Funds, Flows and Time (eBook)

Foreword 5
Preface and acknowledgements 9
Contents 12
List of most important symbols 14
1 Anatomy of the production process 16
1.1 Economic models of productive activities 16
1.2 Basics of the funds and flows model 21
1.3 Temporal components of the production process 28
1.4 The table of productive elements 35
1.5 Representation of the elements of the production process 43
1.6 General properties of the elementary process 48
1.7 Limitations of the model 53
2 Productive deployments of elementary processes 63
2.1 Sequential production 65
2.2 Parallel production 68
2.3 Line production process 77
3 Characteristics of line process 101
3.1 General conditions for line deployment 101
3.2 Optimising the timing of the line process 110
3.3 The scale of the line process 127
3.4 Indivisible funds 150
3.5 The production process and its size 158
4 The fund-flow model and the production function 159
4.1 The concept of production function 159
4.2 The process in line and the production function 173
5 The fund-flow model and service activities 183
5.1 Characterization of services 183
5.2 Modelling of transport operations 193
5.3 Fund-flow analysis of telecommunications 196
6 Costs 204
6.1 Cost and the deployment of the process 205
6.2 The cost and pace of production 213
6.3 Time efficiency and funds 217
6.4 Short-term plant costs and price determination 219
6.5 Economies of scale and indivisible funds 230
6.6 Cost and flexibility 236
6.7 Cost in services 239
6.8 Costs in software production 242
7 References 262
Index 272