Abstract The research is to discover the competition among banks with platinum card without yearly charge. First of all, the general situation of the market of platinum card from May 2002 to June 2003 will be analyzed. Second, it is for the purpose of discovering the strategic groups, dynamic resource analysis, and reaction time of competitors respectively of the whole market of platinum card. Some factors that can influence the strategy of banks, such as time, competition, customers, resources and other parties will be regarded as analytic aspects. Finally, new 7¡¦S model will be used as an analytic tool in order to understand the main competitive strategies of China Trust Bank, Taishin Bank and Fubon Bank, which are the three primary competitors in the market. In this research, the primary information is attempted to be collected via deep interview in qualitative research method; then, the analysis will be completed by means of the integration of secondary information. The results of the research are also divided into five parts: 1. The interaction between banks and timing: Banks of small scale will prefer to follow up after the market leader joins; the timing that the competition launches the product will affect the policy of banks, and they will adjust the major functions or services of the products according to the different timing of entrance. 2. The interaction between banks and competition: Thorough differentiating the main competitors of banks, they can arrange the order and priority of the actions while implementing the strategies. In the future, banks should start to think from ¡§how to increase competitors¡¦ movable obstacle¡¨, and demolish the features that strategies are highly similar and easy to be imitated in the credit card industry. 3. The interaction between banks and customers: Banks must understand the difference of needs between what customers recognize and what banks recognize; then, endeavor to minimize this difference. Banks should undertake how to raise customers¡¦ switch cost, to find their needs that they themselves do not discover yet, and try to increase their loyalty. 4. The interaction between banks and resources: Banks should consider from a long-term point of view for the accumulation and creation of their internal resources, and the application for the resources lever. In addition, resources and capabilities required for the future should be trained up in advance. On the other hand, the obtainment of external resources is as important as the training of internal resources; hence, banks should think both of them highly and take advantage of each other. 5. The interaction between banks and other parties: The future competition might be the competition between industry networks, financial control companies, blocs or issuing organizations. Banks should improve their competency and increase the bargaining power with their partners. Therefore, they are able to look for a good partner and raise the barrier of exit of partners. Last but not least, some specific suggestions would be addressed to the banks of big, middle and small scales for the reference of their strategic planning in the future. Keyword: platinum card, competitive strategy, timing, and resource capability.

This thesis is about software project scheduling and use of earned value method on software projects. As a result of the study, a solution for software project scheduling problems is proposed. A mathematical formulation, developed using integer programming method, is at the heart of the solution. Objective of the formulation is to minimize the development costs consisting of direct labor cost, indirect costs and probable penalty costs. The formulation takes the capability and compatibility variances among resources into account whereas contemporary approaches mostly focus on resource availability. Formulation is of type discrete time and takes the time span to be searched as input. Therefore a heuristic approach has been developed for providing time span input to the models developed using the formulation. The heuristic approach has been proven to be calculating a time span that does not hinder achieving the absolute optimum schedule and shortens the solution time of the integer programs. The heuristic approach and problem formulation have been incorporated into a computer program that generates integer programs and heuristic solutions. This thesis also describes a method for preparing an earned value plan, based on the scheduling solution defined. The method aims to help project managers in determining the status of their projects and deciding whether any corrective action is required or not. Besides the method, approaches for incorporating indirect costs and penalty costs, which are not explicitly discussed in literature, into final cost estimation have been described.

Yes / Despite the growing research on the influence of entrepreneurs’ improvisational behavior on organizational outcomes, there is limited understanding of the specific firm-level and institutional conditions under which entrepreneurs’ improvisational behavior can effectively drive the success of new ventures. This paper contributes to filling this gap by investigating the moderating effects of financial resource capability and institutional support on the relationship between entrepreneurs’ improvisational behavior and new venture performance. The study’s theoretical model is validated by employing confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical regression on primary data obtained from 395 new ventures in Ghana. The results reveal a significant positive moderating effect of financial resource capability on the relationship between entrepreneurs’ improvisational and new venture performance. In addition, the findings show that the effectiveness of improvisation behavior in driving a firm’s success depends on the level of institutional support. Overall, the findings provide a more nuanced explanation of the link between entrepreneurs’ improvisational and firm performance. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Enterprise modelling can facilitate the design, analysis, control and construction of contemporary enterprises which can compete in world-wide Product markets. This research involves a systematic study of enterprise modelling with a particular focus on resource modelling in support of the life cycle engineering of enterprise systems. This led to the specification and design of a framework for resource modelling. This framework was conceived to: classify resource types; identify the different functions that resource modelling can support, with respect to different life phases of enterprise systems; clarify the relationship between resource models and other modelling perspectives provide mechanisms which link resource models and other types of models; identify guidelines for the capture of information - on resources, leading to the establishment of a set of resource reference models. The author also designed and implemented a resource modelling tool which conforms to the principles laid down by the framework. This tool realises important aspects of the resource modeffing concepts so defined. Furthermore, two case studies have been carried out. One models a metal cutting environment, and the other is based on an electronics industry problem area. In this way, the feasibility of concepts embodied in the framework and the design of the resource modelling tool has been tested and evaluated. Following a literature survey and preliminary investigation, the CIMOSA enterprise modelling and integration methodology was adopted and extended within this research. Here the resource modelling tool was built by extending SEWOSA (System Engineering Workbench for Open System Architecture) and utilising the CIMBIOSYS (CINI-Building Integrated Open SYStems) integrating infrastructure. The main contributions of the research are that: a framework for resource modelling has been established; means and mechanisms have been proposed, implemented and tested which link and coordinate different modelling perspectives into an unified enterprise model; the mechanisms and resource models generated by this research support each Pfe phase of systems engineering projects and demonstrate benefits by increasing the degree to which the derivation process among models is automated.

No / This study examines the effects of organizational financial capacity on sustainable procurement and the extent to which socially responsible human resource capability and sustainability leadership mediate this relationship. Data obtained from 322 organizations through quantitative surveys were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results suggest the following: financial capacity has a significant positive effect on sustainable procurement; financial capacity has a significantly positive effect on socially responsible human resource capability; sustainability leadership and socially responsible human resource capability mediate the positive effect of financial capacity on sustainable procurement. The research contributes to the literature a perspective on the mechanisms through which organizational financial capacity influences sustainable procurement via socially responsible human resource capability and sustainability leadership. The insights provided will inform management decisions and actions regarding how organizational finance can be leveraged strategically to optimize sustainable corporate practices and outcomes.

"This research is aimed at studying the key technologies of Computer-Aided Manufacturing Planning (CAMP) of mass customization for non-rotational part production. The main goal of the CAMP is to rapidly generate manufacturing plans by using of the best-of-practice (BOP) provided by specific companies. A systematic information modeling hierarchy is proposed to facilitate changes in manufacturing plans according to changes in part design. The Object-oriented Systems Analysis (OSA) approach is used to represent information relationships and associativities in the CAMP. A feature-based part information model, a process model, a setup planning model, and manufacturing resource capability models are established. A three-level decision-making mechanism is proposed for the CAMP. At the feature- level, combined features are defined based on part families, and a process model is proposed to describe the information associativities between features and their manufacturing strategies, which include customized cutters and toolpaths. At the part level, graph-based setup planning is carried out by tolerance analysis and manufacturing resource capability analysis. At the machine level, multi-part fixtures are utilized to pursue high productivity. Cycle time is used to evaluate manufacturing plans. Computer software for the CAMP has been developed and integrated with CAD package Unigraphs. The BOP of part families is stored in XML format, which has good extendibility and can be read and edited by standard browsers."

[EN] Process planning, as a link between design and manufacturing, is a key function to ensuring that the characteristics of manufactured products meet customer needs. Multiple factors converge in the tasks of manufacturing process planning. When these factors are combined with the diversity of possible strategies and approaches, they form a particularly complex scenario. Moreover, the development of an environment increasingly competitive and globalized forces an increase of flexibility and agility of production systems. This has been especially critical in small and medium enterprises. In order to survive, these enterprises have had to improve their organization creating collaborative structures. Collaborative structures that take advantage of information and communication technologies, allowing overcome the difficulties caused by their location all over the world. An extreme case occurs in the virtual OKP (One-of-a-Kind Production) companies, in which the development of new products is the key process and it is subject to heavy demands of immediacy and diversity in terms of production. These demands can only be achieved through a close cooperation/collaboration between company partners. Taking as a starting point the above, this thesis makes a contribution in the field of collaborative process planning. For this, an ontological approach is proposed. This ontology gives support and consistency to the co-planning tools used in creating process plans, especially in decision-making related to the optimal and dynamics resource allocation. The first proposed ontology, the domain PPDRC (Product and Processes Development Resource Capabilities) ontology, is a generic ontology able to support any kind of process planning to be executed by intelligent agents in a collaborative context. Its generality is validated in this work, by means of its application to the process planning of the development process of products, processes and resources and its specialization, the MIRC (Manufacturing and Inspection Resource Capabilities) ontology, for machining and inspection process planning. The PPDRC ontology presents a number of particular characteristics, such as: social and agentive character of the resources involved in the process planning; the possibility for representing nonlinear process plans; the concept of resource capability based on its skills to perform a specific activity; or the fact that it has been built using concepts of foundational ontologies, facilitating the interoperability with other ontologies. The ontology is particularly effective for the establishment and validation of process plans based on the capabilities of the resources involved, allowing to maintain the information and knowledge about the capabilities of these resources. A knowledge that is enriched by inference from the data, predicates and rules that are part of the ontology. On the other hand, the MIRC ontology is a proposal that has all the characteristics of PPDRC ontology and pays special attention to preparation activities of the resources, because they largely determine their capability to implement operation activities (machining and inspection). This is a characteristic that differentiates it from others, considering that preparation activities are critical to the correct selection and allocation of resources that should be considered during the validation of these process plans. The thesis has been written on the basis of two articles that describe the aforementioned ontologies (PPDRC and MIRC) and they present two separate case studies which demonstrate their validity and scope. To facilitate the reading, this document contains some additional chapters. These additional chapters relate the general approach and the basis of the work, and discuss the results and future works. / [ES] La planificación de procesos, como nexo de unión entre el diseño y la fabricación, es un elemento clave para asegurar que las características de los productos fabricados satisfacen las necesidades del cliente. En las tareas de planificación del proceso de fabricación confluyen múltiples factores que, al conjugarse con la diversidad de estrategias y enfoques posibles, configuran un escenario particularmente complejo. Por otra parte, la evolución de un entorno cada vez más competitivo y globalizado ha obligado a aumentar la flexibilidad y agilidad de los sistemas productivos. Esto ha sido especialmente crítico en las pequeñas y medianas empresas que para sobrevivir han tenido que organizarse creando estructuras de colaboración. Estructuras colaborativas que aprovechan las tecnologías de información y comunicación, y permiten salvar las dificultades originadas por la deslocalización. Un caso extremo se presenta en las empresas de tipo OKP (One-of-a-Kind Production) virtual, en las que el desarrollo de nuevos productos es el proceso clave y está sujeto a grandes exigencias de inmediatez y diversidad de producción, que solo pueden alcanzarse con una estrecha cooperación/colaboración entre los socios. Tomando como punto de partida lo anterior, esta tesis realiza una aportación en el ámbito de la planificación de procesos colaborativa. Para ello se propone una ontología que da soporte y consistencia a las herramientas de co-planificación empleadas en la creación de planes de proceso, especialmente en la toma de decisiones vinculadas con la asignación óptima y dinámica de los recursos. La ontología propuesta en primer lugar, ontología de dominio PPDRC (Product and Processes Development Resource Capabilities), es una ontología genérica capaz de soportar cualquier tipo de planificación de proceso que sea ejecutada por agentes inteligentes en un contexto colaborativo. Una generalidad que se valida en el trabajo, con su aplicación a la planificación del propio proceso de desarrollo de productos, procesos y recursos, y con la especialización de la misma, ontología MIRC (Manufacturing and Inspection Resource Capabilities), para la planificación de los procesos de mecanizado e inspección. La ontología PPDRC presenta toda una serie de características singulares, como: el carácter social y agentivo de los recursos implicados en la planificación; la posibilidad de representar planes de proceso no lineales; el concepto de capacidad de recurso basado en sus habilidades para la realización de actividades; o la utilización de conceptos presentes en ontologías de base, que facilitan su interoperabilidad con otras ontologías. La ontología se muestra especialmente eficaz para el establecimiento y validación de planes de proceso en base a las capacidades de los recursos, al permitir mantener la información y conocimiento sobre sus capacidades. Un conocimiento que se enriquece por inferencia a partir de los datos, predicados y reglas que forman parte de dicha ontología. Por su parte, la ontología MIRC es una propuesta que reúne todas las características de la ontología PPDRC y que presta una especial atención a las actividades de preparación realizadas sobre los recursos, pues éstas condicionan en gran medida sus capacidades para la ejecución de las actividades de tipo operación (mecanizado e inspección). Se trata de una característica que la diferencia de otras, al considerar que las actividades de preparación son claves para la correcta selección y asignación de los recursos y que deben considerarse durante la validación de estos planes de proceso. La tesis se ha redactado en base a dos artículos, en los que se describen las mencionadas ontologías (PPDRC y MIRC) y se presentan sendos casos de estudio que constatan su validez y muestran el alcance de las mismas. Para facilitar su seguimiento, contiene unos capítulos adicionales, en los que se relata el planteamiento general y / [CAT] La planificació de processos, com a nexe d'unió entre el disseny i la fabricació, és un element clau per a assegurar que les característiques dels productes fabricats satisfan les necessitats del client. En les tasques de planificació del procés de fabricació conflueixen múltiples factors, que al conjugar-se amb la diversitat d'estratègies i enfocaments possibles configuren un escenari particularment complex. D'altra banda, l'evolució d'un entorn, cada vegada més competitiu i globalitzat ha obligat a augmentar la flexibilitat i agilitat dels sistemes productius. Açò ha sigut especialment crític en les xicotetes i mitjanes empreses, que per a poder sobreviure han hagut d'organitzar-se, creant estructures de col·laboració. Estructures de col·laboració que aprofiten les tecnologies d'informació i comunicació, i permeten salvar les dificultats originades per la deslocalització. Un cas extrem es presenta en les empreses de tipus OKP (One-of-a-Kind Production) virtual, en les que el desenrotllament de nous productes és el procés clau i està subjecte a grans exigències d'immediatesa i diversitat, que només poden aconseguir-se amb una estreta cooperació/col·laboració entre els socis. Prenent com a punt de partida l'anterior, esta tesi realitza una aportació en l'àmbit de la planificació de processos col·laborativa. Per a això es proposa una ontologia que dóna suport i consistència a les ferramentes de co-planificació empleades en la creació de plans de procés, especialment en la presa de decisions vinculades amb l'assignació òptima i dinàmica dels recursos. L'ontologia proposada en primer lloc, ontologia de domini PPDRC (Product and Processes Development Resource Capabilities), és una ontologia genèrica capaç de suportar qualsevol tipus de planificació de procés que siga executada per agents intel·ligents en un context col·laboratiu. Una generalitat que es valida en el treball, amb la seua aplicació a la planificació del propi procés de desenrotllament de productes, processos i recursos i amb l'especialització de la mateixa, ontologia MIRC (Manufacturing and Inspection Resource Capabilities), per a la planificació dels processos de mecanitzat i inspecció. L'ontologia PPDRC presenta tota una sèrie de característiques singulars, com: el caràcter social i agentiu dels recursos implicats en la planificació; la possibilitat de representar plans de procés no lineals; el concepte de capacitat de recurs basat en les seues habilitats per a la realització de activitats; o la utilització de conceptes presents en ontologies de base, que facilita la seua interoperabilitat amb altres ontologies. L'ontologia es mostra especialment eficaç per a l'establiment i validació de plans de procés basant-se en les capacitats dels recursos, al permetre mantenir la informació i coneixement sobre les seues capacitats. Un coneixement que s'enriqueix per inferència a partir de les dades, predicats i regles que formen part de la dita ontologia. Per la seua banda, l'ontologia MIRC és una proposta que reuneix totes les característiques de l'ontologia PPDRC i que presta una especial atenció a les activitats de preparació realitzades sobre els recursos, perquè estes condicionen en gran manera les seues capacitats per a l'execució de les activitats d'operació (mecanitzat i inspecció). Es tracta d'una característica que la diferència d'altres, al considerar que les activitats de preparació són claus per a la correcta selecció i assignació dels recursos i que han de considerar-se durant la validació d'estos plans de procés. La tesi s'ha redactat basant-se en dos articles, en les que es descriuen les mencionades ontologies (PPDRC i MIRC) i es presenten sengles casos d'estudi que constaten la seua validesa i mostren l'abast de les mateixes. Per a facilitar el seu seguiment, conté uns capítols addicionals, en els que es relata el plantejament general i les bases del treball, i es disc / Solano García, L. (2015). Definición de una ontología integrada de procesos y recursos, para el desarrollo colaborativo de planes de proceso [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/58266 / TESIS