MATERIAL PLANNING FOR A REMANUFACTURING FACILITY

This article describes the first fully integrated material planning system to facilitate the management of a remanufacturing facility. A number of firms are already engaged in this activity. They remanufacture automobile, truck, and other vehicle components, like starters, alternators, transmissions, and so forth. These firms take in used components, disassemble them, and assemble saleable products from the good parts they find. There is considerable uncertainty in the supply of used components, the good parts in those components, and the demand for remanufactured products. Our system is based on material requirements planning logic, something that many firms in the industry are already familiar with. Meetings with experts in the industry were used to set the parameters of the system and evaluate its approach.     

Futures studies versus planning

The growing interest in the study of the future and the increasing number of organizations and commissions in this field, raises the question of how this area of study is to be distinguished from conventional planning. One may wonder about this question, since there would appear to be correspondence, or at least similarity, in that both are future-oriented and express thinking about the future. The thesis of this paper is that despite the similarity between planning and futures studies and their inter-relationship, it is possible and even desirable to distinguish between them, a distinction which has both analytical and practical significance. A conceptual framework based on this distinction will be presented and its implications examined.     

The planning function and input-output analysis

Long range planning has been defined as a decision-making process involving the commitment of resources—money, people, time, capital—today, the payback or return on which will not be realized until some future period. Since the heart of the planning process is the making of decisions about allocations in some systematic way, economic analysis, armed with its concepts of opportunity cost, indifference theory, marginal analysis, and investment theory, provides much of the theoretical framework for good long range planning models.

If planning is to be done in a scientific manner, there shouldexist common principles and study approaches, regardless of the nature of the organism being planned for. Thus planning for the individual, family, company, industry, association or state should vary according to the relevant information to be used in making decisions and the priorities of the objectives but not in the essential method by which decisions are arrived at. This is major theme of the paper.

As a result of more, than a decade of experience as a ‘planner’ for a number of diverse business and government groups, and through the process of articulating this planning experience as a teacher, I have developed a systematic approach to the planning process. The model has its own conceptual framework that includes, as information filters and display devices, unique adaptations of input-output notation. First in this article I will highlight some of the elements of the planning process, as I have constructed them. Then I will proceed to describe the specifications of the planning system, with particular emphasis on the use of input-output analysis.     

How to design a financial planning model.

Corporate planning models frequently consist of integrated pro forma income statements, statements of financial position, and cashflow statements. When implemented by utilizing computer-based planning systems, these models allow managers to explore potential decisions in ‘what if?’ planning analyses.The logic of an integrated financial statement planning model can be arranged following either a ‘funds needed to balance approach’ or a ‘direct approach’. With a funds needed to balance approach total assets are set equal to total liabilities plus equities to satisfy this fundamental accounting identity. Logic in such models is often difficult to validate. In the direct approach, total assets are calculated independently of total liabilities plus equities providing an extremely strong test for model validation prior to using the model to assess ‘what if’ alternatives.In this paper, the author discusses the logic of integrated financial planning models and their implementation with computer-based planning systems. The funds need to balance approach and the direct approach are described and contrasted to assist corporate planners in evaluating and selecting a method for constructing the logic of corporate planning models.     

Strategic management: lessons from success and failure.

Is Corporate Planning a failure or a success? In this article David Hussey assesses the research which has been done on the planning process and concludes that Corporate Planning obviously has the potential to improve business performance but for many reasons this potential has not been realized. He then examines the attempts which are currently being made to persuade managers to ‘think strategically’, to use portfolio analysis scenarios and other techniques of strategic analysis. He asserts that to succeed, the planner or the consultant in planning must use these and other analytical approaches to help managers ‘to change the perceptual boundaries of the strategic problem’ and generate strategies and action programmes which will enable them to compete successfully in world markets.     

Comprehensive planning for libraries

In the area of planning, the literature has been almost entirely concerned with planning in the business (i.e. profit) setting. Some literature does exist on planning in the nonprofit sector, but it usually deals with tactical planning of the short-term character. This is specially true in the area of libraries and many librarians have developed and do administer large, complex organization— where conprehensive, long range planning is almost completely untreated in the literature.The current paper discusses the various steps in the strategic planning process, and relates them to a situation in which comprehensive long range plans for a new health sciences library have been developed, and to a considerable degree, implemented. In this framework, the steps of developing purpose and objecives, forecasting and policy formulation, developing and choosing growth strategy, determining resource requirements and provions, developing an organizational structure, and control system utilization are discussed both in the general framework of comprehensive planning, and with respect to actual experience in the development of a health sciences library. The roles of tactical planning and the implementation of plans are also treated.     

Strategic planning in a changing corporate environment

Strategic planning is about nothing, if it is not about attempting to achieve desirable futures. In the past this has often been seen as an excuse, or indeed a necessity, for fixed goals which are constantly timed. Such a state of planning has, fortunately, for a long time now been discredited and this paper concentrates upon the concepts of strategic planning within the changing corporate environment, an environment which therefore has to effect both the goals as well as the process of planning. Furthermore, the author concentrates upon the concept of a planning, allocating, and monitoring cycle of strategic planning which sets the strategic planning concept within a process cycle as well as within an effective allocative structure. The author considers this latter point an extremely important one since, as he says, ‘planning can become a very sterile and barren activity if it is not viewed integrally with acting and doing’. Finally, this paper concentrates on the important fact that planning must, within a dynamic environment, be an iterative and a learning process.     

The Social Embeddedness of Labor Markets and Cognitive Processes

Conventional economic theory explains labor market outcomes in terms of the interaction of autonomous individual actors who continually calculate the relative advantages of different possible actions they might take. But it has trouble explaining cooperation among individuals in these terms; and even individualistic behavior in this model is based upon a series of prior misunderstandings, or causal models, which the actors are simply assumed to possess. This paper utilizes cognitive theory to explore the nature of these prior understandings, how we got them and the way in which they are likely to be revised and updated through experience. This explanation suggests that economic behavior is much more dependent upon direct interaction among individuals than conventional theory implies and it makes trust and cooperation central to economic activity. But it raises serious questions about whether a dynamic economic system could ever be housed in the competitive institutional structure which conventional theory prescribes.     

Beyond the purely commercial business model: Organizational value logics and the heterogeneity of sustainability business models

The business model has been conceived as a commercial logic of value proposition, creation, exchange and capture. However, its underlying conceptual structure of an organizational value logic holds promise also for application beyond a purely commercial context, for partially commercial and even noncommercial organizations. This paper unlocks this potential by conceptualizing homogeneous and heterogeneous organizational value logics shaped by a variety of institutional logics. Homogeneous value logics are dominantly shaped by individual institutional logics, such as the value logic of businesses shaped by an institutional logic of the commercial market, or that of a churches shaped by an institutional logic of religion. Heterogeneous value logics, however, are co-shaped by two or more institutional logics. The application of these concepts is exemplified in the context of sustainability business models, which are built on a heterogeneous value logic that combines elements from commercial, sustainability, welfare and government logics. The paper contributes to the business model discussion by extending it to partially commercial and noncommercial organizations; by creating a conceptual space between value logics and institutional logics; and by proposing the meta-logic of value proposition, creation, exchange and capture, a novel analytical tool for the study of organizations shaped by plural institutional logics.     

物流系统的可靠度及其优化研究

物流系统是一个由众多物流单元组成的大系统,它的可靠性程度对企业和社会的平稳运行有着重大的影响.本文在建立物流单元的可靠度及其度量方法基础上,研究了物流系统逻辑组成结构对系统可靠度的影响,并探讨了在有物流能力和可靠度约束的情况下,如何优化物流系统逻辑结构和物流成本的方法.     

Environmental issues: the challenge for the chief executive

Businesses are under pressure to adopt environmental policies and incorporate them into their strategic business planning as a matter of routine. These pressures are coming from at least five sources--stricter legislation, consumer demand, competitive advantage, staff concerns and community pressure. The challenge is enormous but there is growing evidence that sound environmental management provides pay-off in bottom line results. Business organizations have a vital role to play and its good for them. There are opportunities for new business as well as threats to those organizations which continue to ignore the trends.     

The components of strategic planning

What is the current level of strategic planning in the United States? What objectives are quantified in the strategic plans? What kinds of environmental factors are identified in the planning process? What areas are planned for? How often are the strategic plans reviewed? These are among the questions which were raised in a recent survey of 323 companies whose results are summarized in this paper. It is hoped that this study will permit practitioners to compare their planning with planning being performed in their industry.Suggested improvements in the stategic planning process include more frequent monitoring of performance against the plans, more comprehensive environmental surveillance, and greater emphasis on organizational structure plans. The strategic planning process was found to be constantly evolving and cyclical. The strategic planning activity expanded during adversity and contracted when business prospects were good.     

Strategic planning—A new arrival in Hungarian industry

This paper outlines the fairly recent history of strategic planning in Hungary, which is still by no means widespread. Strategic planning in business has to co-exist with the official national 1 and 5 year plans. At the present time some 30 percent of Hungarian industrial companies have some type of strategic planning practice, and the rest have some version of official planning. Those with good independent planning practices have proved more able to survive in a changing environment.     

Who Shall Follow? factors affecting the adoption of succession plans in Taiwan

Succession planning is widely believed to help business organizations with internal resourcing, reduce attrition of the work force caused by job-hopping high-fliers, and prepare qualified candidates for appointment to senior management positions. It is further known that when organizations fail to treat their succession plans as living documents, they may not only threaten their own continuity but also lose the opportunity to revitalize themselves. Even so, succession planning has been slow to take root in traditional Chinese businesses, which have been noted for their informal organization, top-down decision making, and emphasis on personal ties and relationships. However, rapid growth and increasingly tougher competition may force these firms to change their style of management. This study assesses the extent to which formal succession planning has taken hold among Taiwanese business firms, and identifies factors underlying the decision to adopt a formal plan. For those local firms that have not introduced formal planning, it seeks to determine the concerns that have inhibited or prevented them from doing so. Finally, this paper attempts to detect differences that may exist between Chinese- and foreign-owned firms in the tendency to adopt succession plans.     

Strategic planning—Which style do you need?

Strategic planning is now a large and diverse activity practised in many different kinds of organizations. This article provides an overview of the field with a summary of the five main schools of thought each with its own business philosophy and a range of practical approaches and techniques. These basic styles are concerned with planning as a central control system, a framework for innovation, an organizational change process, a political activity, and a way of exploring the future. Most planning systems have a dominant style or focus and this emphasis needs to be adjusted in response to changes which are occurring continually in the organization and in the external environment. The article is designed to help the senior manager or corporate planner to assess the state of planning in his organization and to see where there are important gaps in the enterprise's capability for planning which might be filled by the launching of new initiatives. The article also offers an agenda of approaches for consideration by the executive who wishes to move his enterprise from a conventional 5-year planning and budgeting system towards a more comprehensive process of managing organizational change and development.     

A strategic perspective for make or buy decisions

Make or buy decisions have typically been relegated to purchasing departments. While this is not totally unjustified, top management must consider the strategic implications. In essence, operative decisions are made here which influence the strategic thrust of the organization. Make or buy decisions have substantial strategic implications in the entire planning process. They can affect a firm's competitive advantage, and alter the types of alternatives considered in the planning process.

It is argued that strategic considerations should outweigh technical and conventional approaches to make or buy decisions. Top management needs to put these decisions back on their strategic agenda.     

Strategic management of public and non-market corporations

The author has developed a strategic framework for the management of ‘non-market corporations’ which he thinks better meets their peculiarities and specific needs by framing them in a relatively tight and rigorous socio-economic system relating to their internal logic. He believes that the proposed approach should provide the basis for a more constructive relationship between such corporations and the community at large and for better levels of performance     

Involving managers in system-improvement planning

The planning of an organization is conceptualized as two separate but complementary processes. One of these two, namely system-improvement planning—which is concerned with changing the nature of the ongoing activities of the organization with a view to improving them—is generally neglected or poorly performed. It is suggested here that the reason for this neglect is the prevailing organizational philosophy which inhibits system-improvement planning. An alternative philosophy would be required for its effective implementation. But initially structural changes to support the new philosophy would have to be introduced.     

Strategies for planning

In recent years there has been a good deal of discussion amongst planning specialists and academics about the gap which exists between the theory of planning as set out in journals and textbooks, and the practice of planning in private and public organizations. Planners are continually complaining about the resistance to planning by top management and operating managers in divisions and departments.In this article the author aims to produce a reconciliation between theory and practice and to discuss what alternative strategies are open to planners in devising planning systems for their organizations.He suggests that the problem has its origin in the fact that corporate planning theory was first developed by management scientists as a total systems approach. Corporate planners have failed to sell an integrated planning system either as programme budgeting or as corporate planning. Research suggests that a management team can only adopt and implement a comprehensive planning system in very special circumstances, e.g. when the organization's survival is threatened, a new management team has been appointed and the staff of the organization are ready to accept radical change.In normal circumstances the planner is wrong to advocate a ‘root and branch’ solution. He must diagnose the planning needs of the organization and his objective must be not merely to establish a particular planning procedure but rather to discover how he can best improve the quality of management decisions.Recent studies on strategy formation indicate that the introduction of a formal planning procedure is only a partial answer to the problem of improving the quality of management decisions.The paper reviews various approaches to planning and considers how they relate to organizations with different strategic problems, with differing organization structures and various management styles.