The Cost Objective

In addition to asset-sharing that produces economy of scale benefits, the platform assets display strong interdependence with other assets on the platform. The platform products are characterized by low variety and high commonality, while the non-platform products reveal high variety and little commonality. With a platform, companies can easily increase the breadth of their product portfolio and create differentiation by adding non-platform assets as add-ons. This combination of platform and non-platform assets enables companies to serve multiple market segments. 

Pieztinka (2011) offers the Sony Walkman as an example of a product platform. Sony included customer segments as assets, and created three product platforms to build miniature Walkman, to create a new market for hi-fi enthusiasts, and to build models for price sensitive customers. Each of these platforms includes a shared set of modules - motor, tape, and drive. Sony added attributes such as radio, remote-control, and music-search to differentiate the products. 

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This example treats a simple open-cycle gas turbine for which the cost objective function, equations of constraint and costing equations are all available in analytic form. Figure 3 shows these functions along with the fixed and variable decision variables. Since the set of equations is diagonalized,... 

The total cost—setup cost plus holding cost—per time unit is XC/Q + hQ/2, where X/Q is the number of orders placed per time unit. Note that we have ignored the variable cost, the cost for purchasing the units, since this term is independent of the decision variable Q. It is equal to cA per time unit, with c being the purchasing cost per unit. The Q that minimizes this cost objective is Q = /2XCIh, which is easily derived from setting the derivative of the cost objective (with respect to 0 to zero. The square-root order quantity is often referred to as EOQ as well. 

The method is universal since it can be used to jointly asses new machines and ones which have been in service for many years. Besides machine age, the cost objective function covers ... 

The cost per unit stored energy may be low for low-power cores because the tanks are inexpensive in comparison to the PEMFC and the auxiliary devices. The cost per kWh is thus more attractive with high storage capacities. It currently sits at around 2000/kWh for small systems with a complete environment (inverters, protections, etc.) and is around 600/kWh or even 300/kWh for large systems. The cost objectives are set at around 150/kWh for discharge durations of 8 hours or more. 

PCBs used in consumer electronics tend to share lower circuit complexity with RF and analog PCBs. However, the performance demands are far lower. The need for the lowest possible cost offsets this. To achieve the cost objectives, every effort is made to keep all connections on a single side and to form all holes in a single operation by punching. This... 

Introduction and Commercial Application JUe objective of performing appraisal activities on discovered accumulations is to reduce the uncertainty in the description of the hydrocarbon reservoir, and to provide information with which to make a decision on the next action. The next action may be, for example, to undertake more appraisal, to commence development, to stop activities, or to sell the prospect. In any case, the appraisal activity should lead to a decision which yields a greater value than the outcome of a decision made in the absence of the information from the appraisal. The improvement in the value of the action, given the appraisal information, should be greater than the cost of the appraisal activities, otherwise the appraisal effort is not worthwhile. 

Preventive maintenance includes inspection, servicing and adjustment with the objective of preventing breakdown of equipment. This is appropriate for highly critical equipment where the cost of failure is high, or where failure implies a significant negative impact on safety or the environment. This form of maintenance can be scheduled on a calendar basis (e.g. every six months) or on a service hour basis (e.g. every 5,000 running hours). 

Nearly every chemical manufacturiag operation requites the use of separation processes to recover and purify the desired product. In most circumstances, the efficiency of the separation process has a significant impact on both the quality and the cost of the product (1). Liquid-phase adsorption has long been used for the removal of contaminants present at low concentrations in process streams. In most cases, the objective is to remove a specific feed component alternatively, the contaminants are not well defined, and the objective is the improvement of feed quality defined by color, taste, odor, and storage stability (2-5) (see Wastes, industrial Water, industrial watertreati nt). 

The TOSCOAL Process. The Oil Shale Corp. (TOSCO) piloted the low temperature carbonization of Wyoming subbituminous coals over a two-year period in its 23 t/d pilot plant at Rocky Falls, Colorado (149). The principal objective was the upgrading of the heating value in order to reduce transportation costs on a heating value basis. Hence, the soHd char product from the process represented 50 wt % of the starting coal but had 80% of its heating value. 

Instrumental Interfaces. The basic objective for any coupling between a gas chromatograph (gc) and a mass spectrometer (ms) is to reduce the atmospheric operating pressure of the gc effluent to the operating pressure in the ms which is about 10 kPa (10 torr). Essential interface features include the capability to transmit the maximum amount of sample from the gc without losses from condensation or active sites promoting decomposition no restrictions or compromises placed on either the ms or the gc with regard to resolution of the components and reliability. The interface should also be mechanically simple and as low in cost as possible. 

Given the first type of simulation, it is advantageous to be able to design a system of RO modules that can achieve the process objective at a minimal cost. A model has been iategrated iato a process simulation program to predict the stream matrix for a reverse osmosis process (132). In the area of waste minimization, the proper placement of RO modules is essential for achieving minimum waste at a minimum cost. Excellent details on how to create an optimal network of RO modules is available (96). 

The principal objective of technical service in the chemical industry is to provide timely and professional information and support to downstream customers regarding chemical products and thek uses. It is neither cost-effective nor necessary for a consumer of chemical products to develop a staff of speciahsts having detailed expertise in all aspects of chemical raw materials and thek uses, particularly in a time of increa singly complex and rapidly technologically driven economies. Rather, this variety of expertise is provided in the chemical marketplace by technical service professionals whose knowledge and skills are made available by chemical products suppHers. As such, successful chemical companies provide technical service as a critical element of thek offerings to the marketplace making use of this aspect of the value chain to enhance thek competitiveness. 

Finding the best solution when a large number of variables are involved is a fundamental engineering activity. The optimal solution is with respect to some critical resource, most often the cost (or profit) measured in doUars. For some problems, the optimum may be defined as, eg, minimum solvent recovery. The calculated variable that is maximized or minimized is called the objective or the objective function. 

Formulation of the Objective Function The formulation of objective functions is one of the crucial steps in the application of optimization to a practical problem. You must be able to translate the desired objective into mathematical terms. In the chemical process industries, the obective function often is expressed in units of currency (e.g., U.S. dollars) because the normal industrial goal is to minimize costs or maximize profits subject to a variety of constraints. 

Process Objective UF is used for three principle objectives. First, to fractionate, to pass selectively one component through the membrane with the solvent. Second, to concentrate, to pass the solvent. These two, while different, are related and it is common to purify and concentrate a component siiTuiltaneously. The third objective, quite different, is to produce a solvent stream as a product. An example is the operation of an ultrafilter for producing low-cost permeate. An important apphcation of UF is in the automotive industiy where UF is used to remove water and microsolutes from huge electrophoretic paint tanks for use in rinsing excess paint (dragout) from... 

Once the options have been clearly defined it will be necessary to carry out a cost-benefit analysis of each option. This has two main objectives. First, the overall cost of the project will need to be assessed to determine whether or not it is financially viable and, second, to ensure that those who will be required to incur expenditure are fully aware of the commitment needed. The financial benefits to users of the waters for recreation, fisheries, navigation, etc., are relatively easy to determine, but monetary valuation of the environmental benefits such as conservation and general amenity will be more difficult to define. As yet this aspect of the cost-benefit analysis has not been fully developed in the UK. Having determined a range of options and costs for eutrophication control in a particular catchment, consultation on the details of the Action plan with all those involved is needed before any plan can be implemented. 

If decision makers choose to use QRA, they must then define the analysis objectives so the results will satisfy the particular decisionmaking requirement. Because the cost of performing QRA is dependent... 

The use of electrochemical protection in the chemical industry started about 20 years ago, which is somewhat recent, compared with its use for buried pipelines 40 years ago. Adoption was slow because the internal protection has to be tailored to the individual plant, which is not the case with the external protection of buried objects. Interest in internal protection came from the increasing need for greater safety for operating plants, increased demands for corrosion resistance, and larger plant components. While questions of its economy cannot generally be answered (see Section 22.6), the costs of electrochemical protection are generally less than the cost of equivalent and reliable coatings or corrosion-resistant materials. 

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