Bottleneck costs

While the authors describe the CCR in the eontext of a single manufacturing operation, it also has important implications for supply chains. This is particularly true given the trend toward fewer partieipants in the supply chain. From a cost point of view, it provides a different perspective for understanding an activity s real cost if that activity happens to be a CCR. It also has implications for directing cost reduction efforts. 

TOC argues that the CCR, as the constraint on capacity of the total system, needs special attention. If demand exceeds capaeity, gaining one extra unit of capacity at the CCR increases the output of the whole system. In fact, TOC would say that improvements elsewhere in the supply ehain are illusory. They really do not matter that much because they do not increase the capacity of the overall supply chain. 

For example, Activity 6 at Old Line only accounts for 1.5 percent of the total cost of the supply chain. Suppose it is the CCR for the three-company supply chain. Improving output there could produce far greater benefit than any other activity. Automotive supply chains are set to the pace of assembly lines. Any disruption along the chain threatens the whole operation. So, auto companies take great care to protect themselves from the risks involved. There are other important aspects of TOC that apply to costs in the supply chain, which we discuss in Section 32.2. 

The map of the supply chain we ve used will aid the introduction of another concept related to supply chain cost visibility and its effect on clarity in decision making. This concept is the theory of constraints or TOC. TOC is the product of thinking by Eliyahu Goldratt, Jeff Cox, and Robert Fox. They make the important observation that, in any operation, there is a capacity constraint resource (CCR) that determines the pace at which the operation can produce products. 

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As a field matures, bottlenecks may appear in other areas, such as water treatment or gas compression processes, and become factors limiting oil or gas production. These issues can often be addressed both by surface and subsurface options, though the underlying justification remains the same the NPV of a debottlenecking exercise (net cost of action versus the increase in net revenue) must be positive. 

Documentation abstracts, useful as they are, may also prove inadequate for final decisions, which would make it necessary for the searcher to obtain and examine copies of full patent specifications. Although the increasing availabihty of sets of full specifications on CD-ROM at modest cost is making it easier for searchers to have in their collections copies of those specifications they might need to consult, the necessity to go beyond computer output, whether to abstracts or full specifications, is stiU one of the bottlenecks of computer searching, and therefore an area in which significant new developments are hoped for. 

Demethanizer Overhead Expander and Multifeed Fractionation. Incorporation of an expander into the conventional high pressure demethanizer system eliminates bottlenecks in the refrigeration system, the demethanizer condenser, and charge gas compressor. It reduces the cost by lowering the refrigeration power. Multiple feed deethanization and ethylene fractionation debottlenecks the deethanizer, ethylene fractionator, and the refrigeration systems, thereby reducing power consumption. 

Problem Selection. To select the problem correcdy, the criteria discussed earHer should be carefully appHed before launching a project the existence of a knowledge bottleneck, the inappHcabiHty of exact numerical methods, the existence of either an expert or a theory for the task, the narrowness of the domain, and the business issues of payout and cost. If needed, the various criteria can be quantified and weighted based on their... 

Improving the economics of gas plant design, construction, and operations is essential to ensure the approval of future de-bottlenecking, capacity expansion, and new projects. The economics include not only capital investment, life cycle operations, and maintenance costs, but also the monetary equivalents of safety, reliability, and availability. 

Such sentinel workflow uses a prediction to select compounds for a more expensive screen that can confirm predicted hazards (liabilities, such as toxicity). It is, provably, the best workflow in contexts where a low prevalence of the hazard is anticipated, and where there is a backstop means further downstream (e.g., preclinical toxicity testing) for detecting hazards before humans are exposed. This workflow then allows the compounds predicted as safe to bypass the expensive hazards screen, without unacceptable risk, and can add significant value in terms of external screening costs or avoiding use of what may be a bottleneck resource. 

More recently, the bottleneck of drug research has shifted from hit-and-lead discovery to lead optimization, and more specifically to PK lead optimization. Some major reasons are (i) the imperative to reduce as much as feasible the extremely costly rate of attrition prevailing in preclinical and clinical phases, and (ii) more stringent concerns for safety. The testing of ADME properties is now done much earlier, i.e. before a decision is taken to evaluate a compound in the clinic. 

Robertson5 cited a cost increase of 3% in the initial cost of building a plant if the linear distance between all parts was increased 25%. With such a small increase in costs, even when an expansion is not planned it is usually wise to allow plenty of space between units. This will permit the plant engineers to install improvements in the future to increase yields, eliminate bottlenecks, and improve the stability of the process. These improvements cannot be anticipated where extra space will be needed. 

The pharmaceutical industry anticipates that molecular farming will save time and money compared to traditional production systems. Because of bottlenecks and production costs, many biologies will never reach the market and the intended patients, or will do so only with great delays, if molecular farming fails. However, a number of points in the production of plant-derived proteins have yet to be addressed appropriately. In order to fulfill all requirements and obtain regulatory approval, the questions outlined above have to be answered for each recombinant protein. Last but not least, economical factors will decide whether molecular farming in plants will increase the number of available products. 

These selection and evaluation criteria were applied systematically to four technological fields, three of which contribute to new energy-efficient solutions. Passive houses, for example, with their major components of insulation solutions, window systems, ventilation and control techniques are close to market diffusion within the next ten years. Fuel cells for mobile uses in vehicles, however, are still a long way from market introduction, for instance, because of unresolved problems regarding the deactivation of the membrane electrode assembly (MEA) and the need for cost reductions by about one order of magnitude. Other types of fuel cells for stationary uses may be closer to market introduction, owing to less severe technical bottlenecks and better economic competitiveness. 

The maturation step was considered to be the bottleneck of the process. The residence time in this process takes up to 6 hours, limiting the flexibility of the plant. Moreover, one should realize that this process step takes place after the pasteurization step. Hence the hygienic requirements for this process step are quite strict and the capital costs for this part is high. We wanted to do a redesign of this process, leading to the same product, but ideally without the maturation step. This was done by applying the process synthesis techniques discussed above. 

Expert systems have been investigated for 20 years. The implementation of expert systems is now being undertaken on a widespread basis, due to the availability of hardware and software tools which alleviate the "knowledge-engineer bottleneck", allowing cost effective implementation. In a similar way, real-time applications of expert systems require tools to allow straightforward implementation. We have presented a software/hardware structure which supports knowledge-base capture and real-time inference for process applications. 

Now, in the TF-HK equation, all the potential terms can be set up by conventional plane-wave-basis teehniques with essentially linear scaling. However, for very large systems with more than 5000 nuclei, the computational cost associated with the nuelear-nuelear Coulomb repulsion energy becomes the major bottleneck." In this case, linear-scaling Ewald sirmmation techniques should be utilized. 

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