U.S. Trade in Information-Intensive Services

Trade in services has increased significantly and the United States has been a leader in services trade. The U.S. not only accounts for the largest share of world trade in private services but also runs a substantial amount of surplus in services trade. One important trend has been the rapid growth of U.S. trade in information-intensive services. This paper examines the growth and patterns in U.S. exports and imports of various information-intensive services. The analysis indicates that trade in business, professional, and technical services; financial services; and insurance has experienced the most rapid growth in recent times. This paper further discusses some of the intuitively plausible explanations for the growth of trade in information-intensive services.

Contracting for Services in the U.S. Army: An Empirical Study of Current Management Practices

An analysis of the implications of different deficiencies of services acquisitions in the U.S. Army, as well as the effectiveness of current contract management processes and recommendations for improvement.This article presents the results of our empirical study of current management practices in services acquisition in the U.S. Army. In this study, we developed and used a web-based survey to collect primary data on the acquisition strategy, procurement methods, and contract types used at army installations. Specifically, we studied the current management practices in such areas as life cycle approach, project management, organization/management structure, and training provided to services acquisition personnel

Lean Six Sigma in Healthcare: Combating the Military's Escalating Pharmacy Costs

Sponsored Report (for Acquisition Research Program)Healthcare costs throughout the United States are on the rise, drawing increased scrutiny from government officials and Congress. The cost of pharmacy operations and pharmaceuticals is growing at a rate that is alarmingly higher than that of the total cost of military healthcare itself. Recent congressional legislation has essentially given the Department of Defense the ultimatum to cut costs for beneficiaries wherever possible, or risk having benefits arbitrarily cut by Congress. In the face of this possibility, cutting costs through better business practices must be explored, particularly within the area of pharmacy operations. This project explores the potential cost savings that can be realized by implementing Lean Six Sigma (LSS) methodology in the pharmacy operations of the DoD Medical Treatment Facilities (MTF). This research proves that implementing Lean Six Sigma methodology will improve military pharmacy operations, often at little cost, while realizing significant savings and increased customer satisfaction.Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research ProgramApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Managing the Service Supply Chain in the Department of Defense: An Empirical Study of Current Management Practices

Sponsored Report (for Acquisition Research Program)This paper presents the results of our ongoing research on the management of services acquisition in the Department of Defense. In this empirical study we developed and used a web-based survey to collect data on the acquisition strategy, procurement methods, and contract types used at Air Force and Navy installations. Specifically, we studied the current management practices in such areas as life cycle approach, project management, organization/management structure, and training provided to services acquisition personnel. We find that the majority of the services contracts awarded and administered conformed to our expectation. For example, most service contracts are competitively bid, fixed-priced awards without any type of contract incentive. However, we found that the Air Force and Navy use different contracting approaches''specifically in the areas of organizational level of acquisition offices (regional versus installation), the use of project teams, leaders of the acquisition effort (program personnel versus contracting officers), and managers of the services requirement (program personnel, contracting officers, and customer organizations). We analyzed the implications and impact of different approaches on the effectiveness of the contract management process and make recommendations on improving the management of services acquisition in the Department of Defense.Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research ProgramApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

A study of the gating system of castings produced by the full-mold process

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1978 A67Master of Scienc

Outsourcing of Disaggregated Services in Cloud-Based Enterprise Information Systems

In this paper, we examine outsourcing of disaggregated information-intensive services. Drawing on the theoretical streams of Global Information-Intensive Service Disaggregation and Transaction-Cost Economics, we formulate our research model to understand the phenomenon of disaggregation in the context of cloud computing. The model encompasses frequency, asset specificity, uncertainty, information intensity, and need for customer contact as characteristics of tasks that we use to explain the outsourcing of disaggregated services. We are especially interested in understanding the interplay between these characteristics and the increasingly popular cloud-based systems. Our results partially support previous research on the effects of characteristics on outsourcing. The main finding of the paper is impact of the cloud-based information systems on the interaction of these characteristics.Peer reviewe

Impact of accounting process characteristics on accounting outsourcing - Comparison of users and non-users of cloud-based accounting information systems

Prior literature informs us that a company’s decision to outsource a business process depends on process characteristics such as how frequently the process is performed or how specific the assets required by the process are. In this article, we compare the effects of accounting process characteristics on outsourcing decisions across users of traditional and cloud-based accounting information systems (AIS). By focusing on outsourcing of accounting processes among small and medium sized enterprises, we investigate the effect of five business process characteristics (frequency, human asset specificity, uncertainty, information intensity, and need for customer contact) on the outsourcing decision. Our results reveal that process frequency has a weaker negative effect on the outsourcing decision among users of cloud-based AIS. This appears to contribute to users of cloud-based AIS outsourcing a larger variety of accounting processes. Compared to traditional AIS, the inherent properties of cloud-based AIS such as ubiquitous access, scalability, and integration seem to encourage users of cloud-based AIS to also outsource processes that are frequently performed

The freezing tendency towards 4-coordinated amorphous networks causes an increase in the heat capacity of supercooled Stillinger–Weber silicon

Supercooled liquid silicon (Si), modeled by the Stillinger–Weber (SW) potential, has been shown to undergo transition to low density amorphous phases at 1060 K in previous studies. Furthermore, the constant pressure heat capacity Cp has been found to exhibit a large increase as the liquid is cooled to 1060 K. In this work, we examine the nature of the equilibrium and the relaxation process of supercooled SW Si in the temperature range of 1060 K to 1070 K at zero pressure. We find that the relaxation of the supercooled liquid leads to a sharp irreversible decrease in the fluctuation of the two body energy of the largest connected network of 4-coordinated particles. Such a process implies a tightening of the bonds (i.e. freezing or jamming) of the network, and is accompanied by a sharp increase in the fraction of the 4-coordinated particles in the system. We find that the jamming (or freezing) process shows a sudden acceleration across a dynamical instability point that occurs at a unique potential energy state of the network. Further, we find that the occurrence of the dynamical instability is associated with the appearance of a straight line region in the cumulative potential energy distributions with a configurational temperature close to 1060 K. We conclude that the supercooled liquid state must be regarded as a constrained equilibrium state, since the accessible microstates are constrained by the inherent tendency of the system to approach the dynamical instability point. Thus all properties of supercooled liquid SW-Si, including the rise in Cp at 1060 K, can be attributed to the freezing tendency of the 4-coordinated particle network