An investigation of the product life cycle concept as an instrument in marketing decision-making for selected small organisations in South Africa. The product life cycle concept is currently a dominant component of marketing theory. There is however much criticism on and doubt about the applicability of the product life cycle concept as a marketing decision-making instrument. No evidence exists of the efficacy of the product life cycle concept as an instrument to develop marketing strategy. The purpose of the study was to test the underlying theory of the product life cycle concept with the primary objective of establishing what the use and practical value of the product life cycle concept is in making marketing decisions in small manufacturing and dealer organisations. The main focus was to test the ability of marketing decision-makers in small manufacturing and dealer organisations to associate their application and use of the product life cycle concept with Kotler's assumptions on the identified marketing characteristics, described marketing objectives and proposed marketing strategies. A major finding was that small organisations tended to display a marketing knowledge level that was not in total unison with the existing marketing theory. Another important conclusion of the study was that the current product life cycle concept theory needs to be broadened to include strategies on the expanded marketing mix (people, processes and physical evidence). Apart from the different use and application by marketing decision-makers in small organisations in South Africa the product life cycle concept theory has potential as a strategic tool and a high likelihood for its future use as a marketing decision-making instrument. / Dissertation (DCom)--University of Pretoria, 2003. / Marketing Management / DCom / Unrestricted

Products make substantial impact on environment. Design for Environment (DfE) is an approach to design where all the environmental impacts of a product are considered over entire products life. Since over 80% of the product costs are committed during the early stages, design can play a central role in reducing this environmental overloading by product. However, unlike cost and performance, use of environmental criteria and DfE is far from part of mainstream designing. Individual guidelines often exist for DfE but these are not integrated with design tools. There is a need for capture of the rationale in design process as a know how backup for later use. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is currently the most promising and scientifically proven technique for estimating environmental impacts of a product during its lifecycle. Current LCA tools are not well integrated with design process and CAD tools. Consequently, there is a need for an LCA tool integrated into the natural design process that can be applied to early as well as detailed design stages. Detailed LCA is critically dependent on high volumes of product specific data, time consuming, often unaffordable and used after the detailed stages of design. Current approximate LCA methods are either incomplete, inaccurate or require prior knowledge of what data is important There is substantial uncertainty involved in the environmental impact calculations in LC. While Literature discusses uncertainty of impact data, there is no discussion on how to calculate and represent the total uncertainty in the potential impact of a product proposal at any given stage in design with respect to LCA. There is a need for a method that can aid in decision making by supporting quantitative comparison of available alternatives to identify the best alternative, under uncertain information about alternatives. Often the likely performance, cost or environmental impacts of a product proposal could be estimated only with certain confidence, which may vary from one proposal to another. The overall objective of this thesis is to “Develop a support to the designers using which they can develop environmentally friendly product lifecycles in much the same way as they currently design products, at all stages of their design, while reusing information from their past design activities”. For this the specific objectives are to: 1.Understand how designers currently design products and what they need for developing environmentally friendly product design. 2.Develop a holistic framework for both generation and evaluation of environmentally friendly life cycle proposals. 3. Capture rationale as part of the design process. 4. Estimate uncertainty in the environmental impact assessment during design. 5. Evaluate product lifecycle proposals with multiple criteria under uncertainty. 6. Integrate design process with environmental impact assessment. 7. Apply environmental impact assessment through the design process. From the descriptive studies we found that there is substantial difference in the environmental impact among products having the same functionality generated during the same design process. Analysis of industrial products available in the market show similar results. This means that design can substantially affect the impact created by a product. In our studies, designers did not consider environmental impact as a criterion in evaluation and we also identified the typical activities performed by designers during An Interactive Support for Developing Environmentally Friendly Product Lifecycles designing that must be allowed, supported or taken into account while developing a support for environmentally friendly product lifecycle design (EFPLD). The requirements of the designer for support are: tools should be proactive, easy to learn, understand and use, allow understanding of design rationale, act as a checklist, reduce total time, store knowledge and experience as know‐how backup, useful in all stages of design, not require too much extra effort for analysis, integrated to CAD, aid in trade off between choices, show uncertainty analysis, aid in analysis & improvement, and consider all lifecycle phases. A holistic framework, ACLODS (is a acronym of the six dimensions) constituting the following six dimensions: a) Activities, b) Criteria, c) Lifecycle phases, d) Outcomes, e) Design stages, and f) Product Structure was proposed for development of environmentally friendly product lifecycle designs. Through descriptive studies we found mainly 4 categories and associated sub categories of uncertainty in information with respect to LCA in design. The four categories are uncertainty in product structure, lifecycle phases, data quality, and methodological choices. The sub categories are assemblies, sub- assemblies, parts, relations, and features in product structure, material, production, distribution, usage, and after‐usage in lifecycle phases, temporal relevance, spatial relevance and sample size in data quality, and temporal relevance, spatial relevance, and comprehensiveness in methodological choices. At any point of time, uncertainty in information available is an accrual of the combination of the individual uncertainties. A method called confidence weighted objectives method is developed to compare the whole lifecycle of product proposals using multiple evaluation criteria under various levels of uncertainty. It is compared with normal weighted objectives method and found to be better since it estimates the overall worth of proposal nd confidence on the estimate, enabling deferment of decision making when decisions cannot be made using current information available. A new integrated platform IDEA‐SUSTAIN is developed in this thesis for supporting synthesis in product development on a commercial CAD workspace, while also aiding automated capture and storage of the rationale behind the decisions for retrieval whenever required during design. It is extended to support life cycle assessment of product proposals created by automatically extracting the information already stored while designing and ask for other information required to model the lifecycle without much extra effort from the designer. Then it uses the method for uncertainty reasoning developed also as a part of this research to estimate the level of confidence on the impact value owing to the incompleteness in knowledge available. The estimation is possible at part, assembly or product levels, for a single lifecycle phase or multiple phases. Using in‐house design exercises and feedback questionnaire evaluation of support is done. The usage of Idea‐Sustain has been found to be the best for both generation and evaluation of product proposals. The two computer aided tools – software (LCA) and Idea-Sustain-are compared with each other for fulfilling the functional requirements by analysing the feedbacks given by the designers on these tools against these requirements. Idea‐Sustain fulfilled well most of the requirements while the software (LCA) fulfilled only some of the needs, that too less effectively.

La sûreté de fonctionnement (SdF) des produits, processus et services est une préoccupation permanente de tous les acteurs industriels. C'est le cas notamment dans le secteur automobile à l'exemple des équipementiers confrontés à des clients de plus en plus exigeants en matière de sûreté de fonctionnement. Jusqu'alors uniquement intéressé par les résultats, le client requiert aujourd'hui, dès les négociations couplées à l'appel d'offre (AO), une information précise sur la démarche même que le fournisseur prévoit de mettre en place pour satisfaire aux exigences SdF. Conscients de ces nouveaux besoins, nous nous sommes intéressés à la problématique d'identification de la "dimension SdF" du produit au stade de l'AO et à l'évaluation de l'impact économique de son intégration sur le développement futur du produit. Les conséquences de la prise en compte de la SdF sont doubles puisqu'elles concernent à la fois le produit qui voit sa robustesse optimisée mais aussi la démarche d'analyse permettant de dimensionner les solutions appropriées. Dans l'objectif de répondre à la problématique, nous avons proposé une organisation du processus de réponse à appel d'offre en différentes étapes instrumentées allant de l'identification des éléments relatifs à la SdF dans les documents clients fournis pour l'AO à la définition et à l'évaluation de l'impact SdF. / Products Dependability, process and services is a major and permanent topic for industrial actors and especially in automotive industry, where products suppliers are faced to customers more and more aware about dependability. Until now, Customers was only interested about results, they request today, in bid process timeframe, informations about processes put in place in order to reach dependability objectives. Taking these new requirements into accounts, we have focused our work on dependability identification during bid process and the evaluation its cost impact on development. Taking dependability into account allow to increase product robustness but also to make better design choice in term of dependability. Thus, in order to reach this objective, we propose a step by step process for bid phases from dependability topics identification to cost impact.

This Diploma thesis is focused on the assessment of environmental load of a bottle crown cork. The theoretical part describes the current global environmental problems and a chosen environmental legislation, which may also apply to engineering companies. In thesis is included the description of a various methodologies for assessing the environmental load, from which was a method LCA (product life cycle assessment) for solving the problem chosen. The thesis describes the crown cork and its production. In practical part is made the environmental load evaluation of this product. Three variants of the crown cork are selected, whose life cycles are simulated and analysed. The results of the variants are afterwards compared.

Bakgrund och problem: Läkemedelsbranschen är en bransch som präglas av såväl höga framtagningskostnader som en påtagligt lång utvecklingsfas av läkemedel. Branschen står vidare inför en rad krav och regleringar från myndigheter som bland annat ger upphov till ett komplext prissättningssystem. Tidigare forskning visar att kostnader ofta utgör en central del i prissättningen och att olika prissättningsstrategier bör användas över produktens livscykel. Studier visar även hur en produktportfölj bör sättas samman och hur prissättningen bör tas i beaktning. Gemensamt för dessa är dock att de inte har studerat företag som har höga kostnader för forskning och utveckling och som står inför en rad myndighetsregleringar samt hur det som studerats förhåller sig till strategi, vilket således motiverar denna studie. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att analysera vilka prissättningsstrategier forskande läkemedelsbolag använder vid prissättning av läkemedel utifrån ett strategiskt perspektiv där företagets produktportfölj och produkternas livscykel tas i beaktning. Studien ämnar att bidra med såväl praktisk som teoretisk kunskap genom att studiens resultat dels kan fungera som en modell som illustrerar hur interna och externa faktorer påverkar varandra och inverkar på strategiska val i läkemedelsbolags prissättningsprocess, dels genom att kunskapen om prissättning av läkemedel breddas. Metod: Studien är en kvalitativ intervjustudie som baseras på empiriskt material som insamlats genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med respondenter från sju läkemedelsföretag. Slutsats: Studien visar att det föreligger ett samband mellan läkemedelsföretags strategi, portföljval, prissättning och produktlivscykel. De genomgående största faktorerna bakom läkemedelsföretagens resonemang för vilket pris som sätts på läkemedel beror på läkemedelstypen, konkurrenssituationen på marknaden, läkemedlets kostnadseffektivitet och samhällets betalningsvilja. Vidare har det svenska systemet för prissättning av läkemedel en avgörande betydelse för både hur företagen resonerar och för vilka prissättningsstrategier som används. Vilken prissättningsstrategi som tillämpas beror på vilken typ av läkemedel som avses. För generiska läkemedel anammar företagen genomgående en konkurrensbaserad strategi medan för originalläkemedel dominerar en värdebaserad prissättning, med få inslag av en lönsamhetsdriven prissättningsstrategi. / Background and problem discussion: The pharmaceutical industry is an industry that is characterized by high costs for research and development as well as a significantly long development phase of pharmaceuticals. In addition, the industry is faced with a number of requirements and regulations from authorities which, among other things, give rise to a complex pricing system. Previous research shows that costs are often a central part of pricing and that different pricing strategies should be used over the product life cycle. Studies also show how a product portfolio should be created and how pricing should be taken into consideration. Common to these studies are that they have neither studied companies that have high costs for research and development as well as are facing a number of government regulations, nor how the studies relate to strategy, which motivates this study. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to analyze which pricing strategies that are used by companies in the research-based pharmaceutical industry from a strategic perspective where the company's product portfolio and the products' life cycle are taken into account. The study aims to contribute with both practical and theoretical knowledge by making the study's results partly as a model that illustrates how internal and external factors affect each other and have an influence on strategic choices in the pharmaceutical companies' pricing process, and partly by broadening the knowledge of pricing of pharmaceuticals. Methodology: The study is a qualitative interview study based on empirical material collected through semi-structured interviews with respondents from seven pharmaceutical companies. Conclusion: The study shows that there is a connection between the pharmaceutical companies' strategy, portfolio selection, pricing and product life cycle. The main factors that is concerned in the pharmaceutical companies' reasoning behind the determined price depends on whether it is a generic or original pharmaceutical, the competitive situation, the cost effectiveness of the pharmaceutical and the willingness of society to pay. Furthermore, the Swedish system for pricing pharmaceuticals has a crucial importance for both how the companies reason and for which pricing strategies that are used. Which pricing strategy that is applied depends on the type of pharmaceutical being concerned. For generic pharmaceuticals companies consistently embrace a competitive strategy while for original pharmaceuticals value-based pricing dominates, with few elements of a profit-driven pricing strategy.

PLM-Strategien stehen heute vor der Herausforderung, immer größere und vor allem auch immer komplexer vernetzte Informationen über Produkte nicht nur, wie im Rahmen von klassischen PDM-Lösungen üblich, weitgehend auf mechanische Komponenten beschränkt für die Produktentwicklung zu verwalten, sondern Lösungen für den gesamten Produktlebenszyklus bereitzustellen. Dabei müssen zum einen vielfältige mechatronische Komponenten (Mechanik, Elektrik, Elektronik und Software), große Komponentenzahlen, tiefe Strukturen, große Variantenvielfalt sowie z.B. auch servicebezogene Informationen abgebildet werden. Zum anderen sind diese Informationen im Kontext einer verteilten Nutzung (collaborative engineering) von der Anforderungsdefinition über die frühen Entwicklungsphasen (front loading) bis zur Wartungsunterstützung bereitzustellen.

Statistiken der letzten Jahre bestätigen eine permanente Veränderung des Produktentwicklungsprozesses. Diese Veränderungen resultieren aus veränderten Marktbedingungen sowie aus neuen Anforderungen an das Produkt aus Kundensicht. [...] Nach einem kurzen Überblick über aktuelle disziplinspezifische und interdisziplinäre Entwurfsansätze und -standards aus den Bereichen Mechanik, Elektronik, Software, Mechatronik und Systems Engineering werden die Forschungsarbeiten des Lehrstuhls für Virtuelle Produktentwicklung (VPE) der TU Kaiserslautern zum Thema interdisziplinäre Produktentwicklung vorgestellt, welche sich zu einem ganzheitlichen Ansatz zur Entwicklung cybertonischer Systeme integrieren lassen. [...aus der Einleitung]

Main goal of this thesis is to theoretically describe and analyze evaluation of economic efficiency of business plan. Business plan is reconstruction old farm building to 5 apartments. In variant of using govermant plan for supporting social house building. And compare efficiency while using datas from pre-investment phase and datas after realization.

Risk control, or risk management, is the process of making and executing management decisions that minimize the adverse impact of losses caused by accidental events on the enterprise. Risk management is an integrated part of total management. A concept of acceptable risk, which involves striving for risk reduction to a safe level, is at the core of all practical risk management measures. According to recent theoretical researches, one of the most objective fundamental factors when considering risks is enterprise and product life cycles. One of the well-known rational cycles of the development of social-economic enterprises is I.Adizes’s life cycle model consisting of 10 stages. The author’s intention to successfully manage an enterprise is that at the beginning it is necessary to determine at what stage of development the enterprise is located, and then develop management decisions. Moreover, it is possible to specify the most typical risks and draw up the guidance for risk impact reduction for each of ten stages depending on the type of the enterprise. The purpose of this work is to use I.Adizes’s enterprise life cycle model to assess and select ways for reduction of metallurgical enterprise operation risk. As a test of the approach proposed, recommendations for minimizing enterprise risk were developed for a typical enterprise, taking into account the life cycle of the iron and steel industry. / Управление риском, или риск-менеджмент – процесс принятия и выполнения управленческих решений, которые минимизируют неблагоприятное влияние на организацию убытков, вызванных случайными событиями. Риск-менеджмент – составная часть общего менеджмента. В основе всех практических мероприятий по управлению риском лежит концепция приемлемого риска, которая заключается в стремлении к снижению риска до безопасного уровня. Как указывают последние теоретические исследования, одним из максимально объективных базовых факторов при изучении рисков является жизненный цикл организации и жизненный цикл выпускаемой продукции. Одним из известных рациональных циклов развития социально-экономических организаций является модель жизненного цикла И.Адизеса, состоящая из десяти этапов. Установка автора на успешное управление организацией заключается в том, что вначале необходимо определить на каком этапе развития находится организация, а затем разрабатывать управленческие решения. Причём, каждому из десяти этапов, в зависимости от типа предприятия, можно указать наиболее характерные риски и наметить направления снижения влияния данных рисков. Целью данной работы является применение модели жизненного цикла организации И.Адизеса для оценки и выбора путей снижения риска работы металлургического предприятия. В качестве апробации предложенного подхода, для типичного предприятия разработаны рекомендации по минимизации риска предприятии с учётом этапа жизненного цикла чёрной металлургии.

No description available.