INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGY AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT: RESOURCE TOOLKIT FOR RESEARCH AND TEACHING

Increasing globalization has affected the way that firms are managed today. While its impact on competitive strategy, marketing, and finance has been well accepted and well studied, its effect on the firm's technology and operations has not. This paper provides resources for research and teaching in international technology and operations management (itom). Included are an extensive bibliography of papers and an overview of large-scale survey research initiatives in the area. By bringing together and categorizing this body of work, we hope to facilitate further work in the area and to help define ITOM'S scope.     

AN OPERATIONAL PLANNING CONCEPT FOR DEEP LANE STORAGE SYSTEMS

The main advantage of deep lane storage systems compared with conventional high bay warehouses is seen in a better space utilization, because products are stored in channels one pallet behind the other. However, for deep lane storage systems the last-in-first-out principle holds and direct access to pallets is lost apart from the last pallet entering a channel. To operate deep lane storage systems effectively, namely, providing high throughput rates even at times of high storage rack utilization requires a sophisticated operational planning system. We will describe a totally new concept consisting of five modules for storage and retrieval assignments, as well as for a reorganization of storage location occupations.     

Making connections: Global Production Networks and World City Networks

This article offers a sympathetic critique of recent attempts to forge a dialogue between Global Commodity Chain (GCC) and World City Network (WCN) approaches to global economic change. While broadly supportive of the endeavour, we make three observations about this ongoing project. First, we question the utility of emphasizing the common roots of these approaches in World Systems Theory given that both have subsequently moved into new epistemological terrain and, additionally, that the language of core and periphery seems ever less pertinent to global economic realities. Second, we seek to highlight the potential dangers of essentializing the global system as one that is primarily shaped by certain kinds of connections – namely the intra-firm relationships of advanced producer service firms – between certain kinds of cities – namely the leading tiers of global cities. Third, we point to the need to expand the interpretations of relationality within global networks to include a wider variety of actors, particularly beyond the corporate realm, and to explore the dynamic power relations between those actors. We also discuss the methodological challenges of expanding the purview of research in this way. This commentary has been stimulated by the articles in the special issue of Global Networks on 'World City Networks and Global Commodity Chains'.     

Promotion to Partner in Professional Service Firms

A shift away from up-or-out, theconventional promotion system in professional servicefirms, has been explained as part of a wider set ofchanges in internal labor market arrangements andmanagement methods. This is investigated empirically in a sample oflarge partnerships in one profession. Up-or-out was usedby less than one-third of the sample of firms but iscommon among the largest firms. Internal reforms to the professional firm do not fully explainits rarity; up-or-out appears to be adaptable to newforms of management and internal labor market policies.This raises a number of questions about the utility of theoretical explanations of how professionalservice firms work or are changing.     

The Migration of Organizational Functions to the Work Unit Level: Buffering, Spanning, and Bringing Up Boundaries

In this paper, we propose that the locus oforganizational boundary activities has migrated from theorganization to the work unit level as enterprisesreengineer structures, increase the use ofcross-functional teams, cut organizational slack, and adoptadvanced information technologies. From an open systemsperspective, we examine how environmental andorganizational forces affect this migration process.Three types of boundary activity relevant for workunits are identified: buffering, spanning, and bringingup boundaries. A set of preliminary propositionsregarding relationships between environmental andorganizational changes and boundary activities is offered asa guide for future research.     

Work Design Issues in Lean Production from a Sociotechnical Systems Perspective: Neo-Taylorism or the Next Step in Sociotechnical Design?

The similarities and differences between twoparadigms, Lean Production (LP) and SociotechnicalSystems (STS) thinking, which currently compete for theattention of managers and scholars interested inimproving the design of work systems, are studied in thisarticle. In order to find the logic behind eachapproach, the design principles formulated by Chernshave been used to evaluate LP from an STS viewpoint with respect to work design issues. The two conceptsdiffer most with respect to their definition of systemboundaries, the control mechanisms they favor and theirvalue bases and assumptions about workers. The way control is exercised in each concept isclosely related to the production structure and hasfar-reaching consequences for the human resourcepolicies practiced. Although each approach has something to offer the other, the question whether thebest ideas of both can be synthesized in designing asuperior overall system cannot be answered so easily. Inthe end, it will require more than just choosing features of each approach to apply incombination; the differences in fundamental beliefsabout people need to be reconciled in the design of theorganization and its system.     

A MODEL OF SITE‐SPECIFIC ANTECEDENTS OF ISO 14001 CERTIFICATION

ISO 14001 constitutes a major dilemma for many American firms. This new standard holds the promise of waste reduction and better process management, but the benefits and costs are very difficult to predict. This study attempts to identify and explain antecedents impacting the decision to pursue certification for some of the first plants certified in the United States. Using data from a large survey of U.S. managers and a Logit analysis, we find the factors influencing management decisions to actively pursue ISO 14001 certification to be distinctly different from those factors influencing management's decision not to pursue certification. For the latter, the decision is economically based; for the former, it is driven by other, more qualitative considerations.     

MANAGING A FLOW LINE WITH SINGLE‐KANBAN,DUAL‐KANBAN OR CONWIP

To control the production of different parts on a single flow line, managers can choose between the Single‐kanban, Dual‐kanban, and Conwip. This paper therefore compares the three different systems. The results show that Conwip consistently produces the shortest mean customer wait time and lowest total work‐in‐process. Our results also contradict the finding of a previous study, which showed that Dual‐kanban performed better than Single‐kanban. The different findings can, however, be attributed to the use of a material transfer policy, which favors the Dual‐kanban modeled in the previous study. Our study shows that transferring replenished containers immediately to downstream stations, increasing the number of cards, and reducing the withdrawal cycle reduce the mean customer wait time significantly.     

OPTIMAL AND HEURISTIC SOLUTIONS FOR THE MULTI‐ITEM NEWSVENDOR PROBLEM WITH A SINGLE CAPACITY CONSTRAINT

This research considers a multi‐item newsvendor problem with a single capacity constraint. While this problem has been addressed in the literature, the focus here is on developing simple, closed‐form expressions for the order quantities. The benefit of such an approach is that the solutions are straightforward to calculate and have managerial appeal. Additionally, we show these expressions to be optimal under a variety of conditions. For more general cases when these optimality conditions do not hold, we use these expressions as heuristic solutions. Via computational studies, we demonstrate that these heuristics are extremely effective when the optimality conditions are not satisfied.     

A PAVEMENT MANAGEMENT DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM

We present a pavement management expert system developed by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and implemented within a geographical information system for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. The system uses pavement data regularly collected on the state's 12,000 miles of highway to assist engineers, planners, and budget analysts' management decisions about pavements to be included in 6-year improvement and 3-year maintenance programs. The system has a three-layer architecture. The lowest level suggests treatments for each of a large number of small segments of highway. The middle layer aggregates segments, suggests alternative treatments, and estimates the cost of each. The top layer prioritizes the projects and incorporates them into intermediate-range plans. The geographical information system environment enables integration of existing databases within the system using a topologically structured geographic database and specialized software.