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The purpose of this study is to present a novel approach of integrating Material Flow Cost Accounting (MFCA), Internet of Things (IoT) and lean management systems to improve water use efficiency and reduce costs in the beverage industry. The positive and negative product costs of water purification, syrup manufacture, concentrate mixing, and packing were analyzed. The MFCA analysis showed 78.5% positive and 21.5% negative product costs. The use of the Power BI application to display real-time positive and negative costs in each process, scenario modeling and simulation was able to promote water savings and cost reductions, as well as supporting factory team ideation for choosing one of three improvement plans: 1) RO flushing water recovery in water purification; 2) water conservation with automated pH correction at packaging warmer; or 3) wastewater treatment and reuse of the rejected RO brine. According to our two-scenario water conservation testing, an automation process could improve pH adjustment in the packaging process, while MFCA, IoT, and lean management systems could be applied to improve industrial water use efficiency, demonstrating the potential for sustainable water use. The beverage-industry case in the present study validated this approach, resulting in a 24.1% production rate increase and a 4.5% cost reduction of 71,010 THB savings per year.

In an increasingly complex and uncertain business environment, decision makers require robust strategies for supply chain aggregate production planning that account for the interdependencies and coordination across multiple echelons of the supply chain network. Traditional approaches often inadequately address the uncertainties and risks inherent in supply chain operations, leading to suboptimal performance and increased costs. This study introduces a business model incorporating open innovation dynamics to achieve cost-effectiveness and resilient supply chain performance in the face of uncertainties. A Multi-Objective Fuzzy Linear Programming model was proposed by integrating the Chance-Constraint Programming and Zimmermann’s approach designed to assist decision makers in optimizing the production plan, material flows and resource allocation across the entire supply chain network. The model focuses on both cost and risk minimization based on unsymmetrical triangular fuzzy numbers. Specifically, it targets the downside risk of uncertainty, aiming to reduce the likelihood of negative outcomes or financial losses due to fluctuations, unpredictability, and unforeseen circumstances, which can drive-up supply chain operation costs. The efficacy of the model is demonstrated through a case study. It highlights various imprecise factors such as costs, customer demands, and machine operating hours. The findings underscore the model's capability to provide decision makers with a comprehensive supply chain aggregate production plan that not only optimizes the supply chain network and enhances operational efficiency and reliability but also significantly reduces costs and mitigates unsymmetrical skewness of risks associated with operational uncertainties.

AbstractThis study explores the transformative impact of digitalisation on the efficiency of humanitarian logistical operations in Zimbabwe. Drawing on survey responses from 286 participants in humanitarian aid organisations, the research employs rigorous multiple regression analysis to scrutinise the predictive significance of various digitalisation elements. The findings illuminate robust positive associations between digitalisation components, including communication effectiveness, cost reduction, automation, sustainability, organisational size, and the enhancement of efficient humanitarian logistics. Notably, the integration of digitalised supply-chain management systems, such as barcode readers and tracking solutions, emerges as pivotal in fostering improved information management and co-ordination. The study also brings attention to challenges, such as knowledge-sharing barriers and heightened vulnerability to cyber security threats. Contributing to theoretical frameworks, this research emphasises the contextual relevance of digitalisation in Zimbabwe’s specific setting. Practical implications underscore opportunities for aid organisations to optimise operational efficiency through informed digitalisation initiatives. The study further identifies key variables for technology adoption frameworks and introduces a culturally relevant focus on Zimbabwe within the field. Strategic recommendations advocate for investments in digital infrastructure, robust security measures, and collaborative tools. Managerial implications underscore the importance of prioritising knowledge-sharing initiatives and forming strategic partnerships with technology companies to address challenges. Theoretical implications support information systems theories and illuminate causal relationships between distinct facets of digitalisation and efficient humanitarian logistics. The study concludes by acknowledging its limitations, including a Zimbabwe-centric focus, potential response bias, and the utilisation of a cross-sectional design. Future research recommendations advocate for longitudinal studies, comparative analyses across diverse regions, and qualitative investigations into the human and organisational factors influencing the adoption of digital solutions. Overall, this study contributes invaluable insights for both theoretical development and practical applications in the dynamic landscape of humanitarian logistics and digitalisation in Zimbabwe.

The increased penetration of renewable energy sources and the intensification of peak‐valley differences present challenges to peak regulation in the power system. Fulfilling the peak regulation needs of the power system solely through generation‐side resources proves to be challenging. Large‐scale fixed frequency air‐conditioning (FFAC) and inverter air‐conditioning (IAC) are high‐quality flexible load resources. This paper proposes a hierarchical coordinated control strategy of air‐conditioning (AC) loads for peak regulation service. In the first layer of the control strategy, the load aggregator collaborates with multiple AC groups to ensure the completion of peak regulation tasks with specific power‐constrained requirements. In the second layer of the control strategy, the control centre of each group optimizes the temperature adjustment values for each AC load, aiming to reduce incentive costs. Finally, the proposed method is validated through simulations, demonstrating its capability to achieve coordinated control of FFAC and IAC loads under various power‐constrained requirements. Furthermore, the simulation demonstrates the effectiveness of the control strategy in reducing user discomfort and the AC's incentive costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a need for increased renewable energy to meet net-zero targets and decarbonise the economy. Harnessing the predictable power of the tides with tidal stream turbines can contribute to this. Tidal energy is a nascent technology with higher costs at present. However, cost reductions have been observed with an increased deployment in other renewable energy technologies that have received financial support, and it is postulated that similar will happen with tidal energy. The first tidal stream projects have been awarded market support in the UK through the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme, with almost 100 MW expected to be commissioned by 2028. This work uses learning rates to investigate how much investment in ongoing market support might be needed to achieve cost reductions through subsidised deployment alongside research and innovation. Using a range of informed 'what if?' scenarios, it shows sensitivity to key inputs. The results show that the support needed is most sensitive to the learning rate, reducing it from 15% to 12.5% or 10% doubles or more than quadruples the investment required, respectively. The support is also highly dependent on the starting cost from which learning occurs, taken as the CfD Strike Price in 2025. Varying this between 156 and 220 GBP/MWh results in total investment of GBP 6.7 and 22.3 bn, respectively. Most importantly, a balance is needed between subsidising deployment to drive down costs through learning and funding innovation to maintain a high learning rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been well documented that the usage of a textured cover layer reduces reflection from the air‐solar cell interface, which ultimately enhances the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of a solar cell. The most commonly used patterns, such as pyramids, micropillars, nanowires (NW), and nanoholes have been widely studied and optimized. Besides using such NWs to enhance light absorption, this work also additionally considers the concept of mimicking the antireflection coating of single or multiple layers in minimizing the reflectance and thus enhancing the total absorptance further. It is shown here that at least one order of magnitude shorter multilayer NW pattern of 268 nm total height can outperform a standard NW of 4270 nm height, which needs less material and can also be fabricated at a reduced cost. Furthermore, the proposed design with reduced height has a significantly lower surface‐to‐volume ratio, which also reduces surface recombination loss than the other textured surface patterns. The results presented in this work have been comprehensively analyzed by initially optimizing optical absorption and then completing the electrical simulations. The optimized design in conjunction with a back reflector offers an efficiency as high as 16.434%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of the performance of any activity and especially of companies has always been a topic of great interest for a multitude of categories of information users. The article focuses on the financial performance of companies, on the relevant indicators for its analysis as well as on the presentation of ways to reduce costs that can contribute to increasing financial performance. Regarding the indicators which reflects financial performance, the result obtained (Income-Expenses) or the net accounting assets (equity) are the elements that enter into the calculation of most of them or that influence the factors that are taken into account in the calculation of the indicators. At the same time, the result obtained is an item of equity. Therefore, I can say that all these indicators are directly or indirectly influenced by the result obtained and consequently by the expenses/costs of the company. The centralization/decentralization of the company's activity, the monitoring of the indicators with which the performance is valuated, the delimitation of expenses into fixed and variable, the implications of applying the cost calculation methods, the relevance of costs are aspects covered in the article that can support the managers/owners of the company in the search for solutions to increase the financial performance of companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The jumbo drill is a commonly used driving equipment in tunnel engineering. One of the key decision-making issues for reducing tunnel construction costs is to optimize the main driving parameters to increase the feed speed of the jumbo drill. The optimization of the driving parameters is supposed to meet the requirements of high reliability and efficiency due to the high risk and complex working conditions in tunnel engineering. The flaws of the existing optimization algorithms for driving parameter optimization lie in the low accuracy of the evaluation functions under complex working conditions and the low efficiency of the algorithms. To address the above problems, a driving parameter optimization method based on the XGBoost-DRWIACO framework with high accuracy and efficiency is proposed. A data-driven prediction model for feed speed based on XGBoost is established as the evaluation function, which has high accuracy under complex working conditions and ensures the high reliability of the optimized results. Meanwhile, an improved ant colony algorithm based on dimension reduction while iterating strategy (DRWIACO) is proposed. DRWIACO is supposed to improve efficiency by resolving inefficient iterations of the ant colony algorithm (ACO), which is manifested as falling into local optimum, converging slowly and converging with a slight fluctuation in a certain dimension. Experimental results show that the error by the proposed framework is less than 10%, and the efficiency is increased by over 30% compared with the comparison methods, which meets the requirements of high reliability and efficiency for tunnel construction. More importantly, the construction cost is reduced by 19% compared with the actual feed speed, which improves the economic benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Accounting & Financial Studies Journal is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Accounting & Financial Studies Journal is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Brazilian Journal of Production Engineering / Revista Brasileira de Engenharia de Produção is the property of Brazilian Journal of Production Engineering and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Platform technologies may be regarded as an innovative tool for reducing the operating expenses of industrial enterprises. By introducing platform technologies at all stages of the production and business processes, Russian enterprises may integrate various information systems and ensure effective data transfer between them. The introduction of platform technologies improves the coordination and synchronization of different departments and processes within the enterprise and increases overall efficiency and performance. Overall, decreasing the operating costs makes an enterprise more efficient, competitive, and stable during market changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aimed to demonstrate the extent to which public joint stock companies in Jordan rely on lean accounting tools for the purposes of reducing costs in companies. To achieve these goals, data was collected from public joint stock companies in Jordan by designing a questionnaire in accordance with the objectives and hypotheses of the study, and it was distributed to a sample of (120). ) employees working in the accounting departments and various administrative and marketing departments in the companies under study. The study concluded that the degree of correlation between the degree of application of lean accounting methods and cost reduction within Jordanian public shareholding companies (0.683) with a significance level of (0.000), so that it represents a significant correlation. Statistically in all fields, the study recommended the need for Jordanian public shareholding companies to use lean accounting methods because this provides them with the information to meet their needs, and to hold training courses for accountants on how to use lean accounting methods in order to access more realistic data and improve accounting processes, and the necessity of application between administrative and financial units when Applying lean accounting methods to reduce costs and increase market improvement and competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To successfully determine if a system meets some reliability standard, typically assurance tests are conducted on the full system. This proven approach is extremely effective. However, it can be cost prohibitive when full system tests are expensive. Previous work has incorporated component and subsystem data to supplement the component prior distributions before a full system assurance test. Although this can be helpful, we propose an additional advance of allowing component and subsystem tests as part of the assurance test. We show that by augmenting full system tests with component and subsystem tests, in some cases, we can reduce the cost of the assurance test. For a system that can be decomposed into independent series and parallel parts, the theory works perfectly. In the case where we cannot accurately classify parts using the series or parallel structure, we add a generalization that works for systems that are "almost-series" or "almost-parallel." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of thermal energy storage (TES) technologies, as means to provide dispatchability to thermally driven solar power production, has long stood as the main argument for the interest and potential competitiveness of Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) when compared to other non-dispatchable alternatives. Whereas reductions of the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) are observed for CSP in recent years, the notable LCOE reduction observed along this decade in large-scale solar photovoltaics (PV) plants is set to break the taboo of "power-to-heat-to-power" approaches, as its potential economic performance outcasts the associated thermodynamic inefficiency. The possibility of using available resistive heating technologies and components in PV-TES combinations, renders the configuration of a conventional CSP plant suitable for the replacement of a thermal conversion solar field by a photovoltaic field presenting further the possibility of delocalization and/or spatial distribution of the solar field (e.g. on a Carnot Battery configuration). As dispatchability no longer stands as an exclusive argument in favor of CSP over PV, the present article addresses the boundary conditions for the competitiveness of each technology as the champion of dispatchable solar power fields. The impact of both land and electrical heater costs variation in the variation of LCOE for PV-TES plants is much more modest than that observed for the impact of CSP solar field cost variations in the variation of LCOE for CSP plants, which leans for the latter and at present costs, towards better competitiveness for plant designs with a storage capacity in excess of 10.0 FLH (for GHI values in excess of 2100-2200 kWh∙m-2∙year-1).

Purpose –This study aims to provide an in-depth review of the application of the material flow cost accounting (MFCA) technique. It also provides a detailed account of how the technique can be applied in soybean oil processing, emphasizing its significance, key components, and potential benefits. Methodology - This paper adopts the literature review approach to explain the impact of applying the MFCA technique to the soybean oil production process. It provides insights into how MFCA can be effectively applied and implemented in this context. It aims to identify and quantify the environmental and economic costs associated with material usage, waste generation and management, and energy consumption. Findings - When applied to soybean oil production, MFCA provides insights into process efficiency, waste reduction opportunities and potential cost savings. It is concluded that applying the MFCA technique to the soybean oil production process will bring about cost reduction, waste reduction and environmental sustainability. Implications – The study’s scope and focus did not include a practical application of the MFCA technique to the soybean oil production process. However, if all the steps discussed in this study are diligently followed, it is believed that the technique can be successfully applied in soybean oil production. Originality – The study provides an original insight into the application of the MFCA technique, which is yet to be done to the best of the researchers’ knowledge.