Abstract This thesis, from the case-study point of view, demonstrates Hotai Motor¡¦s business reformation in its half-century history, including issues such as visions, business philosophy, values, missions, strategies and performance management. Hotai, the automobile company greeted its fiftieth anniversary in 1997, extends its business to a wide range, selling vehicles like Toyota¡BHINO¡BLexus¡Bconstruction motors and fire engines¡BMobil lubricants and vehicle maintenance services, and hiring 1,000 employees, or 10,000 if includes the upper- and down- stream businesses. After running the corporation for half a century, the management team was thinking of a new business value and reengineering for the upcoming decades. Hotai¡¦s ups and downs were bound tightly with government policies. Established in the 1940¡¦s, it has gone through the import control in 1950¡¦s, the CTOC import control policy in the late 1060¡¦s, the overall ban of Japanese vehicles in the 1970¡¦s, the Hwa-ton Motors investment in the 1980¡¦s, and finally took over Hwa-ton and transformed it to Kuozui Motors. Producing heavy vehicle at first, the company added home sedans to its product list in 1985, and has been going forward steadily ever since. This thesis will focus on how this company redefines itself to find the strength to re-start. Promoting the core value of service ¢w ¡§give more than expected¡¨, and strategies reaching multiple dimensions such as business models, products, services, recruiting, branching policy and hidden risks, ensures the strength to the business structure. Process reengineering was a popular issue and was introduces to major corporations in the 90¡¦s; unfortunately, 70% of them failed. Experts found that besides the neglect of the feasibility of business models and strategies, the major key of the failure was the deficiency of communication during reforming. In the Hotai case, communication has never stopped happening inside the whole organization, from top through bottom, from visions to strategies, which makes an excellent example for corporation reformation and change management. Keywords: Hotai Motor, Re-start, Transformation, Reengineering, Change Management.

Yes / Waxy crude oils are pumped hot but upon power cut, pumping stops, the oil cools leading below the wax appearance temperature to precipitation of the wax and the formation of a gel throughout the pipe. In such a situation, what is the minimum pressure required to restart flow, not to merely deform the gel or break it? This paper provides a solution to this problem using microscopic observations under controlled cooling conditions and rheological data conducted in constant stress mode under controlled temperature and cooling conditions and restart experiments in laboratory pipelines replicating the rheometric conditions and deviations from them to inform large diameter operation in the field. Three important findings derive from the experimental data collected: (i) A fragmentation stress , rather than the static stress that precedes it, is found to be the more accurate predictor of flow re-start pressures; (ii) Waxy crude oils gels exhibit true yield stress and yielding process but also show flow on application of the slightest stress below yielding; (iii) This flow, in the elastic region, is jagged rather than continuous suggesting a consolidation process of the crystals and their agglomerates forming the gel. In the broader context of the existence of a yield stress, the data presented here show that there is such a thing as a yield stress and the concepts of a yield stress and that everything flows are not mutually exclusive.