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Managerial Insights (managerial + insight)
Selected AbstractsAs the PMI Turns: A Tool for Supply Chain ManagersJOURNAL OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2005Matthew D. Lindsey SUMMARY Supply chain managers use the PMI, an index of business activity and proxy for the general business cycle, to obtain valuable information important to strategic managerial planning. This research explores a methodology to provide managerial insight into the general business cycle by tracking and forecasting cycle turns in the PMI. A regression model is developed based on inherent cycles in the PMI between 12 and 65 months to forecast turning points for the index and anticipate changes in the business cycle, which is superior to the more commonly used Box-Jenkins forecasting technique. Strategic planning using this knowledge allows management to optimally adjust long-term levels of production, inventory, employment and orders as necessary. [source] The Effect of Buyer-Imposed Bidding Requirements and Bundle Structure on Purchase PerformanceJOURNAL OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2007Tobias Schoenherr SUMMARY Many requests for quotation (RFQs) consist of a group of different stock-keeping units (SKUs), bundled together in a single order lot. How this lot is structured and whether suppliers are required to adhere strictly to its composition (i.e., quote on all items in the bundle versus a subset) may significantly impact the competitiveness of the bidding and the buyer's perceived performance of the purchase. To better understand bundling practices and experiences, a survey of purchasers that aggregate several SKUs into a single bundled RFQ was undertaken. Within this context, respondent replies are categorized by buyer-imposed bidding requirements according to whether suppliers are required to submit bids on all items in the bundle, merely encouraged, or free to bid on any item combination in the bundle. The resulting bundle structure is examined and its impact on purchase (bundle) performance, as perceived by the buying company, is explored. Results are discussed, with managerial insights provided for purchasing professionals. [source] Supplier Evaluation and Rationalization via Data Envelopment Analysis: An Empirical ExaminationJOURNAL OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2001Ram Narasimhan SUMMARY Strategic evaluation of supplier performance assists firms in improving their operations across a variety of dimensions. Specifically, it aids in supplier process improvement, which in turn enhances firm performance, allows for optimal allocation of resources for supplier development programs, and assists managers in restructuring their supplier network based on performance. In order to address these issues, this article proposes a methodology for effective supplier performance evaluation based on data envelopment analysis (DEA), a multi-factor productivity analysis technique. The efficiencies derived from the DEA model are utilized in conjunction with managerial performance ratings in identifying supplier clusters, which are categorized into high performers and efficient (HE), high performers and inefficient (HI), low performers and efficient (LE), and low performers and inefficient (LI). Effective benchmarks from the HE cluster are identified for improving the operations of suppliers in the HI, LE, and LI clusters. Finally, managerial insights and implications from the study are discussed. [source] Critical success factors of business process re-engineering in the banking industryKNOWLEDGE AND PROCESS MANAGEMENT: THE JOURNAL OF CORPORATE TRANSFORMATION, Issue 4 2008T. C. E. Cheng This study seeks to identify the factors that are critical to successful implementation of business process re-engineering (BPR), and attempts to develop a reliable, empirically tested and rigorously validated measurement instrument for BPR, for Hong Kong's banking sector. We conducted a large-scale survey of banking industry executives and applied a rigorous research methodology to treat the survey data. We identified four critical success factors (CSFs) of BPR implementation, which are management commitment, customer focus, use of IT and communication of change and developed a functional instrument to measure BPR in the banking industry. Of these four factors, only customer focus has a significant relationship with firm performance. This finding is consistent with the literature on successful re-engineering. This paper contributes to research by identifying the success factors of BPR implementation, and provides managerial insights on the successful management of BPR, in the banking industry. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Design and control of agile automated CONWIP production linesNAVAL RESEARCH LOGISTICS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 1 2009Wallace J. Hopp Abstract In this article, we study the design and control of manufacturing cells with a mix of manual and automated equipment, operating under a CONWIP pull protocol, and staffed by a single agile (cross-trained) worker. For a three-station line with one automated station, we fully characterize the structure of the optimal control policy for the worker and show that it is a static priority policy. Using analytical models and extensive simulation experiments, we also evaluate the effectiveness of practical heuristic control policies and provide managerial insights on automation configuration design of the line. This characterization of the worker control policy enables us to develop managerial insights into the design issues of how best to locate and concentrate automation in the line. Finally, we show that, in addition to ease of control and greater design flexibility, the CONWIP protocol also offers higher efficiency and robustness than does the push protocol. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 2009 [source] The impact of component commonality on composite assembly policiesNAVAL RESEARCH LOGISTICS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 6 2007Amit Eynan Abstract Assemble in Advance (AIA) policy reduces assembly cost due to advance planning, while Assemble to Order (ATO) policy eliminates assembly of excessive (more than demanded) units. The tradeoffs between the two policies have been studied in the past for single product environments. Moreover, it was shown that it is beneficial to employ AIA and ATO simultaneously. In this article, we study the employment of such a composite assembly policy in a multiproduct environment with component commonality. When common components are used, ATO may also enable us to benefit from the risk pooling effect. We provide important managerial insights such as: the multiperiod problem is myopic and changes in inventory levels due to the use of common components, and demonstrate the potential profit increase compared to other policies.© 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2007 [source] A logistics scheduling model: Inventory cost reduction by batchingNAVAL RESEARCH LOGISTICS: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 4 2005Xiangtong Qi Abstract Logistics scheduling refers to the problems where the decisions of job scheduling and transportation are integrated in a single framework. In this paper, we discuss a logistics scheduling model where the raw material is delivered to the shop in batches. By making the batching and scheduling decisions simultaneously, the total inventory and batch setup cost can be reduced. We study different models on this issue, present complexity analysis and optimal algorithms, and conduct computational experiments. Some managerial insights are observed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2005. [source] PRODUCT OFFERING, PRICING, AND MAKE-TO-STOCK/MAKE-TO-ORDER DECISIONS WITH SHARED CAPACITYPRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2002GREGORY DOBSON In an era of mass customization, many firms continue to expand their product lines to remain competitive. These broader product lines may help to increase market share and may allow higher prices to be charged, but they also cause challenges associated with diseconomies of scope. To investigate this tradeoff, we considered a monopolist who faces demand curves, which for each of its potential products, decline with both price and response time (time to deliver the product). The firm must decide which products to offer, how to price them, whether each should be make-to-stock (mts) or make-to-order (mto), and how often to produce them. The offered products share a single manufacturing facility. Setup times introduce disceonomies of scope and setup costs introduce economies of scale. We provide motivating problem scenarios, model the monopolist's problem as a non-linear, integer programming problem, characterize of the optimal policy, develop near-optimal procedures, and discuss managerial insights. [source] An extension to a DEA support system used for assessing R&D projectsR & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2007Jonathan D. Linton This paper describes an extension to the data envelopment analysis (DEA) support system that has been used for the assessment, rating, and ranking of diverse portfolios of research and development (R&D) projects at Lucent Technologies. The approach is illustrated through its application to a large portfolio of R&D projects considered by Lucent's Advanced Technologies Group. The method proceeds by first stratifying the portfolio into comparably efficient groups of projects through the construction of a series of efficient DEA frontiers, and then by lexicographically ranking each project within these groups relative to DEA-based contextual attractiveness measures calculated from the different partitions. The advantages to this approach are provided not only from the perspective of the specific project rankings that are produced but also from the broader managerial insights that can be derived from any resulting differences between officially sanctioned, quantitative decision-making procedures, and the quality of the decisions that have actually been made by managers. [source] | ||||||||||