A review of research reveals that little has been done on the relation between Human Resource Management (HRM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM). This is surprising, when you think about it, because the better people are managed within and between organisations in supply chain relationships the better the supply chain functions.
Posted on Friday, January 13, 2012
The Production Dice Game is a powerful learning exercise that demonstrates the impact of variability and dependency on throughput and work-in-process inventory. The insights obtained by playing the game can also be extended to a service or supply chain context. This article presents an overview of the dice game and the four extensions the authors have made to the game to reflect real-life characteristics more accurately.
Posted on Thursday, December 22, 2011
Strategic alliances have become a common feature of supply chains, with managers of companies along the chain integrating their processes to enhance competitiveness. Yet research shows that alliances do not guarantee success – and little is known about why some strengthen the market position of the partners while others do not. Evelyne Vanpoucke and Ann Vereecke set out to understand which aspects of an alliance are more likely to deliver success. This article explores how behavioural features of an alliance – such as trust and commitment, and how partners communicate and manage the relationship – impact performance.
Posted on Saturday, December 03, 2011
A complex daily surgery schedule must balance the needs of individual patients with available equipment and recovery beds, and will benefit from employing a planning tool using algorithms that can be accessed through user-friendly software. Brecht Cardoen and Erik Demeulemeester set out to examine how a decision support system using optimization algorithms can help medical staff improve their scheduling.
Posted on Tuesday, August 16, 2011
A maintenance company whose staff provide day and night coverage for airlines on a complex flight schedule needs to keep its labour costs down without alienating unions yet remain flexible enough to cover for the unexpected. Time to call in an algorithm. This project, explained in the paper “Improving Workforce Scheduling of Aircraft Line Maintenance at Sabena Technics”, demonstrates the potential for optimization programming taking in diverse demand and supply variables to solve complex scheduling problems.
Posted on Friday, July 15, 2011
Conventional wisdom among practitioners holds that supply chain collaboration yields significant performance improvements. It is also what many text books on supply chain management preach. Some even consider it a prerequisite for future competitive performance: according to Poirier and Bauer (2001), “future success no longer belongs to a single firm ... The future belongs to networks of supply.” Two questions arise: How do we know when supply chain collaboration will lead to success? And how do we manage the relationship so that it turns into a successful one.
Posted on Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Undoubtedly, every manager in charge of a supply chain has stories of deliveries that got delayed, suppliers that had a major breakdown, factories that suffered from quality issues, shipments that were blocked in a port or products that had to be recalled. Natural disasters – such as floods, volcanic eruptions or earthquakes can also cause major disruptions to supply chains. Ironically, one of the main reasons that supply chain risk has increased in recent years is the implementation of supply chain best practices. This article deals with the global increase of supply chain risks.
Posted on Thursday, March 10, 2011
The financial crisis, triggered by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, resulted in a spectacular dip in industrial production in 2009 and into 2010. However, over the same period, retail sales remained fairly constant. In this paper, the authors argue that the shockwave throughout the industrial world was caused by the inventory policy adopted by manufacturing companies: due to the de-stocking and re-stocking practices, real demand was distorted along the value chain. The authors urge close monitoring of, and insight into, the real state of consumer demand to ensure the sustainability of the current economic recovery.
Posted on Monday, February 21, 2011
Companies often wish to provide different levels of service to different classes of customers. Customer differentiated service levels may be motivated by differences in the perceived customer lifetime value or by specific contractual agreements that include service level guarantees. One way to provide differentiated service levels is to reserve a certain portion of the available inventory exclusively for certain classes of customers. In this article you will read more about inventory reservation and nested allocation as tools to improve your company performance.
Posted on Saturday, January 15, 2011
As Western markets are starting to become saturated, companies are looking for new growth opportunities. Countries that used to be targeted for low-cost sourcing are now changing into attractive end markets thanks to their rising GDP and wages. Russia is one of these markets. However, its business environment differs from Western markets in many ways and poses specific challenges. This complicates a supply chain, because it not only needs to be globally managed but also adapted to local conditions. How can companies, entering the Russian market, overcome these challenges?
Posted on Friday, November 19, 2010