Along with more and more intense competition of OEM as well as ODM low margin strategy, Taiwanese' small appliance manufacturers have inevitably encountered the sharp profit decline and could no longer benefit from the original good earnings that derive from Vertical Integration Strategy commonly applied. In order to sustain the competitiveness and pursue higher returns, it's indispensable for those Taiwanese small appliance manufacturers to further consider moving towards value chains that generate better added-value such as R&D and marketing; R&D here includes innovation, patent and marketing consists of brand as well as channel. By fully adopting Vertical Integration Strategy in the preliminary, Airmate has fruitfully grown to a well profit-earning company and then moved towards design innovation as well as brand that were extremely stressed in Smile Curve Theory. Once again, Airmate has succeeded in the branding and considerably benefited from its brand equity. Based on China market's small appliance background, trend and affiliated with a liner regression analysis on home appliance manufacturers as well as channels, a research was conducted through in-depth interview and secondary data gathering to discuss how Airmate should further utilize channel to manifest its brand equity so that it could accordingly generate more profits as well as stabilize its cash flow. In summary, this very study has revealed and concluded a number of suggestions as followings. 1.New Product Development Strategy Owing to the inferiority of its product mix, Airmate has to further develop new product with eminent complexity and more varieties so that it could enhance its core competence as well as keep the new competitors from involving in the original competition. 2. Branding Strategy Airmate is highly suggested to keep investing in the branding as a way to better strengthen Airmate's high-end brand image. At the same time, a new branding project should be planned in order to extend Airmate's brand recognition to those secondary and thirdly cities as well as farmers market. It's not advised to additionally rebuild the middle or low end brands for thirdly cities or farmers market as it will muddle its brand positioning and diminish its high-end brand image. In light of brand theory, a product with higher added-value could correspondingly secure higher market price and generate better profit. Thus, since Airmate has been doing OEM as well as ODM for those celebrated appliance companies worldwide, it's extremely recommended that Airmate should appeal to media such as newspaper or magazine to publish articles to associate its brand with those high-end appliance companies. 3.The Channel Selection Strategy It's highly advised that Airmate should concentrate on primary and focused channels such as Home Appliance Chain Stores and Supermarket. A review and scheme should be conducted as a way to raise its brand exposure and at the same time increase the sales amount. 4.The Selection of Domestic or Foreign Channels Strategy With the advantages of advanced channel operations as well as management know-how and its large scale new stores opening plan, foreign channels have obviously surpassed the performance of channel efficiency and benefit than that of domestic channels. It's highly recommended that Airmate should actively build further close cooperation with foreign channels. 5.Channel Relationship Management A review on various channels and consumers' behaviors is suggested in order to better position the price and product separately to match up each channel. 6.The Measure to Cope With the Competition Resulted from WTO Innovation and setting up new appliance standard are key to sustain the core competence, Airmate is thus advised to focus on these two aspects.

The goal of this master's thesis is to design and implement a system for recognition of home appliances based on their power consumption characteristics. This system should identify the individual home appliances from measurements of the total household consumption. The acquired data could be used for statistics of usage of a particular appliance and subsequent detection of errors or non-standard behavior of the measured device. An important part of my work is a design and hardware implementation of a unit for measuring and a system for processing the measured signal. The first version of my project uses pulse output of an electrometer to measure the energy. This method does not provide a sufficient sample rate but it's a quick way to obtain data for processing and analysis. The second version monitors the power consumption with a multi-purpose AC converter which measures active and reactive power with the desired sample rate. The data is then processed and recognized by two classifiers - HMM and KNN.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:51:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 3398.pdf: 1524050 bytes, checksum: 3dc5bfaca6c1fc417d237928bd0b64f9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-08-27 / The competitive environment of the XXI century subjects corporations to some major challenges. The complexity of relationships as more and more multinational companies merge and interaction between companies increases, has opened up the way for organizations to recognize the strategic role played by the production area. The management of these relationships is appearing more and more frequently on meeting agendas of high level leadership of organizations. In terms of this, the objective of this research is to analyze the influence between links, central company and suppliers, who belong to a cross-section of the supply chain of white goods, based on the theories of production strategy and the supply chain management. The field research was conducted as a qualitative exploratory survey, by means of three case studies in three companies, these being a factory of white goods (central company) and two tier one suppliers. The main method used to obtain the information was actually visiting the companies and conducting interviews with their managers. The main conclusion from this study is that there is a strong connection (influence) of competitive strategy and production strategy of the central company on the strategies and structural and infrastructural decisions of the analyzed suppliers, being that this influence is becoming more powerful through the buying power of the central company and through threats from new competitors, mainly Asian suppliers. / O ambiente competitivo do século XXI impõe grandes desafios para as corporações. A complexidade das relações intrafirma e interfirmas, com a intensificação de fusões de empresas multinacionais, como ocorre com as montadoras de linha branca no período pós década de 90, abriu caminho para as organizações reconhecerem o papel estratégico da função Produção. Além do aumento da abrangência das relações entre empresas nas cadeias de suprimentos, que também potencializa o valor estratégico da Produção. A gestão destas relações está cada vez mais na pauta das discussões da alta liderança das organizações, visando identificar oportunidades que possibilitem o desenvolvimento de novas vantagens competitivas e de maior captura de valor pela cadeia. Neste contexto o objetivo desta dissertação é analisar a influência entre elos, montadora e fornecedores, pertencentes a um recorte da cadeia de suprimentos de linha branca, com base nas teorias da Estratégia de Produção e da Gestão da Cadeia de Suprimentos. O enfoque deste estudo está na estratégia de produção e suas implicações nas áreas de decisão estruturais e infraestruturais, mediante influências exercidas entre elos, montadora e fornecedores, da cadeia de suprimentos. A pesquisa de campo foi conduzida como uma pesquisa qualitativa exploratória, por meio de três estudos de caso em empresas da cadeia de linha branca, sendo uma montadora e dois fornecedores de primeira camada, em que o principal meio utilizado para obtenção de informações foi a realização de visitas às empresas e entrevistas com seus gestores. A principal constatação deste estudo é que existe forte influência da estratégia competitiva e da estratégia de produção da empresa central (montadora) sobre as estratégias e decisões estruturais e infraestruturais dos fornecedores analisados, sendo esta influência potencializada pelo poder de compra da montadora e pelas ameaças de novos concorrentes, principalmente fornecedores asiáticos.

Mechatronics is a rapidly growing field that combines elements of mechanical, electrical, and software engineering to design and develop intelligent systems. One area where mechatronics still has the potential to have a significant impact is personal appliances and aids for people with disabilities, which this report aims to explore. This bachelor thesis focuses on the design and development of a mechatronic lid opener. The main objective of this project is to explore the feasibility of creating a functional prototype that can automatically open jar lids with minimal user intervention. A secondary objective is to explore the market potential for such a product. In order to achieve the main objective, a prototype was designed, constructed, and tested. Further, a brief supplementing market analysis was conducted. The result showed that the construction was durable enough to withstand the pressure it put on the jar, and the function of the planetary gearing works as intended. Although, from the tests, it is concluded that the prototype’s functionality is not developed enough to reach the goal. This is derived from the limitations of construction on the gripping arms and lack of inertia leading to premature rotation. The result also showed that the market for automated or motorized home appliances is small, with identified target groups generally having low purchasing power. Low effort is recognized to achieve what this project aimed to do, which is why future studies from this project are of high interest. / Mekatronik är ett snabbt växande område som kombinerar element av mekanik, elektronik och mjukvaruteknik för att designa och utveckla intelligenta system. Ett område där mekatronik fortfarande har potential att ha en betydande inverkan är personliga applikationer och hjälpmedel förpersoner med funktionsvariation, som denna rapport syftar till att utforska. Denna kandidatuppsats fokuserar på design och utveckling av en mekatronisk burköppnare. Huvudsyftet med detta projekt är att utforska möjligheten att skapa en funktionell prototyp som automatiskt kan öppna burklock med minimalt krav på inverkar från användaren. Ett sekundärt mål är att utforska marknadspotentialen för en sådan produkt. För att uppnå detta huvudsyfte designades, konstruerades och testades en prototyp. Vidare genomfördes en kort kompletterande marknadsanalys. Resultatet visade att konstruktionen var tillräckligt tålig för att klara trycket den satte på burken och planetväxelns funktion fungerar som planerat. Däremot dras slutsaten utifrån testerna att prototypens funktionalitet inte är tillräckligt utvecklad för att nå målet. Detta härrör från begränsningarna av konstruktionen av griparmarna och bristen på tröghet som leder till för tidig rotation. Resultatet visade också att marknaden för automatiserade eller motoriserade hushållsapparater är liten, där identifierade målgrupper generellt har låg köpkraft. Liten ansträngning anses nödvändigt för att uppnå vad detta projekt syftade till, varför framtida studier från detta projekt är av stort intresse.

Predkladaná diplomová práca sa zaoberá kritickou analýzou súčasnej situácie firmy Gorenje Slovakia, ktorá na slovenskom trhu predáva domáce spotrebiče. Analýza externého prostredia odhaľuje možné príležitosti a hrozby na trhu. Na druhej strane, analýza interného prostredia prisieva k určeniu si silných a slabých stránok, a taktiež finančného zdravia spoločnosti. Výsledky analýz sú zosumarizované v SWOT analýze. V poslednom rade sú navrhnuté odporúčania a návrhy pre zlepšenie súčasnej situácie spoločnosti.

El presente trabajo tiene como finalidad identificar las variables imagen de marca, calidad percibida del producto, el boca a boca electrónico y el país de origen en relación a la intención de compra en la categoría de electrodomésticos. Por lo cual, se tomará en cuenta diferentes papers relacionados con las variables en mención para poder analizarlos y encontrar diferentes relaciones entre ellas. Asimismo, se plantean diferentes hipótesis que ayudarán a seguir enriqueciendo la investigación cómo también se podrá conocer si estas cumplen con los objetivos planteados. / The present document aims to identify the variables brand image, perceived product quality, electronic word of mouth and country of origin in relation to purchase intention in the home appliances category. Therefore, different papers related to the mentioned variables will be taken into account in order to analyze them and find different relationships between them. In addition, different hypotheses are proposed that will help to continue enriching the research and to find out if they meet the objectives set out. / Trabajo de investigación