The primary goal of this dissertation is to gain a better understanding, in thecontext of a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium framework, of the role of inventories and capacity utilization (of both capital and labor) and, in particular, therelationship among them. These are variables which have long been recognized asplaying an important role in the business cycle. An analysis of the association between inventories and capital utilization seems natural, for physical capital could beseen as a stock ultimately destined to be transformed into an inventory of finishedgoods. In the same way, inventories could be seen as a stock of physical capital already transformed into finished goods. Introducing variable rates of utilization ofcapacity, then both can be seen as providing a short-run adjustment "buffer stock"mechanism.The analysis of the relationship between those variables is centered on the effectsof two possible shocks: preference (demand) shocks and technology shocks. Impulse-response experiments show that inventories and the rate of capital utilization aremostly complements, while inventories and the rate of labor utilization are mostlysubstitutes. Moreover, low-persistence shocks emphasize the role of inventories asbeing a "shock absorber", whereas high-persistence shocks emphasize the role of inventories as being a complement to consumption. Consistent with the stylized facts inthe literature, simulation results show that inventory holdings are pro-cyclical, while the inventory-to-sales ratio is counter-cyclical.Two additional "themes" are explored. The first has to do with the treatmentof uncertainty and the consequences of using, as it is done in most of the literature, afirst-order approximation. By approximating the decision rules to a second order, weobserve that higher exogenous uncertainty enhances the importance of the precautionary motive to holding inventories. The second additional theme is a more generalframework for the analysis of capital utilization. We find that the two most commonways of modeling capital utilization can t in a more general specification that incorporates spending on capital maintenance. Though the aforementioned results do notvary qualitatively after that concept is introduced, quantitative answers do.

The primary goal of this dissertation is to gain a better understanding, in thecontext of a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium framework, of the role of inventories and capacity utilization (of both capital and labor) and, in particular, therelationship among them. These are variables which have long been recognized asplaying an important role in the business cycle. An analysis of the association between inventories and capital utilization seems natural, for physical capital could beseen as a stock ultimately destined to be transformed into an inventory of finishedgoods. In the same way, inventories could be seen as a stock of physical capital already transformed into finished goods. Introducing variable rates of utilization ofcapacity, then both can be seen as providing a short-run adjustment "buffer stock"mechanism.The analysis of the relationship between those variables is centered on the effectsof two possible shocks: preference (demand) shocks and technology shocks. Impulse-response experiments show that inventories and the rate of capital utilization aremostly complements, while inventories and the rate of labor utilization are mostlysubstitutes. Moreover, low-persistence shocks emphasize the role of inventories asbeing a "shock absorber", whereas high-persistence shocks emphasize the role of inventories as being a complement to consumption. Consistent with the stylized facts inthe literature, simulation results show that inventory holdings are pro-cyclical, while the inventory-to-sales ratio is counter-cyclical.Two additional "themes" are explored. The first has to do with the treatmentof uncertainty and the consequences of using, as it is done in most of the literature, afirst-order approximation. By approximating the decision rules to a second order, weobserve that higher exogenous uncertainty enhances the importance of the precautionary motive to holding inventories. The second additional theme is a more generalframework for the analysis of capital utilization. We find that the two most commonways of modeling capital utilization can t in a more general specification that incorporates spending on capital maintenance. Though the aforementioned results do notvary qualitatively after that concept is introduced, quantitative answers do.

The profit of semiconductor industry became slight while the industry is mature today, new competitors enter this market with these strategies such as low price, join venture, committed capacity to build up the good relationship of customers in order to acquire order. How do the IC foundries use their competitive advantage to keep growth when they face the forceful competitors? The IC foundries should focus on the development of advance technology, capacity expansion, and keep proper capacity utilization to increase revenue and growth. At the same time, they also need to keep good customer services on production cycle and on time delivery. The study is to discuss the past history, current status, and future developed trend for global semiconductor industry and IC foundry first. Then uses the performance of operation and capacity utilization to do the relative data analysis. Finally, refer the Five-Forces Framework, Diamond Structure, Value Chain, and Dynamic Strategy to find out the competitive advantage of IC foundries, also provide the best proper model of capacity utilization to create the maximum value for customers.

The study aims to provide information on efficiency opportunities on SCA's northbound cassettes. It has been made by examining the capacity utilization rate on the northbound cassettes on SCA's vessels for a period of two weeks. The cargo loaded in the ports of Rotterdam and Sheerness consists of external cargo of varying shape. The cargo is shipped northbound to Holmsund and Sundsvall. Measurements have been made on the cargo to the final destinations Sundsvall, Holmsund and Finland. The measurements have been used in a mathematical optimization model created to optimize the loading of the cassettes. The model is based on placing boxes in a grid where the boxes that are placed representing the cargo and the grids representing the cassettes. The aim of the model is to reduce the number of cassettes and thereby increase the capacity utilization rate. The study resulted in an increase in capacity utilization rate for both area and volume to all destinations. The overall improvement for all cassettes examined resulted in an increase in the area capacity utilization rate by 9.02 percentage points and 5.72 percentage points for the volume capacity utilization rate. It also resulted in a decrease of 22 cassettes in total on the four voyages that were examined which indicate that there are opportunities to improve the capacity utilization rate. The study also shows that the model can be used as a basis for similar problems.

Bakgrund: Ett lager är en viktig del av de flesta värdekedjor. Stora ansträngningar har därför under de senaste åren gjorts för att finna optimala strategier för planering och kontroll av lagersystem. För att uppnå en ökad produktion krävs det att kapacitetsutnyttjandet förbättras. Genom att planera sin kapacitet kan företag reducera kapacitetsbegräsningar, så kallade flaskhalsar, som är nyckeln till att förbättra produktionens kapacitetsutnyttjande. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att beskriva Staples nuvarande kapacitetsutnyttjande i påfyllnads- och plockprocessen. Vidare avser studien att identifiera kapacitetsbegränsningar inom dessa processer. Därefter ämnar studien att finna de bakomliggande orsakerna till dessa kapacitetsbegränsningar samt hur de kan förbättras. Metod: Det har genomförts ostrukturerade intervjuer, semi-strukturerade intervjuer, deltagande observationer samt insamling av kvantitativ data. Inledningsvis genomfördes en processkartläggning i syfte som ett verktyg för resterande delar av studien. Vidare utfördes beräkningar för att finna flaskhalsar i produktionen och intervjuer för att identifiera störningsmoment inom flaskhalsarna. Slutligen presenterades ett antal förbättringsförslag. Slutsatser: Efter genomförda beräkningar framgick att Staples idag inte utnyttjar sin kapacitet maximalt, dock är maximal kapacitet är en nivå som inte anses vara rimlig. Det framgick att Staples har ett kapacitetsbortfall på grund av att det finns en differens mellan nominell kapacitet och bruttokapacitet. Slutsatsen drogs att följande tre aktiviteter utgör flaskhalsar i Staples verksamhet; godsmottagning, plock ZtZ (plock av framförallt tyngre och otympliga artiklar) och plock PTS (detaljplock). Inom dessa flaskhalsar påträffades ett antal störningsmoment som till stor del har grund inom deiiiteoretiska områdena som Stevenson (2009), Slack et al. (2012) och Bergman och Klefsjö (2012) benämner som anläggning och teknik samt metod. Vidare fastslogs att en svårighet finns i att ge kortsiktiga förbättringsförslag för dessa störningsmoment. Detta på grund av studiens tidsram samt att det berör ämnen utanför studiens omfattning. Det presenteras dock tre scenarier för att hitta en fördelaktig fördelning av kapacitet mellan PTS och ZtZ. Dessa scenarier bygger på tre tidsintervaller för hur produktionen är igång samt två plockhastigheter. Baserat på att PTS:en innehar en större andel aktiva arbetstimmar och en högre plockhastighet är scenario 3 mest fördelaktigt eftersom det krävs att ZtZ är minst verksam. / Background: A warehouse is an important part of most value chains. Great effort has in recent years been made to find optimal strategies for planning and control of storage system. In order to achieve a higher production it requires the capacity utilization to be improved. By planning its capacity, companies can reduce capacity constraints, so-called bottlenecks, which is the key to improving the production’s capacity utilization. Purpose: The aim of this study is to describe Staples current capacity utilization in the filling and picking process. Furthermore, the study aim to identify capacity constraints in these processes. Then, the study intends to find the causes of these capacity constraints and how they can be improved. Method: There have been unstructured interviews, semi-structured interviews, participant observation and collection of quantitative data. Initially there was a process mapping in purpose of a tool for the remaining study. Further calculations were performed to find bottlenecks in the production and interviews to identify disturbances in the bottlenecks. Finally, a number of suggestions for improvement where presented. Conclusions: Calculations revealed that Staples is currently not using their capacity to the maximum, altough this is not a level considered reasonable. It appeared that the company has a capacity shortfall when there was a difference between the nominal capacity and gross capacity. It was concluded that the following three activities constituted bottlenecks in Staples; receiving, picking ZtZ (picking of particularly heavy and bulky items) and picking PTS (detail picking). Within these bottlenecks, there was a number of disturbances found that largely had their basis in the teoratical areas Stevenson (2009), Slack et al. (2012) and Bergman and Klefsjö (2012) terms as facility and technology and method. Furthermore, it was established a difficulty in providingvshort-term improvement suggestions to these disturbances. This’s because of the study's time frame and that it reach subjects outside the scope of the study. However, three scenarios are presented to find a favorable allocation of capacity between PTS and ZTZ. These scenarios are based on three time intervals for how production is running and two picking speeds. Based on that the PTS holds a higher proportion of active working hours and a faster pick-speed scenario 3 is the most beneficial because it requires that ZTZ is least active.

This dissertation consists of three essays on topics in macroeconomics. In the first chapter, I construct a macroeconomic model with a heterogeneous banking sector and an interbank lending market. Banks differ in their ability to transform deposits from households into loans to firms. Bank size differences emerge endogenously in the model, and in steady state, the induced bank size distribution matches two stylized facts in the data: bigger banks borrow more on the interbank lending market than smaller banks, and bigger banks are more leveraged than smaller banks. I use the model to evaluate the impact of increasing concentration in US banking on the severity of potential downturns. I find that if the banking sector in 2007 was only as concentrated as it was in 1992, GDP during the Great Recession would have declined by 40% less it did, and would have recovered twice as fast. In the second chapter, my co-author and I investigate the impact of firm capacity constraints on aggregate production and productivity when the economy is driven by aggregate and idiosyncratic demand shocks. We are motivated by three observed regularities in US GDP: business cycles are asymmetric, in that large absolute changes in output are more likely to be negative than positive; capacity and capital utilization are procyclical, and increase the procyclicality of measured productivity; the dispersion of firm productivity increases in recessions. We devise a model of demand shocks and endogenous capacity constraints that is qualitatively consistent with these observations. We then calibrate the model to aggregate utilization data using standard Bayesian techniques. Quantitatively, we find that the calibrated model also exhibits significant asymmetry in output, on the order of the regularities observed in GDP. The third chapter explores the role of distance in equilibrium selection. I consider a model economy with multiple steady state equilibria where a high productivity and a low productivity technology are available for use in production. The high productivity technology requires a fixed set up cost for production. Sectors are linked by localized production complementarities. I consider selection under a learning rule in which agents imitate their most successful neighbor. As distance between neighbors decreases, the possible profits from industrialization increase, and the likelihood that the learning rule process converges to a steady state matching the H equilibrium increases. The result suggests that, in the presence of localized technology spillovers, there may be important gains to economic growth from infrastructure development. / text

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Economics / Steven P. Cassou / This dissertation consists of three essays in asymmetric empirical macroeconomics. Making macroeconomic policies has become increasingly difficult because of intricate relationships among macroeconomic variables. In this dissertation, we apply state-of-the-art macroeconometric techniques to investigate asymmetric relationships between key macroeconomic aggregates. Our findings have important macroeconomic policy implications. An analogue to the Phillips curve shows a positive relationship between inflation and capacity utilization. Some recent empirical work has shown that this relationship has broken down when using data after the mid-1980s and several popular explanations for this changing relationship, including advancements in technology and globalization, were put forward as possible explanations. In the first essay, we empirically investigate this issue using several threshold error correction models. We find, in the long run, a 1% increase in the rate of inflation leads to approximately a 0.0046% increase in capacity utilization. The asymmetric error correction structure shows that changes in capacity utilization show significant corrective measures only during booms while changes in inflation correct during both phases of the business cycle with the corrections being stronger during recessions. We also find that, in the short run, changes in the inflation rate do Granger cause capacity utilization while changes in capacity utilization do not Granger cause inflation. The Granger causality from inflation to capacity utilization can be interpreted as supporting recent calls made in the popular press by some economists that it may be desirable for the Federal Reserve Bank to try to induce some inflation in an effort to stimulate the economy. In the second essay, we examine the role of consumer confidence on economic activities like households’ consumption in good and bad economic times. We consider the “news” versus “animal spirit” approach interpretation of consumer confidence. In the wake of the Great Recession of 2008-09, many have called for confidence-boosting policies to help speed up the recovery. A recent study has reinforced these policy calls by showing that the Michigan Consumer Confidence Index contains important information about “news” on future productivity that has long-lasting effects on economic activities like aggregate consumption. Using US data, we show this conclusion is more nuanced when considering an economy that has different potential states. We investigate regime-switching models which use the National Bureau of Economic Research US business cycle expansion and contraction data to create an indicator series that distinguishes bad and good economic times and use this series to investigate impulse responses and variance decompositions. We show the connection between consumer confidence to some types of consumer purchases is important during good economic times but is relatively unimportant during bad economic times. We also use this type of model to investigate the connection between news and consumer confidence and this connection is also shown to be state dependent. In the context of the animal spirits versus news debate, our findings show that during economic expansions, consumer confidence shocks likely reflect news, while during economic contractions, consumer confidence shocks are consistent with animal spirits. These findings also have important implications for recent policy debates which consider whether confidence boosting policies, like raising inflation expectations on big-ticket items such as automobiles or business equipment, would lead to a faster recovery. The third essay investigates expectation shocks and their effect on the economy. For instance, this essay investigates whether the economy responds to expectation shocks in an importantly asymmetric way. A growing literature shows that agents' expectation about the future can lead to boom-bust cycles. These studies so far ignore the transmission effects of expectations on current economic activities across the policy regimes. Using the Survey of Professional Forecasters and Livingstone Survey data, this study empirically investigates the effects of expectation shocks on macroeconomic activities when policy regimes shift. Identifying a structural shock to expectations by using the timing of information in the forecast surveys and actual data releases, we show that the effects of agents' expectations about the future on current macroeconomic activities are asymmetric across the policy regimes. In particular, we find that a perception of good times ahead typically leads to a significant rise in current measures of economic activity in a hawkish regime relative to a dovish regime. We also find that monetary policy's reactions to agents' expectations are asymmetric across the policy regimes. Our findings do not support the views of critics of the central banks, who argued that keeping monetary policy too easy for too long is responsible for fueling the booms. Instead, our findings support the traditional view that a positive (negative) expectation about the future coincides with an anticipatory tightening (easing) of monetary policy.

The thesis paies logistics and this firstly from aspects production of the process in theoretic introduction. In the next part of thesis interprets technology projection, capacity calculations and planning. The theory is ending characterization monitored company. The practical part work forms analysis input data prejudicing calculations capacity utilization company and characterization project calculation. The capacitive calculations utilization company for traced period are enclosed at the close this thesis.

This paper focuses on the major decision variables and appertaining decision makers in the selection of long term health care facilites. The literatures identifies principal decision makers as physicians and females between the ages of 45 and 65, and that the decision making process is usually rushed, haphazard, and guilt-ridden. The results of the study cite five decision factors perceived as most important by physicians and females age 45 to 65. The study concludes by comparing these results and recommending a more aggressive marketing communeiations effort by long term health care facilities.

Better utilization of the airport system capacities can significantly decrease delays, as well as number of cancelled flights. An efficient Air Traffic Control system equipped with advanced technology installations in the terminal area can help reduce flight delays and cancellations. The same technology could also help reduce accidents in the terminal area, thereby increasing the safety of the system. Due to the expense of fielding advanced technology in the terminal area, it is important to conduct realistic cost-benefit analysis to predict the life-cycle cost of the system. A computer simulation and optimization model to estimate the costs and benefits of fielding advanced technologies at airport terminal areas is introduced in this paper. The model developed is called the Cost-Benefit Analysis Terminal Investment Model (COTIM). This model considers costs and benefits to both service providers (Federal Aviation Administration and airport authorities) and users (Airlines). The model combines a simulation-optimization based approach to predict benefits and costs accrued in one day or throughout the life-cycle of the facility. We present an example to demonstrate the functionality of the model using Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) equipped with the Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS). The Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS) is a relatively new technology that forecasts convective weather movements thus allowing Air Traffic Control (ATC) personnel to re-direct flights inside the terminal area efficiently. COTIM estimates flight delays and cancellations at an airport, when the airport is equipped with advanced technologies such as ITWS. The model performs cost-benefit analysis by comparing a baseline scenario without terminal area technologies against a scenario with technology. The difference between the two scenarios help decision makers justify whether technology investments are warranted of not. / Master of Science