This article concerns a profit model in a repair limit replacement problem with imperfect repair. If a system fails, we should decide whether we repair the failed system (repair option) or replace it by new one (replacement option with a lead time). We assume that repair times are random variables and can be estimated before repair with estimation error. If the estimated repair time is less than the specified limit (repair time limit), the failed unit is repaired but the unit after repair is different from the new one (imperfect repair). Otherwise, we order a new unit to replace the failed unit. The long run average profit (expected profit rate) is used as an optimization criterion and the optimal repair time limit maximizes the expected profit rate. Some special cases are derived.

Global restaurant franchises are becoming more and more popular in China, Japan, and South Korea. Understanding target customers' needs for restaurant franchises is considered one of the most important factors for their business success. In this study, four domains-food-related domain (FRD), interior-related domain (IRD), staff-related domain (SRD), and convenience-related domain (CRD)-and 24 elements were classified. A survey with 450 respondents in the three capital cities (Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul) was then conducted to examine the effect of the factors influencing customer satisfaction. After statistical analysis, thirteen main elements were found as factors influencing customer satisfaction. The analysis result showed that the food-related domain (FRD) was the most important in Beijing. The interior-related domain (IRD) and the convenience-related domain (CRD) were considered the most important in Tokyo and Seoul. Some cultural differences in customer satisfaction were also found. The results provide a guideline for better customer experience management of a restaurant franchise in the three cities.

Korea gas corporation (KOGAS) is responsible for the whole sale of natural gas in the domestic market. It is important to forecast the daily demand of city gas for supply and demand control, and delivery management. Since there is the autoregressive characteristic in the daily gas demand, we introduce a modified autoregressive model as the first step. The daily gas demand also has a close connection with the outdoor temperature. Accordingly, our second proposed model is a temperature-based model. Those two models, however, do not meet the requirement for forecasting performances. To produce acceptable forecasting performances, we develop a weighted average model which compounds the autoregressive model and the temperature model. To examine our proposed methods, the forecasting results are provided. We confirm that our method can forecast the daily city gas demand accurately with reasonable performances.

Investment scenarios in the transportation network design problem usually contain installation or expansion of multi-mode transportation links. When one applies the mode choice analysis and traffic assignment sequentially for each investment scenario, it is possible that the travel impedance used in the mode choice analysis is different from the user equilibrium cost of the traffic assignment step. Therefore, to estimate the travel impedance and mode choice accurately, one needs to develop a combined model for the mode choice and traffic assignment. In this paper, we derive the inverse demand and the excess demand functions for the multi-mode multinomial logit mode choice function and develop a combined model for the multi-mode variable demand traffic assignment problem. Using data from the regional O/D and network data provided by the KTDB, we compared the performance of the partial linearization algorithm with the Frank-Wolfe algorithm applied to the excess demand model and with the sequential heuristic procedures.

This paper proposes a strategic portfolio model for managing performance of online games. The portfolio matrix is composed of two dimensions: financial performance and non-financial performance. Financial performance is measured by the conventional measure, average revenue per user (ARPU). In terms of non-financial performance, five non-financial key performance indicators (KPIs) that have been widely used in the online game industry are utilized: RU (Register User), VU (Visiting User), TS (Time Spent), ACU (Average Current User), MCU (Maximum Current User). Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is then employed to produce a single performance measure aggregating the five KPIs. DEA is a linear programming model for measuring the relative efficiency of decision making unit (DMUs) with multiple inputs and outputs. This study employs DEA as a tool for multiple criteria decision making (MCDM), in particular, the pure output model without inputs. Combining the two types of performance produces the online game portfolio matrix with four quadrants: Dark Horse, Stop Loss, Jack Pot, Luxury Goods. A case study of 39 online games provided by company 'N' is provided. The proposed portfolio model is expected to be fruitfully used for strategic decision making of online game companies.

In spite of the emphasis on quality control in auto-industry, most of subcontract enterprises still lack a systematic in-process quality monitoring system for predicting the product/part quality for their customers. While their manufacturing processes have been getting automated and computer-controlled ever, there still exist many uncertain parameters and the process controls still rely on empirical works by a few skilled operators and quality experts. In this paper, a real-time product quality monitoring system for auto-manufacturing industry is presented to provide the systematic method of predicting product qualities from real-time production data. The proposed framework consists of a product quality ontology model for complex manufacturing supply chain environments, and a real-time quality prediction tool using support vector machine algorithm that enables the quality monitoring system to classify the product quality patterns from the in-process production data. A door trim production example is illustrated to verify the proposed quality prediction model.

Up-to-date market dynamics and intense competition have forced a production system to be more widely distributed and decentralized than ever, and the production system itself can be regarded as a collaborative network of autonomous production resources in which the responsibility of decision making is also decentralized into individual autonomous entities. The conventional resource management models, however, are not suitable for the distributed and decentralized environment because of their centralized nature. In this paper, an agent-based resource management model is proposed. The proposed model applies employment relation-driven fractal organization (FrOrg) into organizational model for distributed production resources and presents a resource management framework based on employment contracts. The fractal organization is a structured association in which a self-similar pattern recursively appears, and employment relations between production resources are recursively constructed throughout the entire production system.

The increasing level of operation in high-tech industry is likely to require ever more complex structure in reliability problem. Furthermore, system failures are more significant on society as a whole than ever before. Reliability redundancy optimization problem (RROP) plays a important role in the designing and analyzing the complex system. RROP involves selection of components with multiple choices and redundancy levels for maximizing system reliability with constraints such as cost, weight, etc. Meanwhile, previous works on RROP dealt with system with perfect failure detection, which gave at most a good solution. However, we studied RROP with imperfect failure detection and switching. Using absorbing Markov Chain, we present not a good solution but the optimal one. In this study, the optimal system configuration is designed with warm and cold-standby redundancy for k-out-of-n system in terms of MTTF that is one of the performance measures of reliability.

This paper compares efficiency results and performance targets for academic departments in a local private college using DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis). Because of an aging society, a smaller school-age population entering colleges, and enhanced accreditation standards by the government, colleges and universities are not recruiting and retaining sufficient students and therefore are struggling for survival. In contrast to popular four-year undergraduate universities concentrated in Seoul and its satellite cities, retaining students is critical for the survival of local private colleges in poor or remote regions. Therefore, it is very important to identify the factors involved in the retention of students in the various departments of a college. However, given the different characteristics of the departments, it is difficult to identify one unique or robust set of standards to evaluate their performance. The purpose of this paper is to maximize student retention capabilities by ensuring that additional resources are assigned to efficient DMUs, while, inefficient DMUs are given benchmarked targets. Based on previous studies and college accreditation standards, this paper presents indices to be used in evaluating the efficiency of academic departments in a college. In evaluating relative efficiency, this paper uses the output-oriented BCC model. To define target levels to be achieved for efficient DMU, a multi-stage DEA procedure is used.

Healthcare optimization is mandatory to strengthen the competitiveness of domestic healthcare industry. Healthcare optimization aims to increase service quality, patient safety, and system efficiency. This paper reviews various healthcare optimization cases of developed countries, synopsizes the current status of domestic healthcare industry, points out several reasons why healthcare optimization is not active in Korea, and suggests some vitalization ways.