There have been numerous extensions of the maximum covering location problem that has been developed in the last decade to deal with facility location. Most of the research, however, addresses a single attribute or objective. In the case when a single criterion such as minimizing average response time to access a service facility is insufficient to address the interests of the decision maker, multiple objectives must be employed. Qualitative factors like customer service and market demand as well as quantitative factors like distribution and operating costs need to be appropriately weighted and used in a mathematical programming model. We develop a multi‐objective model for a service facility location problem that simultaneously sites facilities and allocates demand for products from different customer zones. We apply this model to "real‐world" data and show the practical advantages of using this model to solve capacitated service logistics problems.
ABSTRACTThe purpose of this paper is to refine and test a distribution system design model and evaluate its performance with respect to solution quality, model validation, and algorithm performance. The paper reports on the development of a multiproduct warehouse logistics model. The logistics model is used to predict the performance of distribution companies that typically have to deal with product costs, the cost to distribute the products from a set of warehouses to customer outlets, the level of service provided to its customers, and flexibility for each product group and market segment.
Examines the interdependence between facility location, transportation and inventory issues in a distribution network design problem. Management of inventories, determination of transportation policy, and location of plants and distribution centers are normally carried out by different groups of people in an organization. These activities interact, however, when the transportation is used to replace inventory, an increase in the number of warehouses increases total system inventory or location of warehouses would dictate the type of transportation mode choice or carrier that needs to be used. The proposed model, FLITNET, is expected to provide a more complete representation of the trade‐offs that exist among the location, transportation and inventory cost components, and lead to an optimal solution.
Defines an expert system (ES) as a decision‐making tool that captures perishable expertise from an expert and stores this knowledge in the computer, and also as a computer system that can solve problems using human expertise and knowledge of the system environment. Notes that expert systems have found many applications in the area of production and operations management (POM). Explains the key role of the ES as a management tool to enhance productivity, improve quality, increase profits and capture expertise in many business settings. Highlights that the field of POM has a heavy orientation towards problem solving and decision making, hence it is a very fertile area for application for ES. Evaluates the current use of ES in POM and discusses future prospects.
ABSTRACTRecent articles in the Wall Street Journal summarize the state of business practice in American hospitals by shedding light on the state of supply chain management practices and foci in today's health care supply chains. In health care, the single largest cost after labor is materials, and it has been documented that health care facilities can reduce the environmental impacts of the products and services they consume before regulatory problems arise or waste disposal costs increase by focusing on their upstream activities. Health care systems around the country consume significant quantities and varieties of products within the health delivery processes. Solving these environmental problems requires a much broader view involving collaborative efforts of professionals from different areas of health care to meet these challenges. The purchasing function bridges the gaps by providing a healthy dialogue on key environmental attributes within the health care supply chain. The concept of bundling new with refurbished products is gaining a lot of attention in the health care supply chain. This research describes a health care purchasing problem for bundling new and refurbished products of the type facing a growing number of large health care providers, and then proposes a methodology for evaluating the complex tradeoffs involved in bundling decisions for refurbished health care products. By exploiting some useful properties of the problem structure, our results provide buyers with useful insights for examining and selecting suppliers who are willing to offer bundles of new and refurbished products.
A¡sustainable enterprise is one that contributes to sustainable development by simultaneously delivering economic, social and environmental benefits or what has been termed "the triple bottom line." While pursuing profit, socially responsible companies should be sensitive to the environment and uphold the rights of all the firm's stakeholders. This edited volume explores leading-edge ideas -- both by academics and forward-thinking companies -- to (re)design and market products, source, manufacture, and eventually distribute and recover or dispose of¡them in an environmentally, ecologically, and socially responsible way. This edited volume is made up of fifteen chapters loosely grouped into clusters. After an introduction, chapter 2 shows the greenhouse emissions at various levels, from countries all the way to individual products. Chapters 3-7 each focus on an industrial sector and address issues specific to that industry, with chapter 7 presenting a case study on LEED certification of Miller Hall, home of the Mason School of Business where two of the authors (Tonya and Ram) work. Chapters 8-10 address product take back in the supply chain. Chapter 8 introduces e-waste and surveys what firms are doing to combat it. Chapter 9 provides an overview of existing take-back legislation and academic papers that have studied various research questions associated with them. Chapter 10 is a tutorial that addresses the problem of product disposition on a closed-loop supply chain: what should a firm do with a product return? Chapters 11-15 address measurement, monitoring, decision-making, and reporting regarding environmental issues in a firm. Chapter 11 provides an academic survey of eco-labeling and the consumer's willingness to pay for them. Chapter 12 discusses how firms can measure the total carbon footprint in their supply chains and some of the strategies they can use to mitigate carbon emissions. Using the price of call options, chapter 13 illustrates how managers can quantify the savings attributed to sustainability-related investment. Chapter 14 develops a non-linear optimization model that addresses the complex trade-offs involved in making joint operational and environmental decisions. Finally, chapter 15 develops a Data Envelopment Analysis-based method for supplier evaluation incorporating environmental and business factors
ABSTRACTA number of market changes are impacting the way financial institutions are managing their automated teller machines (ATMs). We propose a new class of adaptive data‐driven policies for a stochastic inventory control problem faced by a large financial institution that manages cash at several ATMs. Senior management were concerned that their current cash supply system to manage ATMs was inefficient and outdated, and suspected that using improved cash management could reduce overall system cost. Our task was to provide a robust procedure to tackle the ATM's cash deployment strategies. Current industry practice uses a periodic review system with infrequent parameter updates for cash management based on the assumption that demand is normally distributed during the review period. This assumption did not hold during our investigation, warranting a new and robust analysis. Moreover, we discovered that forecast errors are often not normally distributed and that these error distributions change dramatically over time. Our approach finds the optimal time series forecaster and the best‐fitting weekly forecast error distribution. The guaranteed optimal target cash inventory level and time between orders could only be obtained through an optimization module that was embedded in a simulation routine that we built for the institution. We employed an exploratory case study methodology to collect cash withdrawal data at 21 ATMs owned and operated by the financial institution. Our new approach shows a 4.6% overall cost reduction. This reflects an annual cost savings of over $250,000 for the 2,500 ATM units that are operated by the bank.
Paternalism is an emerging concept with significant potential for international leadership research. Paternalistic leaders combine benevolence with authority. Paternalism is a prevalent leadership style in non-Western business organizations. In this article, the authors extend research on paternalism to the Western business context. They compare the attitudes of employees from the United States ( N = 215) and India ( N = 207) with respect to paternalistic leadership and its correlates. Paternalism had a significant positive effect on job satisfaction in India, but the relationship was not significant in the United States. In both cultural contexts, paternalistic leadership was positively related to leader—member exchange and organizational commitment. Results suggest paternalistic leadership may generalize across cultures.
ABSTRACTRevenue Management Systems (RMS) are commonly used in the hotel industry to maximize revenues in the short term. The forecasting‐allocation module is a key tactical component of a hotel RMS. Forecasting involves estimating demand for service packages across all stayover nights in a planning horizon. A service package is a unique combination of physical room, amenities, room price, and advance purchase restrictions. Allocation involves parsing the room inventory among these service packages to maximize revenues. Previous research and existing revenue management systems assume the demand for a service package to be independent of which service packages are available for sale. We develop a new forecasting‐allocation approach that explicitly accounts for this dependence. We compare the performance of the new approach against a baseline approach using a realistic hotel RMS simulation. The baseline approach reflects previous research and existing industry practice. The new approach produces an average revenue increase of at least 16% across scenarios that reflect existing industry conditions.
PurposeSustainability and environmental issues are among the most pressing concerns for modern humanity, governments and environmentally conscious business organizations. Green supply chain management has been acknowledged as a key factor to promote organizational sustainability. Green supply chain management is evolving into an important approach for organizations in emerging economies to manage their environmental responsibility. Yet, despite their importance for easing environmental degradation and providing economic benefits, study of the drivers that influence green supply chain initiatives in an emerging economy is still an under‐researched area. Using survey data collected from ISO 14001 certified organizations from Malaysia, the purpose of this paper is to propose that the drivers that motivate firms to adopt green supply chain management can be measured by a second‐order construct related to the implementation of the firm's green supply chain initiatives.Design/methodology/approachStructural equation model was used to analyze a set of survey data to validate the research hypotheses.FindingsThe research reveals four crucial drivers of green supply chain adoption that collectively affect a firm's green purchasing, design‐for‐environment and reverse logistics initiatives. This study uncovers several crucial relationships between green supply chain drivers and initiatives among Malaysian manufacturers.Originality/valueThe role of the drivers is crucial in motivating these firms to adopt green supply chain initiatives and facilitate their adoption. Firms in emerging countries need to realize that green supply chain initiatives can result in significant benefits to their firms, environment, and the society at large which gives them additional incentives to adopt these initiatives.
