Study of third party logistics selection and development in Singapore

Over the years, not only has the number of 3rd Party Logistics (3PL) users increased, but also, the extent of 3PL involvement in the entire supply chain has become greater than ever before. With the development of Supply Chain Management (SCM) concepts, a 3PL’s role is more than just operational, but strategic as well. Scholars refer to this kind of 3PL user-provider relation as a ‘strategic partnership’. The 3PL selection decision is therefore more critical. However so far, no attempt has been made to integrate SCM perspective with the 3PL selection issue, and to study how the decision-making process is. It is recognized that different firms carry out their 3PL selection processes differently, and there is no prescribed industrial standard. This paper takes on a SCM perspective and reports the outcome of a research on the issue of 3PL service provider selection in the cold chain industry in Singapore. A conceptual framework consisting of ten selection criteria was first developed through two stages: literature review, and an in-depth preliminary interview with an expert in cold chain logistics. A survey questionnaire was then designed based on pair-wise comparison principle of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), to determine the average relative importance of each criterion in the cold chain industry in general. A systematic and numerical approach was worked out. Three additional in-depth interviews were included, to confirm and complement the proposed framework and procedure. The study generated a ranking of ten 3PL selection criteria in the cold chain industry in Singapore, where the most important three criteria are: cost competitiveness, people, and service quality. The research results suggested a gradually shifting focus of supply chain managers from ‘minimizing logistics cost’ to ‘maximizing the supply chain value’. After a cross comparison between three different industries, namely Fast-Moving Consumer Goods, Electrical & Electronic, and Cold Chain, it was concluded that different industries value the importance of selection criteria differently, but some commonalities can be observed at the same time.Bachelor of Science (Maritime Studies

Comparative Analysis and Cultivation of New Agricultural Business Entities Based on Comparison of Family Farms and Professional Cooperatives

Cultivating new bussiness entities is the key to speeding up improving new agricultural production and operating system. This study discussed two representative entities under the agricultural production and operating system based on household contract management, namely, family farms and cooperatives. It introduced current development status of these two entities in Chongqing region, and discussed prominent problems of understanding, management, fund, personnel, technology, information, and system in the development process. In line with common problems such as single production structure and short supply of agricultural insurance, and different problems like organizational degree, it made comparative analysis. Finally, it is concluded that different institutional arrangement and pertinent support policy according to different development characteristics

IMECE2006-13928 MODELING OF ION TRANSPORT IN HIGH STRAIN IONOMERS BY MONTE CARLO SIMULATION COMPARED TO CONTINUUM MODEL

ABSTRACT The transport of charge due to electric stimulus is the primary mechanism of actuation for a class of polymeric active materials known as ionomeric polymer transducers (IPTs). A two-dimensional ion hopping model has been built to describe ion transport in the IPT. In a Monte Carlo simulation, a square lattice of 50nm × 50nm is investigated containing 200 cations and 200 anions. Step voltages are applied between the electrodes of the IPT, causing the thermally-activated hopping between multiwell energy structures. The energy barrier height includes three parts: intrinsic energy, energy height due to the electric field and energy height due to ion-ion interactions. Periodic boundary conditions have been applied in the direction perpendicular to the electric field. The influence of the electrodes on both faces of IPT is formulated by the method of image charges. The charge density profile over the material has been calculated by the ion distribution in steady state. The Monte Carlo simulation is repeated multiple times to obtain an average result of the charge density. The averaged profile shows regions of cation depletion close to the anode, charge neutrality in the central part and ion accumulation close to the cathode, which qualitatively agrees with the results from conventional continuum models. To quantatively examine the Monte Carlo simulation of the ion hopping model, comparisons with a computational model of transport and electromechanical transduction are performed. This computational model is based upon a coupled chemo-electrical multi-field formulation and computes the spatio-temporal charge density profile to an applied potential at the boundaries. It can be seen that both methods, the statistical theory and the continuum theory, match quite well and are both able to represent the actual behavior inside the IPT. Moreover, experiments are performed to validate the current density calculated by the Monte Carlo simulation. The active material is Nafion 117 (Dupont) in the form of a cantilevered transducer with conductive electrodes on both surfaces and with mobile Na + counter-ions. Voltage inputs are provided by a dSPACE DS1102 DSP and amplified using an HP power amplifier. The current is measured by placing a small resistor in series with the sample, between the sample and ground. The voltage across the resistor is amplified and measured by dSPACE. The electrical current is calculated by dividing the voltage drop across the resistor by its resistance. Current density in both simulation results and experimental results exhibits an exponential decay over time

An Empirical Study of the Relationship between the Fixed Assets Investment and Urban-rural Income Gap during the Transition Period

As the gap in income between urban and rural residents bigger and bigger, based on the data from 1978 to 2007, this paper makes an empirical study of the dynamic relation between the fixed assets investment and the difference in income between urban and rural residents. The outcome from the study indicates a long-term balance exists between the investment rate of the fixed assets and the difference in income between urban and rural residents. A short-term deviation from the balance can be adjusted through long time. To a certain extent, city-oriented fixed assets investment policy is the main cause of the big gap in income between urban and rural residents. The big gap in income between urban and rural residents in turn reinforces their social status, thus further strengthening the city-oriented instead of countryside-oriented fixed assets investment policy. Based on that, this paper puts forward some suggestions on adjusting the fixed assets investment policy so as to shorten the difference in income between urban and rural residents and realize the goal of harmonious development between city and countryside

Real-Time Monitoring for Effects of Vibration and Temperature of Construction Site on Steel Assembly Bracing of Foundation Pit

In this paper, a real-time monitoring system—including vibration acceleration sensors, temperature sensors, and static and dynamic strain sensors—is used to monitor the safety status of a steel assembly bracing in a practical project. It uses 5G wireless networking technology to transmit monitoring data to a cloud server for early warning of abnormal changes and development trends. Real-time monitoring data obtained in a construction site are used as the inputs of the finite element model and the corresponding results of numerical simulation are compared with the results from the real-time monitoring. It can be concluded that: (1) the stress caused by environmental temperature is very significant which can be higher than the initial prestress of the steel assembly bracing; (2) the stress caused by the vertical vibration mainly from construction vehicles is not remarkable, however, the vertical frequency-weighted acceleration of support vibration is relatively large which can affect the sense of safety of engineering technicians on site; (3) the combination of the environmental temperature and vertical vibration does not affect the safety of the steel assembly bracing

Analytical expression of elastic rods at equilibrium under 3D strong anchoring boundary conditions

International audienceA general-purpose method is presented and implemented to express analytically one stationary configuration of an ideal 3D elastic rod when the end-to-end relative position and orientation are imposed. The mechanical equilibrium of such a rod is described by ordinary differential equations and parametrized by six scalar quantities. When one end of the rod is anchored, the analytical integration of these equations lead to one unique solution for given values of these six parameters. When the second end is also anchored, six additional nonlinear equations must be resolved to obtain parameter values that fit the targeted boundary conditions. We find one solution of these equations with a zero-finding algorithm, by taking initial guesses from a grid of potential candidates. We exhibit the symmetries of the problem, which reduces drastically the size of this grid and shortens the time of selection of an initial guess. The six variables used in the search algorithm, forces and moments at one end of the rod, are particularly adapted due to their unbounded definition domain. More than 850 000 tests are performed in a large region of configurational space, and in 99.9% of cases the targeted boundary conditions are reached with short computation time and a precision better than 10 −5. We propose extensions of the method to obtain many solutions instead of only one, using numerical continuation or starting from different initial guesses