Two-sided Certification: The market for Rating Agencies

Certifiers contribute to the sound functioning of markets by reducing a symmetric information. They, however, have been heavily criticized during the 2008-09 financial crisis. This paper investigates on which side of the market a monopolistic profit-maximizing certifier offers his service. If the seller demands a rating, the certifier announces the product quality publicly, whereas if the buyer requests a rating it remains his private information. The model shows that the certifier offers his service to sellers and buyers to maximize his own profit with a higher share from the sellers. Overall, certifiers increase welfare in specific markets. Revenue shifts due to the financial crisis are also explained

Two-sided Certification: The market for Rating Agencies

Certifiers contribute to the sound functioning of markets by reducing asymmetric information. They, however, have been heavily criticized during the 2008-09 financial crisis. This paper investigates on which side of the market a monopolistic profit-maximizing certifier offers his service. If the seller demands a rating, the certifier announces the product quality publicly, whereas if the buyer requests a rating it remains his private information. The model shows that the certifier offers his service to sellers and buyers to maximize his own profit with a higher share from the sellers. Overall, certifiers increase welfare in specific markets. Revenue shifts due to the financial crisis are also explained.Certification, Rating Agencies, Asymmetric Information, Financial Markets

COMPENSATION AND BUY-BACK DEALS IN SUPPLY CHAINS: ANALYZING STRATEGIC DECISION AREAS BY USING AHP

Practice reports suggest that the oldest form of trade – barter – is taking shape in supply chain management and production research. The paper highlights the phenomenon of countertrade in supply chains and takes first steps towards the conceptualization and explanation of a potentially powerful competitive tool–the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) – in practice.To test the construct, the model is applied to an illustrative case. The illustrations and the decision model shed light into why, and how, firms use countertrade in supply chains to support long-term business success. The identified forms of countertrade in supply chains exhibit different strengths with regard to a set of business objectives. The results contribute to the academic discussion of reciprocal agreements in supply chains as well as to the field of strategic production research in general. This paper should be of interest to practitioners as well as to academics specializing in supply chain management and strategic alliances in business networks

Towards Predicting Supplier Resilience: A Tree-Based Model Approach

ith looming uncertainties and disruptions in today's global supply chains, such as lockdown measures to contain COVID-19, supply chain resilience has gained considerable attention recently. While decision-makers in procurement have emphasized the importance of traditional risk assessment, its shortcomings can be complemented by resilience. However, while most resilience studies are too qualitative in nature and abstract to inform supplier decisions, many quantitative resilience studies frequently rely on complex and impractical operations research models fed with simulated supplier data. Thus there is the need for an integrative, intermediate way for the practical and automated prediction of resilience with real-world data. We therefore propose a random forest-based supervised learning method to predict supplier resilience, outperforming the current human benchmark evaluation by 139 percent. The model is trained on both internal ERP data and publicly available secondary data to help assess suppliers in a pre-screening step, before deciding which supplier to select for a specific product. The results of this study are to be integrated into a software tool developed for measuring and tracking the total cost of supply chain resilience from the perspective of purchasing decisions

Autonomous trucks: A supply chain adoption perspective

Autonomous trucks can potentially have a huge impact on supply chain networks. Though gaining a lot of attention in the industry, the topic has gained sparse interest from academia. This paper sets out to answer the question: What factors could potentially predict autonomous truck adoption? Though it is inherently difficult to make predictions for the future, we have conducted scenario analysis based on input from key experts in the field. Our findings suggest that technological maturity and regulation will be the two most important factors to observe, while also being very uncertain

Experimentelle Bestimmung der Rotorverluste eines dreipoligen kombinierten Radial-/Axialmagnetlagers aus Pulververbundwerkstoffen

In Vakuumanwendungen, wie Molekularpumpen oder Schwungradenergiespeichern, treffen oftmals hohe Drehzahlen auf schwierige Kühlbedingungen. Es besteht daher der Bedarf nach aktiven Magnetlagern mit einem besonders geringem Leistungsbedarf sowie geringen Ummagnetisierungsverlusten im Rotor. Die zur Verlustminimierung prädestinierten Pulververbundwerkstoffe (SMC - Soft Magnetic Composites) finden aufgrund ihrer geringen mechanischen Festigkeit bisher keine Anwendung in industriellen Hochgeschwindigkeitsanwendungen. In diesem Artikel wird das DFG-Projekt „Verlustarme magnetische Radial-/Axiallagerung unter Verwendung von Pulververbundwerkstoffen“ zusammengefasst sowie abschließend der experimentelle Nachweis erbracht, dass die neu entwickelte dreipolige Lagerstruktur mit kombiniertem Radial- und Axiallager den Einsatz von SMC auch bei Drehzahlen von bis zu 30 000 U/min erlaubt. Eine Projizierung der Messergebnisse auf verlustoptimierte industrielle SMC-Sorten verspricht zudem ein Reduzierungspotential der Ummagnetisierungsverluste von mindestens 23 – 44%, wobei insbesondere kompakte und hochausgenutzte Geometrien im Vorteil sind