Competitive Imperatives

These factors brought the collective leadership to recognize within the industry the need to remain competitive and to improve vehicles on a fuel economy basis. Changes to the cost structure while maintaining performance were needed as well. Eventually, this drive would manifest itself in the form of design imperatives of which the chemist would be crucial to development. From a management standpoint, these imperatives are 

As we will see in Chapter 4, each one of these imperatives is intermingled within the overall structure of the industry and can be considered to play a major role in competitive design. Because design plays such a major role in the overall cost structure of a vehicle (85%), obviously getting it right up front is crucial. 

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One of the best methods to fulfill each of the four competitive imperatives is to use polymer materials in the vehicle. Polymers can be considered as catalysts [1] providing for... 

In Chapter 1 we discussed the four competitive imperatives that the design chemist must consider as a vehicle is developed performance, mass, cost, and environmental considerations. All four must be considered as a vehicle is developed. 

The demand chain has been a near mirror image of the supply chain. It has been driven by a business competitive imperative aiming to constantly improve its supply chain efficiencies. The demand chain must balance aglobally diverse mix of new customers (each with different needs and expectations), and it must also offer a degree of uniqueness to the business (Bariow-Hills Sarin, 2003). 

Norell, M. and Andersson, S. 1996 Design for Competition The Swedish DFX Experience. In Huang, G. Q. (ed.). Design for X - Concurrent Engineering Imperatives. London Chapman Hall. 

The pharmaceutical market is very competitive. It is imperative that pharmaceutical companies (including biotechnology companies), large or small,... 

However, the majority of dry cleaners continue to use perchloroethylene because there is little awareness and no legislative imperative to choose safer substitutes." With both wet cleaning and CO now available in Europe and commercially competitive, there can be no Justification for the continued use of PERC to clean clothes. 

The absence of a special relationship that generates some competitive or symbiotic advantage for the producer makes the possibilities for such secondary actions much more numerous, and much less likely to be recognised, than would be the possibilities for primary reactions. Thus, to assure the needed partitioning of, and the correct identification of, producer and target organisms, exertion of exceptionally tight control over experimental details becomes imperative. 

With the growth of the polymer industry, competition has become fiercer and selling prices lower. In view of the competitive situation, priorities of industrial research have changed. It has become imperative to produce the same commodity polymers with better properties at reduced cost by improved processes and in larger units. To stay ahead,... 

Business is more competitive than it has ever been before. Today s technology allows the business process to move very rapidly. It is imperative that... 

In analysing the possible justification of State aid granted in the form of the free allocation of allowances under the EU ETS, it is important to have an appreciation of the Commission s general approach to the approval of the grant of aid for environmental purposes.17 In its own words, this approach must satisfy a double imperative it must ensure the competitive functioning of markets, while at the same time integrating environmental protection requirements into competition policy (in particular, focusing upon the internalization of the costs of environmental impacts). However, the Commission is prepared to allow aid ... 

We have mentioned above some attempts to explain these facts theoretically. Preliminary calculations show that Cu insertion of a C-H bond in methane is competitive with the abstraction reaction in H2, so that the activation of hydrogen (specially when the deuterium isotope is used) is less effective in the presence of methane. Also CIPSI calculations on the Cu -f N2 interactions shows the formation of the Cu(N2)n complexes which were first proposed by Gracie (Gracie, C., M.Sc. Thesis, University of Toronto, 1985). Such complexes make the interaction of Cu with D2 much less effective, raising the activation barriers and explaining the scarcity of the CuD and D subproducts (Sanchez-Zamora, M. Novaro, 0. and Ruiz, M.E., submitted for publication). These modest attempts however only make it more imperative to carry out more theoretical studies both to obtain better potential energy surfaces and to do trajectory calculations for Cu -fD2 reactions. 

Being able to understand and anticipate the needs of the customer will be imperative in the new competitive MPF market. All leading MPF service providers will emphasize closer customer relationships as one of their priorities, and will employ modern IT systems to support customer relationship management. 

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