Adapting Zara’s ‘Pronto Moda’ to a value brand retailer

The clothing sector is currently characterised by frequent assortment rotation in stores, a quick response product development and a focus on minimising end-of-campaign stock levels. This paper is based on a case study carried out at a value brand retailer, with a purpose to show how the company increased competitiveness in a market requiring more responsiveness. The case presented shows that the establishment of an adequate supply strategy for differentiated product segments, the introduction of mini-collections, the redesign of business processes (especially the new product development and the order fulfilment processes) and the redesign of the supply chain, lead to a sales increase and purchasing savings. Moreover, the study treats how a value brand retailer, facing different supply chain challenges compared with the leading brands, balance global and local production, lean and agile manufacturing and how it is possible to abandon the traditional two-campaign paradigm in favour of more rapid replenishment.     

Free or bundled: Channel selection decisions under different power structures

The smart phone industry has unique supply chain relationships. Companies at all levels of the supply chain compete and coordinate with each other for market share and profit. This paper examines the impact of power structures on the decision of pricing and channel selection between a free channel and a bundled channel. We investigate the smart phone supply chain that consists of a handset manufacturer and a telecom service operator. Based on game theory models, the manufacturer׳s optimal retail pricing policies in free and bundled channels and the telecom service operator׳s optimal subsidy policies in a bundled channel are derived under different power structures. It is demonstrated that the firm that has higher channel power will gain more profit, and the smart phone supply chain׳s profit in a Vertical Nash (VN) power structure is higher than that in Telecom Service Operator-Stackelberg (TS) and Manufacturer-Stackelberg (MS) power structures. It is also shown that the smart phone supply chain will choose a bundled channel in TS and MS power structures under certain conditions and will select a free channel in a VN power structure.     

环境污染、经济增长与医疗卫生服务对公共健康的影响分析——基于中国省际面板数据的研究

环境污染与经济增长对居民的公共健康水平有重要影响,但基于面板数据对此问题分区域的研究较少。本文在Grossman健康生产函数的基础上加入环境污染等多重因素,使用中国30个省市区1997年到2010年的面板数据,建立个体固定效应模型,将我国划分为东部、中部和西部三个区域,实证分析了环境污染、经济增长与医疗卫生服务对不同区域居民公共健康的影响及其差异。研究发现:环境污染、经济增长、医疗卫生服务与居民公共健康存在长期均衡的协整关系,经济增长与全国、东部和中部的公共健康关系呈现倒U型的特征;具体而言:东部区域,曲线已达到拐点,中部区域,当人均GDP为3311元时,曲线达到拐点;全国以及东、中、西部区域,工业烟尘排放量与人口死亡率呈正向关关系,工业二氧化硫排放量与人口死亡率只在中部地区显著正相关;全国、东部和中部区域人均医生数与人口死亡率呈显著负相关,西部地区未呈现这一特性;人均医疗保健支出与人口死亡率在中部地区显著负相关,医疗卫生服务可有效减少环境污染对居民的健康威胁。因此,制定差别化的环境污染、经济增长与医疗服务政策等有利于提升全国以及东中西部居民的公共健康水平。     

Supply vessel planning under cost,environment and robustness considerations

Offshore oil and gas installations need reliable cargo deliveries. The vessels supplying these installations on a periodic basis are expensive and constitute a source of emissions of greenhouse gases. Incorporating vessel speed optimization into the supply vessel planning process may significantly reduce fuel consumption and hence emissions. In addition, speed optimization may yield cost reductions if the number of vessels used does not increase. A main uncertainty factor, especially in the winter season, is the weather conditions which impact sailing and service times. Cost minimization and the application of speed optimization strategies may have implications on the robustness of weekly supply vessel schedules since idle times in the schedules are reduced. We develop a simulation-optimization based methodology that considers costs, emissions and robustness in the generation of weekly supply vessel schedules. Results of analyses conducted on real instances show that robustness requirements may yield both increased emissions and costs in the winter season. However, depending on instance characteristics, different degrees of robustness can be incorporated with both costs and emissions reductions through speed optimization.     

The Effect of Integrated Scheduling and Capacity Policies on Clinical Efficiency

In outpatient healthcare clinics, capacity, patient flow, and scheduling are rarely managed in an integrated fashion, so a question of interest is whether clinic performance can be improved if the policies that guide these decisions are set jointly. Despite the potential importance of this issue, we find surprisingly few studies that look at how the allocation of capacity, paired with various appointment scheduling policies and different patient flow configurations, affects patient flow and clinical efficiency. In this paper, we develop an empirically based discrete‐event simulation to examine the interactions between patient appointment policies and capacity allocation policies (i.e., the number of available examination rooms) and how they jointly affect various performance measures, such as resource utilization and patient waiting time. Findings suggest that scheduling lower‐variance, shorter appointments earlier in the clinic (and, conversely, higher‐variance, longer appointments later) results in less overall patient waiting without reducing physician utilization or increasing clinic duration. Additionally, exam rooms exhibited classic bottleneck behavior: there was no effect on physician utilization by adding exam rooms beyond a certain threshold, but too few exam rooms were devastating to clinic throughput. Some significant interactions between these variables were observed, but were not influential to the level of managerial concern. Clinicians' intuition about managing capacity in healthcare settings may differ substantially from best policies.     

Risk Pooling Advantages of Manufacturing Network Configuration

The decision of a firm to set up a plant network is influenced by a number of factors, including demand fluctuations across its portfolio of products, logistics costs, and service level requirements. Product plant networks offer the benefits of consolidated production and reduced transshipment costs; on the other hand, process plant networks allow intensive dedication to process expertise and economies of scale. In this paper, we show that, aside from these benefits, process plant networks offer significant risk pooling advantages under a wide range of conditions. We analytically demonstrate that, even without accounting for economies of scale advantages, firms may prefer the process plant network configuration due to the risk pooling benefits offered.     

Applying a longitudinal interpretive multi-case research method to study the employee impact of operations management systems in a micro firm setting

Abstract

While many operations management journals are now publishing interpretive studies, there is still a need for more material on how to carry out such work under the interpretive gestalt. By offering a research account of a longitudinal interpretive multi-case study, this paper seeks to contribute to the literary gap in ‘how to do it [interpretive research]’. The purpose of this paper is to document a longitudinal operations management study in three micro-firms, where the catalyst for this study is the implementation of an electronic operations management system in each case. The paper chronicles the authors’ experience in a four-year multi-case study, and as such provides insight into design, development and execution of longitudinal interpretive operations management research, and the building of a theoretical model. While blueprints are not the purpose of such reflections, they can provide insight and advice to researchers, which is the underlying goal of this paper.     

Disclosure among victims of elder abuse in healthcare settings: a missing piece in the overall effort toward detection

Elder abuse remains a largely hidden problem in our society and only a small minority of victims are connected to formal support/protective services. Healthcare settings have been identified as a critical milieu to uncover cases of elder abuse; however, under-detection in these settings is a major issue. Victimization disclosure is an important component within the overall detection effort, yet it has received little attention in the elder abuse literature. Drawing on relevant literature from other domains of family/interpersonal violence, this article highlights the disclosure process, as well as disclosure barriers, facilitators, and competencies to consider when working with older adults.     

Challenges facing U.S. government and Department of Defense efforts in strategic communication

Without entering the debate about exactly what strategic communication is or should be, this article enumerates challenges facing efforts to inform, influence, and persuade in pursuit of national policy objectives first for the U.S. government in general, and then specific to the Department of Defense. With the problem space thus defined, the article then offers a handful of solutions and suggestions, including requiring desired information endstates as part of commander's intent and separating efforts to manipulate and deceive from truthful efforts to inform, influence, and persuade.     

Winning the story war: Strategic communication and the conflict in Afghanistan

In conflicts of the information age success in the application of force depends less on the outcome of tactical operations on the battlefields but more on how the war's purpose, course and conduct is viewed by public opinion at home as well as within the theatre of operations. Therefore western allies in Iraq and Afghanistan are not only involved in a physical struggle but also in a struggle over perceptions, for no long-term engagement of troops is possible without support from home, nor can a counterinsurgency succeed without the support of the local population. While the ability to exert influence upon various relevant target groups – opponents, the local population and the home front – has always been crucially important during conflicts, with the more recent globalized media this has led to previously unknown potential opportunities to influence audiences. With the intermixing of target audiences and the successes achieved by terrorists in the field of communication, the importance of the ideological struggle has increased enormously. In this context the concept of strategic communication has become relevant, which refers to the consistency of strategy, activities, themes and messages, and the aim of obtaining legitimacy and support. The heart of a strategic communication strategy is formed by a strategic narrative, a compelling storyline which can explain events convincingly and from which inferences can be drawn. Through a case study about the effectiveness of the execution of strategic communication during the mission in Afghanistan, the author wishes to increase the understanding of the concept.