An incomparable look at how Chinese artists have used
mass production to assemble exquisite objects from standardized
parts Chinese workers in the third century BCE created
seven thousand life-sized ...terracotta soldiers to guard the tomb of
the First Emperor. In the eleventh century CE, Chinese builders
constructed a pagoda from as many as thirty thousand separately
carved wooden pieces. As these examples show, throughout history,
Chinese artisans have produced works of art in astonishing
quantities, and have done so without sacrificing quality,
affordability, or speed of manufacture. In this book, Lothar
Ledderose takes us on a remarkable tour of Chinese art and culture
to explain how artists used complex systems of mass production to
assemble extraordinary objects from standardized parts or modules.
He reveals how these systems have deep roots in Chinese thought and
reflect characteristically Chinese modes of social organization.
Combining invaluable aesthetic and cultural insights with a rich
variety of illustrations, Ten Thousand Things make a
profound statement about Chinese art and society.
Production Systems Engineering (PSE) is an emerging branch of Engineering intended to uncover fundamental principles of production systems and utilize them for analysis, continuous improvement, and ...design. This volume is the first ever textbook devoted exclusively to PSE. It is intended for senior undergraduate and first year graduate students interested in manufacturing. The development is first principle-based rather than recipe-based. The only prerequisite is elementary Probability Theory, however, all necessary probability facts are reviewed in an introductory chapter. Using a system-theoretic approach, this textbook provides analytical solutions for the following problems: mathematical modeling of production systems, performance analysis, constrained improvability, bottleneck identification and elimination, lean buffer design, product quality, customer demand satisfaction, transient behavior, and system-theoretic properties. Numerous case studies are presented. In addition, the so-called PSE Toolbox, which implements the algorithms developed, is described. The volume includes numerous case studies and problems for homework assignment.
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Due to a production error, Figure 4 in the article "Autonomous Last-Mile Delivery Vehicles in Complex Traffic Environments", Computer, vol. 53, no. 11, pp. 26-35, 2020. doi: 10.1109/MC.2020.2970924 ...which appeared in the November 2020 issue of Computer, was not correct in the published version.
A new global history of Fordism from the Great Depression to the postwar era
As the United States rose to ascendancy in the first decades of the twentieth century, observers abroad associated ...American economic power most directly with its burgeoning automobile industry. In the 1930s, in a bid to emulate and challenge America, engineers from across the world flocked to Detroit. Chief among them were Nazi and Soviet specialists who sought to study, copy, and sometimes steal the techniques of American automotive mass production, or Fordism. Forging Global Fordism traces how Germany and the Soviet Union embraced Fordism amid widespread economic crisis and ideological turmoil. This incisive book recovers the crucial role of activist states in global industrial transformations and reconceives the global thirties as an era of intense competitive development, providing a new genealogy of the postwar industrial order.
Stefan Link uncovers the forgotten origins of Fordism in Midwestern populism, and shows how Henry Ford's antiliberal vision of society appealed to both the Soviet and Nazi regimes. He explores how they positioned themselves as America's antagonists in reaction to growing American hegemony and seismic shifts in the global economy during the interwar years, and shows how Detroit visitors like William Werner, Ferdinand Porsche, and Stepan Dybets helped spread versions of Fordism abroad and mobilize them in total war.
Forging Global Fordism challenges the notion that global mass production was a product of post–World War II liberal internationalism, demonstrating how it first began in the global thirties, and how the spread of Fordism had a distinctly illiberal trajectory.
Markups and Firm-Level Export Status De Loecker, Jan; Warzynski, Frederic
The American economic review,
10/2012, Volume:
102, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
In this paper, we develop a method to estimate markups using plantlevel production data. Our approach relies on cost-minimizing producers and the existence of at least one variable input of ...production. The suggested empirical framework relies on the estimation of a production function and provides estimates of plant-level markups without specifying how firms compete in the product market. We rely on our method to explore the relationship between markups and export behavior. We find that markups are estimated significantly higher when controlling f or unobserved productivity; that exporters charge, on average, higher markups and that markups increase upon export entry.
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Biofuels in Africa Mitchell, Donald O
2011, 2010, 11-24-2010
eBook, Book
Open access
Biofuels offer new opportunities for African countries. They can contribute to economic growth, employment, and rural incomes. They can become an important export for some countries and provide ...low-cost fuel for others. There is also a potentially large demand for biofuels to meet the rapidly growing need for local fuel. Abundant natural resources and low-cost labor make producing biofuel feedstock's a viable alternative to traditional crops; and the preferential access available to most African countries to protected markets in industrial countries provides unique export opportunities. Biofuels also bring challenges and risks, including potential land-use conflicts, environmental risks, and heightened concerns about food security. This book examines the potential of African countries to produce biofuels for export or domestic consumption and looks at the policy framework needed. It is part of the effort by the World Bank's Africa region to examine critical issues that affect the region and to recommend policies that effectively address these issues while providing an enabling environment for the private sector. The book is intended to inform policy makers and the larger development community of the global and domestic market opportunities facing biofuel producers, as well as the challenges of producing biofuels, in the Africa region.
The second edition of An Introduction to Efficiency and Productivity Analysis is designed to be a general introduction for those who wish to study efficiency and productivity analysis. The book ...provides an accessible, well-written introduction to the four principal methods involved: econometric estimation of average response models, index numbers, data envelopment analysis (DEA), and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). For each method, a detailed introduction to the basic concepts is presented, numerical examples are provided, and some of the more important extensions to the basic methods are discussed. Of special interest is the systematic use of detailed empirical applications using real-world data throughout the book. In recent years, there have been a number of excellent advance-level books published on performance measurement. This book, however, is the first systematic survey of performance measurement with the express purpose of introducing the field to a wide audience of students, researchers, and practitioners. Indeed, the 2nd Edition maintains its uniqueness: (1) It is a well-written introduction to the field. (2) It outlines, discusses and compares the four principal methods for efficiency and productivity analysis in a well-motivated presentation. (3) It provides detailed advice on computer programs that can be used to implement these performance measurement methods. The book contains computer instructions and output listings for the SHAZAM, LIMDEP, TFPIP, DEAP and FRONTIER computer programs. More extensive listings of data and computer instruction files are available on the book's website: (www.uq.edu.au/economics/cepa/crob2005).
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