Credit quality improvement

Bonds with embedded options are instruments that give the option holder the right to redeem the bond before its maturity date. For callable bonds, this right is held by the issuer. The main reason for an issuer to issue these debt instruments is to get protection from the decline of interest rates or improvement of issuer s credit quahty. In other words, if interest rates fall or credit quality enhances, the issuer has convenience to retire the bond from the market in order to issue again another bond with lower interest rates. 

Credit wrap. As explained above, the originating bank may buy credit insurance on the debt instruments of the underlying portfolio, to improve its credit quality. 

The impact of immunomodulatory protein therapeutics on diseases having unmet medical need has already proven remarkable. These new treatments have been credited with a favorable clinical profile from slowing the disease progression to outright cures. Although the cost of these advanced medicines may be offset by the enormous improvement in the quality of life of numerous patients, we must remain vigilant throughout their clinical development. 

Union Carbide (34) and in particular Dow adopted the continuous mass polymerization process. Credit goes to Dow (35) for improving the old BASF process in such a way that good quality impact-resistant polystyrenes became accessible. The result was that impact-resistant polystyrene outstripped unmodified crystal polystyrene. Today, some 60% of polystyrene is of the impact-resistant type. The technical improvement involved numerous details it was necessary to learn how to handle highly viscous polymer melts, how to construct reactors for optimum removal of the reaction heat, how to remove residual monomer and solvents, and how to convey and meter melts and mix them with auxiliaries (antioxidants, antistatics, mold-release agents and colorants). All this was necessary to obtain not only an efficiently operating process but also uniform quality products differentiated to meet the requirements of various fields of application. In the meantime this process has attained technical maturity over the years it has been modified a number of times (Shell in 1966 (36), BASF in 1968 (37), Granada Plastics in 1970 (38) and Monsanto in 1975 (39)) but the basic concept has been retained. 

Low-profile additives, which control shrinkage, have emerged as a distinct science and class of additive. Unsaturated polyester resins, as do all thermosetting polymers, shrink when cured. Low-profile additives are a major class of additives used to control shrinkage, which vastly improves surface quality. This science is credited with the opening of automotive markets where surface quality is of prime importance. In exterior automotive body panels, Class A surfaces are required for market acceptance. 

Distributed projects are typically not given appropriate credit for the contributions they make to meeting power demand, reducing transmission losses, or improving environmental quality. ... 

These tools have been used successfully in such industries as the automotive and semiconductor industries and have been credited for helping to provide great improvements in quality. They have been used to a lesser extent in the pharmaceutical industry but do provide the same potential for providing improvements in quality. This chapter provides a clear explanation of these concepts and how they can be used in practice. The relevance of these concepts to the pharmaceutical industry and some of the cautions associated with their use will be discussed. Some examples will be provided to aid in the understanding of their use. In addition, some possible reasons why these concepts have been slow in gaining acceptance within the pharmaceutical industry will be discussed. 

Finally, I would like to give credit to my reviewers, M. S. Newman and J. F. Wolfe, for helping me improve the quality of my book, and to the ACS Books Department editors, Paula M. Bdrard, Robin Giroux, and especially A. Maureen Rouhi, for the meticulous, yet humane, editorial work. 

Walter A. Shewhart was a Bell Laboratories scientist and friend and mentor of Deming. Shewhart is credited with having developed a Statistical Process Control Method in the late 1920s. Thus, the origin of the PDCA concept lies in statistical process control, a methodology developed to address the need for improvement in product quality. The emphasis of the PDCA concept with respect to product quality applications is process control and continual improvement. That is also the case in ZIO. The words process and processes and the phrase continual improvement appear in ZIO over 60 times. 

Improved access to quality management tools on credit... 

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