Operations and Supply Chain Management Commons^™

Production Planning And Control Systems-State Of The Art And New Directions, V. Sridharan, John Kanet

John J. Kanet

This chapter begins with a description of the role of production planning and control (PPC) within the manufacturing function. After discussing the impact of the operating environment on the choice a system for PPC, we describe some recent empirical evidence regarding the use and performance results of various PPC systems. This is followed by a brief overview of the two most widely used systems for production planning and control. We then describe a recent development in the area of short-term detailed scheduling exploiting the latest developments in computing technology. The chapter concludes with a discussion of an emerging paradigm for …

Operations Research For Freight Train Routing And Scheduling, Steven Harrod, Michael Gorman

Michael F. Gorman

This article describes the service design activities that plan and implement the rail freight operating plan. Elements of strategic service design include the setting of train frequency, the routing of cars among trains, and the consolidation of cars, called blocking. At the operational level, trains are dispatched either according to train paths configured in advance, called timetables, or according to priority rules. We describe the North American and European practice along with selected modeling and problem solving methodologies appropriate for each of the operating conditions described.

Operations Research Approaches In Asset Management In Freight Rail, Michael Gorman, Steven Harrod

Michael F. Gorman

This article describes operations research methodologies as they apply to asset management in freight rail. We describe state-of-the-art methods for locomotive, crew, rail-car, line and yard planning and management. We conclude with emerging areas of research in rail.

The Handbook Of Manufacturing Industries In The World Economy

Jennifer Clark

Research In Humanitarian Supply Chain Management And A New Framework, Degan Yu, Mehmet Yalcin, Koray Özpolat, Douglas Hales

Koray Özpolat

No abstract provided.

The Compensation Committee Process, Dana Hermanson, James Tompkins, Rajaram Veliyath, Zhongxia Ye

James Tompkins

The article investigates the process used in executive compensation committees to meet their responsibilities, particularly noting the lack of research into the committee process itself. It discusses committee's areas of responsibility, approaches to meeting their responsibilities, and committee operational issues through the use of interviews with compensation committee members. It addresses themes of the interviews including achieving fair compensation, promoting the legitimacy of the committee's decisions, and monitoring the committee for appropriate behaviors. It comments on the tension between executive committees, shareholders, organizational management, and stakeholders.

Green Freight Asia (C): The Road Ahead, Jason Woodard, Christopher Dula

C. Jason Woodard

Green Freight Asia is a three-part case series featured in the 2014 APEX Business-IT Global Case Challenge. The case is best used for group projects or workshop assignments concerning business-IT related topics. In this case, students take on the role of a small firm pitching to collaborate with GFA on an IT solution partnership to support GFA’s programme for the adoption of green freight practices in the Asia Pacific region. The case could also be adapted for classroom facilitation with adequate preparation.

Green Freight Asia (C): The Road Ahead is the third and final part of the case series. It …

Green Freight Asia (A): Driving The Adoption Of Sustainable Supply Chain Practices, Jason Woodard, Christopher Dula

C. Jason Woodard

Green Freight Asia is a three-part case series featured in the 2014 APEX Business-IT Global Case Challenge. The case is best used for group projects or workshop assignments concerning business-IT related topics. In this case, students take on the role of a small firm pitching to collaborate with GFA on an IT solution partnership to support GFA’s programme for the adoption of green freight practices in the Asia Pacific region. The case could also be adapted for classroom facilitation with adequate preparation. The first part, Green Freight Asia (A): Driving the Adoption of Sustainable Supply Chain Practices, chronicles the formation …

Green Freight Asia (B): Navigating Toward A Successful Partnership, Jason Woodard, Christopher Dula

C. Jason Woodard

Green Freight Asia is a three-part case series featured in the 2014 APEX Business-IT Global Case Challenge. The case is best used for group projects or workshop assignments concerning business-IT related topics. In this case, students take on the role of a small firm pitching to collaborate with GFA on an IT solution partnership to support GFA’s programme for the adoption of green freight practices in the Asia Pacific region. The case could also be adapted for classroom facilitation with adequate preparation. The second part, Green Freight Asia (B): Navigating Toward A Successful Partnership, explores how a collaborative partnership between …

Using Contests To Provide Business Students Project - Based Learning In Humanitarian Logistics: Psaid Example, Koray Özpolat, Yuwen Chen, Doug Hales, Degan Yu, Mehmet Yalcin

Koray Özpolat

Business students appreciate working on classroom projects that are pleasurable and also prepare them for future careers. Promoting competition among project teams is often used as a method to motivate students. We have developed the “Humanitarian Logistics Project (HLP)” to teach undergraduate students the logistical implications of unsolicited material donations in disaster relief. To encourage competition, students are organized into teams of three and tasked with designing humanitarian public service announcements (PSAs) that improve the understanding of humanitarian issues in the general public. These announcements are then submitted to the national PSAid (Public Service Announcements for International Disasters) contest for …

How To Successfully Harness The Power Of Partners With The Ecosystem Advantage, Arnoud De Meyer

Arnoud De Meyer

In a recent research published by Professor Arnoud De Meyer, President and Professor at the Singapore Management University and Professor Peter Williamson, who is a Professor of International Management at Judge Business School at Cambridge, they described six keys to unlocking the ecosystem advantage. These are pinpointing where value is created; defining an architecture of differentiated partner roles; stimulating complementary partner investments, reducing the transaction costs, facilitating joint learning across the network; and engineering effective ways to capture profit.

But what does all this mean to companies especially since customers today are increasingly demanding complex, integrated solutions rather than standardised …

Students Create Greatest Good Donations Calculator For National Agency, Koray Özpolat, Resit Sendag

Koray Özpolat

University of Rhode Island business and computer engineering students have joined forces to create an online calculator for the USAID Center for International Disaster Information (CIDI) that clearly demonstrates the inefficiency of donating goods after disaster strikes and makes a case for giving money instead. Relief workers have known for a long time that donated items, such as bottled water and clothing, are astronomically expensive to ship overseas and cause slow downs at key areas near the emergency. For example, after the earthquake in Haiti, donated goods flowed in from around the world from people with the best intentions but …

Jayaashree Industries: Revolutionising Sanitary Pad Use In India, Arcot Desai Narasimhalu, Christopher Dula

Arcot Desai NARASIMHALU

Arunachalam Muruganantham is a social entrepreneur dedicated to solving India’s menstrual health problems. He developed an unprecedented product as a solution: a low-cost, locally produced sanitary pad. In a paragon effort of frugal innovation, he reverse-engineered the industrial processes used to make sanitary-pads. The result was a small-scale, low-cost machine that could manufacture quality pads sold at a retail price 20% lower than the cheapest mass-produced brands. However, no one bought his pads until his wife began to sell them. After which, the two were unable to keep up with demand. This triggered his realization concerning the importance of including …

The Newsvendor Problem: Review And Directions For Future Research, Yan Qin, Ruoxuan Wang, Asoo Vakharia, Yuwen Chen, Michelle Seref

Yuwen Chen

In this paper, we review the contributions to date for analyzing the newsvendor problem. Our focus is on examining the specific extensions for analyzing this problem in the context of modeling customer demand, supplier costs, and the buyer risk profile. More specifically, we analyze the impact of market price, marketing effort, and stocking quantity on customer demand; how supplier prices can serve as a coordination mechanism in a supply chain setting; integrating alternative supplier pricing policies within the newsvendor framework; and how the buyer’s risk profile moderates the newsvendor order quantity decision. For each of these areas, we summarize the …

A Product Diffusion Model For Single-Function And Fusion Products, Yuwen Chen, Janice Carrillo

Yuwen Chen

The prosperity of multifunction products (also referred to as fusion products) has changed the landscape of the marketplace for several electronics products. To illustrate, as fusion products gain popularity in cellular phones and office machines, we observe that single-function products (e.g., stand-alone PDAs and stand-alone scanners) gradually disappear from the market as they are supplanted by fusion products. This paper presents a product diffusion model that captures the diffusion transition from two distinct single-function products into one fusion product. We investigate the optimal launch time of the fusion product under various conditions and conduct a numerical analysis to demonstrate the …

Fusion Product Planning: A Market Offering Perspective, Yuwen Chen, Janice Carrillo, Asoo Vakharia, Peter Sin

Yuwen Chen

Devices that integrate multiple functions together are popular in consumer electronic markets.We describe these multifunction devices as fusion products as they fuse together products that traditionally stand alone in the marketplace. In this article, we investigate the manufacturer’s fusion product planning decision, adopting a market offering perspective that allows us to address the design and product portfolio decisions simultaneously. The general approach adopted is to develop and analyze a profit-maximizing model for a single firm that integrates product substitution effects in identifying an optimal market offering. In the general model, we demonstrate that the product design and portfolio decisions are …

Product-Portfolio Strategies: The Case Of Multi-Function Products, Yuwen Chen, Asoo Vakharia, Aydin Alptekinoglu

Yuwen Chen

Motivated by the proliferation of multifunction products, we investigate product portfolio decisions of a single firm by analyzing the impact of three ma;'or factors. First, because multifunction products provide complete or partial functionalities of single-function products, we incorporate substitution or cannibalization effects between the potential products. Second, we explicitly model the variable costs of manufacturing the single0function and multifunction products. Third, we examine the firm's pricing decisions because of their impact on the degree of cannibalization between the multifunction product and one or more single-function products. Using an economic model, we first characterize the firm's optimal product portfolio (through a …