• Korea Journal of Hospital Management
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.54-90
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• 2006

Medical clinics are core institutes that cover the primary medical care in Korea. Financial viability of the clinics is essential for them to conduct their roles and functions, and can be improved by increasing their operating profitability. On this ground, this study aimed at finding important factors that affect the operating profitability, and thereby at suggesting strategic alternatives that can contribute to the improvement of the profitability. Operating margin was set as a dependent variable, and such factors as general management conditions, number of visits, medical revenue, marketing activities, input resources, medical cost as independent variables. Nineteen hypotheses related to the variables were established and tested using data collected from 138 sample clinics for the year 2003. The results of the study are as follows : Firstly, such variables as percent ratio of the depreciation plus rent costs to total administration costs, type of clinical department manifested whether medical, surgical, or quasi-surgical, percent ratio of the interior facility investment to total fixed assets, and total number of outpatient visit are important factors that affect, positively or negatively, the medical profitability of the clinics. Secondly, following measures are needed to be established and implemented to improve the medical profitability. (1) Administration costs share 53.2% of the total medical costs, and depreciation plus rent costs 16.3% of the total administration costs. This implies that such measures as reinforcement of marketing activities, establishment of the cooperative utilizing system of the facility and equipment, or group practice are needed to increase cost-effectiveness. (2) Occupancy rate of the clinics with inpatient bed is as low as 45.5%, causing high fixed costs and low medical profitability. For its improvement, the resource input structure should be reorganized. Thirdly, in the future, a study that can increase sample representativeness of the study and explanation power of the variables should be performed for each type of clinical department to find more specific determinant factors and to contribute to the improvement of the medical profitability of the clinics.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.677-682
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• 2014

One of the most important element technologies for achieving high-precision in machine tool spindle systems is preload technology for the bearing of spindle systems. Fixed position preload, constant pressure preload, conversion preload and variable preload methods have been applied for the spindle systems. In this study, a new variable preload method using centrifugal force and rubber pressure is used for reducing installation costs through simplifying its structure. The main objective of the work is the verification of the operability in a preload device using the rubber pressure by the finite element analysis. It is shown that the variable preload device proposed in this study is applicable to high speed machine tool spindles.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.67-84
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• 2000

In this paper, we address a network design problem including the decision of hub facility locatiions which is typically found in a communicatio and a transportation network design studies. Due to the administrative and the geographical restrictions, it is common to assume that each user should be assigned to only one hub facility. To construct such a network, three types of network costs should be considered: the fixed costs of establishing the hubs and the arcs in the network, and the variable costs associated with transversing the network. The complex problem is formulated as a mixed IP embedding a multicommodity flow problem. Exploiting its special structure, a dual-based heuristic is then developed, which yields near-optimal design plans. The test results indicate that the heuristic is an effective way to solve this computationally complex problem.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.455-467
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• 2015

This study analyzed the regional economic feasibility of greenhouse gases (GHGs) reduction technology in paddy rice. Firstly, the impact of GHGs reduction technology on productivity, emission reduction, and costs is different from region to region. Secondly, the water irrigation system contributes to productivity, GHGs reduction, and water reduction, but the profit of paddy rice will decrease because of increase in fixed costs and variable costs. Thirdly, the economic feasibility shows that water-savings plot has a 1.41 in a benefit-cost ratio.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.7
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• pp.181-193
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• 2021

Thailand's tourism industry contributed to over three trillion baht in 2019. Tourist attractions across Thailand attract tourists around the world with their natural scenery, lifestyles, and cultures, especially in those called "second-tier cities". Community enterprises play a vital role to drive the tourism industry to local areas. However, most community enterprises lack professional accounting knowledge. This research aims to provide guidelines for ecotourism cost management of community enterprises in Thailand. Participatory Action Research (PAR) was employed to investigate the current circumstances of the Banlaem enterprise by using in-depth interviews to identify problems in cost management. Then, the focus and small group meetings were organized to monitor and evaluate solutions. The results reveal that the cost of VIP-Two Days trip was generating the highest net profit and margin, followed by VIP-One Day trip, but net losses were detected on the Students-One Day trip, even though income was greater than the variable costs, revenues didn't cover fixed costs. Thus, accounting knowledge could be a major concern of these enterprises. They should systematically record revenues and expenses, set appropriate labor costs, reduce production costs by using seasonal seafood and make use of vegetables in their gardens, and price products according to their production costs.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.158-167
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• 1989

In this paper, a model is presented which incoporates the possibility of quality control at each of the production stages. We consider the TYPE I error and the TYPE II error in inspection procedures. In addition to alternative quality control configurations, the model integrates the carrying costs of in-process and finished inventory, quality of production process, reprocessing including fixed and variable cost. Our policy determines the value of optimal lot-size and reprocessing batch size in reducing the total costs. A numerical example illustrates the model framework and highlights the role of the decision variables.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.28 no.8
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• pp.1209-1215
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• 2015

Since lamb is a commodity, producers cannot control the price of the product they sell. Therefore, managing production costs is a necessity. We explored the study of elasticities as a tool for basing decision-making in sheep production, and aimed at investigating the composition and elasticities of lamb production costs, and their influence on the performance of the activity. A representative sheep production farm, designed in a panel meeting, was the base for calculation of lamb production cost. We then performed studies of: i) costs composition, and ii) cost elasticities for prices of inputs and for zootechnical indicators. Variable costs represented 64.15% of total cost, while 21.66% were represented by operational fixed costs, and 14.19% by the income of the factors. As for elasticities to input prices, the opportunity cost of land was the item to which production cost was more sensitive: a 1% increase in its price would cause a 0.2666% increase in lamb cost. Meanwhile, the impact of increasing any technical indicator was significantly higher than the impact of rising input prices. A 1% increase in weight at slaughter, for example, would reduce total cost in 0.91%. The greatest obstacle to economic viability of sheep production under the observed conditions is low technical efficiency. Increased production costs are more related to deficient zootechnical indexes than to high expenses.

• Journal of the Korean Operations Research and Management Science Society
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.13-25
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• 1999

This paper presents a model of competitive positioning and pricing of new products in a multi-segmented market. The segments in the market are located on a multi-dimensional discrete attribute space with fixed demands. Firms launch products sequentially on the attribute space, incurring fixed and variable costs, and then decide on their product prices. Each firm acts to maximize its profit. Market share of a firm is determined by the position and price of Its product. We provide sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of Nash equilibrium Another equilibrium concept is Introduced and related to the Nash equilibrium. A heuristic algorithm based on genetic algorithms is designed to obtain the Nash equilibrium.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.422-425
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• 2003

CBP market which is the first stage of competitive electricity market has been operated and the KPX has been established since April, 2001 by restructuring plan for electricity industry. Baseload unit are settled with baseload CP and BLMP in CBP market. The other unit are settled with peakload CP and SMP. The difference of settlement between two groups occurs the profit changes of the unit. This paper analyzes the profit by units under settlement rule in CBP market. It analyzes the difference between market clearing price and variable costs, and fixed cost recovery through CP income. Finally, this paper suggests the plan how market was affected by the difference of fixed cost recovery by generators and how to improve Intermediate and peak load unit's profit.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.271-276
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• 2021

In this paper we analyze the effect of the credit period on inventory policy under trade credit with ordering cost including a fixed cost and freight cost, where the freight cost has a quantity discount. For marketing purposes, some supplier offers credit period to his buyer to stimulate the demand for the product he produces. The delay in payments during the credit period has the effect of reducing the buyer's capital opportunity cost. It is also assumed that the buyer pays the freight cost for the order and hence, the ordering cost consists of a fixed ordering cost and a variable freight cost which depends on the order quantity. As a result, the possibilities of trade credit and discounts on freight costs are expected to play an important role in the buyer's inventory policy. Based on the economic order quantity inventory model, we analyze how the buyer can determine the optimal inventory policy and we examine the effect of the length of credit period on the buyer's inventory policy.