Abstract Vertical integration is a strategy where the firm owns the supply chain activities to gain control over the business operations, increasing the market share, and lowering the transaction costs. The vertically integrated firms tend to make more in-house operations. In the supply chain, vertical integration is performed either upstream or downstream. In the automobile industry, upstream integration is chosen to acquire or increase control over the suppliers by manufacturing goods internally while downstream integration is preferred to gain ownership with the previous distributors and dealers. This thesis work is carried out in the department of New and Strategic Project Markets in Sales and Marketing, Scania. The department New and Strategic Project Markets works with identifying the market potential in a country and future expansion of the sales and service network. A significant part of the Scania business is delivered through the sales and service network, which differentiates Scania from the competitors and provides the basis for profitability. Scania currently has models for identifying market potential and setting up the business in a market. With the future expansion, the establishment of a competitive sales and service network is a core part of the Scania business model. Currently, with changing market dynamics, Scania needs to evaluate the appropriate level of vertical integration to capture market potential, achieve profitability, and manage risk for the sales and service network. This led to the development of a decision model for vertical integration of the sales and service network. The purpose of this research is to develop a structured decision model for performing vertical integration and disintegration in the sales and service business of Scania to maintain or improve profitability by considering the risks. The current state illustrates an overview of the sales and marketing business process in Scania. As a pre-study phase, the thesis project includes reviewing Scania’s current practice for evaluating the market which contains market screening model and distributor development process (market establishment). Adding to that, an empirical study is carried out through interviews to identify the factors, forces, and risks involved in driving captive and non-captive markets. The above-mentioned information will act as a base for performing the analysis on building the decision model. From the acquired information, the analysis is carried out by prioritizing and categorizing the predominant factors and forces of vertical integration. Further, by performing risk analysis the decision model is built into four levels and the appropriate decisions are made to identify the level of vertical integration in the sales and service network. At last, to check the credibility of the decision model, a country is chosen for analysis, and the results are discussed.

[pt] O objetivo desta dissertação é desenvolver uma metodologia para determinar a estratégia ótima de despacho de usinas térmicas considerando as especificações do contrato de combustível e suas cláusulas de take-or-pay, as oportunidades de compra e venda de energia no mercado spot e as características da usina. Como as decisões de uma etapa têm impacto nas etapas seguintes, há um acoplamento temporal entre as decisões tomadas e o problema tem um caráter de decisão multi- estágio. Além disso, o principal guia para a tomada de decisão é o preço spot, que é desconhecido no futuro e modelado através de cenários. Desta forma, a estratégia ótima de despacho torna-se um problema de decisão sob incerteza, onde a cada etapa o objetivo é determinar a operação que maximize a rentabilidade total (ao longo de vários períodos) da central térmica. A metodologia desenvolvida se baseia em Programação Dinâmica Estocástica (PDE). Exemplos serão ilustrados com o sistema brasileiro. / [en] The objective of this work is to present a methodology to determine the optimal dispatch strategy of thermal power plants taking into account the particular specifications of fuel supply agreements, such as take-or-pay and make-up clauses. Opportunities for energy purchase and selling in the spot market as well as the plant´s technical characteristics are also considered in the optimization process. Since decisions in one stage impact the future stages, the problem is a time- coupled in a multi-stage framework. Moreover, the main driver for the decision-making is the energy spot price, which is unknown in the future and modeled through scenarios. Therefore, the optimal dispatch strategy is a decision under uncertainty problem, where at each stage the objective is to determine the optimal operation strategy that maximizes the total revenues taking into account constraints and characteristics of the fuel supply agreement. The developed methodology is based on Stochastic Dynamic Programming (SDP). Examples and case studies will be shown with the Brazilian system.

In today's versatile requirements for reducing fuel consumption, a lot of different approaches are in development like hybridization, reducing the amount of cylinders with the same power as before or operating point-independent components and auxiliaries. Within this thesis, one of the approaches is shown: electrified auxiliaries including an operation strategy. Replacing conventional auxiliaries with electrified ones, the need of more electrical power becomes bigger. Due to the limits within the 12V power net, the 48V approach is the logical conclusion in terms of cost benefit and availability of the needed resources to use the electrified components. The 48V power net introduces new or modified parts to the vehicle including a new power net topology. Fuzzy logic was chosen to control the auxiliaries, because of the number of input variables, the flexibility of using it for different cars and being robust during the usage. The results showed a significant improvement of fuel consumption with the developed control strategy for the selected power net topology. This improvement was evident in all cycles, which were discussed within this thesis. In this thesis a new approach for reducing fuel consumption was shown, which includes several electrified auxiliaries and the operation strategy to control them within the vehicle during different cycles. The necessary models for the approach were developed including the auxiliaries, the controller and the needed parts for the power net. / In der heutigen Zeit mit den steigenden Ansprüchen zur Reduzierung des Kraftstoffverbrauchs sind viele verschiedene Ansätze und Technologien in der Entwicklung, wie zum Beispiel Hybridisierung, Zylinderreduktion mit der gleichen Leistungsausbeute wie zuvor oder auch vom Verbrennungsmotor unabhängigen Komponenten und Nebenaggregaten. Innerhalb dieser Arbeit wurde einer dieser Ansätze näher erläutert: elektrifizierte Nebenaggregate inklusive einer Betriebsstrategie. Durch den Austausch der konventionellen Nebenaggregate mit den elektrifizierten Nebenaggregaten steigt der Bedarf an mehr elektrischer Leistung. Durch die Limitierungen im 12V Bordnetz, ist der 48V Ansatz der nächste logische Schritt hinsichtlich des Kosten/Nutzen-Verhältnis und der Ressourcenverfügbarkeit für die Nutzung der elektrifizierten Komponenten. Das 48V Bordnetz benötigt neue bzw. modifizierte Komponenten inclusive einer neuen Bordnetztopologie. Fuzzy-Logik wurde zur Regelung der Nebenaggregate ausgewählt. Grund hierfür waren: Anzahl an Eingangsvariablen, Flexibilität in der Übertragung auf andere Fahrzeuge und dem robusten Verhalten in der Anwendung. Die Ergebnisse zeigten ein signifikantes Einsparpotential durch die Verwendung der entwickelten Betriebsstrategie für die ausgewählte Bordnetztopologie. Die Einsparung war in allen diskutierten Zyklen deutlich zu sehen. In dieser Arbeit wurde ein neuer Ansatz zur Verbrauchsreduktion gezeigt inklusive elektrifizierter Nebenaggregate und der benötigten Betriebsstrategie, um diese im Fahrzeug in verschiedenen Zyklen zu steuern. Die benötigten Modelle wurden entwickelt, wie zum Beispiel die Nebenaggregate, der Regler und den Bordnetzkomponenten.

隨著高分子材料工業的快速發展，塑膠材料被廣泛地應用在日常生活中各個不同的領域，而提供塑膠材料加工製品所需設備的塑膠機械產業的地位就日益重要。在我國國內的塑膠機械產業的年產值已經超過400億，而且在外銷的比例上更高達八成以上，是僅次於工具機的第二大機械類產業；然而由於經濟全球化的發展，以及中國大陸等新興國家崛起的衝擊，使得國內的塑膠機械產業受到嚴重影響而呈現外移的現象。 在這個動盪劇烈的年代，企業將無法再滿足於現狀的象牙塔之中，而是必須不斷的藉由創新開發增加企業的能量，建立企業產品的差異化，將創意轉化為滿足顧客需求的客製化實體價值，來提升企業自我的競爭優勢；是以在做個案公司策略研究時，依據企業所處的的產業外部環境與企業本身所具有的條件，然後探討其策營運略形成與所產生的策略效果。 本研究最後係以策略六大構面理論作為策略分析的結論，對於採取有別於計畫性量產的塑膠機械產業業者，而以客製化為營運模式的代表性業者，以進行深度訪談的研究方法，來進行個案企業的策略研究；在面臨越來越激烈的國際競爭環境中，對於未來的環境發展動向的掌握，企圖透過對於個案企業的營運策略的研究，匯聚個案公司過往的營運經驗，提供相關產業業者參考方案，共同開創新的市場利基，以真正提升我國國內塑膠機械產業在國際上的競爭優勢，也為產業業者的永續發展奠定穩固的基石。 / As the polymer materials industry's rapid growth, plastic materials are widely used in daily life in many different areas, and provides plastic materials processing products required equipment for plastic machinery industry increasingly important role. The plastic machinery industry's annual output of more than 400 million, and in the export ratio is as high as 80%, is only next to the machine tools - the second largest of the general mechanical engineering industry; However, because of the development of economic globalization, and the Mainland China, and so the impact of the rise of emerging countries, makes plastic machinery industry severely affected and move out. In this turbulent rapid, enterprises will no longer be able to meet with the status quo of ivory, Instead, the enterprises must continuously by innovation development increase energy, set up an enterprise product differentiation, creativity to meet customer demand for customized orders entity value, to enhance the competitive advantage of corporate self; In the case of the company policy of doing, according to the enterprise's external environment of industrial and enterprise itself has a condition, and then examine its strategy of trading on the formation and the resulting policy effects. This last line to policy six dimensions theory as policy analysis of the case, for taking different from planned volume production of the plastic machinery industry firms, and to customized to operating mode of representation firms, by depth interviews of research methods, to conduct research on enterprise policy cases; in the face of increasingly fierce international competition environment, for the future development of the environment, using for cases of operation of the enterprise strategy, will bring together the cases previously operating experience, provide relevant industry operators reference scenario, common around the world to market niche, to really improve the domestic plastic machinery industry in the world of competitive advantage, as well as industrial companies in the sustainable development lay the cornerstone.