Experience cost reduction

Experience" Cost Reduction. It Is important to distinguish this sorting out" during the shakedown period from the cost reductions which occur during maturity. The former Is the determination of which process, technique, etc., is most cost-... 

The certification business has grown enormously in the last ten years. The International Accreditation Forum (lAF) recorded 616 accredited certification bodies in January 1999. The experience of the vehicle manufacturers with ISO 9000 certification led them to question the wisdom of so many certification bodies chasing the same business in a competitive market. The results seemed to indicate that cost reductions by the certification bodies led to a decline in the quality of auditing and that was the opposite of what the vehicle manufacturers wanted. The vehicle manufacturers had not seen a significant rise in product quality as a result of ISO 9000 and they believed this was partially due to the quality of the accreditation and certification schemes being operated as well as inadequacies in the quality system standard. When the four national automotive schemes were launched, great emphasis was placed on regulating more closely the accreditation and certification schemes. From a customer perspective, the ISO 10011 scheme had some particular problems ... 

Projects in the DOG square face steadily increasing disadvantage, and reduction of profit, as producers with a higher market share pull ahead in experience and cost reduction. 

One major chemical specialty company, for instance, uses a 10-percent product improvement as its criterion for determining whether to market a new product. That is, the product must have a 10-percent improvement in performance at the same price or the same performance at a 10-percent cost reduction. From its experience, the company knows that a new product will not be accepted in this company s markets without such an improvement. 

Sinclair, G., S. Klepper, and W. Cohen. 2000. What s Experience Got to Do with It Sources of Cost Reduction in a Large Specialty Chemicals Producer. Management Science 46(l) 25-28. 

Last decade LNG trade doubles its volume. Now LNG represents approximately 22% of worldwide cross-border gas trade. And there is a consensus in LNG industry (according to IEA, [4]) that the demand is expected to double to approximately 220 - 270 BCM/y by 2010 and as a consequence LNG trade will experience strong growth. LNG has much higher cargo density than natural gas, so under the development of technology and costs reduction the LNG supply becomes more and more attractive. Figure 6 demonstrates the tendency to equalize the prices for delivered LNG and pipeline NG, see [5]. 

The technology profits from the extensive experience gained by the oxychlorination of ethylene, but is based on a completely different catalyst. The new process claims a cost reduction of about 30%, because the ethane price is about one third that of ethylene. 

Scarbrough, Paul is an Associate Professor of Accounting and Finance at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada and a SmithOBrien consultant. His research interests are cost reduction and the effect of corporate culture on the use of cost reduction methods. Prior appointments include Boston University and Bentley College. International teaching experience includes Waseda University (Tokyo) and Vaxjo University (Sweden). 

It Is clear that both the collector and the balance of system must experience drastic cost reductions before active solar space heating can be said to be cost-effective. The approach... 

Many users shorten the column by a small amount at each end after 600-800 measurements, as the film quality usually deteriorates initially at the interface with the mass spectrometer and close to the injector. This procedure reduces the costs of the washer plus ferrule. No figure for the added useful life of a shortened column can be stated, as we have no experience of this. These potential cost reductions are therefore not included in the calculation. 

A modular setup can be assembled in a laboratory for cost reduction purposes or for additional flexibility in being able to use the same equipment for other types of experiments, such as photocurrent measurements. At a minimum, the required equipment includes ... 

Membrane units are usually supplied as a complete assembly requiring minimal field erection, save connections to process and utility piping and instrumentation systems. Fabricators and OEMs working closely with the membrane suppliers have developed membrane-system packages that address a wide variety of application and industry code requirements. The nearly 20 years of experience for most membrane supphers has afforded many membrane-module, system-design and cost-reduction innovations to be incorporated into these packages. New applications wiU most certainly rely heavily on these experiences. 

As matter of fact, the experience curve combines four sources of costs reduction learning, economics of scale, process innovation, and improved production design. 

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