Operating margins

To minimize flue losses it is important to keep excess air to a minimum, but the practicalities of the burner must be considered and a safe operating margin incorporated. 

During the implementation of the improvement, money is spent, and debt is incurred, offset by operating margin as it improves. Interest is paid at intervals on the outstanding balance, and after a suitable payback time—which is shorter, the better the improvement—all the debt is recovered, and a better operation is running. This graph then gives three crucial pieces of information, viz. (a) the maximum risk in the form of new... 

The worst operating condition in a common design practice consists of overly conservative assumptions on the hot-channel input. These assumptions must be realistically evaluated in a subchannel analysis by the help of in-core instrumentation measurements. In the early subchannel analysis codes, the core inlet flow conditions and the axial power distribution were preselected off-line, and the most conservative values were used as inputs to the code calculations. In more recent, improved codes, the operating margin is calculated on-line, and the hot-channel power distributions are calculated by using ex-core neutron detector signals for core control. Thus the state parameters (e.g., core power, core inlet temper-... 

Nonlinear programming Staged-Distillation column (12.1) < Liquid extraction column (12.2) Gas transmission network (13.4) Ammonia reactor (14.2) Alkylation reactor (14.3) CVD reactor (14.5) Refrigeration process (15.2) Extractive distillation (15.3) Operating margin (15.4) Reactor control (16.3)... 

Table 11.3 presents summary descriptive statistics for those relationships for which financial data were available. Descriptive statistics are provided for sales revenue, operating profit, operating margin, concentration of purchases with the top two vendors, share of purchases with the largest alternative vendor, and overall satisfaction with the largest alternative vendor. Again, to protect confidentiality, contribution margin is not disclosed. 

Proportion of the sample (%) Overall satisfaction Share of customer purchases (%) Sales revenue ( m) Operating profit( k) Operating margin (%)... 

Price Cost-to-serve Supplier rank Share of customer wallet (SCW) Overall satisf. Satisf. with competition Operating margin Total sales ( k) Share costs Competitor share costs... 

We have no evidence to suggest that unit operating costs for similar products should vary across customers for a given vendor. Hence, controlling for vendor (which we do), price is inversely proportional to operating margins. 

Operating margin The gross margin minus the general, administrative, and selling expenses. 

Net operating margin Net operating profit before taxes/sales 10-15%... 

However, since 2000 gas prices have spiralled resulting in increased feedstock costs. In recent times, on an energy basis, the cost of gas in the US has often exceeded the cost of crude oil. This has led to the erosion of operating margins for the large number of plants using gas liquids as feedstock. It has also facilitated exports to the US from low production cost operations elsewhere, such as the Middle East. 

At a wellhead price of 6/GJ or higher, the production cost of the sales gas and the products are typically over about 6.5/GJ. This is more typical of the case in the US and Europe where the prices of wellhead gas are linked to prevailing energy prices. This lowers the operating margin of the plant. 

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