Purpose– This paper aims to examine from an information processing perspective how Delphi-based analyses can be used to overcome some challenges of dynamic business environments in emerging markets.Design/methodology/approach– Delphi-based, future-oriented approach utilizing scenario planning methodology based on real-time expert-panel data.Findings– Delphi-based analyses can indeed serve as an information processing aid to reduce uncertainty and equivocality in an emerging market.Originality/value– A multistage analysis approach integrating the political, economic, socio-cultural and technological-stakeholder framework to support and better structure managers’ information processing in an emerging market.

Decision SciencesVolume 45, Issue 4 p. 571-576 Article “Responsible Purchasing and Supply Practices”—Editorial Christopher Seow, Christopher Seow [email protected] Chester Business School, University of Chester, Chester CH1 4BJ, United KingdomSearch for more papers by this authorJoseph Sarkis, Joseph Sarkis [email protected] School of Business, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MASearch for more papers by this authorMartin Lockström, Martin Lockström [email protected] Nordic International Management Institute (NIMI), 8 Yunxing Road, Banzhuyuan, 610500 Xindu District, ChinaSearch for more papers by this authorThomas Callarman, Thomas Callarman [email protected] Economics and Decision Sciences Department, China Europe International Business School, 699 Hongfeng Road, Pudong, Shanghai, 201206 ChinaSearch for more papers by this author Christopher Seow, Christopher Seow [email protected] Chester Business School, University of Chester, Chester CH1 4BJ, United KingdomSearch for more papers by this authorJoseph Sarkis, Joseph Sarkis [email protected] School of Business, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road, Worcester, MASearch for more papers by this authorMartin Lockström, Martin Lockström [email protected] Nordic International Management Institute (NIMI), 8 Yunxing Road, Banzhuyuan, 610500 Xindu District, ChinaSearch for more papers by this authorThomas Callarman, Thomas Callarman [email protected] Economics and Decision Sciences Department, China Europe International Business School, 699 Hongfeng Road, Pudong, Shanghai, 201206 ChinaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 25 August 2014 https://doi.org/10.1111/deci.12089Citations: 2Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Citing Literature Volume45, Issue4August 2014Pages 571-576 RelatedInformation

This article examines the value of using complex animated PowerPoint presentations to teach operations management techniques and concepts. To provide context, literature covering the use of PowerPoint animations in business education is briefly reviewed. The specific animations employed in this study are identified and their expected benefits to students and faculty are discussed. Evidence of their perceived value to students and faculty is then presented.

This editorial 1) provides a retrospective of the Journal of Supply Chain Management (JSCM), 2) compares the first 35 years of JSCM to the 2008-2013 time period since the Journal's repositioning, 3) reports on the current status of JSCM, 4) introduces the papers that comprise the 50th anniversary issue of JSCM, and 5) provides the editors' prospective concerning future research and JSCM as the supply chain management discipline moves forward.

This paper presents the innovation of sharing animated PowerPoint presentations used in teaching operations and supply chain management techniques and concepts through an international electronic exchange. The plan for the exchange is presented and discussed. The potential benefits to faculty and students of using PowerPoint animations in operations and supply chain management classes are discussed. Evidence of these benefits is also provided. Readers are provided with information about how to join the exchange.

With the Copenhagen discussions recently taken place, it is fair to say that the acknowledgement of global warming as a potential threat to our planet has never been greater. Despite the lack of all-embracing, world-wide consensus, the trend is nevertheless going toward a situation with strengthened control and regulatory frameworks in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Recently, the G8 countries signed a treaty to reduce average global temperature by two degrees centigrade until the year 2050. However, this calls for a multilateral commitment at all levels of society — from the beginning of the supply chain starting with raw materials extractors — not ending at the final consumer, but also considering waste and disposal after consumption. Virtually all industries are affected, especially big emitters like the automotive industry.

Journal of Supply Chain ManagementVolume 46, Issue 1 p. 9-11 SUPPLY MANAGEMENT IS NOT A BEER GAME† LINDA G. SPRAGUE, LINDA G. SPRAGUE China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)Search for more papers by this authorTHOMAS E. CALLARMAN, THOMAS E. CALLARMAN China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)Search for more papers by this author LINDA G. SPRAGUE, LINDA G. SPRAGUE China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)Search for more papers by this authorTHOMAS E. CALLARMAN, THOMAS E. CALLARMAN China Europe International Business School (CEIBS)Search for more papers by this author First published: 07 December 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-493X.2009.03182.xCitations: 5 † *Invited Comment Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL REFERENCES Dvorak, P. Clarity Is Missing Link in Supply Chain. Wall Street Journal. May 18, 2009 Forrester, J.W. Industrial Dynamics, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1961. System Dynamics Society, Available at http://www.systemdynamics.org/, accessed August 4, 2009. Citing Literature Volume46, Issue1January 2010Pages 9-11 ReferencesRelatedInformation

The successful implementation of composite dispatching rules depends on the values of their scaling parameters. A unified four-phase method to determine robust scaling parameters for composite dispatching rules is proposed, with the goal of achieving reasonably good scheduling performance with the least computational effort in implementation. In phase 1, factor ranges that characterize the problem instances in each tool group (one or more machines operating in parallel) are calculated. In phase 2, a face-centered cube design is used to decide the placement of design points in the factor region. The third phase involves using mixture experiments to find good scaling parameter values at each design point. In the last phase, the central point of the area in which all of the good scaling parameters lie is identified with the robust scaling parameter. The proposed method is applied to determine the robust scaling parameter for the Apparent Tardiness Cost with Setups (ATCS) rule to solve the Pm vertical bar sjk vertical bar Sigma wj Tj scheduling problem in a case study. The results of this case study show that the proposed method is more efficient and effective than existing methods in the literature. It requires many fewer experiments and achieves more than a 30% improvement in the average scheduling performance (i.e., total weighted tardiness) and more than a 60% improvement in the standard deviation of the scheduling performance.

An online questionnaire was used to survey the current state of decision making paradigms for the semiconductor supply chain and to identify future trends and needs. A logistic regression analysis on the survey data clearly shows that decision makers tend to use optimization techniques in the front-end planning decisions, and to make them in a slow clockspeed fashion. As products move downstream in the supply chain, it is more likely that decision makers will use their tacit knowledge to make back-end configuration and allocation decisions quickly and frequently. Survey results also showed that executives want optimization methods to be used across the supply chain, creating a need to develop heuristic-based methods that will set the stage for optimizing final allocation decisions.

The industrial establishment is beginning to realize the value of a sustainable enterprise. As resource consumption is most noticeable in the manufacturing sector, this activity is the usual target for reform. Research in the area of sustainability includes industrial ecology and green manufacturing, but arguably all fall under the umbrella of Environmentally Benign Manufacturing (EBM). Generally, EBM is enacted with three areas: Manufacturing, Research and Design (R&D), and Reclaim. The computer industry has done much in the area of recycling, seeking to reuse the valuable copper found in many components, and reclaiming the harmful lead. Yet no system is in place to assess the efficiency of a company’s EBM efforts. This research proposes use of multistage Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to assess corporate enactment of EBM as work parts move from place to place in a company. The algorithm measures loss as products move from R&D to manufacturing to any recycle/reuse systems in place. When completed, a numerical value representing a company’s environmentally benign efficiency should emerge. This experimentation is directed toward establishing DEA as an internal efficiency measurement of closed-loop manufacturing systems so that EBM may be pursued in a more streamlined and educated fashion.

Supply chains that produce and distribute computer servers are globally dispersed and have a high degree of uncertainty. To excel at servicing customers, a supplier must be highly skilled in matching the assets in the system with customer demand. Discrete event simulation has been proven valuable for system state estimation of supply chains. However, irregularities and disruptions occurring at any site along the system and the resulting bullwhip effects can lead to significant departures of simulation-based estimation from the performance of the real system. These departures reduce the ability of the model to assist in making correct decisions. In this paper, we propose an adaptive distributed simulation framework for a server fulfillment supply chain, and a Kalman filter to improve our estimates of job completion times.

Effective supply chain management (SCM) enables organisations to be more competitive in the current world of global manufacturing. Simulation can help by evaluating the feasibility of alternative policies and arrangements for managing a supply chain. However, detailed simulation of the supply chain can be complex and computationally intensive. We develop a distributed simulation model that can be used to study such a supply chain. We fine tune the execution speed of the model, and then use the model to investigate on how the frequency of inventory updates and demand changes affect the on-time-delivery (OTD) performance of the entire supply chain.

In today’s highly dynamic, globalized and competitive environment, companies are under pressure to improve their supply chain strategies in order to be more responsive to customer demands. Indeed the geographically distributed nature as well as the differing objectives across these dispersed entities of a supply chain can often lead to difficulties in making a supply chain responsive. Additionally, irregularities and disruptions occurring at any point in the system make responsive supply chain management even more challenging. These disruptions, often occurring without warning due to the dynamic nature of a supply chain, can lead to poor performance of the supply chain. A key component in responsive supply chain management is the ability to effectively “sense and response” in order to maximize responsiveness and flexibility and avoid system disruptions. Recent advances in communication can facilitate the sensing and data collection. However, the huge amount of data generated can impede effective response, particularly, when some data may be incomplete or have errors. Inaccurate estimate or sensing of the system state can lead to incorrect decisions, with consequent adverse effects on supply chain performance. To address this issue, this research proposes a Kalman filter based approach for exception detection. Some preliminary work, specifically, with a focus on the manufacturing portion of the IBM supply chain for server fulfillment is presented in this paper. The results show system estimation can be improved by using a Kalman filter.

Semiconductor manufacturing is at the heart of the electronics industry, which is the second largest industry in the world, trailing only agriculture. Supply Chain Management (SCM) has been a common buzzword in industry for the last decade and has been discussed in the literature since about 1985. In this chapter, the SCM needs for the semiconductor supply chain (or more accurately supply network) are analyzed. First, an overview of SCM is provided. Then, the challenges of SCM for the semiconductor industry are discussed. Next, a survey that seeks to determine a research agenda for semiconductor supply networks is described and results analyzed. Finally, the survey results are synthesized into a research agenda comprised of seven clusters. The first cluster is concerned with the management of demand and the second is focused on designing the supply network. The next two research clusters describe issues associated with supply network planning and execution, respectively. The last three research clusters are concerned with the infrastructure needed to successfully manage the supply network. Cluster five focuses on the financial infrastructure, cluster six on the IT infrastructure, and cluster seven with the organizational structure.

Researchers have long been interested in the nature of the relationships that elicit superior firm performance. In organizations that manufacture a product, this interest has often centered on the relationships that exist between business-level strategy and the supporting elements of the organization's manufacturing strategies (Buffa, 1984; Hayes & Wheelwright, 1984; Hill, 1985). An aspect of this relationship that has been studied concerns the presence of consensus between SBU-level and manufacturing-level decision makers. This research examines the causal nature of direct and indirect influences that have been argued in the literature to affect manufacturing performance. Our results indicate that consensus on the firm's business-level strategy does not directly influence manufacturing performance, but does so through its influences on other variables. Consensus with respect to manufacturing specific tasks that support the firm's business-level strategy was shown to be important. Additional findings in our research concern the relationship of traditional product-process alignment and levels of manufacturing performance. THEORETICAL FOUNDATION Managerial Consensus: Strategic and Manufacturing Task Consensus A major theme of the literature in strategic management and operations strategy is that consensus on the general strategic direction of the firm and on manufacturing task emphasis must exist between business-level strategic planners and functional-level manufacturing managers for effective business unit performance to occur. It is the responsibility of the manufacturing manager to develop a manufacturing strategy that supports the overall business-unit strategy (Schroeder et al., 1986). Operations scholars have warned that a manufacturing business unit will have a decreased competitive advantage within its industry if it fails to develop a coordinated and supportive operations strategy (Buffa, 1984; Hayes and Wheelwright, 1984; Hill, 1985). A good deal of research has examined the notion of consensus as it relates to the management process (Bourgeois, 1980; Dess, 1987; Schweiger and Sandberg, 1988; Wooldridge and Floyd, 1989; West and Schwenk, 1996; Homburg et al., 1999). As pointed out by Floyd and Wooldridge (1992), senior managers often complain that middle- and operating-level managers fail to take the correct actions to implement strategy. These implementation problems are deemed to be the result of middle-level and operating managers' lack of understanding of and/or commitment to the chosen strategy. Guth and MacMillan (1986) found that middle-level managers will not only redirect a strategy and delay its implementation, but will also sabotage the strategy if they feel their self-interest is being compromised. Other research has examined the relationship of consensus to performance. Wooldridge and Floyd (1990) found that the involvement of middle-level managers in the formation of business-level strategy was associated with improved organizational performance. St. John et al., (1991) examined the relationships among various coordinating mechanisms, the degree of consensus between marketing and manufacturing groups, and marketplace performance reputation. They found firms using planning techniques experienced higher levels of interdepartmental consensus and this was related strongly to marketplace performance reputation. The notion that manufacturing managers should develop a manufacturing strategy that supports the business-level strategy is consistent with the strategic management paradigm. A specific business-level strategy is formulated for the strategic business unit (SBU) in order to create a competitive advantage, and manufacturing managers are expected to translate this strategy into appropriate manufacturing performance goals, processes, and systems. An issue of concern during this process is the extent to which consensus is developed between managers at the SBU level and managers at the manufacturing level with respect to the overall competitive strategy chosen for the business unit. …

Today's extremely competitive markets demand that businesses emphasize continuous improvement and/or re-engineering of their current processes. When the various methods for continuous improvement are considered, only setup reduction in the single machine case has received the most attention in the research literature. This study examines the effect of setup reduction and processing time reduction in the case of a multi-product multi-machine job shop. The research was designed to determine whether there are specific shop conditions which favor continuous improvement and examines the impact of these improvements on flexibility. The study also explores the use of the setup time to processing time ratio as an indicator of the effectiveness of further process improvements.

In this article the authors discuss two studies that examined the effectiveness of material requirements planning (MRP) systems. They note that one study found that MRP users found improvements in ...