In this study, we apply "the equilibrium price" to investigate the efficiency and the elasticity of Taiwan securities trading market. The "the equilibrium price" of each transaction are used to represent the true price of the security. The intra-daily tick-by-tick data of the Taiwan security market is used to obtain the equilibrium prices. Empirical transaction of the two companies Uni-President Enterprises Corporation and Formosa Plastics Corporation are studied. Time-series models of the equilibrium price and the transaction price are established. The time lengths returning to the equilibrium status are also studied, called the efficiency time. Based on the results, we discuss the efficiency of the two stocks. In order to understand the impact of the efficiency time, linear regression models of the efficiency time are built. Furthermore, the variance ratios of the two stocks are also investigated to study their market efficiency. Finally, the elasticity of demand and the elasticity of supply are studied and their Markov chain models are established. The results show that the two companies stay more time in the inelastic states.

Abstract In this globalized era, most industries will not be able to survive by simply optimizing internal structures and infrastructures based upon business strategy. The most successful manufacturers seem to be those that have carefully linked their internal processes to external suppliers and customers in unique supply chains. Quality management represents company-wide activities to improve the quality level of products and works through customer orientation, continuous quality improvement, employees¡¦ involvement, etc. to establish and sustain a competitive advantage. From a perspective of competitive strategy, quality is often seen as a source of differentiation. Quality improvement is an important issue influencing long-term viability of any business enterprise, especially manufacturing companies producing physical goods. A number of researchers suggest that better performance can be achieved by consolidating customer and supplier bases, removing unnecessary steps in the chain, speeding up information and material flows, and creating long-term partnerships with major customers and suppliers to leverage the capabilities of several companies in the chain. Recent years have seen growth in the importance of integration suppliers, manufacturers and customers. Effective integration of suppliers into supply chains serves as a key factor for some companies to gain competitive advantage. Supply chain integration refers to a formation of network encompassing elements of supply chain, which are the suppliers, customers and the company. This paper presents results of an empirical study on effect of quality management practices upon supply chain integration in Aerospace Industry manufacturing companies. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and regression analysis were conducted to test hypothesizes. This paper used six scales to measure different aspects of quality management including top management leadership for quality , small group problem solving , processes management, supplier involvement, information and feedback and customer forcus upon supply chain integration. Regression results indicated two external factors including supplier involvement, customer forcus have significant impact on supply chain integration, also will increase company competitive performance if all resourses have been adopted properly. For those four internal factors,such as management leadership for quality , small group problem solving , processes management, information and feedback doesn¡¦t have significant impact on supply chain integration.

My research probes into the supply chain strategies and real conditions to develop a collaborative supply chain management model. And, based on the processes and strategies, the research investigates the applied model and architecture in the TFT-LCD industry supply chain. First of all, the research analyzes the real situations in the supply chain and finds out the information flow. Then, my research investigates the supply chain model to set up the supply chain development strategies and applied model. Finally, my research utilizes the expert interview method to evaluate the usability and feasibility of supply chain applied model. Keywords¡GSupply Chain Management, Vertical Division Industry, Competitive Advantage, Collaborative Supply Chain Management.

Semiconduct industry is facing the various supply chain uncertainty problems at present. MRP/ERP (Material Resource Planning/Enterprise Resource Planning) solution can¡¦t satidfy the requirement of production planning and scheduling for the enterprise. In this research¡Aon APS (Advanced Planning & Scheduling) system was proposed for an IC (Intergrated Circuit) substrate industry to replace manual planning process and to solve the resource constraint problems of production. Following topics was addressed :

The firm In this research is a trading company that has been exploiting and marketing hi-tech materials and equipments since it was founded in 1968. From 1980, the firm has been working on the globalization arrangement and the requirement to expand the company's operation scope. The overseas subsidiaries were established in south-eastern Asia, Hong Kong, and China. In today's growing complexity of global networks of supply chains and hypercompetitive business environments, firms are confronted with the need to manage supply chain activities across functions and between firms. Yet the overseas subsidiaries might not certainly get enough resources and support from their headquarter to conquer the challenges, even though they usually face tough competition and greater customer scale especially in China. The profit center system is the major reason that obstructs the cooperation between the headquarter and the overseas subsidiaries. Some employees of the headquarter just care their own business region, instead of assisting overseas subsidiaries to grow up together, and developing the strategies of the whole business group for the future. The findings show that a firm¡¦s cross-functional orientation (CFO) has positive effect on supply chain management (SCM) performance with empirical evidence. The conclusions are as below¡G 1. The cross-functional orientation (CFO) has remarkably positive effect on customer satisfaction. And the stronger factors that encourage CFO to enhance customer satisfaction are operation linkage and technology integration. 2. The cross-functional orientation (CFO) affects remarkably and positively on supply chain management (SCM) responsiveness. And operation linkage, participative management, and technology integration are stronger factors that encourage CFO to enhance supply chain responsiveness. 3. The supply chain management (SCM) responsiveness has remarkably positive effect on customer satisfaction. 4. The customer satisfaction of the headquarter and overseas subsidiaries influences each other.

This research is focus on the influence of cross-functional orientation on semiconductors¡¦ supply chain performance. In today¡¦s growing complexity of global network, more and more merge and acquisitions are happening in all kinds of industries. Semiconductors Industry is selected because of it¡¦s large investment on capacity expansion. Today the manufacturing service is getting mature, all IDM companies tend to asset-light policies to focus on their core business only. Intra-organization and inter-organizations cooperation is becoming important. This study is to find out whether the cross-functional activities can bring customer satisfaction and supply chain responsiveness through empirical research. The findings show that the supply chain¡¦s cross-functional orientation has some positive effect on supply chain performance with empirical evidence. The conclusions are: 1. The cross-functional orientation has some positive effect on customer satisfaction on its construct of ¡§Participative Management Model¡¨ and ¡§Technology Integration¡¨. 2. The cross-functional orientation has some positive effect on supply chain responsiveness on its construct of ¡§Participative Management Model¡¨, ¡§Information Exchange¡¨ and ¡§Technology Integration¡¨. 3. Customer Satisfaction and Supply Chain Responsiveness has remarkably positive effect to each other.

The relationships between supply chain management and its corresponding¡@variables are the focus in this research. Furthermore, this study tries to explore the¡@interaction between supply chain management and those corresponding variables on¡@both the effectiveness of supply chain and whole organization. The main variables¡@employed at this study include, supply chain strategy, supply chain ability, competitive strategy, and product diversification. Through mail to collect data, the companies with related diversification are the goals to deliver questionnaires. The results that the more a company emphasizes competitive strategies than his competitors, the better his operating performance is. However, supply chain strategy, supply chain ability, and the degree of product diversification do not have significant effect on a company¡¦s operating performance.

<p>The reverse part of the supply chain becomes more and more important due to the legislation, environmental concerns, higher volumes of returns, etc. As a result, companies cannot see the reverse supply chain as the additional costs only and have to think strategically. The right strategy for the reverse supply chain can help to achieve the competitive advantage. However, there are not so many researches made about strategies for the reverse supply chain yet, contrarily to the forward supply chain. Therefore, the need to adopt strategies for the reverse supply chain appears.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the applicability of the Lean and the Agile concepts in the Reverse Supply Chain strategy, and to investigate the driving forces and challenges for the implementation of the strategy in the Reverse Supply Chain.</p><p>The inductive research approach was applied in this thesis<em>.</em> The qualitative study was the most suitable for the better understanding of the point of view, the attitudes, the perceptions of the interviewed participants regarding a wide range of issues related to the choice, and the implementation of the strategy for the reverse supply chain. Multiple case studies as the research strategy was chosen, thus data was collected from 13 interviews conducted at four companies: Fläkt Woods, Systemair, Swegon and Rettig ICC.</p><p>The main conclusions from the analysis of the applicability of the lean and the agile concepts in the reverse supply chain are that the design of the reverse supply chain depends on the characteristics of the returns: the size, the volume, the life cycle, the B2B or the B2C returns; as well the reasons for the returns: the guarantee service/ after warranty service. When weighting the results about the lean and the agile concepts implementation in the reverse supply chain, it appears relatively more likely that none of the companies implement either only the lean or only the agile approach. Due to various reasons, there are different material flows and they require different strategic approaches. The agility is implemented close to the customer in order to ensure speed and high responsiveness. Lean flows are implemented from the manufacturer to the supplier or the third party (recycler, etc.). Even more, the companies seek to find the optimal combination of both strategies, or as it called – leagile. Two different approaches for leagile concept’s implementation are used: preponement and de-coupling point. Driving forces for the strategy implementation are green forces, increasing the demand for improving customer service level, cost reduction, and the new retail marketing strategies. Main challenges for the strategy implementation are the lack of formal operating procedures, the lack of information sharing with the suppliers, ‘false alarm’ returns, the lack of local competence, and the lack of forecasting possibilities.</p>

<p>Energy supply security is a hot topic today. It highly influences energy market, national security and also residents’ daily lives. However, due to different aims and study strategies, definitions of energy supply security are different. In this report, it is defined as stable energy supply processes that result from good infrastructure, delivery of energy sources, carriers and services, which are sturdily controlled by effective energy policies. Prices of energy supply system</p><p>are also maintained on a reasonable level over a continuous period thanks to the efficient crises assessment and management.</p><p>In order to make a comprehensive research, energy situation has been deeply investigated on worldwide, EU and Swedish levels, respectively. Results from these investments obviously certify that due to the big amount of populations, there are significant imbalances between energy supply and demands in developing countries. To make things better, these imbalances don’t exist in developed world, like EU Members including Sweden because of applications of advanced technologies and wide utilizations of renewable energy carriers. Oppositely, greenhouse gases emission is a severe problem in the world, which gives rise to temperature increasing year by year! Besides the global warming, some other factors also bring about uncertainties to energy supply security, so that efficient policies are necessary in order improve the recent</p><p>situations and to create a secure atmosphere for energy supply, such as</p><p>Directive 98/30/EC for natural gas supply security, Directive 2003/55/EC for integration and compatibility of the energy regulation and Directive 2003/54/EC, the first policy that regulates EU electricity market as well as IEM Directive, which is the improvement of Directive 2003/54/EC, etc.</p><p>Although several policies aiming at creation of competitive energy markets and achieving energy supply security, vulnerabilities still exist in EU energy supply system, such as limited primary energy sources and high dependence on nuclear powers, energy network capacity inadequacy, high voltage electricity transmission, etc. Concerning Swedish energy supply system, extreme low temperatures in winter, drilling technologies and high economic budgets for heat sources from underground, hurricanes, thunderstorms to wind turbines and man-made disruptions are all potential vulnerabilities. Regarding these negative aspects, recommendations are given on four different levels, which are global, EU, Swedish and individual perspectives. Specific suggestions to achieve energy supply security include independence of different energy supplies, to enhance international cooperation, periodic assessments and inspections for energy facilities, population control, to keep original energy policies updated, to enhance abilities to resist abnormal weather conditions, to develop heat pump technologies and try to use energy in efficient ways, etc.</p>

Wiss. Hochsch. für Unternehmensführung, Diss.--Vallendar, 2006.