Supportive capabilities

While the hard objectives listed above are always important to competitive advantage, supportive capabilities can also be key to creating logistics advantage in the marketplace. When there is littie to choose in terms of quality, time or cost, supportive capabilities can make all the difference to the end-customer. Variability refers to real and identifiable differences within a population, such as the differences in time each patient at an optician has to wait for their eyes to be tested. Uncertainty refers to our lack of knowledge (Thompson, 2002) in logistics terms, uncertainty results in us having to deal with events that are not known in advance. 

So logistics is concerned not just with the average percentage of orders delivered on time but also with the variability. For example, a manufacturer has to cope with the day-to-day variability of orders placed. In practice, this is more important than the average orders placed because of the resource implications of ups and downs in demand. Case study 1.3 explores the impact of variability on a supplier s processes. 

A problem that is all too familiar to suppliers in the automotive industry is that of schedule variability. A vehicle manufacturer issues delivery schedules to specify how many parts of each type are required each day for the following month. And each day a call-off quantity is issued, which specifies how many the vehicle manufacturer actually wants. The two sets of figures are not necessarily the same, although they usually add up to the same cumulative numbers for the month as a whole. In other words, the total scheduled quantities and the total call-off quantities are the same. So what is the problem  

The problem is that the supplier has to cope with ups and downs of call-off quantities that create huge problems for the supplier s process. Let scheduled demand = S, and call-off quantities = A. Then the difference D between schedule and actual is given by D = S - A. If the supplier produces to schedule, then S A, the supplier will over-produce the part and end up with excess stock. Where S A, the effects could either be a 

Distribution of differences between scheduled and actual demand for EastCo 

---

It can support capabilities that are impractical for small objects, such as (1) language-independent access of interfaces—so that you can use components written in other languages—and (2) transparent interaction between distributed components. 

Boundar y conditions need to be assessed based on the type of connections to be used for the member supports. The engineer must keep in mind that support details must provide sufficient strength, ductility and stability to enable the member to develop full collapse mechanism. Support capability to resist reaction forces for both the loading and rebound phases of the response must be considered when assessing boundary conditions. 

The Space Product Development office examines the opportunities for space commerce, offering a l ull range of support capabilities to demonstiatc the commercial value of space. To ensure continued growth of U.S. industry, the office initiates and guides pilot projects in an effort to eliminate harriers to viable space commercialization. 

Magnetizable particles were used in the separation of biochemical compounds. Magnetizable particles of iron oxide are produced on different supports capable of absorbing various biological substances which are then removed from suspension by a magnetic field (see more about this application in Chapter 2). 

Treatment of -ABSC-HEMA with glutaraldehyde produced enzyme supports capable of binding up to 55 wt % trypsin. Incorporation of hydrophobic styrene units Into the support reduced the capacity to 2-. 4 wt X but enhanced the specific activity of the trypsin. The esterase activity of bound trypsin, assayed with TAME, was found to range from 11% to 45% of that exhibited by the free trypsin. Active-site titration of a PHEMA-trypsln conjugate with p-nltrophenyl-p -guanadlnobenzoate HCl Indicated the active species to be 31% of the total amount of protein bound. 

Unlike polybenzimidazole-based thermo-oxidatively stable supports, polyimides can be prepared under relatively mild conditions from starting materials of only low or modest cost [7,8], Polyimide particulates were prepared in a bead form without functional [9,10], We now report the synthesis of functional polyimide beads and their use as epoxidation catalyst supports. The presence of the functional group in the polyimides allows further chemical exploitation, particularly as a catalyst support capable of operating under rather severe oxidative conditions. 

The capability to care for casualties increases greatly from the lowest echelon of care to the highest. The BAS will have a physician s assistant, a physician, or both, and several medics. The higher echelons, the hospitals, will have a full surgical staff including subspecialists, surgical facilities, and full support capabilities to provide all needed immediate care. 

Finding 17. Service and support capabilities in the information management sector are continually improving. 

Several authors (Cutter, 2003 Davis, 2004 Schmid-tlein et al., 2008) and institutions (EMA, 2002 UNO, 2004) work in the social vulnerability field, evidencing its importance. Nevertheless, it is our contention that the existing methodologies to calculate social vulnerability do not take into accoimt the social resilience of individuals, groups and communities. In this article we present a social vulnerability index that integrates support capability and criticality of the territorial system, at a municipal and town scale. 

Following the line advocated by authors like Prescott-Allen (2001), OECD (2003) and Eakin (2006) in the assessment of vulnerability, the hiunan-environment interactions are taken into accoimt. We think that it may not he methodologically correct to mix in the same dimension individual and structural characteristics which influence the levels of social vulnerability. Thus, the social vulnerabdity evaluation is based on a two step analysis, described as criticahty and support capability of the territorial system. 

Thus, criticality is defined as the ensemble of individuals characteristics and behaviours that may contribute to the system s rupture. However, the community may have territorial resources that will allow responding to dangerous events or processes or deal with a catastrophic scenario. So, besides criticahty we will have to take into accoimt support capabilities in the territory, defined as the set of territorial infrastructure that enables the community to react in case of disaster. 

In the subsequent phase, all factors were scaled so that positive values indicated higher levels of criticahty and support capabihty, and negative values decreased the levels of criticality and support capability. 

Table 2. Number of variables used in support capability at the municipal scale. 

The first factor explains 31% of the variance and reflects the economic and environmental dynamism of the municipality. The higher the dynamism, the greater will be the support capability. 

The second factor explains 17% of the variance and is related with one of the most important aspects concerning support capabilities to natural and technological disasters the number of firefighters corporations. 

The output map of the municipal support capabilities in Portugal is presented in Fig. 2. We can observe a distribution of the lowest levels of support capability in the Northern part of the country, and the hipest levels in the interior and in the Algarve region. The weak economic dynamics (factor 1) are relevant in the Northern and Central municipalities for the very low support capability. However, some low levels of municipal support capability are explained by the influence of factor 3 (logistical capacity and insurance activity in the territory) or by factor 4 (density of pharmacies in the territory). 

The economic dynamic (factor 1) and pharmacies (factor 4) were decisive to some urban municipalities such as Lisbon, Porto, Louie and Santarem which have a very high level of support capability. 

In support capability s evaluation at the town scale, 100 variables were collected, although only 44 were included in the model. In Table 6 we can observe the munber of variables to analyse support capability in the seven studied municipahties. 

---