Cost-effectiveness in defence expenditure

Decision-making in defence is complicated by the need to make long-range plans with regard to weapons systems and force structures in an environment marked by great strategic and technological uncertainty. Cost-effectiveness analysis, which is a variant of the general analytical approach, is an attempt to clarify and structure defence choice situations. As a method of analysis, it shares certain properties of both cost-benefit and operational analysis, and indeed emerged from them in response to the unique needs of defence planners. Cost-effectiveness analysis involves a number of conceptual and practical problems, but its most difficult challenge is the requirement to exist in a political and bureaucratic environment where the system of incentives may not be compatible with the notion of economic rationality. However, the recent appearance of competitive cost-effectiveness analysis of defence options promises to promote the relevance and applicability of this approach.     

Strategic planning for the armed forces

The author points out that in most countries the defence department is a very large ‘business’. He claims that, although long-range planning in the Canadian Department of National Defence may not be perfect, it does follow the stages of traditional strategic planning. He describes these stages, pointing out some innovations which he feels could be of value to other government departments in other countries as well as to large corporations in the private sector. He emphasizes the importance of feedback and describes ‘capability components’ which have been developed in the Canadian defence department to replace the traditional thinking in terms of ‘Army, Navy, Air Force’. Each capability component focuses on the required output/result and has a sponsor who is responsible for developing plans for the long-term ‘state of health’ of his capability component. Overall, the author makes a strong case for forward-looking and results-oriented strategic planning.     

On current issues in defence systems analysis and combat modelling

Summarizing the discussions of the 1982 symposium sponsored by NATO's Defence Research Group and directed by this author, the paper puts forward some major issues in defence systems analysis and combat modelling related to: (1) the architectural approaches to the design of military campaign simulation models; (2) the verification and validation of models; (3) the employment of combat simulation, field trials and exercises in an exploratory research mode in order to gain insights rather than supporting solutions; (4) the use of interactive combat models to obtain a better understanding of cognitive functions in command and control, especially also with a view to structuring knowledge bases for military expert systems; (5) the type and use of planning models permitting the defence planner to arrive at robust solutions to his problems, not least with regard to possible responses by the potential antagonists.     

How corporate planning responds to uncertainty

This article is based upon an SSRC research project into the influence of computer methods on decision making. During this research, information on the planning systems of a cross-section of British industry was obtained.The paper illustrates how managers in these firms were coping with planning in the present conditions of extreme uncertainty about the future, combined with adverse economic and business conditions. Conventional planning theory, together with some modern observations on it, are briefly described and then the paper shows how, in the firms visited, the structure of planning was more complex than this theory.It goes on to show that today's critical conditions were not leading to management putting aside their plans and computer models and “muddling through’. They were actually leading to an acceleration in the adoption of formal planning and decision making methods but in a somewhat different manner to conventional planning theory.Seven different modes of planning were identified with integrated operational planning being the most common, possibly the most essential to survival and sometimes the only planning possible into today's conditions. A trend to extend the operational plan to 2 to 3 years and to reduce the firm's long range plan from 5 to 3 years was also observed.Long range plans were being considered as planning and decision making tools and not as blue-prints of the firm's future, as accurate long range forecasting was impossible. Three types of strategic planning were identified with that carried out at intervals probably being the most appropriate for medium sized firms in today's conditions.     

Divisionalization and transfer pricing: A review

This paper reviews the various transfer-pricing systems that have been commonly suggested for divisionalized companies. The properties of an ideal system are discussed and the advantages and disadvantages of each practical system are examined in relation to these properties. The fiscal restrictions that act on multinational companies are also considered. Finally, the contribution of operational research in establishing transfer pricing systems is discussed and criticized. Some very recent work is briefly looked at in the hope that this will form a basis for a more substantial contribution in the future.     

Incorporating the environmental dimension in the assessment of automated warehouses

In today’s competitive context, the paradigm of sustainable development is becoming more and more significant, also in warehousing. Managers are progressively considering not only purely economic aspects but also environmental concerns. Despite such consciousness, the selection of automated warehousing solutions has been mainly based on operational and economic performance in both practice and theory so far, whereas energy consumption and environmental performance have not been adequately taken into account. To fill this lack, a model is proposed to evaluate the energy consumption and environmental impact of automated warehousing solutions. The model has been used to investigate whether and how the selection of automated solutions changes depending on the dimensions involved in the analysis (i.e. only economic, only environmental or both). The analysis has been performed considering autonomous vehicle storage and retrieval systems (AVS/RSs) and its natural alternative, i.e. automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RSs). Results confirm the importance of considering both dimensions in the assessment of automated warehouses, as depending on the scenario, the technology selection shifts from AS/RS to AVS/RS when considering not only the economic but also the environmental impact. Additionally, this study provides new insights on the suitability areas of AVS/RSs.     

The politic,philosophy and practice of OR—A personal view of the issues

It is almost 50 years since Sir Henry Tizzard created the group of scientists in RAF Fighter Command who were to coin the term ‘Operational Research’. The group still exists, though its work, and the work of other defence OR groups, has changed from solving acute operational problems by the extrapolation of observed data, to an attempt at predicting the outcome of policy choices that are beyond experience. Inevitably this has forced OR further into a political arena. Yet most OR practitioners are scientists used to investigating apolitical and benign nature. In this paper the author gives a personal view of what he believes OR is trying to achieve, what practical problems and pressures have to be faced and attempts to give guidance on how to proceed.     

中层管理者多重角色行为对企业绩效影响的实证研究

中层管理者是企业管理中重要的一个环节.本文关注中层管理者多重角色行为对企业绩效的影响.首先,将中层管理者的多重角色划分为企业家、执行者、辅导者与协调者四个维度;其次,通过结构方程模型,实证性的验证了中层管理者多重角色行为模型及各个角色维度对组织财务绩效与运营绩效的不同影响.结论表明中层管理者企业家角色行为仅对企业财务绩效具有积极影响,其余三个角色行为仅对企业运营绩效具有积极影响.最后,分析讨论研究结论,并给出相应的对策和建议.     

An Integrated Approach for Modeling Sustainability Risks in Freight Transportation Systems

Integrating sustainability into freight transportation systems (FTSs) is a complex and challenging task due to the sheer number of inherent sustainability risks. Sustainability risks disrupt the economic, social and environmental objectives of freight operations and act as impediments in the development of sustainable freight transportation systems. The area of sustainability risk management is still unexplored and immature in the operational research domain. This study addresses these research gaps and contributes in a threefold manner. First, a total of 36 potential sustainability risks related to FTSs are identified and uniquely classified into seven categories using a rigourous approach. Second, the research proposes two prominent perspectives, namely, ontological and epistemological perspectives to understand risks and develops a novel framework for managing sustainability risks in FTSs. Third, a novel approach by integrating fuzzy evidential reasoning algorithm (FERA) with expected utility theory is developed to quantitatively model and profile sustainability risk for different risk preferences, namely, risk-averse, risk-neutral, and risk-taking scenarios. The proposed FERA is a flexible and robust approach, which transforms the experts’ inputs into belief structures and aggregates them using the evidence combination rule proposed in Dempster–Shafer theory to overcome the problem of imprecise results caused by average scoring in existing models. A sensitivity analysis is conducted to demonstrate the robustness of the proposed model. Unlike conventional perception, our study suggests that most of the high priority sustainability risks are behaviorally and socially induced rather than financially driven. The results provide significant managerial implications including a focus on skills development, and on social and behavioral dimensions while managing risks in FTSs.     

Improving coordination in an engineer-to-order supply chain using a soft systems approach

An empirical study in the ship-building sector has been undertaken to understand the problems associated with the coordination of engineer-to-order (ETO) supply chains and to reveal insights into opportunities for improvements based on the application of soft systems methodology. A number of alternatives to improve coordination of supply chain have been proposed based on the comparison between a soft systems model and actual practice. These alternatives were summarised into seven general principles that help define the role of individual companies in coordinating ETO supply chains, highlighting the company’s structures and interdependencies that lead to project tardiness. Due to the specific nature of a project which changes according to the context, it is difficult to generalise the soft systems model. Nevertheless, future research can further explore some of the principles proposed to deal with coordination problems experienced in other types of ETO project operations, such as construction and oil and gas.     

Competitors co-operating: establishing a supply chain to manage genetically modified canola

Identity preserving production and marketing (IPPM) systems are used extensively in the Canadian canola industry to segregate varieties with different traits from the commodity stream. This paper examines one use of identify preserved production and marketing systems for genetically modified (GM) canola. A number of transgenic herbicide tolerant (HT) varieties have been approved for release in Canada since 1995 but delays in approval in other countries led the Canadian canola sector to use IPPM systems to segregate these varieties and direct them toward accepted markets. This paper looks at a number of systems developed for input-trait GM canola, with a focus on the governance mechanisms used.     

A process-oriented perspective of IS success: Examining the impact of IS on operational cost

Effective measurement of information system (IS) success continues to be a top concern for both practitioners and researchers. Labeled the “productivity paradox”, previous attempts to quantify the benefits of IS have often resulted in inconclusive or inconsistent results. The present study contributes to IS success research through the development and empirical testing of a process-oriented model of IS success. Using an operational perspective and combining primary and secondary measures, this study examines the influence of lower-level intangible IS and information technology (IT) benefits on higher-level financial measures. Additionally, we introduce IS plan quality as an antecedent to the model's input variables. Primary survey data from CIOs of primarily Fortune 2000 size firms are combined with secondary data, total operational cost, from Compustat to facilitate the examination of the IS benefits. This study also addresses shortcomings cited in other studies that might have contributed to the productivity paradox by including control variables in the model, defining a research perspective—the operational success perspective—and clearly articulating the level of analysis as the organizational level. The results supported a process-oriented view of the benefits from IS and showed how the effects of IS along a path can lead to better organizational performance, in this case, lower overall costs. These results are discussed and future research implications are presented.     

E.D. Smith and Sons,Ltd.

Lew Smith, the chairman of a privately owned Canadian processor, must decide whether his company will build a plant in the United States. He has been asked to do so by one of his major customers, Loblaw. The company has been making many improvements to its operations but it’s performance has been hurt by the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States. The company has been doing very well, however, as it shifts its focus from making private label to controlled label. Is now the right time to expand the business into a foreign market?     

The Modern Call Center: A Multi‐Disciplinary Perspective on Operations Management Research

Call centers are an increasingly important part of today's business world, employing millions of agents across the globe and serving as a primary customer‐facing channel for firms in many different industries. Call centers have been a fertile area for operations management researchers in several domains, including forecasting, capacity planning, queueing, and personnel scheduling. In addition, as telecommunications and information technology have advanced over the past several years, the operational challenges faced by call center managers have become more complicated. Issues associated with human resources management, sales, and marketing have also become increasingly relevant to call center operations and associated academic research. In this paper, we provide a survey of the recent literature on call center operations management. Along with traditional research areas, we pay special attention to new management challenges that have been caused by emerging technologies, to behavioral issues associated with both call center agents and customers, and to the interface between call center operations and sales and marketing. We identify a handful of broad themes for future investigation while also pointing out several very specific research opportunities.     

大型工程建设项目组织综合集成模式

针对大型工程项目组织现状,应用系统论和综合集成方法,提出了工程项目组织基本原理图。构建了项目组织的十元组模型和十纬度集成理论,并对维度进行分析和归约。在此基础上,建立了工程项目组织集成的逻辑框架、结构框架、运作机制和运作框架,以及集成的组织中人力资源的配置方案,进而提出了宜组织的概念。最后将其应用于工程项目实践中,验证证实取得较好效果。这一大型工程项目组织综合集成模式同样也适合特大型工程项目的组织构造,具有较强的理论先进性和使用价值。     

海尔管理变革:市场链与业务流程再造

自90年代美国管理学家哈默和钱皮提出业务流程再造理论后,世界范围内掀起一场流程再造的革命,虽然理论界和企业界对其研究倾注了大量的人力和财力,但再造更多的还是停留在理论的研究上,还缺少有说服力的成功经验和模式,海尔在这方面实现了“由理论走向现实”的飞跃。同时,在中国即将加入WTO之际,如何提升我国大企业在国际市场中的竞争力,对于我国企业迎接WTO挑战和机遇具有重要意义。海尔1999年开始实施的市场链与业务流程再造模式在上述两个方面都有很好的说服力和代表性,本文是在笔者深入调查海尔管理创新系统的基础上,就海尔市场链与业务流程再造的经验进行的总结和实证研究。     

Voluntary disclosure of sustainability reports by Canadian universities

In contrast to corporate firms, voluntary sustainability reporting by universities is still in its infancy. Against this background, we have investigated which Canadian universities report their sustainability performance and what specifically is reported. Our study applies content analyses as a methodological approach to determine the relative importance of disclosure topics by using a university-specific catalogue of indicators. This unique study completely covers all sustainability reports published between 2011 and 2015 by Canadian universities and as such provides evidence and analyses of voluntary sustainability reporting by universities, which has been the subject of very little research to date. The findings show that sustainability reporting by Canadian universities diverges considerably and the range of aspects included is relatively narrow. Overall, the results show a clear focus on the environmental dimension and very weak coverage of the social dimension. The environmental orientation of many Canadian universities seems to be a result of their participation in the STARS program.     

中国外资需求的建模及协整分析

90年代以来,随着我国利用外资的大幅增长,由引资规模、引资结构不当等原因引起的负面效应逐渐加大作用,它严重影响着我国国内的经济建设。了解我国利用外资情况,对我国外资需求进行深入的研究,建立合理的外资需求模型,对我国引进外资的规模进行计划决策,充分发挥外资的正面效应是非常重要的。     

How Plant Managers' Experiences and Attitudes Toward Sustainability Relate to Operational Performance

Managers are increasingly faced with pressure to think not just about profits, but also about their organization's environmental and social performance. This research provides a first examination of operational managers' experiences with and attitudes about employee well‐being and environmental issues, how these factors impact employee well‐being and environmental performance, and how the three performance measures interrelate. We use violations of Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations and Toxic Release Inventory reports of emissions as proxies for employee well‐being and environmental performance. Our findings suggest that operational managers do not (yet) think in sustainability terms. However, employee well‐being and environmental performance do interact in a significant way with operational performance. Hence, operational managers would benefit from a more complete understanding of the relationships among the elements of the triple bottom line.     

The Information Problems in Organizations: A Research Model for the Value of Information and Information Systems*

Growing recognition of the need for better management information system (MIS) theory and practice centers around problems with identifying the value of information and information systems in organizations. This paper addresses this issue by showing that existing theory in organizational economics and industrial organization directly relates to information problems in organizations (their nature, and their effects in terms of organization structure and performance). The paper categorizes these problems and associated theories into four distinct classes and shows that MIS research and practice can be mapped to information problems of each type. Because the economic theory pertinent to specific information problems includes the nature of the organizational response to information constraints, it also provides insight into the nature of the improvement to be realized if information constraints can be overcome. These improvements can then be interpreted as the value of the associated information systems which suggests using the resultant classification scheme to map between information problems and system value. The paper shows that this methodology provides a more appropriate level of focus than either traditional normative or business value methods, especially because many improvements have structural as well as performance consequences.