REENGINEERING CHANNEL REORDERING PROCESSES TO IMPROVE TOTAL SUPPLY-CHAIN PERFORMANCE

This paper discusses the relationship between business process reengineering and channel performance for firms implementing electronic data interchange (EDI) linkages within the U.S. grocery industry. Both quantitative and qualitative data sources are combined to test the hypothesis that channel transformation involving adoption of EDI and redesign of replenishment processes enables performance improvements more than an order of magnitude greater than implementation of EDI alone. This new process, enabled by EDI, provides retailers with 50- 100% higher inventory turns for products on continuous replenishment processes (CRP) relative to retailer performance using traditional ordering processes. Firms adopting EDI without using CRP to reengineer the ordering processes have failed to realize any statistically significant improvements in either inventory levels or warehouse stockouts. This research provides evidence to support the claims of process reengineering that are common in the popular business press, but for which statistically significant empirical evidence is minimal. The findings of the research also demonstrate the potential improvements that firms can realize through extending the business process reengineering concept to include the firms' entire supply chain.     

Race and Electoral Mobilization: White Southerners, 1952-1968

The voting turnout rate among whites in the South has long beenlower than elsewhere, but in recent years the gap has diminished.Neither the earlier difference nor the recent southern increaseis due to the socioeconomic composition of the regions; rather,the increase has been greatest among southerners who believethat the major parties take distinct stands on racial issues.The change in southern turnout is therefore explained by theincreased salience of racial issues, and they can thereforebe expected to remain important in southern politics John L. Hammond is Assistant Professor of Sociology, ColumbiaUniversity, and Research Associate of the Center for PolicyResearch. This article is a revised version of a paper presentedat the American Sociological Association, August 1974. The dataused were collected by the Institute for Social Research andprovided by the Inter-University Consortium for Political Research.The author whises to acknowledge the helpful comments of GordonAdams, Adrienne Asch, Gerald Finch, Anne Foner, Eugene Litwak,Patrick Molloy, George Martin, and Patrick Peppe.     

Application of computer sampling in the estimation of seal diet

The diet of seals is often estimated using the remains of otoliths found in their faeces. The fish weight of a given species is estimated from the partially digested otolith thickness, using empirically derived relationships and digestion coe cients. Errors of estimation arise from natural variation in the amount of fish represented in each faeces sample and measurement errors in estimating the fish weight from the partially digested otoliths. Computer sampling is used to estimate the bias and variance of the estimates, and to calculate the confidence intervals. The method is applied to data from samples of grey seal faeces in four study areas in di erent seasons.     

CONFIGURING A SUPPLY CHAIN TO REDUCE THE COST OF DEMAND UNCERTAINTY

Reducing lead time enables a company to react more quickly to demand information and, hence, to better match supply with uncertain demand. But it is only one lever for improving response capability. Managers are familiar with others (e.g., excess capacity, supplier choice, and so forth) but lack techniques to quantify the impact of adjusting these levers. Here, we enumerate a number of these levers and present a model whereby they might be combined into effective response capability. The impact of adjusting these levers is illustrated by data obtained from a skiwear manufacturer that did so. Some of the insights that resulted run counter to intuition.     

STRATEGIC EXCLUSION OF THE HIGHEST‐VALUED BIDDERS IN WHOLESALE AUTOMOBILE AUCTIONS

By restricting bidders to be qualified dealers, wholesale automobile auctions exclude the bidders who place the highest value on the vehicles: consumers. This article provides an explanation for this puzzling entry restriction by modeling the inventory‐management decisions of a firm. If an automobile dealer has more vehicles in inventory than is optimal, it cannot reduce its inventory by selling directly to consumers without impacting the demand for the automobiles that remain. However, if the dealer sells his/her excess inventory to a competitor, the demand for his/her remaining vehicles increases as the competitor responds by acquiring fewer additional vehicles. We demonstrate that for any market demand function and any cost of the competitor acquiring additional vehicles, a dealer with excess inventory does better by selling a subset of its vehicles to a competitor rather than directly to consumers. We discuss the market for wholesale automobiles in relation to other markets where goods are also auctioned but where entry is not restricted to qualified dealers. Doing so allows us to compare our inventory‐management explanation to common explanations provided by industry practitioners. We find that intuitive alternative stories do not consistently explain practices across markets. (JEL D44, L11, L62)