Tag Archives: Consumers

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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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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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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Volkswagen (VW) and its Modular Transverse Matrix strategy for part commonality

Posted on September 3, 2012 by aviyer2010

An article in Fortune (July 23, 2012) describes VW’s plan to standardize the 60 % of a car model’s cost – the front axle, heating, air conditioning etc across 40 car models and thus seven million units. The projected savings … Continue reading →

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40 % of US food produced is wasted – what is the impact ?

Posted on September 3, 2012 by aviyer2010

A paper produced by NRDC called “Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill”, suggests that 40 % of US food produced or $ 165 billion of value is wasted. … Continue reading →

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Planning for Greece exiting the euro

Posted on September 3, 2012 by aviyer2010

An article in the New York Times (September 3, 2012) describes plans by US companies in the event of an announcement that Greece will exit the euro and move back to the drachma. Some of them include sending employees into … Continue reading →

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Indonesian illegal tin mining and the smartphone and tablet connection

Posted on September 2, 2012 by aviyer2010

An article in Bloombergbusinessweek (August 23, 2012) describes the dangerous conditions faced by miners at illegal mines in Indonesia, with demand and price increased riven by the collateral impact of bans against “conflict materials” in the Congo. With the tin … Continue reading →

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