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With an increasing number of disasters disrupting commerce and community life around the world, it is timely to position humanitarian and disaster relief supply chains (HDRSC) within the broad field of supply chain management. This article presents a framework to that end. It distinguishes attributes of the environment that illustrate the difficulties encountered in supply chain management. Although considerable research has been conducted in logistics issues affecting HDRSCs, very little management research speaks to the complicating attributes. Thus, this article describes activities such as demand determination, supply chain coordination, recognizing when to move along the life cycle and post-disaster reconstruction that differentiates supply chain concerns from logistics concerns. From this backdrop, some of the areas where research into HDRSCs can inform supply chain management in general are presented. The article concludes by discussing critical areas of research need as identified by experienced practitioners. Research in these areas will provide insights for supply chain managers facing similar issues in other environments.

This essay argues that it is difficult to justify intellectually a separate subject of international operations management. Nevertheless, courses with titles like that abound and other professional activities are centered on international operations, at least in the United States. Of course, there are real differences in management activities in different parts of the world that must be contended with. A comparison of European and U.S. managers' exposure to international business suggests that there is a higher startup cost for U.S. managers to do so. Drawing an analogy between the management of operations and the solving of a huge mathematical programming problem implies that there are few new variables introduced by going international, but that the weights on existing variables can change substantially. Therefore, even though difficult to justify intellectually, continuing to treat international operations management separately may provide us some short-term advantages. By helping us focus our attention on the important variables that change, it may provide us the insights to help reduce the startup cost for U.S. managers entering international operations.

This essay is concerned with the inventories that are held for disaster relief and the need for research into their management. Though forecasting is difficult, the evidence is that the number of disasters, natural and political, is increasing. Thus the need for disaster relief is increasing along with the desire to improve the process, including management of disaster relief inventories. Despite decades of enterprise inventory research, little literature is available on disaster relief inventories. In this article the nature of disaster relief, some of the research on disaster relief and on disaster relief inventories is presented. Characteristics of disaster relief inventories important to their management, from acquisition through storage and distribution, are described. Some of the developments in related fields that affect the management of these inventories are also pointed out. As the frequency of disasters increase, the management of disaster relief inventories is an increasingly important area for scientific research.

Over the last several years a number of independent empirical studies have shown that organizational performance is related to a portfolio of management techniques, clearly demonstrating that there is no single “silver bullet.” In fact, these studies indicate that performance is positively correlated with the number of techniques employed and the depth of their implementation. Operational outcomes in areas like product quality, on-time delivery and productivity, as well as market measures like margins and export sales are both positively related to the implementation of a variety of techniques. This paper explores the relationship between the use of effective inventory management practices (as reflected in inventory turnover) and the implementation of other manufacturing practices. The hypothesis is that effective inventory management practices have a positive knock-on effect on the implementation of other practices. Since organizational performance is related to the implementation of multiple practices, the knock-on effect should have a positive effect on performance as well. The results show that inventory turnover is significantly related to the implementation of other techniques and weakly related to an index of overall company performance. This suggests a positive knock-on effect, but that it takes more than inventory management to achieve high levels of performance. Having established the knock-on relationship adds more evidence to the notion that management excellence in one area begets management excellence in others.

In the decade of the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, management gurus and consultants alike were touting the advantages of speed over quality and were suggesting other initiatives. Early in this period the global manufacturing research group gathered data on manufacturing practices and performance in non-fashion textile and small machine tool firms. In 1995, follow-up data were gathered from some of the same firms. Data from these surveys are used to determine the extent to which firms exceeded the growth of the economy or the industry. The data are also used to see whether the implementation of manufacturing practices followed the theories elaborated during this period and where firms learn of the practices that show promise of improving performance. Recent case studies of three firms are used to provide insight into the aggregate findings of the surveys. We find that firms do not learn from the management literature, consultants or academics, but use business and trade contacts as their sources. We also find support for the theory that implementing a number of practices will help to provide competitive advantage and that new means of transferring management technology are needed if we are to reach the firms that can benefit from its application.

The predictive value of a common measure of efficiency and the robustness of the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique is examined when statistical noise is present in the data. Inferences are drawn from a hypothetical example regarding the potential limitations of the efficiency measure and pitfalls in both the single- and multi-stage applications of DEA. We propose a simple procedure to investigate the robustness of DEA results. The procedure maintains the relative computational simplicity of DEA and is easy to apply and interpret. Using this procedure, we examine the robustness of the results reported in two published DEA studies and find that, indeed, pitfalls occur in practical applications. We conclude with recommendations for researchers applying the technique and implications for managers.

Over the last few years, several international studies have independently shown a significant correlation between the number and intensity of manufacturing practices in use and the performance of a firm. The conclusion is an unsettling: “the more the better.” This paper uses the Global Manufacturing Research Group’s (GMRG) second round database to deepen our understanding of this relationship. The shape of a scatterplot of practices versus performance resembles the shape of an American or rugby football and is often called the “performance football”. The performance football seems to be a general phenomenon so, as practices are added, a firm should garner earlier performance improvements if it followed the upper edge of the performance envelope. This is consistent with the “sandcone” model or sequential capability building model that suggests that a firm should first invest in quality practices and then add others over this base. We first demonstrate the relationship between practices and performance holds for the GMRG data and then we make detailed comparisons of the firms along the upper and lower edges of the football. The comparisons provide some evidence that there is a sandcone effect.

Management of the natural environment is becoming an increasingly important issue to manufacturing firms, yet their managers are also challenged to implement changes that improve competitiveness. T...

Manufacturing firms have given management of the natural environment higher priority as public awareness and scrutiny has increased. To help understand management's role in this process, a basic conceptual model of environmental management within operations is developed. The model proposes that the general orientation of operations managers on environmental issues ranges from proactive to reactive, and this is intrinsically related to the investment pattern in environmental technologies. Results from an empirical validation of this model are presented for a sample of plants from the furniture industry. Three distinct groups were identified based on the linkage between environmental management orientation and investment in environmental technologies. Counter to the prescriptive environmental literature, which recommends that proactive orientation should emphasize pollution prevention (i.e., fundamental product and process changes), proactive managers implemented a balanced portfolio that also included a sizable proportion of pollution control technologies (i.e., traditional end-of-pipe controls and remediation). Contextual factors also differentiate among these three groups, thus suggesting options for senior management to assist plant managers to become more proactive and to improve environmental performance.

This paper describes an investigation into the trade-off between capacity, inventory and variance reduction techniques for buffering against uncertainty and model mix fluctuations in a manufacturing cell. The cell is patterned after one that produces engine blocks which feed directly on to the assembly line at a plant manufacturing large diesel engines. A simulation model is used to evaluate the effect of different buffering techniques on capacity utilization, throughput time and output rate. Two production control systems are used in the cell, one based on a pull approach, the other on a push approach. The results show that variance reduction and capacity increases are serious alternatives to using inventory for buffering in either system.

The Global Manufacturing Research Group (GMRG) is an informal group of researchers conducting operations management research throughout the world. Describes aspects of their survey research on manufacturing practices. Presents the background of the project, a bit about the group itself, and specifics on getting involved in the group. Presents the principles which guided the first and second rounds of the GMRG global survey and the theory underlying their survey instrument and its revision. Finally, provides several details of the research methodology and some of the research findings.

This paper reports on an analysis of recent journal articles and proceedings papers which discuss international operations networks. These networks are comprised of supplier, manufacturing, warehouse and transportation facilities and the connections between these facilities. They are a key feature of international organizations and the subject of considerable research. The first aspect of the analysis presented here focuses on three descriptive dimensions of the current research on international operations networks: world region, topic and research method. The results are directed at determining if there are regional differences in approach to research on international operations networks either in the topic covered or the research method employed. A second aspect of the study is to evaluate three frameworks identified by other researchers, each of which was used to classify the research reviewed for this paper. The usefulness of each framework is also assessed. Two conclusions result from the research reported here. First, there are no overall differences found in the topics covered or research methods used in different world regions. Secondly, of the three frameworks assessed, the Giffi, Roth and Seal (1990) framework, based on manufacturing strategy components, appears to be the most useful for classifying international operations network research. When the research is classified by this framework, statistically significant differences among world regions, topics and research methods are found.

This article reports on a carefully controlled simulation experiment to determine whether the inventories in a distribution system should be positioned at a warehouse or a retail store closer to the customer. For companies that must fill customer demand from inventory, the results indicate that locating the inventory close to the customer is the best choice. The results also suggest that many of the anomalies in the previous research on this problem might be explained by the lack of control of the frequency of shipments.

This paper investigates a straightforward proposition. If there is to be meaningful coordination between the sales/marketing function and manufacturing, there should be means by which marketing can have an impact on manufacturing practices. This research seeks evidence that marketing does influence the manufacturing practices of companies in four regions of the world. Evidence of such influence is found when marketing participates in the planning of manufacturing activities, sales sets priorities for production of products or changes in production reflect changes in the market place. To see what empirical evidence there might be for this level of involvement, data from the Global Manufacturing Research Group were compiled on forecasting, production planning and shop floor execution. The data contain a sample of manufacturing practices in each of these areas from North America, western Europe, South Korea, and the People's Republic of China. Effective coordination of sales, marketing and manufacturing should involve a marketing presence in all areas right down to the production of the product on the factory floor. The results of the study do not provide a lot of evidence of marketing influence. The presence of marketing is greatest at the forecasting stage, which is not surprising. Forecasts are important components of production planning, but almost no other sales or marketing input is used at this stage. Evidence of marketing's influence is weakest on the shop floor, perhaps at the stage where it is most critical. There are signs that changes do take place in response to sales' needs, and there are differences between the different regions of the world, but they are weak. More understanding of the mechanisms for coordinating sales, marketing and manufacturing is necessary and a specific study to gain a deeper understanding of the realities of the coordination actually practiced today would be valuable.

This article presents the results of the call for papers that led to this special issue of the International Journal of Production Economics and provides an introduction to the articles included here. Of the total of 43 abstracts submitted in response to the call 12 are included here. The authors come from all parts of the world and a high percentage of the papers is based on empirical data. Moreover, there is a broad spectrum of operational coordination issues presented. Both practical suggestions and ideas for future research are considered in this issue.

This paper presents a general analytical framework for making bilateral comparisons of manufacturing practices. The approach suggests a grouping of the data, defines a conservative test called a pure regional effect, and matches the data types to the appropriate statistical tests. The methodology is used to compare manufacturing practices in North America with those in Western Europe using data compiled by the Global Manufacturing Research Group. The broad hypothesis tested is that the two regions are more similar than different. For the two industries studied (small machine tools and nonfashion textiles), this hypothesis holds. Fewer than 10% of the 119 variables investigated have a significant pure regional effect. This suggests that the lack of success of joint ventures between North American and European firms must be attributed to factors other than differences in manufacturing practices. These variables for which significant effects were found reflect differences in external orientation, asset utilization and the management of details. Despite the overall similarities, differences in these factors could be important for American Managers contemplating partnerships with European companies.

In this paper the authors report on three areas where statistical inventory control (SIC) expectations diverge from reality. First, actual inventory performance seems immune to the use of modern techniques like material requirements planning (MRP) or just-in-time (JIT). Second, simulation studies seem to provide higher than expected customer service levels. Finally, dynamic organizational actions appear to change both the rules of the game and the way that it is scored. These observations suggest that the lack of effectiveness of SIC models in practice cannot be blamed exclusively on the scientists or the practitioners. The paper suggests that practitioners have not done well in applying the models that are available to them. It also points out that theory and practice are still far apart and suggests some research to remedy this.

The purpose of this research was to define and rank key barriers to the effective management of international manufacturing operations. An international panel of experts, composed of practitioners, academics and consultants, was surveyed using a Delphi process to identify the key barriers, to explain the rationale for their selection and to rank them. The highest ranked barrier was general lack of a global view by management. Among the other highly ranked barriers were contemporary managerial issues like manufacturing strategy and managing international factory networks. Some traditional technical concerns like cultural and language differences and managing global logistics were also highly ranked. The responses clustered into two groups with the largest group focusing more heavily on contemporary manufacturing concerns while the other group emphasized more traditional technical topics. The results help establish priorities for developing research agendas, orienting teaching programs and focusing company resources.

Asks whether China will be able to sustain its current rate of economic growth and compete in the North American market, by comparing manufacturing practices in China and North America. Uses data obtained by questionnaire from companies in the non‐fashion textile and small machine‐tool industries. Considers three factors that differentiate the two regions: asset management, market responsiveness, and manufacturing management. Concludes that the differences are substantial and that it is unlikely that China will penetrate the markets of industrialised countries.

This paper reports the results of simulation experiments that compared the inventory efficiency (i.e., the customer service level provided by a given level of inventory) for two different inventory policies. One of these policies uses time-phased information on future demands like that found in material requirements planning (MRP) systems, while the other (the reorder point or ROP policy) relies on forecasts implicitly based on average past demands. After establishing that the MRP policies dominate for reasonable conditions, the uncertainty of the forecasts was manipulated until the policy preference was reversed. It requires a very perverse relationship between the forecast and actual demand before ROP beats MRP on inventory efficiency.

This paper presents a comparison of manufacturing practices between Hungary, Western Europe and North America. The supposition is that differences in operational practice may matter in the success of joint ventures or other strategic alliances. The comparison is based on a survey of firms in the small machine tool and non-fashion textile industries. The survey covered practices ranging from forecasting and planning procedures to shop floor decision making. Multivariate analyses were performed to find those areas of practice for which there were differences between the regions and industries. The differences were grouped into three broad categories: “metabolism” (the frequency, horizon, and increment for planning, forecasting and reacting to change), external orientation (the closeness to the market and degree of export sales), and managerial practices in several areas. The differences between the industries were judged less important than those between regions.

SUMMARY This paper presents a comparison of the manufacturing planning and control practices between firms in South Korea and Europe in the non-fashion textile and small machine tool industries. The key differences in practice were found in the details of forecasting and production planning, the market influence on shop-floor activities, the organizational level used in planning and control, and the level of sophistication in terms of computers and techniques used. The implications of these findings are important for firms with plans to enter into joint ventures or other cooperative arrangements. The data used in this study are from a large data base of actual manufacturing practices collected from countries around the world.

T he year 1992, when Europe will supposedly become economically unified, has been grabbing headlines everywhere. Presently, numerous non-tariff barriers hinder the free movement of goods and capital throughout the 12 nations of the European Community (a.k.a. Common Market). The cost of this "UnEurope" is estimated to be about 4 percent of GNP for European Community (EC) member nations. Since 1985, when a white paper on a more unified Europe was published, the Commission of the European Communities has been working feverishly to push some 300 separate barrier-reducing initiatives through Europe's legislative processes. The efforts seem to be paying off. Increasingly, the promise of 1992 appears to be a question of when, not if. The goal of a more united Europe -a "Europe without frontiers"--has, of course, had its proponents for a long time. Moves have been made to liberalize the economic relationships among the EC member nations ever since the EC's founding in 1957 with the Treaty of Rome. Prior efforts at freer trade have foundered on the rocks, however, often because they advocated "harmonization," the development of Europewide product specifications and standards. The 1985 white paper skirted this issue with the cleverly simple notion of "mutual recognition" of national standards and regulat ions--any goods legally manufactured and marketed in one member country should be able to be sold in any other. The white paper also advocated changes in customs and transport-related regulations, as well as in fiscal regulations. The promise of 1992, the ultimate fall of the old trade barriers, is a t remendously attractive idea to manufacturing companies operating in Europe. What was once difficult for some companies to imagine--supplying many countries from a single p l a n t n o w makes sense. The typical manufacturer can thus dream of plants producing a limited variety of products for several countries. However, such changes are wideranging, strategic ones for manufacturing. They often involve redefinition of a company 's set of plant "charters." A plant charter refers to the company 's desigThe Emerald City of manufacturing efficiency is waiting. But the Yellow Brick Road has many twists and turns.

The results of an evaluation of a set of surveys carried out in South Korea, China, Western Europe and Hungary is presented. The questionnaire included the following areas of company operations: sales forecasting; production planning and scheduling; shop floor control; purchasing and materials management. Market policy, methodology and organizational issues are discussed and conclusions regarding the impact of the market and cultural environment of companies are drawn.

This chapter aggregates and clarifies various expressions in the product recovery literature. In some instances, practitioners and researchers have used these expressions with conflicting meanings. We intend to facilitate communication by establishing a common usage for the product recovery vocabulary.

A very important concern of physical distribution managers is deciding the location of warehouses (distribution centres or depots). It is, therefore, not surprising that this location problem has been receiving considerable research attention and indeed, some impact has been made in actual industrial warehouse location decisions. The interested reader is referred to the expository articles, which describe both the theoretical developments and some practical applications of the theory.

ABC analysis is used to sort inventory into categories which determine how much attention they will be given. But it is of wider management application and can be extended to cope with more than one classification criterion.

With tongues planted firmly in cheeks and with apologies to Murphy, we offer some forecasting laws for management.

This paper examines the use of sampling procedures as a solution methodology for large combinatorial problems. Three sampling strategies are investigated: random sampling (each alternative is equally likely), biased sampling (alternatives' probabilities are biased by specified criteria), and improvement sampling (alternatives' probabilities are dynamically changed based upon new information). These three methodologies are illustrated and compared on the basis of solution quality and computer time requirements.

The management of inventories and determination of transportation policy are normally carried out by different groups of people in an organization. These activities interact, however, when the transportation is used to replace inventory and when the transportation alternatives have different speed, reliability, and cost characteristics. This paper presents exact and heuristic procedures for jointly determining the inventory reorder points, order quantities, and transportation alternatives that provide minimum total transportation and inventory costs. The effectiveness of each procedure is demonstrated for a broad range of problems. The heuristic procedure was also applied to actual company data to determine the potential for cost savings. The results showed that savings were possible both from improving the current procedures and from applying the procedure developed in this study.

The forecast accuracy of exponential and adaptive smoothing models is compared using actual operating data. The data, involving the historical demand for twelve different medical supply items, was obtained from a large medical center. The adaptive smoothing model proposed by Trigg and Leach has been extended in this paper to include the continous adjustment of the smoothing constant values for the trend and seasonal factors in the forecasting model. The results indicate that while an adaptive smoothing model can reduce the bias in the forecasts in comparison with those produced by an exponential smoothing model, the adaptive smoothing model does not provide a significant reduction in the variation in the forecast errors (measured in terms of MAD) for most of the medical supply items studied.

This article presents the results of applying multicriteria ABC analysis to maintenance inventories. A large service organization and a consumer goods manufacturer participated in the study. The managers in both organizations used cost and noncost criteria for developing the ABC categories for inventory management. The study shows that managers can develop noncost criteria and classify the inventory items in ways that combine the criteria types. Specific policies were defined for managing the items in the industrial firm. Once the benefits of the methodology were demonstrated, a year-long program for implementing the system was developed. The project is estimated to cost less than 10 to 15% of the available storeroom clerk manhours and provide substantially greater benefits.

The executives of many firms seem to feel that their manufacturing organization should be able to do all things well. Manufacturing should be able to produce at low cost with high quality while undertaking a variety of new products and adjusting to shifting customer demands for features and delivery dates. Even if these managers insist that they don't really believe this is possible, they act as though they do. In this paper, the argument is made that such a multiplicity of skills is not possible in one organization and that management must set priorities on those manufacturing competencies most important for success in the market. Once the priorities are set, the process shifts to managing the strategic evolution of manufacturing. Specifically discussed are the issues of establishing the initial strategic orientation, providing the appropriate organizational support and managing the evolution of strategic manufacturing competence.

SUMMARY This paper presents results from a simulation experiment evaluating 14 different single stage lot-sizing procedures. Uncertainty in the form of forecast errors was used as one factor in the experiment. In order to prevent different service levels from confounding cost comparisons, enough safety stock to achieve a 100% service level in all situations was introduced. The ranking of the rules under uncertainty turned out to be very different from the ranking when no demand uncertainty was present. Statistical differences were found between the six best lot-sizing procedures when there was no uncertainty. When forecast errors were present, however, no differences existed for the six best rules in this situation. Thus, uncertainty not only changed the relationship between the lot-sizing rules, but also the character of this relationship.

Prioritising items for management attention has been advocated in operations management for a long time, normally using ABC analysis (inventory control). This focuses attention on the “A” category items to maximise managerial effectiveness. Empirical evidence shows that this is a reasonable rule for allocating scarce resource‐management time but presents difficulties when the manager has to take more than one important dimension of a situation into account. A joint criteria matrix is put forward within the ABC framework and an industrial application given. The joint criteria matrix has practical utility provided ranking on some scale of measurement is realistic. The appropriate number of categories must be defined by the user. Combining criteria will probably require different analytical approaches, e.g. goal programming or heuristic approaches. Utilisation of the matrix by managers can provide an explicit method for taking a range of criteria into account in the development of inventory policies.

During the past two decades there has been a natural and continuing application of computers to problems in the functional area of Production and Logistics Management. These are important management problems, ranging from the design of operating systems to the development of control systems, which require the use of Computers for analysis. Therefore it is important that students in Production and Logistics Management courses become involved with the computer. The approaches to this problem run from a passing mention of the computer to an in-depth computer experience. We have experimented with several approaches, varying from the use of preprogrammed models to requiring student-developed programs. We have devised some compromise devices, including computer augmented cases and games, that help to focus the student's attention on the functional problem analysis and not on the computer technique alone. This paper presents examples of these devices and our experience in using them.

Material requirements planning (MRP) is a way to develop the time phased material and other resource requirements to satisfy the needs of a master production schedule. Hierarchical production planning (HPP) is a framework for analysis and decision making in complex production environments. They are complementary approaches to the decision support system needs of multi-stage production systems. The hierarchical approach provides for efficient management review of proposed plans at corporate, plant, and shop levels while MRP provides a sound and detailed basis for understanding the implications of proposed plans and for executing the selected plan. The relationships between these two approaches are illustrated with an example application.

This paper presents a framework for characterizing and studying the uncertainty which can affect inventory investment and service level performance in a material requirements planning (MRP) system. It also presents the results of a simulation experiment which compared two techniques (safety stock and safety lead time) for building inventory to protect against uncertainty. The simulation results disclose consistent differences between the techniques in protecting a representative part against timing and quantity uncertainty in both demand and supply for the part. The paper not only provides some initial insights into the behavior of MRP systems under uncertainty, but also establishes some guidelines for choosing between safety stock and safety lead time.

This paper investigates the use of the coefficient of variation (CV) as a measure of requirements lumpiness (the amount of variation in requirements from period to period) in material requirements planning (MRP) research. CV is used as a factor in MRP research even though it is limited as a measure. Any sequence of requirements will have a unique CV, but any CV can represent a variety of requirements sequences. This limitation raises questions concerning the robustness of CV as a measure. In this paper, two other aspects of the requirements sequence for a given CV are investigated: the procedure used to generate the requirements and the manner in which the requirements are grouped. A simulation comparison of selected lot-sizing techniques is used to conduct the investigation. With respect to these two (new) aspects of the requirements sequence, CV appears to be a robust measure.

The problem considered in this paper is that of determining the order in which customers will be visited by delivery/pick‐up vehicles. Typical examples of this problem are the routing questions faced by the Post Office in making local deliveries, industrial laundry service companies and garbage collection agencies. Generally, in these situations, the vehicle leaves a central facility, visits a known set of customers and must return to the central facility before a specified amount of time has elapsed (e.g., a shift). In addition to these characteristics, it will be assumed that there is sufficient capacity on each vehicle for its delivery or pick‐up requirements during the available time and the customers are indifferent as to when the vehicle arrives during this time. The problem is to assign customers to routes for individual vehicles so as to minimize the total travel time for all vehicles, without having any vehicle exceed the amount of time available.