rectification projects, and for the protection of cultural heritage and ancient buildings have a positive effect.

In order to further improve the accuracy of nonlinear simulation models, the purpose of this paper is to make some improvements to the general mode.

This paper adopts the calculation method of variable specific heat, taking the variation of gas‐oil ratios and discharge pressure into account, and establishes a nonlinear dynamic simulative model of biaxial gas turbine considering about the inertia of volume based on MATLAB/SIMULINK.

The simulation result, compared with test data, shows that this simulative model is more accurate to reflect the system's dynamic characteristics.

The hot inertial has not been taken into account. Meanwhile, the quantity of data is less, so this paper adopts interpolation method.

It is used to simulate calculation of gas turbines.

This paper adopts the calculation method of variable specific heat, considering the effect of the gas‐oil ratio variation and the discharge pressure variation (the total pressure of discharge duct) on the system.

Managerial social capital could exert valuable influences to firms' operating performance in social networks. Through the lens of structural hole theory, the relational rents of managerial social capital partly results from certain controlling power endured by the network structure, thereby potentially signifying opportunistic behaviors once such relational rents are acquired at the cost of other parties' potential value loss. As such, it can be expected that using managerial social capital may inherently evoke a focal firm's high tendency of opportunism in its cooperative arrangement. This paper mainly aims at shedding lights on the opportunism implications of managerial social capital in the context of interorganizational relationships.

The authors collected data from 197 manufacturing joint ventures in China mainland.

Based on these sample Chinese‐foreign joint ventures, this paper found that member firms' managerial social capital tend to strengthen their opportunistic behaviors in special interfirm relationships, such that opportunistic behaviors mainly aim at taking control of the procedure of relation arrangement without significantly influencing relationship performance as well as its outcome distribution.

By demonstrating certain downsides of social capital, such that using social capital could induce opportunistic behaviors in interfirm relationships, it is expected that the study to contribute to both future social capital and joint venture research and business practices, especially to joint venture operations in China.

Looks at the eighth published year of the ITCRR and the research, from far and near, involved in this. Muses on the fact that, though all the usual processes are to the fore, the downside part of the industry is garment making which is the least developed side. Posits that the manufacture of clothing needs to become more technologically advanced as does retailing. Closes by emphasising support for the community in all its efforts.

Strategic group has been intensively studied since this term emerged in 1970s, but previous studies have been limited to the comparisons between groups such as performance comparison. The purpose of this paper is to explore the internal structure of strategic groups by examining the effect of strategic distance from a firm to the center of its strategic group on firm performance.

The research is based on data acquired from the annual reports of listed companies and some Chinese domestic databases, including CSMAR Solution, WIND financial database, and China Core Newspapers Full-text Database. After grouping listed pharmaceutical companies in China over the period 2010-2011, the authors test three hypotheses by using fixed effect regressions.

The paper finds that the strategic distance from a firm to the center of its strategic group has a significant negative effect on the firm's financial performance. Two factors are discovered to influence that effect: corporate diversification strengthens the negative effect of strategic distance on performance, while firm's media visibility weakens that negative effect.

The findings reveal the relationship between intra-group strategic positioning and firm performance, and specify how firms can gain competitive advantage through positioning choices and strategic actions. This study promotes the establishment of a more comprehensive strategic group theory by revealing the structure within strategic groups.