Title: Long term cost efficiency through green management control systems.Authors: Nancy Vukania &Xiaochen QinSupervisor: Åsa Karin-EngstrandBackground: The worldwide financial crisis of 2008 has reconfigured the economic turf leading to a more uncertain and turbulent playing field – a greater challenge for business strategy and the quest for optimization- The oil price hike of 2008 (Furlong 2010)1 caused its rippling effect to affect various cost categories including energy, labor and logistics thus causing a roller coaster business decision making process regarding outsourcing, off shoring and internal control and cutting short the decision making term to make room for adjustments. Amidst this high volatility and turbulence of factor markets coupled with fierce competitor activity, organizations are being drawn towards alternative sources of cost advantage which can enable them pursue long-term profitability.Aim: With this research, we intend to introduce an idea of cost efficiency which in the long term has the potential to develop into cost leadership for mature public organizations who are facing uncontrollable instabilities from the external business eco-system as well as international legislation regarding environmental sustainability (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change)2. We aim to do this through studying an Energy performance contracting (EPC) project currently being undertaken by Landstinget I Östergotland (LIO), the county council of the province of Östergotland in Sweden.Results: We aim to prove- based on the results of the studied EPC project and the literature on green technology and management control systems- that the interplay of green technological systems and management control techniques can in the long term achieve substantial cost saving and profit making differentials that are sustainable, eco-friendly and subject to further development.Key Phrases/Words: Cost strategy, Management control, Green technology, Long-term SustainabilityPaper Type: Research Paper

The paper and pulp industry saw an increase in the number of mergers in 1980s and 1990s. There had been consolidation of a number of smaller companies into larger corporations, which have greater management, financial, and marketing power. This merging trend has resulted in a fewer number of firms and an increasing concentration in the industry. Although the number of firms has decreased, the total industry capacity has been increasing. The combination of these interesting factors has motivated the topic of this masters thesis. The primary purpose of this research is to explore the factors that positively influence a firms decision to vertically integrate into producing its own pulp.

Abstract This company is a special steel company. The production process of G Company is start from steel making, then go through forging, heat treatment, rolling, and finishing process. G Company acquired AS9100 certification from Canada QMI in June 2006, and awarded as U.S. Boeing supplier in July 2006, then gradually certified by five aerospace companies in the same year. From the moment on, G became the metallurgical material supplier of aerospace. G Company only can provide high-strength, low-alloy material with original production line. Since G Company want to make the level of their product higher then before, they planed to invest the vacuum refining furnace equipment for producing the heat-resistant, high strength material. G Company starts to plan to construct the aerospace material plant from year 2007. But in 2008, G Company met the global financial tsunami, they decided to defer the plan for six months, until March in 2009, they start afresh to build this plant. G company use the project management techniques to carry out control all the jobs, like equipment procurement, design of plant, and project bidding, to make sure the entire project would be completed on time. G is the only one specialty steel manufacturer in Taiwan. Competition among the international manufacturers to enter the market of super alloy material is intense. The planning included the processes design, the market analysis, the product specifications, the installation of equipments, commissioning, and then put into production. These are all the team members to be involved in all aspects of proper use of project management to reach the success. Since the use of project management is important, I take this super-alloy plant project as a case for study. This study includes the following items: business plan, investment risk estimate, product mix, production capability design, production process design, plant layout design, team organization, civil construction and equipment installation, etc. These are the basis of this research, and reference to many other literature and documents to make this business plan in the integrity.

National economic development relies on long-term stable supply of electricity, and the stability of electricity supply absolutely relates to the quality of maintenance of power generation units. In the past, the electricity supply of Taiwan was exclusively dominated by the state-run Taiwan Power Company (Taipower). Following government de-regulation policy, the private IPP (Independent Power Plants) also have joined the grid of Taiwan's electricity supply that diversified electricity power supply. This study collects power generation equipment maintenance cost information bases on practical detail cost information and labor cost paid by employer that listed in law or regulation. The information of estimating contrast cost which cannot be easily quantified is collected by questionnaire of power plant and contractor personnel who response for estimating cost of power generation equipment maintenance in order to gather practical cost estimating rules. After summarizing and analyzing collected maintenance cost data, easily calculating cost estimating model for power generation equipment had been proposed. The model can be set as criteria for cost estimating and examine the maintenance contract price of contractor in view of contractor cost. Power generation industries had faced severe cost pressures due to the high rising fuel costs, but not readily reflect the cost of power generation to the electricity charges. In the condition of high price of fuel, the only way to save operational cost was to reduce expense of equipment maintenance and other operation costs. So, the power plants aim at lowing equipment maintenance costs to meet limited budget. Most power plants plan their equipment maintenance budget according to quotation of original equipment manufacturer or professional contractor. There are lacks of related cost information to examine whether the quotation is reasonable or not. The study showed that the scale of contractor companies, indirect cost apportionment can affect indirect costs of contract cost, thereby affecting the contract price. The estimated profit will vary with many factors case by case such as market competition level, technical difficulty, working season, and duration etc.

With the possibility of imitation, we discuss the pricing strategy of an inventor and the piracy-deterrence policy of a government. When inventor and imitator have asymmetric manufacturing costs, piracy may not be deterred by the government. When the inventor¡¦s cost of production is low enough, the inventor always stays in the market and the piracy only occurs if the social welfare is enhanced by the competition. When the inventor¡¦s cost of production is high, a monopoly market emerges and the identity of the monopolist, which can be the inventor or the imitator, is determined by the government through the piracy-deterrence policy such that the social welfare is maximized.

Within any manufacturing environment, the selection of the production or assembly machines is part of the day to day responsibilities of management. This is especially true when there are multiple types of machines that can be used to perform each assembly or manufacturing process. As a result, it is critical to find the optimal way to select machines when there are multiple related assembly machines available. The objective of this research is to develop and present a model that can provide guidance to management when making machine selection decisions of parallel, non-identical, related electronics assembly machines. A model driven Decision Support System (DSS) is used to solve the problem with the emphasis in optimizing available resources, minimizing production disruption, thus minimizing cost. The variables that affect electronics product costs are considered in detail. The first part of the Decision Support System was developed using Microsoft Excel as an interactive tool. The second part was developed through mathematical modeling with AMPL9 mathematical programming language and the solver CPLEX90 as the optimization tools. The mathematical model minimizes total cost of all products using a similar logic as the shortest processing time (SPT) scheduling rule. This model balances machine workload up to an allowed imbalance factor. The model also considers the impact on the product cost when expediting production. Different scenarios were studied during the sensitivity analysis, including varying the amount of assembled products, the quantity of machines at each assembly process, the imbalance factor, and the coefficient of variation (CV) of the assembly processes. The results show that the higher the CV, the total cost of all products assembled increased due to the complexity of balancing machine workload for a large number of products. Also, when the number of machines increased, given a constant number of products, the total cost of all products assembled increased because it is more difficult to keep the machines balanced. Similar results were obtained when a tighter imbalance factor was used.

Agency theory, which discusses the conflict between agent and principle, was developed by Jensen and Meckling in 1976. Owing to the separation of ownership and management, shareholders and management authority have agency relationship. The one reason that shareholder hand in company affairs to management authority is that management authority has better management ability. Another reason is that shareholder cannot handle by himself for some reasons and must hand in to other people. Management authority has the advantage of information and they also seek for their own interest. But these behaviors may damage shareholder¡¦s right and agency problems occur in the situation. Agency problems occur not only between shareholder and management authority but also between management authority and lender in a company with debt. Shareholders often supervise management authority more strictly and make more rules to confine management authority in order to reduce agency problem or protect their own interest. But these actions disturb management authority when management authority is full of ambitions and endeavor. If agency problems between shareholder and management authority cannot be solved properly, it will make company operate abnormally and damage the nation¡¦s economic further. On the contrary earning forecast can reduce information asymmetry. If management authority can disclose earning forecast voluntarily, it is helpful to reduce the agency problem and the information asymmetry between shareholder and management authority. The article assumes management authority disclose earning forecast voluntarily in order to get shareholder and debtor¡¦s trust in this point of view and use firm size¡Bfree cash flow¡Bleverage as the proxy of agency cost. In this research we find that the more debt the company have, the higher voluntarily the company discloses earning forecast. It is the same as we expect. But free cast flow is not significant. When firm size is bigger, the management authority is less voluntary to disclose earning forecast. The result is contrary to the view of agency problem.

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