Operations and Supply Chain Management Commons^™

Demand Forecasting For Alcoholic Beverage Distribution, Lei Jiang, Kristen M. Rollins, Meredith Ludlow, Bivin Sadler

SMU Data Science Review

Forecasting demand is one of the biggest challenges in any business, and the ability to make such predictions is an invaluable resource to a company. While difficult, predicting demand for products should be increasingly accessible due to the volume of data collected in businesses and the continuing advancements of machine learning models. This paper presents forecasting models for two vodka products for an alcoholic beverage distributing company located in the United States with the purpose of improving the company’s ability to forecast demand for those products. The results contain exploratory data analysis to determine the most important variables impacting demand, …

Antecedents To Buyer-Supplier Coordination In The Pharmaceutical Supply Chain, Thanigavelan Jambulingam, Ravi Kathuria

Business Faculty Articles and Research

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to understand the antecedents that influence supply chain coordination in the pharmaceutical supply chain using the transaction cost analysis framework.

Design/methodology/approach

Data from 156 retail pharmacies on their relationship with the pharmaceutical wholesalers are used to test the hypotheses.

Findings

The findings of this paper show the importance of antecedents that are based on the transactional cost theory, such as asset specificity and environmental uncertainty. These antecedents impact the supply chain process coordination at different levels – transactional, operational and strategic.

Research limitations/implications

Future research may investigate additional antecedents using other theoretical lenses. …

An Overview Of Supply-Chain Logistics In International Humanitarian Aid: Finding Challenges And Solutions, Arjun Ganga

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Humanitarian supply chain logistics concern the flow of goods and services in public health delivery. Such supply chains operate in both general development contexts and in acute crisis situations. In this paper, I give an overview of supply chains and then explore some of the challenges and potential solutions in delivering goods and services effectively and efficiently. Specifically, I analyze procurement, maintaining quality goods, incentivizing countries to act, collaboration, verification, possible losses in the supply chain, and ensuring appropriate use of product. I conclude that although humanitarian supply chains pose unique challenges, there is surprising efficiency in the system. This …

Analyzing Local Alcohol Vendor Inventory Management Strategy, Angelo J. Amore

Senior Theses

This paper attempts to analyze how local alcohol vendors maintain their inventory throughout the year in Columbia, attempting to manage factors such as the season, sporting events, and other public gatherings and events. The research question resulted in contacting over 30 local alcohol vendors in Columbia, to ask them questions regarding their strategy in alcohol inventory management. The responses to these questions were then used to organize the vendors into groups by whether or not they utilize a reorder point to purchase/brew alcohol, or if they utilize periodic ordering. The vendors were also asked to rank the seasons from most …

The Supply Chain Of Digital Music: Empowering Independent Artists Through Availability And Accessibility, Justin Reed

Senior Theses

The process of creating and sharing digital music can be viewed from the “supply chain” perspective: identifying the resources and value-adding tools that ultimately result in a final audio product. By researching and documenting the steps involved in this process, I identify this supply chain as a series of steps, an itinerary, or process model of digital music creation. Moreover, I found that each step in the process can be assess for its accessibility and usability by independent artists. I conclude by exploring how this democratizes the music industry by affording independent artists the necessary tools and empowerment to create …

Primary Care Comprehensiveness And Care Coordination In Robust Specialist Networks Results In Lower Emergency Department Utilization: A Network Analysis Of Medicaid Physician Networks, Zhaowei She, Anne H. Gaglioti, Peter Baltrus, Chaohua Li, Miranda A. Moore, Lilly C. Immergluck, Arthi Rao, Turgay Ayer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Background: Care coordination is an essential and difficult to measure function of primary care. Objective: Our objective was to assess the impact of network characteristics in primary/specialty physician networks on emergency department (ED) visits for patients with chronic ambulatory care sensitive conditions (ACSCs). Subjects and Measures: This cross-sectional social network analysis of primary care and specialty physicians caring for adult Medicaid beneficiaries with ACSCs was conducted using 2009 Texas Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX) files. Network characteristic measures were the main exposure variables. A negative binomial regression model analyzed the impact of network characteristics on the ED visits per patient in …

It Won’T Be Business As Usual After Covid-19, Arnoud De Meyer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

As customer behaviours change, they will reshape business models in the post-coronavirus world.

Strategic Sourcing Of Air Force Contingency Pharmaceuticals: A Cost-Benefit Analysis Approach, Adam J. Brubakken

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to identify and explore effective supply chain management principles as mitigating measures to improve contingency pharmaceutical item shortfalls in the Air Force Medical Service Contingency Pharmaceutical Program. Analysis of current pharmaceutical shortages demonstrates a significant trend of insufficient demand signals for various pharmaceutical items, resulting in instances of non-fulfillment by private sector suppliers. Through the scope of transaction cost economics, a cost-benefit analysis for various alternatives was conducted. The proposed alternatives evaluated in this thesis include continuation of the status quo, centralized procurement models from a single site, and procurement from regionally designated ordering …

Sortie-Based Aircraft Component Demand Rate To Predict Requirements, Thomas R. O'Neal

Theses and Dissertations

Weapon System Sustainment (WSS) costs are growing at an increasing rate despite the vast efforts to reduce them. Researchers have attributed much of the cost increase to inaccurate demand forecasts for weapon system spare parts. In 2011, the forecast to sustain all United States Air Force (USAF) aircraft was 19% accurate and WSS costs per year have continuously increased. The purpose of this study is to explore a parsimonious change to aircraft component forecasting to reduce costly forecast error. This study substitutes flying hours with sorties for the purpose of demand forecasting. Many F-16 and B-52 spare parts are evaluated …

Resilient Aircraft Sustainment: Quantifying Resilience Through Asset And Capacity Allocation, Zachary B. Shannon

Theses and Dissertations

Decision makers lack a clear, generalizable method to quantify how additional investment in inventory and capacity equates to additional levels of resilience. This research facilitates a deeper understanding of the intricacies and complex interconnectedness of organizational supply chains by monetarily quantifying changes in network resilience. The developed Area under the Curve metric (AUC) is used to quantify the level of demand that each asset allocation can meet during a disruptive event. Due to its applicability across multiple domains, the USAF F-16 repair network in the Pacific theater (PACAF) is modeled utilizing discrete event simulation and used as the illustrating example. …

Parent/Guardian Experience: How Schools Can Improve The Parent Experience And How That Leads To Positive Outcomes., Wesley H. Walters

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Parent/Guardian eXperience: How creating an awesome Parent/guardian experience can lead to increased parent participation, and how parent participation leads to success of the student & the overall success of the school. The goal of this presentation is to engage parents in their child’s school experience by building a genuine connection with the school and a positive parent experience.

An Analysis Of The Competitive Advantages And Threats For Micro, Small & Medium-Sized Businesses (Msmes) In Mexico, Jose Luis Pool Sierra

University Honors Theses

This thesis analyzes the Micro, Small & Medium-sized (MSMEs) businesses in Mexico, their current threats and competitive advantages. The research explores the major issues business owners face and potential strategies they could implement in order to thrive and promote growth for their organizations, using strategies in Supply Chain Management and Good Managerial planning practices, such as the application of the Supply Chain Operations Reference Model (SCOR). The thesis also analyzes a medium-sized business in Mexico and recommends strategies based on the SCOR framework that such an organization could apply to their business operations in order to avoid obstacles and potential …

Outsourcing Aircraft Maintenance And Related Safety Implications, Rajee Olaganathan Ph.D., Mark Miller Ed.D., Bettina M. Mrusek Ph.D.

National Training Aircraft Symposium (NTAS)

The U.S aviation industry faced severe financial losses after the 9/11 incident. The financial loss that occurred between 2000 and 2009 in the U.S. alone was $54 billion dollars. One of the operational strategies adopted by air carriers to overcome this hurdle was to outsource aircraft maintenance. Initially, this was accomplished in both home and off-shore locations. Unionized labor relations in the US ultimately forced these organizations to outsource to non-unionized labor sources in foreign countries. However, due to the upsurge in accidents and incidents that resulting from maintenance failures, the concept of outsourcing maintenance became a subject of debate …

Pilot-Supply Sustainability—Standards, Outreach, And Mentoring, Paul Ryder

National Training Aircraft Symposium (NTAS)

Flight training organizations in North America are experiencing strong student interest in flight training and a career as a professional pilot. In addition, airlines have introduced successful recruitment and retention programs. Experience has shown that most staffing challenges are successfully resolved by improving the work/life balance, pay, and career-progression offerings.

In addition to strategies used to address pilot-supply, the entire pathway from student pilot to line-pilot should be viewed as an ecosystem. This ecosystem must maintain the resiliency and capacity to train and certify future generations of pilots and adapt to market needs and swings.

Industry must be cognizant of …

Too Good To Eat? Cosmetic Standards And Waste In Agricultural Supply Chain, Jiahui Xu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

There is a significant amount of food wasted at the farm level due to high cosmetic standards adopted by retailers. We examine the economic incentives for retailers to adopt such high cosmetic standards and their impact on food loss. We build a sequential game between a retailer and a farmer, where the retailer signs a contract with the farmer specifying both the wholesale price and cosmetic quality standard. By adopting high cosmetic standards, retailers can motivate farmers to exert a higher effort to improve the cosmetic quality, e.g., using better seeds and applying more pesticides. As for the drivers of …

Inherent Jeopardy Of Performance Based Contracting Metrics: A Simulation Experiment, Daniel Cherobini

Theses and Dissertations

There is a growing trend across the world to adopt Performance Based Contracting strategies to support logistics systems. Using these policies, contract payments are strongly related to the performance achieved compared to prespecified metrics. However, managers are not always confident on what are the most suitable performance goals to use in these agreements. As a consequence, contractors struggle to deliver the desired performance results, while aircraft fleets experience an increase in support costs. And when the results are inadequate, leaders are tempted to impose even more performance targets to contractors, willing to exercise more control over the support organization. In …

Traffic Congestion In F.C.T: Demand And Supply Approach, Ibrahim Abdul, Salihu Habibu Mohammed Gani, Ibrahim G. Umaru

Bullion

This study examined traffic congestion in Abuja metropolis, F.C.T.- Nigeria using demand and supply approach. The study adopted survey research design. Primary data was collected using questionnaires. Descriptive statistics was used to analysed the data with the aid of tables and graphs. It was discovered that as a road reaches its capacity, each additional vehicle imposes more total delay on others than they bear, resulting in excessive traffic volumes. Congestion is mainly due to the intensive use of automobiles, whose ownership has spread massively in the F.C.T. in recent decades. The study revealed that traffic congestion causes serious consequences in …

Undergraduate Pilot Training Attrition: An Analysis Of Individual And Class Composition Component Factors, Christina M. Akers

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Force is working hard to reduce the shortage of nearly 2,000 pilots that threatens the Air Force’s core mission. Officials have focused on increasing retention and training throughput. Despite this, the first Pilot Training Next class graduated in August of 2018 with 13 of the initial 20 students (65.5% graduation rate). The purpose of this research is to explore attrition reduction by understanding how class composition of individual abilities and personalities affects the class graduation rate. Using AFOQT scores, SDI+ scores, PCSM scores, flight hours, and college GPAs, correlations were studied and a simple linear regression was run …

Vehicle Routing Problem For Multi-Product Cross-Docking, Aldy Gunawan, Audrey Tedja Widjaja, Benjamin Gan, Vincent F. Yu, Panca Jodiawan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Cross-docking is a logistic technique that can reduce costs occurred in a supply chain network while increasing the flow of goods, thus shortening the shipping cycle. Inside a cross-dock facility, the goods are directly transferred from incoming vehicles to outgoing vehicles without storing them in-between. Our research extends and combines this cross-docking technique with a well-known logistic problem, the vehicle routing problem (VRP), for delivering multiple products and addresses it as the VRP for multi-product cross-docking (VRP-MPCD). We developed a mixed integer programming model and generated two sets of VRP-MPCD instances, which are based on VRPCD instances. The instances are …

When The Bank Comes To You: Branch Network And Customer Omnichannel Banking Behavior, Mi Zhou, Dan Geng, Vibhanshu Abhishek, Beibei Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Banks today have been increasingly reducing their physical presence and redirecting customers to digital channels, and yet, the consequences of this strategy are not well studied. This paper investigates the effects of banks' branch network changes (i.e., branch openings and branch closures) on customer omnichannel banking behavior. Using approximately 0.85 million (33 months') anonymized individual-level banking transactions from a large commercial bank in the United States, this paper shows the asymmetric effects of branch openings and branch closures on customer omnichannel banking behavior. In particular, we find that branch openings increase customers' branch transactions; however, the first branch opening leads …