Value engineering in Hong Kong — a powerful tool for a changing society

Hong Kong, one of the most dynamic cities in Asia if not the world, has been changing rapidly in recent years as a result of technological advancement, fierce local and international competition, and ever-increasing customer requirements. In addition, as design and production costs become more significant, different cost control techniques and the means of achieving better value for money are becoming increasingly important. Value engineering (VE) is one way to improve efficiency and seek the best balance between the cost, reliability and performance of a product or service. Though value engineering is still in its infancy in Hong Kong, there are already signs that value engineering is being used in the private and public sectors. This paper highlights the current development of value engineering in Hong Kong in terms of owners' acceptance of it. Details of VE education, research and professional institution in Hong Kong are also given.     

The paradox of commodities

A commodity is available from many vendors without distinction. Simply stated, a commodity is not a high-margin product. Pricing at multiples above unit cost requires something special - valued brand, frontier features, unique service, or lightening-fast distribution. In the beginning, computers were not commodities. During its heyday, IBM had the most storied distribution and servicing network in the world. IBM's engineering was pretty good, too. The combination of advanced technology and tailored service was extremely potent. IBM dominated the market. It was able to charge prices at multiple levels above a machine's unit cost. Computing has come a long way since then. Today, very few firms can garner high margins on their products. This fact fosters a myth that all high-tech product markets eventually evolve into commodities. There are four positive and three negative strategies firms use to fight commodification. It is simply wrong to argue that firms cannot make money in a commodity technology market. Yet, that leads to the central paradox of commodity markets: Starving off commodification requires investing in something special.     

A Case Study on Implementing Modularity in Software Development

In today’s business world, firms are facing pressures to reduce costs, enhance productivity, and maintain quality in new product development. Past studies have provided evidence that modularity can enhance performance of new product development. However, real-life cases on how to implement the concept of modularity are limited. This article aims to propose a model for modularity implementation in the context of embedded software development. The model was applied in a software company in Hong Kong. Results from the case company provide evidence that the average reuse rate of software modules increased from 31% to 71% after the implementation, with productivity increasing by 258%, cost reducing by 70%, and quality increasing by 72%. The practical implications are finally discussed.     

Design of a case-based logistics strategy system – an integrated approach

Abstract: Logistics service providers are professionals who serve clients such as manufacturers, raw material suppliers, distributors, retailers and shippers within the supply chain. Traditionally, the formulation of logistics strategies to execute various logistics services has been based solely on experience. In this paper, an intelligent case-based logistics strategy system (CLSS) is designed to help logistics service providers to develop strategies under various customers' demands. The proposed system, which is suitable for use in warehouse operations in the Hong Kong/Pearl River Delta region, enhances the effectiveness of logistics strategies formulations by integrating case-based reasoning technology seamlessly with various data management software such as a data warehouse, on-line analytical processing and a multidimensional database management system. Through applying CLSS in Eastern Worldwide Company, the resource utilization is maximized while work efficiency is greatly enhanced. As a result, the overall logistics operations are smoothened significantly.     

Innovation policy and strategic value for building a cross-border cluster in Denmark and Sweden

In a knowledge-based economy, the role of regions is regarded as very significant for creating and dispersing knowledge. Particularly, geographical clusters of firms in a single sub-national region and cross-border regions may contribute to transmitting certain kinds of knowledge between and among firms. In addition, markets prefer to favor specialized firms with a coherent body of knowledge when knowledge creation and the use of new knowledge become increasingly important for maintaining and improving a firm’s competitiveness. This means that regional policy makers may not interfere directly with markets and firms when the process of globalization pushes national economies into a world of learning and innovation because the institutional framework for market exchange favors knowledge exchange in a globalizing economic system. This paper argues how a cross-border cluster in the Öresund region between Denmark and Sweden has been created, and which strategies it focuses on in order to strengthen its competitiveness and to generate a further development that aims to become a global innovative cluster. Moreover, it discuses whether the Nordic cross-border cluster, the Medicon Valley is a unique approach in the EU context or not. Finally, it argues how it has created technology innovation as well as contributed to the regional economic growth.     

Controlling Corruption in Hong Kong: From Colony to Special Administrative Region

Corruption has been a perennial problem in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong of the post‐war years represented what appeared to have become an intractable case of a society in which corruption was entrenched as part of political, economic and social life. This paper seeks to delineate the experience of Hong Kong’s fight against corruption in the midst of a rapidly changing political and social environment. After describing the context in which the Hong Kong anti‐corruption programme is set, this paper identifies the critical policy decisions that account for the programme’s success and the lessons Hong Kong has learned from the campaign. It ends by highlighting some of the current issues and problems that arise from the changing circumstances of Hong Kong’s development.     

Data mining investigation of co-movements on the Taiwan and China stock markets for future investment portfolio

On June 29, 2010, Taiwan signed an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China as a major step to open markets between Taiwan and China. Thus, the ECFA will contribute by creating a closer relationship between China and Taiwan through economic and market interactions. Co-movements of the world’s national financial market indexes are a popular research topic in the finance literature. Some studies examine the co-movements and the benefits of international financial market portfolio diversification/integration and economic performance. Thus, this study investigates the co-movement in the Taiwan and China (Hong Kong) stock markets under the ECFA using a data mining approach, including association rules and clustering analysis. Thirty categories of stock indexes are implemented as decision variables to observe the behavior of stock index associations during the periods of ECFA implementation. Patterns, rules, and clusters of data mining results are discussed for future stock market investment portfolio.     

On Semismooth Newton’s Methods for Total Variation Minimization

In [2], Chambolle proposed an algorithm for minimizing the total variation of an image. In this short note, based on the theory on semismooth operators, we study semismooth Newton’s methods for total variation minimization. The convergence and numerical results are also presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. The research of this author is supported in part by Hong Kong Research Grants Council Grant Nos. 7035/04P and 7035/05P, and HKBU FRGs. The research of this author is supported in part by the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong. This work was started while the author was visiting Department of Applied Mathematics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The research of this author is supported in part by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme and the National Science Foundation of China (No. 60572114). Michael Ng is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the Hong Kong Baptist University. As an applied mathematician, Michael’s main research areas include Bioinformatics, Data Mining, Operations Research and Scientific Computing. Michael has published and edited 5 books, published more than 140 journal papers. He is the principal editor of the Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, and the associate editor of SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing. Liqun Qi received his B.S. in Computational Mathematics at Tsinghua University in 1968, his M.S, and Ph.D. degree in Computer Sciences at University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981 and 1984, respectively. Professor Qi has taught in Tsinghua University, China, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, University of New South Wales, Australia, and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is now Chair Professor of Applied Mathematics at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Professor Qi has published more than 140 research papers in international journals. He established the superlinear and quadratic convergence theory of the generalized Newton method, and played a principal role in the development of reformulation methods in optimization. Professor Qi’s research work has been cited by the researchers around the world. According to the authoritative citation database ISIHighlyCited.com, he is one of the world’s most highly cited 300 mathematicians during the period from 1981 to 1999. Yu-Fei Yang received the B.Sc., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from Hunan University, P. R. China, in 1987, 1994 and 1999, respectively. From 1999 to 2001, he stayed at the University of New South Wales, Australia as visiting fellow. From 2002 to 2005, he held research associate and postdoctoral fellowship positions at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He is currently professor in the College of Mathematics and Econometrics, at Hunan University, P. R. China. His research interests includes optimization theory and methods, and partial differential equations with applications to image analysis. Yu-Mei Huang received her M.Sc. in Computer science from Lanzhou University in 2000. She is now pursuing her doctoral studies in computational mathematics in Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research interests are in image processing and numerical linear algebra.     

A strategic knowledge-based planning system for freight forwarding industry

In recent years, over half of the Hong Kong freight forwarding firms experienced a decline in business volume due to the growing challenge from the neighbour ports of Yantian and Shekou in Shenzhen, China, which operated in a much cheaper mode. In order to remain competitive, local freight forwarders in Hong Kong must establish a long-term union relationship with their customers such as the provision of customized logistics services. One of the ways is through the use of a co-loading shipment plan, which is a knowledge intensive and complex process involving multiple knowledge source and decision rules. This paper presents hybrid knowledge and model system, which integrates mathematical models with knowledge rules, in the formulation of such co-loading shipment plans. A strategic knowledge-based planning system, (SKPS) integrates knowledge rules with mathematical model for solving problems of co-loading shipment plans formulation and market constriction prevention, is proposed. The system was implemented in Elite World Logistics Service Limited (EW), a local freight forwarding company, for supporting the planning process of a co-loading shipping plan. The result reveals that both customer retention rate and resource utilization has increased significantly.     

Competitiveness of East Asian science cities: discourse on their status as global or local innovative clusters

In a knowledge-based economy of the globalizing economic order, the role of regions is very significant in order to create and to disperse knowledge. Particularly, geographical clusters of firms in a single sub-national region may contribute to transmitting certain kinds of knowledge between and among firms. In addition, markets prefer to favor specialized firms with a coherent body of knowledge when knowledge creation and the use of new knowledge become increasingly important for maintaining and improving a firm’s competitiveness. Therefore, regional policy makers may not interfere directly with markets and firms when the process of globalization pushes national economies into a world of learning and innovation. The reason is that the institutional framework for market exchange favors knowledge exchange in a globalizing economic system. This paper argues how East Asian science cities such as Tsukuba Science City in Japan, Daedeok Innopolis in South Korea, Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park in Taiwan, and Zhongguancun Science Park in China have been developed in order to create technology innovation as well to contribute to national and regional economic growth. Moreover, it also focuses on their competitiveness and the further development strategy that aims to become global science cities. Finally, it also discusses whether their competitiveness as innovative clusters is based on global or local levels.     

The impacts of uncertain factors on decisions of NPO and firms

The use of potentially hazardous materials has been aroused wide concerns in the world. In order to reduce the hazard of these potentially hazardous materials, some non-profit organizations (NPOs) devote to the substitution of potentially hazardous materials. This paper studies a potentially hazardous material substitution problem in a bi-level decision-making model with a NPO and two competitive firms. The NPO, the leader, aims to prompt the two firms to instantly substitute a kind of potentially hazardous material. This purpose is achieved by raising the material's market sensitivity, which is determined by an effort exerted by the NPO with an uncertain shock. Under the uncertain environment, the two firms, the followers, proceed a static Nash game with their strategies of instant substituting and substituting with delay. We analyze the effects of the uncertain shock's volatility on the decisions of the NPO and the firms. Our results demonstrate that when the marginal cost of instant substituting is very small, the uncertain shock's volatility has no impact on the decisions of the participators. The NPO exerts no effort and the firms substitute instantly. Through numerical simulations, when the marginal cost of instant substituting is big, the NPO exerts a relatively big effort. The impact of the volatility on the NPO's effort is contingent on the marginal cost of instant substituting and the difference between the firms’ initial market shares.     

浅谈简繁体信息管理系统设计

汉语有两种书面形式：中国大陆和新加坡使用的简体中文,和台湾、香港等地使用的繁体中文,因此Windows系统也有简繁两种版本。随着两岸三地的进一步交流,软件公司迎来发展机会的同时,也面临简繁体操作系统的挑战,如何做到一套软件源代码,简繁两用,减少开发和代码管理成本,提高代码复用效率呢？     

Intelligent production planning for complex garment manufacturing

Apparel production is characterised by labour-intensive manual operations, frequent style changes, seasonal demand and shortening production lead times. With fierce competition worldwide, many manufacturers are switching their production from mass mode to lean mode to shorten their response time to changes. In a complex mixed mode production environment, it is very important to allocate job orders to suitable production lines so as to ensure the effective utilization of production resources and on-time completion of all job orders. In this paper, planning algorithms are proposed for automatic job allocations based on group technology and genetic algorithms. For genetic algorithms based intelligent planning algorithms, single-run and multiple-run genetic algorithms are suggested. Real production data are used to validate the proposed method. The proposed algorithms has been shown being able to substantially improve planning quality. These planning algorithms are currently used by apparel manufacturers in Hong Kong as part of their routine planning operations.     

A coordination-theoretic investigation of the impact of electronic integration on logistics performance

Using the Coordination Theory, we explored the impact of electronic integration of intra-organizational and inter-organizational business processes on organizational performance in terms of logistics cost and service improvements. Our work extends knowledge on adoption of information technology (IT) in logistics operations, with a focus on examining the performance implications of electronic integration within and between firms in a supply chain. Data was collected from 227 trading firms in Hong Kong and analyzed to investigate the research issues. Our empirical findings revealed that electronic integration is positively associated with logistics performance in cost but not in service, suggesting that electronic integration is not sufficient for delivering superior logistics services. Theoretical and practical implications of our results are discussed.     

Revealing performance heterogeneity through knowledge management maturity evaluation: A capability-based approach

The dynamic capabilities view (DCV) focuses on renewal of firms’ strategic knowledge resources so as to sustain competitive advantage within turbulent markets. Within the context of the DCV, the focus of knowledge management (KM) is to develop the KMC through deploying knowledge governance mechanisms that are conducive to facilitating knowledge processes so as to produce superior business performance over time. The essence of KM performance evaluation is to assess how well the KMC is configured with knowledge governance mechanisms and processes that enable a firm to achieve superior performance through matching its knowledge base with market needs. However, little research has been undertaken to evaluate KM performance from the DCV perspective. This study employed a survey study design and adopted hypothesis-testing approaches to develop a capability-based KM evaluation framework (CKMEF) that upholds the basic assertions of the DCV. Under the governance of the framework, a KM index (KMI) and a KM maturity model (KMMM) were derived not only to indicate the extent to which a firm’s KM implementations fulfill its strategic objectives, and to identify the evolutionary phase of its KMC, but also to bench-mark the KMC in the research population. The research design ensured that the evaluation framework and instruments have statistical significance and good generalizabilty to be applied in the research population, namely construction firms operating in the dynamic Hong Kong construction market. The study demonstrated the feasibility of quantitatively evaluating the development of the KMC and revealing the performance heterogeneity associated with the development.     

A perception-based model for EDI adoption in small businesses using a technology–organization–environment framework

The wide adoption of electronic data interchange (EDI) has been argued to be important for the success of the technology. Past studies on EDI have focused mainly on large firms, as they were the major users at the time. With the advance of technology, however, EDI applications that used to require mainframe computers can be used on PCs at a much lower cost. At a result, small businesses are now able to enjoy the benefits of EDI. Using a technology–organization–environment framework, this study proposes a perception-based small business EDI adoption model that is tested against data collected from 575 small firms in Hong Kong. Six factors are tested using logistic regression and five are found to be significant in distinguishing adopter firms from non-adopter firms. The results suggest the perception-based model using a technology–organization–environment framework is a useful approach for examining factors affecting the adoption decision. For small businesses, while direct benefits are perceived to be higher by adopter firms than by non-adopter firms, indirect benefits are not perceived differently by either adopter firms or non-adopter firms, contrary to the findings in studies on large business. In addition, adopter firms perceive lower financial costs and higher technical competence than non-adopter firms do. Also, adopter firms perceive higher government pressure but lower industry pressure than non-adopter firms do. Implications of the findings and future research areas are discussed.     

Firm size and performance: A study on the use of electronic commerce by container transport operators in Hong Kong

In this study, we examine the relationship between firm size and the use of electronic commerce (EC) by container transport operators in Hong Kong and their performance implications. Using data collected from a sample of container shipping operators in Hong Kong, we identified internal and external drivers that affect the use of EC by container transport operators. Our findings indicate that large firms tend to adopt EC at a higher level of sophistication. This study also investigates the relationship between the use of EC and firm performance. Our results show that sales growth is positively related to the use of EC and firm size. To understand how firm size affects firm performance, we use a structural equation model (SEM) to examine their structural relationships. Our findings indicate that firm size positively influences sales growth. On the other hand, sales growth affects the profitability of a firm. Although customer satisfaction does not have a direct impact on profitability, our SEM suggests that customer satisfaction is a significant variable that affects the sales growth of firms.     

信息不对称条件下寡头集团转移定价决策分析

研究信息不对称条件下存在中间产品外部市场的寡头集团转移定价决策问题.在不完全竞争中间产品外部市场条件下,当集团之间信息不对称时,对中间产品内外部实行单一定价,转移价格将大于中间产品的边际成本;对中间产品内外部实行差别定价时,转移价格则等于中间产品的边际成本.通过对两种策略的比较可知,寡头集团实行差别定价还是单一定价,取决于中间产品外部市场和最终产品市场的需求价格弹性.     

Volatility spillovers, interdependence and comovements: A Markov Switching approach

The transmission mechanisms of volatility between markets can be characterized within a new Markov Switching bivariate model where the state of one variable feeds into the transition probability of the state of the other. A number of model restrictions and hypotheses can be tested to stress the role of one market relative to another (spillover, interdependence, comovement, independence, Granger noncausality). The model is estimated on the weekly high-low range of five Asian markets, assuming a central (but not necessarily dominant) role for Hong Kong. The results show plausible market characterizations over the long run with a spillover from Hong Kong to Korea and Thailand, interdependence with Malaysia and comovement with Singapore.     

One Social Movement,Two Social Media Sites: A Comparative Study of Public Discourses

Social media have become central places where public discourses are generated, sustained, and circulated around public events. So far, much research has examined large-scale dissemination patterns of prominent statements, opinions, and slogans circulated on social media, such as the analysis of keywords and hashtags on Twitter regarding a political event. However, little attention has been paid to understanding how local socio-cultural-political conditions influence the formation and development of public discourses on social media. To explore this question, we analyzed public discourses about Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement on two distinct social media sites, Facebook and Weibo, the largest micro-blogging service in China. Facebook topped Hong Kong citizens’ usage of social media sites, while Weibo’s primary user base is mainland Chinese. The social movement and these two social media sites provide a unique opportunity to explore the commonalities and differences between social media discourses generated by two different cultures. Using grounded theory and discourse analysis, we reveal how people on two sites reasoned about the many incidents of the movement and developed sometimes similar but other times strikingly different discourses. We trace the links between different discourses and the socio-cultural-political conditions of Hong Kong and mainland China. We discuss how this study may contribute deeper understandings of public discourses on social media to the CSCW literature.