Seminars, Workshops, Conferences at AIT
March 20, 2003, 1:30 p.m., Room 106, Chalerm Prakiat Building: ISE will hold a seminar on Formulating Optimal Operating Strategies: an Integrated Operations-Marketing Approach.
The seminar will be conducted by Dr. Saibal Ray, Assistant Professor in the Operations Management and Management Science, Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Abstract:
Advances in technology, emergence of global markets, large-scale
outsourcing and extremely discerning as well as environment-conscious
customers characterize the new economy. Survival in this atmosphere will primarily depend on a firm's ability to understand exact customer needs, and then produce and deliver the required goods/services through effective management of its operations. While deciding on the optimal operating strategy, firms should keep in mind two important issues: I) modern consumers' perception of value and their purchase decisions are influenced not only by an item's selling price but also by other non-price attributes, e.g., delivery time, that goes with it (this has been the motivating factor for the popularity of time-based competition); and ii) the two most important divisions of any firms operations and marketing have different motivations. Marketing often has incentives based on revenue while operations has incentives based on cost. However, actions that maximize revenue or minimize cost might not maximize profit. Hence, it is necessary for firms to develop strategies that take into account the operations-marketing interactions to realize the goal of maximizing profitability.
The aim of my presentation will be to show through two models,
addressing two completely different industry segments, how
profit-maximizing firms can develop optimal integrated operations-marketing strategies that can tailor its decision-making to meet the specific demand characteristics of its customers.
The first model deals with developing optimal pricing strategy for
firms dealing in remanufacturable durable products, e.g., televisions,
refrigerators, power tools, VCRs, etc. In this model we show that such
firms need to understand the age distribution of the products in use and
the age-dependent revenues from returns, for determining the optimal
pricing strategy.
The second model deals with time-based competition for multiple
customer niches. This is more applicable to make-to-order or service firms, e.g., online shopping, online content distribution, online trading,
transportation and logistics services, etc. In this model we show how such
firms (many of whose customers are extremely time-sensitive) can develop their optimal delivery time, capacity investment, service level and pricing strategies.
Dr. Saibal Ray is an Assistant Professor in the Operations
Management area of the Faculty of Management in McGill University. His current research interests are integrated operations-marketing modeling, supply chain management, time-based competition, reverse logistics, healthcare management and inventory management. His works have been accepted/published in Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, IIE Transactions and European Journal of Operational Research. He holds a Ph.D. in Applied Operations Research from the Department of Management Sciences at the University of Waterloo and a Masters degree from the Asian Institute of Technology. Dr. Ray presently teaches Operations Management and Operations Strategy for MBA and BCom students.
Interested persons are invited.
March 21, 2003, 10:00 a.m., Room ET108: HOW TO GET URBAN POLICY REFORMS CONSIDERED, APPROVED, AND IMPLEMENTED Seminar to be conducted by Dr. Nathanierl Von Einsiedel
Dr. Nathanierl Von Einsiedel, the Regional Coordinator for Asia-Pacific of the United Nations Urban Management Programme (UMP), will conduct a seminar on 'How to get Urban Policy Reforms Considered, Approved, and Implemented' on March 21, 2003 at 10:00 a.m., room ET108.
UMP is a global technical assistance facility established to help cities of developing countries in strengthening their urban management capacities. Dr. Von Einsiedel is responsible for coordinating its activities in 21 cities spread out over 11 countries in the region.
Prior to joining the UMP, he was the Commissioner for Planning of the Metropolitan Manila Commission (MMC) from 1979 to 1989 where he established Metro Manila's first-ever metropolitan land use and zoning ordinance, capital investments planning, and programming and budgeting system.
During that period, he served concurrently as Director for the National Capital Region of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), responsible for economic planning, resource allocation, and development coordination. In these capacities, he worked with Metro Manila's 17 elected local authorities and 26 national sectoral agencies, as well as MMC's 11 operational departments.
His academic degrees include BS Architecture, MS Urban Planning, a postgraduate Certificate in Development Management, and PhD in Urban Management.
March 21, 2003 from 1:00 p.m., at Telecom. Building, Room TC203: The Telecommunications Program, School of Advanced Technologies is pleased to announce for the Special Guest Lecture on 'AN OVERVIEW OF H.264/MPEG-4 PART 10' by Prof. R.A. Rao who is currently a faculty at the Electrical Engineering Department, University of Texas at Arlington. The lecture will be held on Friday, March 21, 2003 from 1:00 p.m., at Telecom Building, Room TC203.
Abstract:
The video coding standards to date have not been able to address all the needs required by varying bit rates of different applications and at the same time meeting the quality requirements. An emerging video coding standard H.264 or MPEG-4 part 10 aims at coding video sequences at approximately half the bit rate compared to MPEG-2 at the same quality. It also aims at having significant improvements in coding efficiency, error robustness and network friendliness. It makes use of better prediction methods for Intra (I), Predictive (P) and Bi-predictive (B) frames. Arbitrary Block-size Transform (ABT) is used which is a simplified transform that avoids the mismatch error (DCT/IDCT) observed in the motion compensation hybrid coding adopted in MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. All these features along with others such as CABAC (Context Based Adaptive Binary Arithmetic Coding) have resulted in having a 2:1 coding gain over MPEG-2 at the cost of increased complexity.
April 9-11, 2003: A short term training workshop on Demand Side Management and Distribution Automationwill be organized by Electric Power System Management, AIT
The main topics that will be covered are as follows:
- Demand side management options
- DSM programs in Thailand
- DSM implementation issues and challenges
- Introduction to power quality
- Power quality improvement devices and their demonstration
- Distribution load flow and state estimation
- Introduction to distribution automation
- Components and architecture of DA systems
- Remote terminal units and communication system
- Master DA and application software
- DA system implementation & testing
- Demonstration of DA system
Resource persons:
Prof. Surapong C., AIT
Dr. Weerakorn O., AIT
Dr. Mithulananthan N., AIT
Prof. S.C. Srivastava, IIT-Kanpur, India
Mr. R. P. Gupta, IIT-Kanpur, India
Dr. Jovitha J., SIIT, Thammasat U., Thailand
Dr. Bundit L., SIIT, Thammasat U., Thailand
Mr. Terry Chandler, Power Quality Inc.
The registration fee is US$175 (THB7,000) per participant. For
attendees from government agencies, state enterprises, or universities,
the registration fee is US$150 (THB6,000). Accommodation can be arranged at AIT Conference Center or hotel near AIT upon request of participant.