General Electric Uses an Integrated Framework for Product Costing, Demand Forecasting, and Capacity Planning of New Photovoltaic Technology Products

Bex George Thomas () and Srinivas Bollapragada ()
Additional contact information
Bex George Thomas: General Electric Global Research, Computing and Decision Science, Niskayuna, New York 12309
Srinivas Bollapragada: General Electric Global Research, Computing and Decision Science, Niskayuna, New York 12309

Interfaces, 2010, vol. 40, issue 5, 353-367

Abstract: General Electric (GE) Energy's nascent solar business has revenues of over $100 million, expects those revenues to grow to over $1 billion in the next three years, and has plans to rapidly grow the business beyond this period. GE Global Research (GEGR), in partnership with GE Energy's solar platform team, is pursuing a number of technological alternatives to bring new low-cost solar products to the market. However, the GE solar business is facing a challenge---making optimal investment decisions to realize its growth objectives in the presence of major uncertainties in technology, costs, demands, and energy policy. We have developed analytical decision support tools with embedded mathematical models to estimate product costs and demands, and to support capacity planning decisions under cost and demand uncertainties. In this paper, we outline our algorithmic approach and system implementation, which help to support strategic decisions at GE.

Keywords: facilities planning; cost analysis; capital budgeting; forecasting; risk; mathematical programming (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/inte.1100.0518 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orinte:v:40:y:2010:i:5:p:353-367

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Interfaces from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().