Browsing by Author "Russell E. King, Committee Co-Chair"

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Markov Model for Stock Market Buy and Sell Strategy
(2004-02-02) West, Donald Ray; Thom J. Hodgson, Committee Co-Chair; C. Thomas Culbreth, Committee Member; Michael G. Kay, Committee Member; Russell E. King, Committee Co-Chair
Approximately 50% of the households in America invest in the stock market. In many cases the investor's buy and hold strategy leads to negative returns. Given the stock market fluctuates up and down as time progresses, analysts examine stock prices, volumes traded and ratios to recommend buy and sell opportunities. The pattern of price and volume changes provides input for the analysts' recommendations. Using these patterns in a Markov model, this dissertation contains an intensive analysis of 41 securities over a 13-year period. The model establishes states of change in price and volume and calculates the best investor action for an individual security. The selection of the proper security enhances the investor's probability of achieving an exceptional return. The research examines the correlation of price and volume characteristics to overall return. With the proper correlation, higher yielding securities may be selected. Once selected, the dissertation's research recommends when to switch from one security to another security. Also, periods of staying in a cash position are recommended. Overall this model outperforms the average yearly buy and hold return of eleven percent by about four additional percentage points. Even subtracting the cost of the transactions, the model buys and sells the securities to obtain the additional return.
Mixed Mass Production and Mass Customization: Best Practices for Apparel
(2004-04-22) Senanayake, Muditha; Trevor J. Little, Committee Co-Chair; Russell E. King, Committee Co-Chair; Cynthia L. Istook, Committee Member; Kristin A. Thoney, Committee Member
Mass-Customization (MC) is growing in importance. The Mass Production (MP) practices and supply strategies lead to excessive markdowns, unsold SKU's and a high rate of consumer dissatisfaction. Industry information for cost economics of MC depicts the comparative advantage of MC business model for both the manufacturer and the retailer compared to the long practiced MP. Most importantly, the consumers gain by obtaining products that satisfy the needs and expectations. This business strategy that optimizes consumer input into product design and selection coupled with responsive manufacturing and the elimination of markdowns offers a new paradigm for a wide market in apparel. When apparel companies that currently practice MP and demanding to adopt MC, it is essential to identify a suitable manufacturing strategy. The literature review is a comprehensive look at production systems, benchmarking, supporting technologies and MC. The published literature does not address research conducted on mixed MP and MC in apparel manufacturing. However, the survey conducted a part of this research demonstrates that several companies are working on manufacturing system solutions to practice mixed MP and MC. Based on the raised research questions and the research proposal, seven research hypotheses were introduced. These hypotheses proposed number of original concepts for the current research. Mixed manufacturing of MP and MC in the same production line and the identified 5 Points of Customization are emphasized. The technology readiness for apparel mass customization is questioned. With the increasing demand for customized apparel, whether MP may become custom production with dedicated production lines is addressed. To investigate the quantitative issues of mixing MP and MC in different production systems, PBS and Kanban manufacturing system modeling and simulation were used. To evaluate the results from the simulation and to further address the broader aspects of the proposed strategy, an industry survey, a case study and personal communications were used. Two strategies that implement the mixed manufacturing of MP and MC were used considering the MC continuum. The Industry Survey Instrument collected information to benchmark current industry practices of MC apparel business models. Personal Communication with industry experts and consultants who are involved in MC of apparel and a Case Study Analysis of a current MC operation represented the methods used to test the research hypotheses. The overall objective of this research was not only to research the state of the art of methods, approaches, obstacles and challenges for MC but also to analyze the proposed concept of mixed MP, MC apparel manufacturing with its current practice, potential and capabilities. The research results show that for PBS and Kanban production system mixed MP and MC apparel manufacturing in the same production unit is feasible but limited by the volume of MC style. However, this possibility also depends on the Point of Customization and the Extent of Customization. Order tracking technology requirement is emphasized. Industry practice information indicates that companies practice MP and MC in the same production unit as well as in separate production units. In addition, wide range of industry practice information such as customization leadtimes, technologies used for MC, logistics information pertaining to MC, and costs associated with MC are discussed in detail that can be used as measures for MC.
Scheduling Supply Chains With Batchwise Fabric Dyeing Operations
(2004-07-30) Cho, Eunkyoung Gloria; Kristin A. Thoney, Committee Co-Chair; Russell E. King, Committee Co-Chair; Trevor J. Little, Committee Member; Thom J. Hodgson, Committee Member
Meeting customer due dates has become important for textile coloration firms' long-term survival due to rapidly changing business conditions and intense global competition. In this dissertation, optimization of the fiber-textile-apparel-retail chain, including batchwise fabric dyeing operations, was pursued. The performance of the Virtual Factory (VF), a job shop scheduling system developed at North Carolina State University, was tested in multi-factory, rolling horizon settings to more accurately predict how it would perform in industry by eliminating transient effects presented in previous experimentation. The VF performed well in all multi-factory supply chain environments. By taking the theoretical approach of color physics, setup matrices for dyeing operations were developed to include four indices; fabric/dye type, hue, lightness and chroma. After refining the matrices to capture the interdependency of the hue, lightness, and chroma of colors dyed within the same fabric/dye type, an existing sequence dependent scheduling algorithm was modified accordingly. The proposed algorithm and additional modifications were implemented in the VF, and a variety of one machine flowshop scenarios were tested against another algorithm found in the scheduling literature and a lower bound approximation. The proposed algorithm performed well in tight due date ranges and with a large number of jobs but not as well under other conditions. Sensitivity analysis of the initial parameters used in the proposed algorithm showed that its performance is highly dependent on these values.