Check processing institutions are being forced to downsize their workforce to cut cost and improve the efficiency of their operations as a result of continued growth of electronic payments, a consequence of the increasing popularity of debit/credit cards and use of online banking. For these...

Energy plays a fundamental role in both manufacturing and services, and natural gas is rapidly becoming a key energy source worldwide. Facilitating this emergence is an expanding network of ocean-going vessels that enable the matching of natural gas supply and demand on a global scale. This is...

A global liquefied natural gas (LNG) market is quickly emerging, with several significant development projects very recently completed or underway; these projects consist of extraction, liquefaction, shipping, regasification, and storage facilities. Exact valuation of the real option to store...

Commodities, ranging from natural gas to memory chips, can be procured both by trading on the date in spot markets and in advance in forward markets. Transaction costs, such as brokerage fees, are typically higher in spot markets than in forward markets. Moreover, the forecast of a ¯rm's...

A fundamental issue in the management of technology innovation, both in manufacturing and service industries, is the comparative evaluation of emerging and incumbent technologies. This evaluation entails the juxtaposition of multiple aspects including process configuration and operational and...