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Full-Text Articles in Business

Enabling Greater Access To Home Meal Delivery, Maciek Nowak, Leo Gala, Mike Hewitt Jan 2013

Enabling Greater Access To Home Meal Delivery, Maciek Nowak, Leo Gala, Mike Hewitt

Information Systems and Operations Management: Faculty Publications & Other Works

Non-profit organizations like the Meals on Wheels (MOW) association of America prepare and deliver meals, typically daily, to approximately one million homebound citizens in the United States alone. However, many MOW agencies are facing a steadily increasing number of clients requesting meal service without an increase in resources (either financial or human). One strategy for accommodating these requests is to deliver multiple (frozen) meals at a time and thus make fewer delivers. However, many of the stakeholders (funders, volunteers, meal recipients) value the relationships that are developed by having a client receive daily deliveries from the same volunteer. Further, meal …


Online Course Evaluations Response Rates, Faruk Guder, Mary Malliaris Jan 2013

Online Course Evaluations Response Rates, Faruk Guder, Mary Malliaris

Information Systems and Operations Management: Faculty Publications & Other Works

This paper studies the reasons for low response rates in online evaluations. Survey data are collected from the students to understand factors that might affect student participation in the course evaluation process. When course evaluations were opened to the student body, an email announcement was sent to all students, and a reminder email was sent a week later. Our study showed that participation rates increased not only when emails were sent, but also when faculty used in-class time to emphasize the importance of completing the evaluations.


Workforce Management In Periodic Delivery Operations, Karen Smilowitz, Maciek Nowak, Tingting Jiang Jan 2013

Workforce Management In Periodic Delivery Operations, Karen Smilowitz, Maciek Nowak, Tingting Jiang

Information Systems and Operations Management: Faculty Publications & Other Works

Service quality and driver efficiency in the delivery industry may be enhanced by increasing the regularity with which a driver visits the same set of customers. However, effectively managing a workforce of drivers may increase travel distance, a traditional metric of the vehicle routing problem (VRP). This paper evaluates the effect that workforce management has on routing costs, providing insight for managerial decision making. The analysis is presented in the context of the period vehicle routing problem (PVRP), an extension of the VRP with vehicle routes constructed to service customers according to preset visit frequencies over an established period of …


Managing Inventory In Global Supply Chains Facing Port-Of-Entry Disruption Risks, Alan Erera, Maciek Nowak, Chelsea White Jan 2013

Managing Inventory In Global Supply Chains Facing Port-Of-Entry Disruption Risks, Alan Erera, Maciek Nowak, Chelsea White

Information Systems and Operations Management: Faculty Publications & Other Works

Ports-of-entry are critical components of the modern international supply chain infrastructure, particularly container seaports and airfreight hubs. The potential operational and economic impact resulting from their temporary closure is unknown, but is widely believed to be very significant. This paper investigates one aspect of this potential impact, focusing specifically on the use of supply chain inventory as a risk mitigation strategy for a one supplier, one customer system in which goods are transported through a port-of-entry subject to temporary closures. Closure likelihood and duration are modeled using a completely observed, exogenous Markov chain. Order lead times are dependent on the …