Engineering Economics

The critical impact of electricity on the quality of human life and the use of all electrical appliances and equipment is in principle self-evident. Nevertheless, governments cannot afford even productivity to consumption. The countries developed many structures to operate and improve the city and industrial electricity consumption and to manage power generation efficiency. Increase in population and the culture of consumption force the governments to raise the price. However, it is difficult to find ways and means to effectively manage trends in public behaviour and to control the harmful action of the population. This process requires knowing the need and consumption of electricity. The article discusses the primary criterion that influences electricity consumption and uses the singular spectrum analysis based on these factors to predict use. Besides, a fuzzy regression model is represented to optimise function. Results of optimisation show a considerable reduction in comparison with SSA forecasting method, indicating the efficiency of the offered method. Eventually results considerably assume that attention to a way of construction and improvements of the culture of use is a priority of the persons making decisions to reduce radical electric consumption in Iran and to become more optimistic concerning management of an electrical network.

In this paper the impact of political risk on the movement of stock prices in the capital market of the Republic of Serbia is analysed. This is the market with a short history of trading, characterized by a high degree of volatility, with frequent and high jumps in prices. In addition, it is a very narrow and depth lacking market dominated by share trading in that period; the market where the trading in neither treasury, nor corporate bonds was well-developed. All stipulated above indicates a high degree of correlation between the stock price and the current local political events, with the exception of the financial crisis as a global factor. Serbian political shocks are frequent, unpredictable and well defined, which allows us to clearly identify political risk. We have identified the dates/periods when certain jumps in the volatility of the market index return happened, which were then brought into connection with the occurrence of appropriate political news. In that way we were able to quantify the effects of political events on the volatility of return. This is the first paper that deals with the impact of political risk on stock returns in Serbia. Additionally, it is shown that Serbia's score of political risk in December 2009 was the highest in the Eastern Europe region. In 2015 it is around regional Balkan's average, and it lies between Albanian and Macedonian score of political risk index.

One of the engineering economics objectives is to do economic analysis of investment decisions. It has quite extensive applications since the investment may come from private companies or government entities. The analysis or evaluation of projects involves a set of techniques that establish feasibility parameters. These parameters are expressed by PBP (Payback Period-number of years to recover the investment), IRR (internal rate of return) or NPV (Net Present Value). Thus, it has an important role on investment analysis or to buy a capital good, checking all technically feasible investment alternatives. This research is based on a case study, namely a project of extension of a micro enterprise, whose data was collected on Bank of Amazon. The Bank of Amazon is an agent for the application of policies and programs of the Federal Government in the Amazon region, as well as its feasibility and the potential to carry out the project. Based on these facts, it was studied the role of engineering economics in the evaluation of investment projects by the Bank of Amazon, located in the northern region of Brazil. It was concluded that the Bank relies on the economic feasibility and engineering economics to analyses the submitted projects, having as a reference a IRR parameter between 4% and 12% and a PBP of 4 to 12 years in the investment projects less or equal to R$ 400,000.00. Some opportunities and suggestions to extend and improve investment analysis procedures and tools are discussed at the end of this paper.

Activities of Reverse Logistics require adequate knowledge management in all phases of return of the product that may help to solve problems it faces in all these processes (Wadhwa & Madaan, 2007), and also may approach the current goals of customer satisfaction and business benefit to the legislation for the environment. In this sense, it is fundamental for the organization to have ability to generate new knowledge to reduce the high

Coopetition (simultaneous cooperation and competition between competitors) is rapidly becoming a key success factor for enterprises operating in the contemporary business world. The literature on coopetition characterizes these relationships mostly in the context of the benefits achieved; however, coopetition is fraught with threats arising mainly from both the coexistence and interaction of streams of cooperation and competition between competitors. Research on a sample of 235 companies operating in the high technology sector (HT) in Poland has shown that there is a number of risks accompanying coopetition. The most common amongst them are the low efficiency of activities and goals pursued (statistically significant for all the activities of the value chain as areas of cooperation). The areas of coopetition that are most exposed to risk are sales and distribution, logistics and finance (nine out of 12 risks analysed). Due to the similarity of the frequency of occurrence of particular threats to coopetition, and using the method of cluster analysis, four groups of value chain areas with similar risks have been identified. The first such group is finance and marketing, the second is sales and production, the third is human resources and logistics, and finally the fourth is information technology, purchasing inputs and R&D. When selecting the area of competitive cooperation corresponding to the individual clusters of the value chain activities, one may expect the occurrence of similar threats to coopetition. The research findings allow interested parties to predict threats to coopetition when choosing specific areas of cooperation and thus an extension to cooperation between competitors which will not increase the quantity of these threats.

The importance of corporate sustainability reporting continues to grow. This growth is rooted in numerous contingent factors and scientific questions regarding the key contingent variables arise. Knowledge related to these issues is important both for academic and practical purposes. Although sustainability reporting and sustainability management are not identical activities, they are strongly interconnected and communication, per se, is of great importance for the sustainability of companies. In the Czech Republic, and especially in the Slovak Republic, there is a lack of up-to-date empirical research into the extent of sustainability reporting and our article addresses this research gap. The primary concern is the investigation of the association between the amount and structure of disclosure and its determinants. Scientific methods of content analysis, ratio analysis, and statistical data analysis including regression analysis are applied. Few companies report on environmental an...

In the paper we investigate the factors that affect a property's time on the market (TOM) in the residential real estate market in the case of a thin, illiquid market, such as those found in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. In contrast to liquid markets, the time it takes to sell a property can vary from a few days to a few months. In Slovenia a residential property's marketability depends strongly on the price dynamics of the market, housing characteristics and the degree of overpricing. The most important determinants of the marketing time are the cost and availability of housing finance as well as the housing price index, and all three can be directly related to the affordability of housing. We develop a two-stage model of the determinants of TOM and a duration model. The results of the list price model show that as the age of property increases, its (list) price decreases with diminishing pace, while the size of the property has the opposite dynamic. The presence and size of parking lots also has a positive effect on the (list) price. The results of the Time on the Market model show that property characteristics, market conditions and macroeconomic determinants are all statistically significant determinants of TOM. The degree of overpricing turned out to be a statistically significant determinant of time on the market. However, this effect does not seem to be statistically significantly non-linear (U-shaped). Higher house prices (at the national level) and the average interest rate on housing loans both extend a property's time on the market while better availability of housing loans, in contrast, shortens the TOM. We additionally estimated a proportional hazard model of the TOM that yielded consistent results.

The use of solar thermal collectors is an economic alternative for water heating. In Greece more than 4 million m 2 of collector area has been installed; however, the financial and economic crisis has dealt the solar thermal market a heavy blow. The aim of the paper is twofold: firstly, to present the new legislations and combined efforts taken by the government in order to give the solar thermal market a boost; secondly, to evaluate the effect of these efforts and calculate the new financial data from the citizens. For the promotion of solar water heaters, new legislations and concerted efforts are taken by the government. The effect of the new incentive program on the payback time of a typical glazed solar hot water system in Greece was investigated in this work. Long-term meteorological data from 47 stations are analyzed in order to evaluate the potential of solar water heater application at each site in Greece. The RETScreen software was used to predict the financial viability and the green house gas emissions reductions. The economical indicators showed that Tymbakion was the best site and Ioannina the worst. From the environmental point of view, it was found that on an average an approximate quantity of 1.47 ton of green house gases can be avoided entering into the local atmosphere each year.

Mostly visual package elements ant their impact on consumer attention, product quality evaluation and brand choice are evaluated in these researches. Scientific researches have proved that package decisions allow to attract consumer attention, transfer the desirable information about the product, position the product in consumer conscious, differentiate and identify it among analogical products. In that way elements of package influence consumer decision making process and can determine the choice of consumer and the package itself can become the sustained competitive advantage. Thus despite of plenty of scientific researches, focused on separate functions of package and importance of its decisions, the package is not analysed as a whole, playing the communication function. Thus the problem of the article is formulated as follows: factors of consumer package, which influence effective communication with consumer and influence consumer decision making. Research aimto verify factors of consumer package theoretically and name their communication importance in decision making process empirically. Research object-consumer package factors and their importance for consumer decision making process. Research methods: comparative analysis of scientific literature, periodical publications, analysis of internet databases, descriptive method and survey employing questionnaires. Strategical decisions of package communication Components and features of consumer package Communication of package components and features Factors influencing package communication Consumer decision making process

The objective of this project is to conduct a technical and economic feasibility study for the construction of a workshop for hydraulic and pneumatic maintenance in Atbara town. A technical study was carried out, which included selecting the location of the project, identifying the required equipment, and mechanisms, determining the production capacity of the workshop and the administrative and organizational structure of the project. The economical includes the cost of capital of the project, annual operating cost, revenue, profit and loss account and financial evaluation of the project. This technical and economic study preceded field visits to similar projects and the study of the demand for this service.
Through the economic study and financial analysis of the project it became clear that this project is economically feasible.

As system investment and energy costs continue to increase, electric utilities are increasingly interested in installing energy-efficient transformers at their distribution networks. The cost evaluation of transformers is based on total owning cost (TOC) method that includes transformer purchasing price and cost of transformer losses. Similar to energy cost, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are also assigned a price by energy markets. That is why this study proposes an innovative distribution transformer cost evaluation methodology (DTCEM) by introducing the environmental cost (EC) into the conventional TOC method. This EC is due to GHG emissions associated with supplying transformer losses. The proposed method is applied for economic evaluation of distribution transformers for the Hellenic power system and the results are compared to the conventional TOC, indicating the importance of incorporating EC into transformer economic evaluation. A sensitivity analysis is carried out, investigating the impact of various parameters involved in the proposed DTCEM.

This research aims to evaluate two econometric models to forecast imports and exports for the financial year (FY) 2020. For this purpose, we used the annual exports and imports data of Pakistan from FY2002 to FY2019. Thus, in this regard, we employed, and compared the results of two econometrics models such as Box Jenkins or Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), and Auto-Regressive (AR) with seasonal dummies. For examining the precision of forecasting, we employed mean absolute error and root mean square error approaches. The findings of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE) reveal that the ARIMA or Box Jenkins approach provides better accuracy of the forecast for the exports as compared to the AR model with dummies. However, Auto-Regressive (AR) model has demonstrated more precision for the imports as compared to the Box Jenkins model. Hence, the projected forecasting for the growth of export is 1.87 % for the FY2020 and projected forecasting for t...

This paper analyses the problem of replacement by investigating the optimal moment of investment replacement in a given tax environment with a given depreciation policy. An operation and maintenance cost minimization model, based on the definition of equivalent annual cost, is applied to a real options paradigm. The developed methodology allows for an innovative evaluation of the flexibility of replacement process analysis. A new two-factor evaluation function is introduced to quantify decisions on asset replacement under a unique cycle environment. This study improves upon previous findings in the literature as it accounts for autonomous salvage value processes. Based on partial differential equations, this model achieves a general analytical solution and particular numerical solution. The results differ significantly from those observed in one-factor models by showing evidence of over-evaluation in optimal levels of replacement, and by confirming suspicions that different types of uncertainties produce nonmonotonous effects on the optimal replacement level. The scientific contribution of this study lies in new and stronger approaches to equivalent annual cost literature, supplying an algorithm for operation and maintenance cost minimization that is conditioned by autonomous salvage value. This study also contributes to the real options literature by developing a two-factor model with Brownian processes applied to asset replacement.

This paper deals with a periodic replacement policy after the expiry of a warranty for a product sold with a two-dimensional non-renewing failure replacement warranty. We model product failures using the one-dimensional approach and use a more appropriate formulation to model the effect of age and usage to the product’s degradation. Under the periodic replacement policy, for a given usage rate y, the product is repaired with minimal repair when it fails at age x, x<τy and it is replaced with a new one if its age reaches τy. We obtain the optimal value of τy which minimizes the long-run average cost to the buyer and give a numerical example to illustrate the optimal solution.

Keywords: Periodic replacement policy, Two-dimensional warranty, Long-run average cost, Accelerated failure time (AFT) model.

الحمد لله والصلاة والسلام علي رسوله محمد  وبعد:
إنَّ مؤلِّف هذا الكتاب إيماناً منه بالدور العظيم والمقدَّر للأستاذ الجامعي في إثراء حركة التأليف والتعريب والترجمة يأمل أن يفي هذا الكتاب بمتطلبات برامج البكالوريوس والدبلوم العام والمتوسط لطلاب وفنيي الهندسة الميكانيكية وهندسة الإنتاج أو التصنيع.
يتفَّق هذا الكتاب لغوياً مع القاموس الهندسي الموَّحد السوداني، ويُعد الكتاب مرجعاً في مجاله حيث يمكن أن يستفيد منه الطالب والمهندس والباحث ويعتبر الكتاب مقتبساً من مذكرات مؤلفه في تدريسه لهذا المقرر لفترة لا تقل عن عشرون عاماً.
يهدف هذا الكتاب للتعريف بمصطلحات الاقتصاد الهندسي وتحليل المشكلة الاقتصادية وكيفية إعداد دراسات الجدوى الاقتصادية للمشروعات الهندسية.
يشتمل هذه المذكرة على ثمانية فصول. يتناول الفصل الأول تعريفاً للهندسة ومهمة المهندس ، التعرف على علم الاقتصاد والإنتاج والإنتاجية ، تعريف الاقتصاد الهندسي وتحديد أهدافه ، والتعرف على منهجية حل المشاكل . بينما يتناول الفصل الثاني الطلب والعرض والعلاقة بينهما ، التعرف على مبدأ توازن السوق وتحديد الأسعار ، وتحديد مفهوم الصناعات .
يتحدث الفصل الثالث عن الأنواع المختلفة للتكاليف ، تحديد نقطة التعادل بالإضافة لبعض الأمثلة التي تتناول المقارنة بين ماكينتين .
يتناول الفصل الرابع القيمة الزمنية للنقود ومعدَّل الفائدة ، تحديد أنواع التدفقات النقدية ، معرفة مبدأ التكافؤ وخطط تسديد القروض . بينما يستعرض الفصل الخامس التقييم الاقتصادي لمشروع مفرد .
يشتمل الفصل السادس على كيفية استخدام وسائل المقارنة العديدة للمقارنة بين عدة خيارات استثمارية.
يستعرض الفصل السابع تعريفاً للتضخم وأنواعه بالإضافة للتعرف على الإهلاك وكيفية حسابه . أما الفصل الثامن فيتناول كيفية إجراء تحليل الإحلال والاستبدال .   
إنَّ الكاتب يأمل أن يُساهم هذا الجهد المتواضع في إثراء المكتبة الجامعية داخل السودان وخارجه في هذا المجال من المعرفة ويأمل من القارئ بضرورة إرسال تغذية راجعة إن كانت هنالك ثمة أخطاء حتى يستطيع الكاتب تصويبها في الطبعة التالية للمذكرة .




اللهم لا سهل إلاَّ ما جعلته سهلاً
وأنت تجعل الحزن إذا شئت سهلاً

والله ولي التوفيق



المؤلف
أسامة محمد المرضي سليمان
قسم الهندسة الميكانيكية
كلية الهندسة والتقنية
جامعة واي النيل
إبريل 2018م

The objective of this project is to conduct a technical and economic feasibility study for the construction of a workshop for hydraulic and pneumatic maintenance in Atbara town. A technical study was carried out, which included selecting the location of the project, identifying the required equipment, and mechanisms, determining the production capacity of the workshop and the administrative and organizational structure of the project. The economical includes the cost of capital of the project, annual operating cost, revenue, profit and loss account and financial evaluation of the project. This technical and economic study preceded field visits to similar projects and the study of the demand for this service.
Through the economic study and financial analysis of the project it became clear that this project is economically feasible.

Part of each feasibility study of a food production plant is to make an estimation of the “future” investment  costs in such a plant. In this document, the investment cost estimation method of Zevnik-Buchanan is explained, in 10 consecutive steps. The method, requiring a detailed plant flowsheet, can be executed manually by using graphs. However, calculation is more rapid and much simpler by using the Zevnik-Buchanan Excel worksheet, included in this document. For this worksheet, the Z-B graphs had to be converted into mathematical equations. These equations can be found in the corresponding graphs.
2 worked examples explain the basics of Zevnik-Buchanan's estimation method of plant cost investments: one about a 10 000 tons/year mozzarella factory, the other on a 1150 tons/year whole egg powder plant.
Calculations using the Zevnik-Buchanan graphs and equations are valid for the year 1996. To convert these 1996 figures to future estimated plant costs, the Chemical Engineering Plant Cost Indices (CE Plant Cost Index), from 1980 onward, have been included in Annex 2: both as a graph for easy extrapolation, and as a table.
For reference purposes, the 1986 Bartholomai investment costs of some 40 different food factories are listed in Annex 3.

Management and organization literature has treated conflicts in numerous times and from various perspectives. Still, the theoretical literature holds different views about the essence of owner-manager relationship, including the view that the top manager and the owner are seen as subjects with different goals and interests. And these differences may cause conflicts created within this relationship.

Engineering is a complex and broad topic to discuss. Its concept branches out different multifaceted ideas making it a complicated area of focus. However, in order to exemplify the thought, engineering can be defined as the application of scientific and mathematical principle in the conversion of earthly resources to construct, design, invent and build structures for the consumption of humankind.

Improvements in energy efficiency of electrical equipment reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and contribute to the protection of the environment. Moreover, as system investment and energy costs continue to increase, electric utilities are increasingly interested in installing energy-efficient transformers at their distribution networks. This paper analyzes the impact of the environmental cost of transformer losses on the economic evaluation of distribution transformers. This environmental cost is coming form the cost to buy GHG emission credits because of the GHG emissions associated with supplying transformer losses throughout the transformer lifetime. Application results on the Hellenic power system for 21 transformer offers under 9 different scenarios indicate that the environmental cost of transformer losses can reach on average 34% and 8% of transformer purchasing price for high loss and medium loss transformers, respectively. That is why it is important to incorporate the environmental cost of transformer losses into the economic evaluation of distribution transformers.

The purpose of this study was to determine the factors that affect student satisfaction with training quality at the Corporate Finance Major, Finance Banking Faculty, Van Lang University (Major, Faculty, VLU). Another goal was to discover possible factors that affect enterprise satisfaction with the quality of training at the Corporate Finance Major. Finally, a recommendation to increase training quality was examined in the study. To achieve the following goals, qualitative research was used in combination with questionnaires and document reviews. The Higher Education Performance Model (HEdPERF) was applied with 512 responses to see the insights of student satisfaction. Luu Tien Dung (2013) model was applied with 214 responses to see the insights of enterprise satisfaction. The impact of student satisfaction on four factors (access, programme issues, lecturer's qualification, facilities), enterprise satisfaction on four factors (soft skills, skills & professions, general and specialized knowledge, value added) were investigated in this study, and the findings revealed that they significantly mediated the relationship with the training quality of the Corporate Finance Major. The findings show that it is vital to improve the training quality to increase satisfaction and boost their academic abilities. With the framework from this study, policymakers, researchers, educators, and institutes can cooperate in developing and upgrading the general training quality at higher education institutions in Vietnam. Improving the training quality of a faculty will continue to be a challenge. Therefore, this is a topic that requires continuous research.

""Part of each feasibility study of a food production plant is to make an estimation of the “future” investment costs in such a plant. In this document, three rapid investment cost estimation methods are explained: 1) the indexed 0.6 exponent method, in case your plant is “similar” to one of the 40 food plants, listed by Bartholomai; 2) the adapted Marouli method for complete food plants, if you only know the total production capacity of your plant, and 3) the adapted Marouli method for separate plant production sections, to be used if you have a plant flowsheet and you know the capacity of each of the main production sections of the food plant. Each of these 3 estimation methods can be executed manually, but calculation is rapid and simpler by using the 3 Excel worksheets, included in this document. Several worked examples explain the mathematics behind each of the 3 cost estimation methods; these examples should help to understand the basics of the calculations.
Usually, investment cost estimations are made for plants to be build in the near future. but are based on investment cost figures from the past, often with different production capacities. To convert past plant investment costs to future estimated plant costs, the Chemical Engineering Plant Cost Indices, from 1980 onward, are available, both as a table and as a graph. To convert plant production capacity from past to future capacity, the well-known 0.6 exponent rule is used.
Annex 1 discusses similar investment cost estimation methods for non-food plants, based on Perry’s (1985 and 1999) tables with past plant investment costs of many non-food factories.
""

Proje, Petrol, Petrol Arama, Petrol Nasıl Aranır, Petrol Aramanın Önemi, Petrol-Jeoloji İlişkisi, Petrol Aramanın Maliyeti, Petrol Arama Projeleri, Petrol Jeolojisi, Petrol ve Jeoloji Mühendisi, Dünya'da ve Türkiye'de Petrol Arama Projeleri, Maliyet Analizi ve Mühendislik Ekonomisi, Petrol ve Doğalgaz Mühendisliği, Konya, Yüksek Lisans Projesi, Jeoloji, Jeoloji Mühendisliği, Jeoloji Yüksek Mühendisi,  Türkay Ercan Şengöz. (Türkay Ercan Şengöz tarafından yayımlanan her çeşit harita, bilgi ve belgelerin her hakkı saklıdır. Her ne şekilde ve amaçla olursa olsun bu bilgi ve belgelerin kaynak belirtilmeden kullanılması, yazılı izin alınmadan elektronik, optik, mekanik veya diğer yollarla dağıtılması, çoğaltılması, basılması, değiştirilmesi, paylaşılması, kopyalanması ve internet sitelerinde kullanılması durumunda gerekli hukuki yollara başvurulacak ve yasal işlem başlatılacaktır. Önemle duyurulur. Bu platformda veya diğer platformlarda paylaşmış olduğum tez veya akademik kapsamdaki çalışmalarımın içerisindeki bütün bilgilerin etik davranış ve akademik kurallar çerçevesinde elde edilerek sunulduğunu, akademik çalışmalarımın tez yazım kurallarına uygun olarak hazırlandığını hatırlatıyor, bana ait olan her türlü ifade ve bilginin kaynağına eksiksiz atıf yapılması gerektiğini bildiriyor, sevgi ve saygılarımı sunuyorum.)

Problem of selecting a person as a new personnel or member of any group is a critical issue in human resource management. Personnel selection is a big challenge in all types of companies, organizations and communities, involving multiple issues that should be evaluated simultaneously. A group as a team should work in the best form to attain its goals. Accordingly, a complex decision support methodology for effective team members' selection is required. The aim of the current research is to develop the decision model for human resource management that aggregates experts' knowledge and deals with uncertain information. The current paper considers a model based on hybrid Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods as a framework for the challenge of personnel selection. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution with Grey Relations (TOPSIS grey) are applied for this aim. AHP is used for identifying the importance of each criterion when selecting a group member. TOPSIS grey is applied for ranking of alternatives, i.e. particular personnel, characterized by a set of criteria that are determined by grey relations and expressed in intervals. A case study about process of selecting a new drummer for a rock band is presented to demonstrate the applicability and the effectiveness of the proposed model. Criteria as technical ability, ability of accommodation to band and genre, discipline, ability to work with band (teamwork), general issues like age, behavior, ideology and etc., ability of composing and motivation are prioritized from the most important to the least important, respectively, based on AHP results. Four potential candidates are considered. One of them is selected as the best drummer for the band among four applicants based on TOPSIS grey results. The presented hybrid multiple criteria decision making helps to perform personnel selection effectively and objectively when multiple criteria are evaluated simultaneously. The first part of the proposed methodology, i.e. AHP is useful for determining the importance of each criterion and calculating weight of each criterion, while the second part with TOPSIS grey is useful for evaluating alternatives more precisely than usual crisp TOPSIS. The model can be implemented as an effective decision aid to improve human resources management in various areas of economic activities.

Management and organization literature has treated conflicts in numerous times and from various perspectives. Still, the theoretical literature holds different views about the essence of owner-manager relationship, including the view that the top manager and the owner are seen as subjects with different goals and interests. And these differences may cause conflicts created within this relationship. The research question here is about the subject of CSR as an enhancing factor in the deepening of special interests of the owners and the managers, as well as in emphasising their different roles. The in-depth interviews contained 60 questions and were recorded. With nearly all questions, two aspects were addressed: on the one hand, the difference between the periods 1995–1999 and 2000–2004, and on the other, between enterprises based on foreign and domestic capital. By the beginning of the former period – that is 1995 – the privatisation period in Estonia was predominantly over and the f...

A strategy for adaptive control and energetic optimization of aerobic fermentors was implemented, with both air flow and agitation speed as manipulated variables. This strategy is separable in its components: control, optimization, estimation. We optimized parameter’s estimation (from the usual KLa correlation) using sinusoidal excitation of air flow and agitation speed. We have implemented parameter’s estimation trough recursive least squares algorithm with forgetting factor. We carried separate essays on control, optimization and estimation algorithms. We carried our essays using an original computational simulation environment, with noise and delay generating facilities for data sampling and filtering.

Our results show the convergence and robustness of the estimation algorithm used, improved with use of both forgetting factor and KLa dead-band facilities. Control algorithm used in our work compares favorably with PID using the integrated area criteria for deviation between oxygen molarity and critical molarity (set point). Optimization algorithm clearly reduces energetic consumption, respecting critical molarity. Integration of control, optimization and adaptive algorithms was implemented, but future work is needed for stability. Methods were defined and implemented for stability improvement. We have implemented data acquisition and computer manipulation of air flow and agitation speed for actual fermentors.

Small to medium sized business enterprises are young and constantly changing their sphere of activities depending on fluctuations of the market. The enterprises daily use accounting information, which is used in enterprise’s financial situation evaluation, correct decisions making, enterprise’s financial situation analysis according to the results received, making plans for future and controlling the whole enterprise. Accounting information systems play a significant role in providing the financial information for decision making within an organization. The systems are simultaneously providing information for a variety of other decision makers in production, human resources, finance, management, marketing, and supply chain logistics. Unfortunately, accounting systems often do not support business properly. The causes may be: systems mostly are too large and complex to comprehend them in entirety and traditional information technologies are not efficient. There is a need to adopt the...

The objective of this paper is to identify, assess and minimize the environmental wastes produced from processing side of a cement industry using value stream mapping (VSM).The usage of energy, workspace and material is considered as environmental factors derived from a hierarchy that is developed by EPA. The values of these environmental factors are incorporated in lean metrics and also in VSM which is called Environmental value stream mapping (EVSM). The paper addresses the various environmental wastes or non-value added activities in the processing side of the cement industry, using VSM approach to make the existing process greener. Finally, Future state of the map is drawn with Kaizen opportunities which minimize the environmental wastes.

in this article. The reasons which lead to the establishment of the Department of Quality Management are briefly presented. Since 1997 the members of the department research various problems of quality management, co-ordinate programme for Master's degree (Quality Management specialization) and communicate its research to business and public organizations. These three activities of the Department research, teaching and communication of the results of research are reviewed in this article. First, the topics of the research conducted from the establishment of the Department could be generalized under these themes: Total quality management (TQM) as conceptual core, quality culture, quality and performance measurement, stakeholders' interests harmonization, processual approach, quality of life, wage administration under TQM. Research under these topics is reviewed. A theoretical contribution and results are discussed. Second, the courses underlying Quality Management specialization are also analyzed. It is argued that during the decade more than a hundred of students became quality managers. The content of the courses is discussed. Third, the ways of communication of quality management methods to business and public organizations is highlighted. The main means of communication of TQM are: the Lithuanian Association for Quality Management and the Center for Total Quality Management. The article presents the discussion on possible and relevant research topics. Five possible directions was identified: to proceed on research, that has been already conducted, look for new approaches to explain how quality is achieved, incorporate knowledge from other disciplines, reinterpret the main concepts of quality in the context of present changes, analyze the effects of quality management practices. Keywords: total quality management, quality culture, quality and performance measurement, stakeholders' interests harmonization, processual approach, quality of life, wage administration under TQM.