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Learning Curve Effects
In industry, models of the learning or experience curve effect express the relationship between experience producing a good and the efficiency of that production, specifically, efficiency gains that follow investment in the effort. The effect has large implications for costs and market share, which can increase competitive advantage over time. History: from psychological learning curves to the learning curve effect An early empirical demonstration of learning curves was produced in 1885 by the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus. Ebbinghaus was investigating the difficulty of memorizing verbal stimuli. He found that performance increased in proportion to experience (practice and testing) on memorizing the word set. (More detail about the complex processes of learning are discussed in the Learning curve article.) Wright's law and the discovery of the learning curve effect This was later more generalized to: the more times a task has been performed, the less time is required ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Private Industry
The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The private sector employs most of the workforce in some countries. In private sector, activities are guided by the motive to earn money. A 2013 study by the International Finance Corporation (part of the World Bank Group) identified that 90 percent of jobs in developing countries are in the private sector. Diversification In free enterprise countries, such as the United States, the private sector is wider, and the state places fewer constraints on firms. In countries with more government authority, such as China, the public sector makes up most of the economy. Regulation States legally regulate the private sector. Businesses operating within a country must comply with the laws in that country. In some cases, usually involving multina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Network Effect
In economics, a network effect (also called network externality or demand-side economies of scale) is the phenomenon by which the value or utility a user derives from a good or service depends on the number of users of compatible products. Network effects are typically positive, resulting in a given user deriving more value from a product as more users join the same network. The adoption of a product by an additional user can be broken into two effects: an increase in the value to all other users ( "total effect") and also the enhancement of other non-users' motivation for using the product ("marginal effect"). Network effects can be direct or indirect. Direct network effects arise when a given user's utility increases with the number of other users of the same product or technology, meaning that adoption of a product by different users is complementary. This effect is separate from effects related to price, such as a benefit to existing users resulting from price decreases as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Porter's Generic Strategies
Porter's generic strategies describe how a company pursues competitive advantage across its chosen market scope. There are three/four generic strategies, either lower cost, differentiated, or focus. A company chooses to pursue one of two types of competitive advantage, either via lower costs than its competition or by differentiating itself along dimensions valued by customers to command a higher price. A company also chooses one of two types of scope, either focus (offering its products to selected segments of the market) or industry-wide, offering its product across many market segments. The generic strategy reflects the choices made regarding both the type of competitive advantage and the scope. The concept was described by Michael Porter in 1980. Concept Porter wrote in 1980 that strategy targets either cost leadership, differentiation, or focus. These are known as Porter's three generic strategies and can be applied to any size or form of business. Porter claimed that a co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Economies Of Scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables an increase in scale. At the basis of economies of scale, there may be technical, statistical, organizational or related factors to the degree of market control. This is just a partial description of the concept. Economies of scale apply to a variety of the organizational and business situations and at various levels, such as a production, plant or an entire enterprise. When average costs start falling as output increases, then economies of scale occur. Some economies of scale, such as capital cost of manufacturing facilities and friction loss of transportation and industrial equipment, have a physical or engineering basis. The economic concept dates back to Adam Smith and the idea of obtaining larger production returns through the use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shakeout
Shakeout is a term used in business and economics to describe the consolidation of an industry or sector, in which businesses are eliminated or acquired through competition. It may also refer to a situation in which many investors exit their positions, often at a loss, due to uncertainty in the market or recent bad news circulating around a particular security or industry.InvestopediShakeoutRetrieved on July 25, 2007 Shakeouts can often occur after an industry has experienced a period of rapid growth in demand followed by overexpansion by manufacturers. Large, diversified companies are often most able to endure a weak business climate and can benefit from shakeouts. A shakeout of investors and internet businesses occurred during the dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portfolio (finance)
In finance, a portfolio is a collection of investments. Definition The term “portfolio” refers to any combination of financial assets such as stocks, bonds and cash. Portfolios may be held by individual investors or managed by financial professionals, hedge funds, banks and other financial institutions. It is a generally accepted principle that a portfolio is designed according to the investor's risk tolerance, time frame and investment objectives. The monetary value of each asset may influence the risk/reward ratio of the portfolio. When determining asset allocation, the aim is to maximise the expected return and minimise the risk. This is an example of a multi-objective optimization problem: many efficient solutions are available and the preferred solution must be selected by considering a tradeoff between risk and return. In particular, a portfolio A is dominated by another portfolio A' if A' has a greater expected gain and a lesser risk than A. If no portfolio domina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marketing Mix
The term "marketing mix" is a foundation model for businesses, historically centered around product, price, place, and promotion (also known as the "4 Ps"). The marketing mix has been defined as the "set of marketing tools that the firm uses to pursue its marketing objectives in the target market".Kotler, P., Marketing Management, (Millennium Edition), Custom Edition for University of Phoenix, Prentice Hall, 2001, p. 9. Marketing theory emerged in the early twenty-first century. The contemporary marketing mix which has become the dominant framework for marketing management decisions was first published in 1984. In services marketing, an extended marketing mix is used, typically comprising 7 Ps ( product, price, promotion, place, packaging, positioning and people), made up of the original 4 Ps extended by process, people and physical evidence. Occasionally service marketers will refer to 8 Ps (product, price, place, promotion, people, positioning, packaging, and performance), comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Price Wars
A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, the price of production has a different name. If the product is a "good" in the commercial exchange, the payment for this product will likely be called its "price". However, if the product is "service", there will be other possible names for this product's name. For example, the graph on the bottom will show some situations A good's price is influenced by production costs, supply of the desired item, and demand for the product. A price may be determined by a monopolist or may be imposed on the firm by market conditions. Price can be quoted to currency, quantities of goods or vouchers. * In modern economies, prices are generally expressed in units of some form of currency. (More specifically, for raw materials they are expressed as currency per unit weight, e.g. euros per kilogram or Rands per KG.) * Although prices ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Raw Material
A raw material, also known as a feedstock, unprocessed material, or primary commodity, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished goods, energy, or intermediate materials that are feedstock for future finished products. As feedstock, the term connotes these materials are bottleneck assets and are required to produce other products. The term ''raw material'' denotes materials in unprocessed or minimally processed states; e.g., raw latex, crude oil, cotton, coal, raw biomass, iron ore, air, logs, water, or "any product of agriculture, forestry, fishing or mineral in its natural form or which has undergone the transformation required to prepare it for international marketing in substantial volumes". The term ''secondary raw material'' denotes waste material which has been recycled and injected back into use as productive material. Ceramic While pottery originated in many different points around the world, it is certain that it was brought to light mostly throu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Welding
Welding is a fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by using high heat to melt the parts together and allowing them to cool, causing fusion. Welding is distinct from lower temperature techniques such as brazing and soldering, which do not melt the base metal (parent metal). In addition to melting the base metal, a filler material is typically added to the joint to form a pool of molten material (the weld pool) that cools to form a joint that, based on weld configuration (butt, full penetration, fillet, etc.), can be stronger than the base material. Pressure may also be used in conjunction with heat or by itself to produce a weld. Welding also requires a form of shield to protect the filler metals or melted metals from being contaminated or oxidized. Many different energy sources can be used for welding, including a gas flame (chemical), an electric arc (electrical), a laser, an electron beam, friction, and ultrasound. While often a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Machining
Machining is a process in which a material (often metal) is cut to a desired final shape and size by a controlled material-removal process. The processes that have this common theme are collectively called subtractive manufacturing, which utilizes machine tools, in contrast to '' additive manufacturing'' (3D printing), which uses controlled addition of material. Machining is a part of the manufacture of many metal products, but it can also be used on other materials such as wood, plastic, ceramic, and composite material. A person who specializes in machining is called a machinist. A room, building, or company where machining is done is called a machine shop. Much of modern-day machining is carried out by computer numerical control (CNC), in which computers are used to control the movement and operation of the mills, lathes, and other cutting machines. This increases efficiency, as the CNC machine runs unmanned therefore reducing labour costs for machine shops. History and ter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Machine Tool
A machine tool is a machine for handling or machining metal or other rigid materials, usually by cutting, boring, grinding, shearing, or other forms of deformations. Machine tools employ some sort of tool that does the cutting or shaping. All machine tools have some means of constraining the work piece and provide a guided movement of the parts of the machine. Thus, the relative movement between the workpiece and the cutting tool (which is called the toolpath) is controlled or constrained by the machine to at least some extent, rather than being entirely "offhand" or " freehand". It is a power-driven metal cutting machine which assists in managing the needed relative motion between cutting tool and the job that changes the size and shape of the job material. The precise definition of the term ''machine tool'' varies among users, as discussed below. While all machine tools are "machines that help people to make things", not all factory machines are machine tools. Today machi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
