• Journal of Information Technology Applications and Management
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2023

Interest in the future of the battery market is growing as Tesla announces plans to increase production of electric vehicles and to produce batteries. Tesla announced an action plan to reduce battery prices by 56% through 'Battery Day', which included expansion of factories to internalize batteries and improvement of materials and production technology. In the trend of automobile electrification, the expansion of the battery market, which accounts for 40% of the cost of electric vehicles, is inevitable, and the size of the electric vehicle battery market in 2026 is expected to increase more than five times compared to 2016. With the development of materials and process technology, the energy density of electric vehicle batteries is increasing while the price is decreasing. Soon, electric vehicles and internal combustion locomotives are expected to compete on the same line. Recently, the mileage of electric vehicles is approaching that of an internal combustion locomotive due to the installation of high-capacity batteries. In the EV battery market, Korean, Chinese and Japanese companies are fiercely competing. Based on market share in the first half of 2020, LG Chem, CATL, and Panasonic are leading the EV battery supply, and the top 10 companies included 3 Korean companies, 5 Chinese companies, and 2 Japanese companies. All-solid, lithium-sulfur, sodium-ion, and lithium air batteries are being discussed as the next-generation batteries after lithium-ion, among which all-solid-state batteries are the most active. All-solid-state batteries can dramatically improve stability and charging speed by using a solid electrolyte, and are excellent in terms of technology readiness level (TRL) among various technology alternatives. In order to increase the competitiveness of the battery industry in the future, efforts to increase the productivity and economy of electric vehicle batteries are also required along with the development of next-generation battery technology.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.182-191
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• 2024

Li(Ni_xCo_yMn_1-x-y)O₂ (NCM) is the intensively developed cathode material for expanding the electric vehicle market and developing lithium-ion batteries that meet higher capacity, longer life, and lower cost. High-nickel NCM increases the nickel content to 80% or more, securing price competitiveness by improving performance with high energy density and reducing the cost of cobalt. However, the high-nickel NCM materials have a residual lithium problem, leading to issues in battery performance degradation and stability. While various methods exist for removing residual lithium, such as washing, doping, and coating, this paper focuses on recent research trends in coatings aimed at enhancing NCM performance and stability by removing residual lithium.

• Informatization Policy
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.88-105
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• 2024

Many companies are adopting Information System (IS) operation outsourcing to focus on their core competencies and enhance operational efficiency. However, most of them employ a headcount-based pricing model, which often leads to exhaustive negotiations over contract costs without objective criteria or systematic frameworks. This headcount-based outsourcing contract environment results in low motivation/incentives for both client companies and IT service providers to improve productivity, efficiency, and quality, which poses challenges in securing a competitive advantage. This study introduces the development process of an IS operation outsourcing pricing model, which was collaboratively developed and agreed upon for implementation in actual contracts by an IT service company of a conglomerate. Also, the study underscores the activities undertaken to secure IT service competitiveness based on this model so as to deliver a practical guide for companies seeking to transition their outsourcing contract methods.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.29-38
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• 2011

Since a distribution market was opened in 1993 after the conclusion of the Uruguay Round (UR), various new businesses emerged in the Korean retail industry, such as convenience shops, supermarkets, specialty stores, non-store marketing methods, and cyber shopping malls, in addition to traditional markets and department stores. Competition among these retail businesses has intensified. According to the National Statistical Office (NSO), the growth rate of the total retail industry has shown a 32% increase in the past 5 years. While department stores, supermarkets, specialty stores, and other non-store retailing venues have shown signs of stagnation at a growth rate of 20-30%, which is similar to the growth rate of the entire retail industry, convenience shops and non-store marketing have shown 60-70% growth over the same period. By comparison, the growth rate of cyber shopping malls has nearly tripled. When applying development aspects of retail businesses through the competition to the retail life cycle, mom-and-pop stores and traditional markets have already entered the decline phase as specialty stores reach their maturity phase and demonstrate their limit of growth. Department stores are now in the latter part of the growth phase, which is still considered to have some growth potential. Big super markets are still in the early part of their growth stage although they were introduced 20 years ago. Meanwhile, retail businesses such as convenience stores, supermarkets, mail order houses, and warehouse stores are entering the middle growth phase and are expected to continue with their quantitative growth. At a time when most retail businesses in Korea are in a state of development or in the full growth stage, what kind of new innovative retailing will appear and develop? Moreover, what growth engine will drive it? This study analyzes the appearance of innovative retailing and its development process by establishing a discussable consumer's choice model through the interlocking mutual behavior of differentiated competitiveness and consumers' choice based on an awareness of this issue. The analysis of the results of this study can be summarized as follows. First, if a new vacuum zone emerges at the retail market level, innovative retailing such as low price/low service or high price/high service will emerge simultaneously. Second, if the number of new businesses in the vacuum zone increases, this will create competitiveness among the businesses, and each retailer will develop raising of level. Third, if a new business that raises the level develops, competition between the new and the existing retailer will occur, and an assimilation process between the existing retailing and the new retailing will be unfolded. Fourth, each retailing will promote distribution innovations in order to break the frontier of the existing distribution technology, and other retailing will follow the innovator. On the basis of an analysis of the abovementioned results, this study presents the following three suggestions. First, responding to the consumer's decision-making process on the attributes of retail shops that promote differentiation in strategies, this study established a consumer's choice model that can be discussed in relation to changes in market share. Second, this study provided an analysis of the emerging and developmental processes of innovative retail businesses using a more precise logical structure on the basis of the consumer's choice model described in this study. Third, the development process of retail businesses discussed in this study presented retailing solutions regarding management aspects on how to compose a strong retail mix that can help retail businesses gain competitive advantages in the market.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.147-157
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• 2022

This study tried to propose a smart farm technology strategy suitable for the domestic situation, focusing on the differentiation suitable for the domestic situation of ICT technology. In the case of advanced countries in the overseas agricultural industry, it was confirmed that they focused on the development of a specific stage that reflected the geographical characteristics of each country, the characteristics of the agricultural industry, and the characteristics of the people's demand. Confirmed that no enemy development is being performed. Therefore, in response to problems such as a rapid decrease in the domestic rural population, aging population, loss of agricultural price competitiveness, increase in fallow land, and decrease in use rate of arable land, this study aims to develop smart farm ICT technology in the future to create quality agricultural products and have price competitiveness. It was suggested that the smart farm should be promoted by paying attention to the excellent performance, ease of use due to the aging of the labor force, and economic feasibility suitable for a small business scale. First, in terms of economic feasibility, the ICT technology is configured by selecting only the functions necessary for the small farm household (primary) business environment, and the smooth communication system with these is applied to the ICT technology to gradually update the functions required by the actual farmhouse. suggested that it may contribute to the reduction. Second, in terms of performance, it is suggested that the operation accuracy can be increased if attention is paid to improving the communication function of ICT, such as adjusting the difficulty of big data suitable for the aging population in Korea, using a language suitable for them, and setting an algorithm that reflects their prediction tendencies. Third, the level of ease of use. Smart farms based on ICT technology for the development of the Industry6.0 (1.0(Agriculture, Forestry) + 2.0(Agricultural and Water & Water Processing) + 3.0 (Service, Rural Experience, SCM)) perform operations according to specific commands, finally suggested that ease of use can be promoted by presetting and standardizing devices based on big data configuration customized for each regional environment.

• Journal of the Korean Society of International Agriculture
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.8-16
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• 2019

Alternatives for increasing the competitiveness of locally manufactured agricultural machinery in domestic and foreign markets has been proposed. This was done by analyzing the major agricultural machinery's price and market share as well as their performance and quality. In the Korean domestic market, the market share of Japanese agricultural machinery has been identified to be 14.5% for tractors, 31.1% for combine harvesters, and 35.8% for rice transplanters, and on track for further increase. Japanese manufacturers' domestic patent shares are 58.5% for tractors, 79.9% for combine harvesters, and 69.8% for rice transplanters, showing the dire need for Korean domestic firms to expand their technological rights. To strengthen the industrial competitiveness of agricultural machinery, therefore, researches that develop the fundamental and elemental technology to reduce the frequency of breakdown should be needed in the short term. To achieve this, it is imperative to establish technology roadmap, promote greater cooperation between academia and industry, and systematically increase research funding. In addition, as a long-term solution for enhancing the competitiveness, an establishment of Agricultural Equipment Technology Institute is strongly recommended to systematically support R&D for developing core technologies, particularly high-quality components that guarantee durability and quality.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.137-154
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• 2002

It's not easy to renew old brand of over 50 years history to the tastes of new consumer of our time. Most of national brands that has a history of some 20 years in Korea have strove for continuation and growth of brand to no avails, which can be taken as a good example of current situation. For instance, C company, one of the National brand of US which has a history of 51 years, has made its position secure as a fashion group and based itself on a sound foundation by establishing new marketing strategy and completing successful brand renewal in the process of strategic M&A with Italian company. Those successful marketing strategies are as follows. 1) they regarded both market and consumer oriented marketing activity as company's highest priority strategy and put great emphasis upon concentration on target market and reestablishment of brand image of business casual wear. 2) Setting up and operating planning team composed of merchandizer alone in Milano, they set the direction of plan on the basis of concentrated research on potential item in market according to thorough market research done by buying office in Korea, branch office in Hong Kong and buyer in US prior to blueprint planning for season. 3) Great emphasis was placed on business which focused on intensive presentation of basic key item for apparel career women who are main consumer group in the midium-low prices market in US and on supplementation of size and color. they named this line 'collectibles' and helped their customer develop their own clothes plan without worrying about the change of color and fabric by supporting same fabric and color throughout the year and enabled them to add variation easily by supplementing new trend item. 4) Company set black as a main color that lots of apparel career women find easy to care and to express their own image and presented them with pebble which belongs to navy and beige and added fashion color such as wine and brown etc as season goes by. They constructed basic line in order for their customers to coordinate purchased item with new one or to add them to present collection, and to achieve efficient sale by setting up strategy which allows this cross coordination and changing pattern occasionally. 5) Though basic jacket for 99$, short slim skirt for 49$ are products within midium-low prices range, in the material planning stage aiming at production of item that has both resonable function appealing to consumer and is fashionable, synthetic material had to be used as a main source due to price competitiveness. Despite this situation, considering comfortable sense of fit and refined drape of silhouette that has no sign of cheap material, whole collectible line was divided into two items, which contributed to reduction of cost. In case of material that is composed of triacetate and polyester in 70 to 30 ratio, was used up to 4 million yard, which allowed drastic curtailment of cost accompanied by concentration. In case of 'collectibles' line, using Korean material mainly, C company chose to have their product sewed in Southeast Asian countries where transportation is well developed and both productivity and quality verified by operating global production system which aiming at cutdown of cost through outsourcing production from the country where labor cost is low and getting finished product. Polarization between present consumers telling us that consumers with the mind of middle classes in the past no longer exists between consumers who seek after only fine article of highest quality and wise consumers who are sensible enough to judge bubble on correlation between price and quality. To cope with this change in new consumer mind, apparel makes changing their policy so as to produce item that has reasonable quality and falls within affordable price range anywhere in the world. and they're striving to get out of difficult situation by operating global marketing strategy which stresses separation of planning, production and sale and sensibility of fashion shared worldwide. The marketing strategy of C company can be exemplified as a successful one.

• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.3-49
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• 2014

Growing interest of stakeholders on corporate responsibilities for environment and tightening environmental regulations are highlighting the importance of environmental management more than ever. However, companies' awareness of the importance of environment is still falling behind, and related academic works have not shown consistent conclusions on the relationship between environmental performance and economic performance. One of the reasons is different ways of measuring these two performances. The evaluation scope of economic performance is relatively narrow and the performance can be measured by a unified unit such as price, while the scope of environmental performance is diverse and a wide range of units are used for measuring environmental performances instead of using a single unified unit. Therefore, the results of works can be different depending on the performance indicators selected. In order to resolve this problem, generalized and standardized performance indicators should be developed. In particular, the performance indicators should be able to cover the concepts of both environmental and economic performances because the recent idea of environmental management has expanded to encompass the concept of sustainability. Another reason is that most of the current researches tend to focus on the motive of environmental investments and environmental performance, and do not offer a guideline for an effective implementation strategy for environmental management. For example, a process improvement strategy or a market discrimination strategy can be deployed through comparing the environment competitiveness among the companies in the same or similar industries, so that a virtuous cyclical relationship between environmental and economic performances can be secured. A novel method for measuring eco-efficiency by utilizing Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which is able to combine multiple environmental and economic performances, is proposed in this report. Based on the eco-efficiencies, the environmental competitiveness is analyzed and the optimal combination of inputs and outputs are recommended for improving the eco-efficiencies of inefficient firms. Furthermore, the panel analysis is applied to the causal relationship between eco-efficiency and economic performance, and the pooled regression model is used to investigate the relationship between eco-efficiency and economic performance. The four-year eco-efficiencies between 2010 and 2013 of 23 companies are obtained from the DEA analysis; a comparison of efficiencies among 23 companies is carried out in terms of technical efficiency(TE), pure technical efficiency(PTE) and scale efficiency(SE), and then a set of recommendations for optimal combination of inputs and outputs are suggested for the inefficient companies. Furthermore, the experimental results with the panel analysis have demonstrated the causality from eco-efficiency to economic performance. The results of the pooled regression have shown that eco-efficiency positively affect financial perform ances(ROA and ROS) of the companies, as well as firm values(Tobin Q, stock price, and stock returns). This report proposes a novel approach for generating standardized performance indicators obtained from multiple environmental and economic performances, so that it is able to enhance the generality of relevant researches and provide a deep insight into the sustainability of environmental management. Furthermore, using efficiency indicators obtained from the DEA model, the cause of change in eco-efficiency can be investigated and an effective strategy for environmental management can be suggested. Finally, this report can be a motive for environmental management by providing empirical evidence that environmental investments can improve economic performance.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.28 no.12 s.138
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• pp.1632-1643
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• 2004

The competitiveness of the domestic cosmetics market will improve more rapidly when efficient market segmentation is secured, qualitative information about each of the segmented markets is gathered, and adequate marketing strategies to meet the demands of each segmented markets is established. Therefore, continuous studies are needed to secure qualitative information for market segmentation. In order to find out whether the domestic cosmetics market could be segmented according to consumers' shopping orientation, the present study analyzed cosmetics purchasing behavior, complaint behavior, and demographic characteristics of each consumer group classified according to their shopping orientation. The study was implemented by a normative-descriptive survey method using a questionnaire. Three groups of consumers were identified according to their shopping orientation: price-oriented group, information-oriented group, and brand-oriented group. It was confirmed that the groups, classified according to shopping orientation, have significantly different demographic, purchasing, and complaint behavior. Therefore, shopping orientation should be carefully considered in the segmentation of the cosmetics market.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.139-144
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• 2008

Recently due to march as the high oil price, It is necessary for Korea to grope a plan, which is to increase the energy efficiency of existing facilities as well as to develop overseas gas and oil resources. With this point, this work carried out to approach the high pressure LNG pipeline network of Inchon receiving terminal with Newton method as corrective flowrate. We found that the high pressure network mainly depends on FCVs(Flow Control Valves). The high pressure pump showed the maximum efficiency at the FCVs of 50% opening and could discharge LNG only above the LNG head of 1,500m from a system curve obtained. The operating cost of pumps was estimated from their operating points. We compared the operating cost under normal operation with the operating cost under maximum efficiency. Especially, we obtained the day savings of a year as wells as the hour savings of a day. From the results, the high pressure network win be able to reduce the operating cost of 138 million wons in a year. This means that a pump can reduce the operating cost of 9,823 thousands won. Consequently, this work could find the operating features of the pumps under the complicated high pressure LNG network and the savings effect of the pump operating cost. Also, the results will be able to macroscopically contribute the heightening of national energy competitiveness as well as to microscopically contribute the future effective operation of LNG receiving terminal.