Monthly Archives: September 2012

The potential supply chain impact of eliminating agency pricing for ebooks

Posted on September 11, 2012 by aviyer2010

An article in the Wall Street Journal (September 8,2012) describes a settlement by a set of publishers and the department of justice and elimination of the scheme whereby publishers set retail prices and paid a percent of retail price go … Continue reading →

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Health care waste in the US estimated at $750 billion

Posted on September 11, 2012 by aviyer2010

A report released by the Institute for Medicine in September 2012, titled “Best Health Care at lower Cost:The Path to Continuously Learning Health Care in America” , suggests that the US health care system had 30% of wasted expense or … Continue reading →

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The high cost impact of choices made for the GM Volt hybrid vehicle

Posted on September 10, 2012 by aviyer2010

An article by Reuters (September 10, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/us-generalmotors-autos-volt-idUSBRE88904J20120910) describes General Motors as losing $ 49,000 on each Volt it builds. The costs are due to developmnt and tooling costs, number of unique parts in the battery pack and motor as … Continue reading →

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Protocol Diversity slows wireless home energy management

Posted on September 7, 2012 by aviyer2010

An article in the New York Times (September 5, 2012) describes the slow adoption of software controlled wireless technologies to manage home energy usage and blames it on protocol diversity. Protocols refer to the codes used by devices to communicate, … Continue reading →

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The reported 8471 % markup for drugs in the US

Posted on September 7, 2012 by aviyer2010

A report released on July 25, 2012 by staff in the US Senate committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, examined the gray market for prescription drugs and why hospitals are forced to pay extremely high prices for some drugs. One … Continue reading →

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Too few countries producing staple crops and associated risk

Posted on September 7, 2012 by aviyer2010

An article in the New York Times (September 7,2012) describes food price increases of 10% from June to July 2012, corn and wheat price increases of 25% and soybean price increases of 17%. The reason – drought in the US … Continue reading →

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Civil disobedience, Rare earth processing and supply chains

Posted on September 7, 2012 by aviyer2010

An article in the New York Times (September 6, 2012) describes plans by two NGOs in Malaysia, Himpunan Hijau and Save Malaysia Stop Lynas, to protest a plan by Lynas, a materials processor, to start rare earth processing in a … Continue reading →

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China slowdown and supply uncertainty for outsourcers

Posted on September 7, 2012 by aviyer2010

An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal (September 7, 2012) describes supply issues faced by US companies that outsource manufacturing to plants in China. Some companies face demands for more money to buy raw materials, others find the company … Continue reading →

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The Cheesecake Factory and 2.5 % food waste

Posted on September 5, 2012 by aviyer2010

An article by Atul Gawande in the New Yorker (August 13, 2012) describes the processes used at the Cheesecake Factory restaurant to decrease its food waste to under 2.5 %. These include guest forecasting – which estimates the demand each … Continue reading →

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The impact of incompatible fast charge plugs on electric vehicle growth

Posted on September 5, 2012 by aviyer2010

An article in the New York Times (August 31, 2012) describes two incompatible fast charging plugs – one standard, CHAdeMO, developed by Nissan, Mitusbishi and others, with separate prongs for slow and fast charges, installed in over 1,500 chargers. The … Continue reading →

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