Technology supplier selection

This chapter gives an overview of the chlor-alkali industry in Australia and examines the background to the decision to replace the mercury cell plants. It then describes the new plants, their technical and safety features and the process used to arrive at the selection of the technology supplier. 

An approved version of the validation plan should be available when a computer technology supplier or contract developer is being selected, and should be updated whenever project events or verification results require a change. An example of a project event would be a change in project scope. 

A key business strategy has been the outsourcing of work to computer technology suppliers and developers. The objective of qualifying computer technology suppliers and developers is to evaluate and monitor these strategic partners for Part 11 compliance and to provide an input to the partner selection and partner relationship management processes. 

The computer system specification includes information on how the operation can be controlled using the features in the selected application package. A review of the process must be conducted to familiarize the computer technology supplier and/or developer (external or in-house) with the requirements defined in the requirements specification deliverable. This system view is essential, particularly when the software must interface with other elements such as hardware, people, and databases. The review of the process includes the further gathering of requirements at the system level, and top-level design. 

A feature of the early problems of both Tsumeb and Metaleurop was the high downtime of the gas handling equipment. This contributed significantly to plant downtime, in the case of Tsumeb, centering on the operation of an evaporative gas cooler and in the case of Metaleurop, a Fluxflow waste heat boiler. In both cases, the process equipment selection occurred directly between the client and supplier without a formal review step by Ausmelt. This review has now been incorporated into Ausmelt s procedures for future projects, with a view to provide a benefit to both the client and technology supplier. 

Raw material cost accoimts for 40%-60% of the production cost in most manufacturing industries. In fact, for the automotive industry, the cost of components and parts from outside suppliers may exceed 50% of sales (Wadhwa and Ravindran, 2007). For technology firms, component cost as a fraction of sales could be as high as 80%. Hence, the selection of suppliers for raw materials and intermediate components is considered a critical area of strategic decision making in supply chain engineering. Chapter 6 discusses supplier selection models under multiple conflicting criteria. 

Shore, B., A. R. Venkatachalam, L. landoli, and G. Zollo. 2004. Toward a learning organization perspective to supplier selection for global supply chain management An integrated framework. Journal of Information Science and Technology. 1 1. 

While many supply chains are product centric, the mainstay of ET s supply chain is knowledge and technology and products are unique for every order. Therefore, the company also works with a large number of customers and suppliers. It continuously updates its customer portfolio to ensure that there are expected orders up to six month in advance. Similarly, it also selects supphers dynamically according to the current requirements. The main supplier selection criteria are references and observations as well as test runs. 

In this chapter, we present a multi-period supplier selection problem with product bundling. Due to the advances in information technology (IT), the demand for tactical items is deterministic therefore, the buyer can forecast demand for various products in each time period with high confidence. These days, most suppliers offer a variable pricing model where the final price may be discounted based on the quantity of product purchased in this chapter, we model the supplier discount using product bimdling. Product bundling is a form of discount where the final price of a product depends on the quantities of different products ordered. 

Deshmukh, A. J. and A. A. Ghaudhari. (2011). A review for supplier selection criteria and methods. Technology Systems and Management, Springer, pp. 283-291. 

Elahi, B., Etaati, L. and Seyed-Hosseini, S. M. (2011). An integrated modeling for supplier selection and optimal lot sizing a case study of four-echelon supply chain, IEEE International Technology Management Conference (ITMC), San Jose, GA, June 2011, pp. 877-884. 

The technology of manufacturing the same basic type or grade of plastics (as with steel and other materials) by different suppliers may not provide the same results. In fact a supplier furnishing their material under an initial batch number could differ when the next batch is delivered and in turn could effect the performance of your product. Taking into account manufacturing tolerances of the plastic, plus variables of equipment and procedure, it becomes apparent that checking several types of materials from the same or from different sources is an important part of material selection and in turn their use. 

Standard reference materials are available from several suppliers in the UK, a selection of agricultural substances is available from the Laboratory of the Government Chemist, and in the US from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where the Standard Reference Materials programme is described at ... 

Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) has been commercially used since the mid 1980s on fired equipment with the hrst application on a boiler in 1976. The first SCR unit installed on a fluid catalytic cracking unit was at Saibu Oil Company in Yamaguchi, Japan in April 1986. Since then, nearly two dozen ECC units have installed SCR units to remove NO from the flue gas and more are slated to be built in the future. Vendors and catalyst suppliers of this technology include Haldor-Topsoe, Mitsubishi Power Systems, Hitachi, Technip, BASE, and Cormetech. 

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