[pt] As constantes mudanças no mercado levaram a um redirecionamento do foco empresarial para o consumidor final. Assim, as formas tradicionais de distribuição que empurravam a produção para o mercado, passaram a ser substituídas por novas formas onde o abastecimento é puxado pela necessidade de mercado. Entre estas novas formas de distribuição apresenta-se o sistema Cross Docking. Nesta dissertação, esse sistema será apresentado, buscando compreender sua estrutura e seus objetivos. O Cross Docking opera transferindo a mercadoria diretamente da área de recebimento para a área de embarque, sem armazená-la, buscando com isso oferecer melhores serviços e manter a oferta constante de produtos. Além disso, a pesquisa tem como objetivo identificar as vantagens e desvantagens do seu uso e os obstáculos de implementação. Será realizada também uma pesquisa de campo, onde uma observação simples da realidade terá como base a Empresa Brasileira de Correios e Telégrafos - ECT. Esta análise se deve ao fato da ECT operar de acordo com a filosofia do sistema Cross Docking, ou seja, as encomendas urgentes fluem pelo centro de distribuição, sendo imediatamente transferidas para as docas de expedição, sem paradas. Dessa forma, a pesquisa busca realizar um diagnóstico da distribuição utilizando-se como referência a ECT. Para essa empresa são avaliados tanto o seu desempenho operacional como a execução dos seus serviços de encomendas expressas, com base nos dois índices de performance utilizados pela própria empresa: produtividade e qualidade (nível de serviço). / [en] The frequent changes in the market turned any company`s focus to the final consumer. So, the ordinary distribution techniques, which usually pushed the production to the market, has being replaced by new techniques, where the product supplies are pulled by the market needs. One of these new ways of distribution is the Cross Docking system. This master`s thesis will present this system, in order to understand its structure and its aims. The Cross Docking concept immediately transfers the merchandise received at the point of reception, to the point of delivery, with the minimum time in between. So, this system can offer better service levels and keep a constant supply of products. In addition, this research has the purpose of identifying the main advantages and disadvantages derived from the use of this system and the main obstacles for its implementation. It will also make a field research, which will have the Empresa Brasileira de Correios e Telégrafos - ECT - as a basis for a simple observation of the reality. That is because the ECT operates with the same philosophy of the Cross Docking system, in which orders do not stay inside the Distribution Center but are immediately transferred to the outbound docks. So, this research has the purpose of diagnosing the distribution system, using the express services of ECT as the field research case study and the performance indexes such as, productivity and service level.

Travel agents, traditionally the sector of the travel and tourism industry that has held a strong position of power by providing an important link in the distribution channel between principals and consumers, are now finding their business under threat. Rapid changes in consumer demand, information technology and business systems are impacting on travel agency viability around the world. Increasing distribution costs have seen travel principals aiming to reach their customers with distribution that is much more direct than in the past, cutting the travel agent out of the system, or at the very least, reducing agency commissions. Strategic alliances have also given suppliers - particularly airlines - marketing synergies, and again reduced their need to rely on agents to distribute their product. Further synergies have come from the use of diagonal integration, a process whereby firms use information technologies to logically combine services for best productivity and most profitability; for example, Internet booking plus electronic ticketing. In addition the motivations and consumer behaviour of travellers are changing. The &64;new tourists&64; want experiences, not just a vacation, are more likely to know what they want, to do their own pre-purchase research, and to have a stronger preference for tailor-made arrangements. This market is independent, and more likely to rely on the Internet as a source of tourism information than to rely on the services of a travel agent to plan their trip. This thesis analyses the changes in the travel and tourism distribution system that point towards the apparent disintermediation of travel agents, and makes recommendations for new marketing strategies for travel agents, so that they may retain their viability into the twenty-first century.

<p>Many believe that the current application of modern logistics solutions in general and centralisation of distribution systems in particular is damaging from an environmental perspective. The reason for this claim is that when a distribution system is centralised, products need to be shipped over greater distances. This causes an increase in transport work, which in turn is believed to cause an increase in emissions. Further, the decision to centralise distribution can be characterised as a structural decision and earlier research has helped illustrate how such decisions have greater impact on the overall performance of a distribution system than decisions taken at subsequent levels (tactical and operative). The reason for this is that structural decisions help create new opportunities to make other logistical decisions that are beneficial for the performance of a distribution system, as measured in terms of costs and service.</p><p>It is also acknowledged that there is a lack of research illustrating the actual environmental effects of centralisation. This area is the theme of this thesis and the overall purpose is to describe and analyse how centralisation of a distribution system can affect the environment. This purpose has been divided into two research questions, where the first one reads:</p><p>- How does physical centralisation of a distribution system influence the environment?</p><p>This question aims at investigating what effect centralisation has on the amount of emissions that are caused by transport in a distribution system. One of the main advantages with a centralised distribution system is that emergency deliveries are expected to decrease. This type of transport is often performed by airfreight, which is a mode of transport that is regarded to cause the largest amount of environmental stress among the four most commonly used transport modes. The argument that is made is that even though centralisation causes an increase in transport work, this must not necessarily mean that emissions increase.</p><p>As indicated above, earlier studies on structural changes in distribution systems have shown that this type of decision creates new opportunities to make other decisions that are beneficial for the performance of a distribution system, albeit in terms of costs and service. The aim of the second research question is consequently to study this issue, but from an environmental perspective. This question therefore reads:</p><p>- How do structural decisions in logistics create new opportunities to improve on the environmental performance of a distribution system?</p><p>The results of the study show that it is not sufficient to only consider transport work and emergency deliveries when the environmental effect of a centralisation is to be evaluated. It has also been concluded that centralisation creates an opportunity to make improvements within the distribution system that can prove beneficial from an environmental perspective. In summary, three characteristics besides transport work and emergency deliveries were identified as being of importance when considering the environmental effects of a centralisation. These included centralised flow, modal change, and bargaining power.</p><p>This model (<em>see full pdf</em>) does not aim to include all characteristics that can be relevant in an environmental evaluation of a centralisation, but rather those that have been found significant in this study. However, the model helps illustrate that there are many aspects that need to be considered in such an evaluation and that depending on the characteristics of the distribution system at hand the results can vary quite extensively.</p>

No description available.

<p>The weather environment has a significant impact on the reliability of a power system due to its effect on the system failure mechanisms of overhead circuits and on the operational ability of an electric power utility. The physical stresses created by weather increase the failure rates of transmission or distribution lines operating in adverse weather conditions, resulting in increased coincident failures of multiple circuits. Exceptionally severe weather can cause immense system damages and significantly impact the reliability performance. Recognition of the pertinent weather impacts clearly indicates the need to develop appropriate models and techniques that incorporate variable weather conditions for realistic estimation of reliability indices.</p> <p>This thesis illustrates a series of multi-state weather models that can be utilized for predictive reliability assessment incorporating adverse and extremely adverse weather conditions. The studies described in this thesis are mainly focused on the analyses using the three state weather model. A series of multi-state weather models are developed and utilized to assess reliability performance of parallel redundant configurations. The application of weather modeling in reliability evaluation is illustrated using a practical transmission system. The thesis presents an approach to identify weather specific contributions to system reliability indices and illustrates the technique by utilizing a test distribution system. The analysis of a range of reliability distributions with regard to major event day segmentation is presented.</p><p>The research work illustrated in this thesis clearly illustrates that reliability indices estimated without recognition of weather situations are unrealistic and that at minimum the three state weather model should be applied in reliability evaluation of systems residing in varying weather environments. The conclusions, concepts and techniques presented in this thesis should prove useful in practical application.</p>

Content distribution systems are essentially content protection systems that protect premium multimedia content from being illegally distributed. Physical content distribution systems form a subset of content distribution systems with which the content is distributed via physical media such as CDs, Blu-ray discs, etc. This thesis studies physical content distribution systems. Specifically, we concentrate our study on the design and analysis of three key components of the system: broadcast encryption for stateless receivers, mutual authentication with key agreement, and traitor tracing. The context in which we study these components is the Advanced Access Content System (AACS). We identify weaknesses present in AACS, and we also propose improvements to make the original system more secure, flexible and efficient.

Content distribution systems are essentially content protection systems that protect premium multimedia content from being illegally distributed. Physical content distribution systems form a subset of content distribution systems with which the content is distributed via physical media such as CDs, Blu-ray discs, etc. This thesis studies physical content distribution systems. Specifically, we concentrate our study on the design and analysis of three key components of the system: broadcast encryption for stateless receivers, mutual authentication with key agreement, and traitor tracing. The context in which we study these components is the Advanced Access Content System (AACS). We identify weaknesses present in AACS, and we also propose improvements to make the original system more secure, flexible and efficient.

<p>The weather environment has a significant impact on the reliability of a power system due to its effect on the system failure mechanisms of overhead circuits and on the operational ability of an electric power utility. The physical stresses created by weather increase the failure rates of transmission or distribution lines operating in adverse weather conditions, resulting in increased coincident failures of multiple circuits. Exceptionally severe weather can cause immense system damages and significantly impact the reliability performance. Recognition of the pertinent weather impacts clearly indicates the need to develop appropriate models and techniques that incorporate variable weather conditions for realistic estimation of reliability indices.</p> <p>This thesis illustrates a series of multi-state weather models that can be utilized for predictive reliability assessment incorporating adverse and extremely adverse weather conditions. The studies described in this thesis are mainly focused on the analyses using the three state weather model. A series of multi-state weather models are developed and utilized to assess reliability performance of parallel redundant configurations. The application of weather modeling in reliability evaluation is illustrated using a practical transmission system. The thesis presents an approach to identify weather specific contributions to system reliability indices and illustrates the technique by utilizing a test distribution system. The analysis of a range of reliability distributions with regard to major event day segmentation is presented.</p><p>The research work illustrated in this thesis clearly illustrates that reliability indices estimated without recognition of weather situations are unrealistic and that at minimum the three state weather model should be applied in reliability evaluation of systems residing in varying weather environments. The conclusions, concepts and techniques presented in this thesis should prove useful in practical application.</p>

A direct and rigid algorithm approach based on Equivalent Current Injection (ECI) for large-scale distribution power flow analysis is proposed in this dissertation. This algorithm used two primary matrices: BI and ZV-BC. Two matrices, which are built from the topological characteristics of distribution networks, are used to achieve the power flow solutions. BI matrix is the bus injection to branch current matrix and the ZV-BC matrix describes the relationship between the bus voltage mismatches and the branch current. The building algorithm is easily programmable and can be accomplished by a simple search technique with the two proposed matrices. Four connected cases are considered in this dissertation. The proposed algorithm is robust and accurate. Test results demonstrate the potential and validity of the proposed algorithm in distribution applications. Secondly, this thesis also presents a fault analysis with hybrid compensation for unbalanced distribution systems is proposed. The method employs the unbalanced three-phase model to analyze faults. BI and ZV-BC matrices containing information of the topological characteristics of distribution networks were built along with the proposed hybrid compensation method for analysis. Appropriate boundary conditions can be obtained for a fault to solve various types of single or simultaneous faults. The time-consuming LU decompositions, the Jacobian matrix, or the Y admittance matrix, required in the traditional algorithms, are not needed in the new development. Test results show that the proposed method is efficient, easy to program, also with advantages of high speed, robustness, improved accuracy, and lower memory requirements. This thesis also presents a hybrid programming (HP) technique to solve the reconfiguration problem for loss reduction and service restoration in Smart Grid application.

This dissertation examines the interdependence between urban water distribution systems and urban fire response. The focus on interdependent critical infrastructures is driven by concern for security of water systems and the effects on related infrastructures if water distribution systems are damaged by terrorist attack or natural disaster. A model of interdependent infrastructures (principally water distribution systems and fire response) is developed called the Model of Urban Fire Spread (MUFS). The model includes the capacity to simulate firefighting water demands in a community water system hydraulic model, building-to-building urban fire spread, and suppression activities. MUFS is an improvement over previous similar models because it allows simulation of urban fires at the level of individual buildings and it permits simulation of interdependent infrastructures working in concert. MUFS is used to simulate a series of multi-mode attacks and failures (MMAFs) – events which disable the water distribution system and simultaneously ignite an urban fire. The consequences of MMAF scenarios are analyzed to determine the most serious modes of infrastructure failure and urban fire ignition. Various methods to determine worst-case configurations of urban fire ignition points are also examined. These MMAF scenarios are used to inform the design of potential mitigation measures to decrease the consequences of the urban fire. The effectiveness of mitigation methods is determined using the MUFS simulation tool. Novel metrics are developed to quantify the effectiveness of the mitigation methods from the time-series development of their consequences. A cost-benefit analysis of the various mitigation measures is conducted to provide additional insight into the methods’ effectiveness and better inform the decision-making process of selecting mitigation methods. Planned future work includes further refinement of the representation of fire propagation and suppression in MUFS and investigation of historical MMAF events to validate simulation predictions. Future efforts will continue development of appropriate optimization methods for determining worst-case MMAF scenarios. This work should be of interest to water utility managers and emergency planners, who can adapt the methodology to analyze their communities’ vulnerability to MMAFs and design mitigation techniques to meet their unique needs, as well as to researchers interested in infrastructure modeling and disaster simulation.