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The Simple Plant Location Problem (SPLP), an NP-hard combinatorial problem, is used extensively to decide the minimum number of plants with unlimited production capacity to serve a certain set of markets demand. The objective function is to minimize the sum of fixed costs of locating the plants and variable cost of transportation of moving goods from plants to markets. Strong formulation of SPLP gives better bounds than weak formulations of SPLP. Hence in a branch and bound method, we find that strong formulation processes lesser number of nodes. But the number of strong constraints are quadratic (number of weak constraints are linear); hence at each node we take more time to process the node (Sharma and Verma (2012)) and weak formulation does better in terms of CPU time to give optimal solution. We add few most promising constraints to weak formulations and see that weak + few promising strong constraint formulation of SPLP performs the best. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we advance the solution approach to the single stage capacitated warehouse location problem (SSCWLP) problem. We took six formulations given by Sharma and Berry (2007) for SSCWLP with various constraints combinations and added a new promising constraint (Σcapj * yj ≥ 1). The computations done after additional constraint results in statistically better results reduction in number of nodes searched as well as in CPU time taken to solve the problem. We created random 50 samples of problems of size 15x15x15, 30x30x30 and 50x50x50 size problems and solved using GAMS software to show the computational advantage even in such large magnitude problem. We performed paired t-test on all the six pairs of results to observe statistical significance of improvement with the new constraint. Results with new constraint were observed statistically significant and better at two-tailed ttest with 95% confidence interval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Different formulations of QAP (such as Linear Integer Formulation, MILP formulation, Formulation by Permutations, Trace Formulation and Graph Formulation) are given in Loiola et. al. (2007). Different linearization of QAP are summarized in Singh and Sharma (2008). We give here a new QAP formulation and describe its advantages. For many different contributions to layout problems refer to Sharma (2019, 2019, 2020, 2020, 2021 and 2022). In this paper we give a new formulation of QAP. Problem QAP Min sum over (i,j,k,l): x(i,j)*x(k,l)*D(j,l)*F(i,k) (a) Sum(i), x(i,j) = 1 for all j (b) Sum(j), x(i,j) = 1 for all i (c) x(i,j) = (0,1) for all i and j (d) x(i,j) = 1 if facility 'i' gets into 'j' th slot, D(j,l) is the distance between 'j' th and 'l' th slot and F(i,k) is flow between facility 'i' and 'k'. Here we give a new formulation of QAP. We put following constraints. x(i,j) + M*(1 - y(i,j)) >= 1 for all i,j (e) x(i,j) - M*(y(i,j)) <= 0 for all i,j (f) y(i,j) = (0,1) for all i,j (g) and add (h) in place of (d) x(i,j) >= 0 for all i,j (h) when x(i,j) is 1, then y(i,j) = 1; and when x(i,j) is 0, then y(i,j) is 0. Any x(i,j) in open interval (0,1) is infeasible (say x(i,j) = 0.5 is infeasible with either y(i,j) = 0 or 1). Thus though x(I,j) is real >= 0, it acts like binary due to (e), (f) and (g). Then new formulation (NF_QAP) of QAP is (a), s.t. (b), (c), (e), (f), (g) and (h). It has N2 real, N2 binary and 2*( N2 +N) constraints; and has quadratic objective function in real variables. These are the merits of our new formulation of QAP. For a detailed comparison see Singh and Sharma (2008). Similar formulations are possible in DPLP (dynamic plant layout problem) also. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of data science and big data analytics, HR analytics can help organizations and their human resources (HR) managers to predict reason behind the employee exits and reduce attrition rate and employee turnover at an early stage. Organization invests lot of time and money in hiring and training their workforce. Thus, when they leave the job, the reduction of cost of capital is borne by the company. In this context, employee turnover presents a serious problem and a big peril for organizations as it affects not only their productivity but also their planning continuity. To overcome this, HR Analytics is the most important tool for organization to gain insights out of big data, collected from different sources (e.g. public social media, enterprise social media, Internet of Things etc.) to reduce employee turnover. From static to descriptive, descriptive to diagnostic, diagnostic to predictive, predictive to prescriptive type of HR analytics has come a long way. This research attempts to explore that organization apply different types of HR Analytics in different business strategy firms, with/without the use of social media / enterprise social media (ESM) for the prediction of employee turnover. (Porter 1980) competitive business strategy includes cost leadership (CL) strategy, differentiator (DIFF) strategy and focus. By using statistical test chi-square, we conclude that there is significant difference between various strategy types and types of HR Analytics used in the organization for prediction of employee turnover with the use of ESM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Return and risk are two important attribute of any portfolio. On likes to max return by keeping at a given level or min risk by keeping return at a min level. Or one takes a composite of return and take negative of risk aversion factor multiplied by risk of a portfolio and max it subject to wealth constraint (this is the traditional mean-variance approach: see Subramanyam and Patel () and Shama and Pankaj ()). In this model the risk aversion factor remains the same whatever be the wealth available with the decision maker. It is well known that as wealth of an individual increases his risk proneness also increases. This aspect is considered in the model that is presented in this paper by assuming that as wealth band changes, then also changes the risk aversion factor. Now we give two models of such situation that considers the mean-variance approach to portfolio selection, and conduct numerical investigation to see which of the two models do better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops and analyzes a model for hospital location and capacity allocation. Thefocus is on an urban/developing area. The first model is the convectional model and the secondis an improved model with better constraints, previous work in the planning of hospitals and/orhealth centers in a region has been done with less constraints hence is easily implementableand has less administrative load but costs may be higher. This work focuses on developing andanalyzing a model for hospital location and capacity allocation while optimizing a number of objectives, e.g. minimizing cost of establishment and maximizing coverage of patients. The model 1 is easily implementable and has less administrative load hence costs may behigher, prescribed Model has more variables (hence more CPU time) and requires more administrative load for implementation but costs are probably lesser. Hence cost can be reducedconsiderably if we can trade with speed of solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fire outbreak, traffic accidents, rescue operations etc. are fairly common in a human settlement all over the globe. The government funded fire stations are responsible to control such situations at the earliest possible. The response time and road route must be minimized to ensure that the adversity is taken under control quickly. To set up such a fire station at an optimal location we also need to consider the budget involved and the value of the locality which it would serve. This paper presents three models i.e. establishment cost, optimal service level and hybrid model of locating a fire station in a city by extending the mixed linear programming formulation using binary genetic algorithm. The proposed models are tested for problem sizes of n = 30 and 60 using GAMS 23.5 and comparisons of optimum results are reported. Hybrid model performs best that help to decision-makers to enhance their decision capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we start with a brief literature review on HM, FM and BM. Then we relate these among themselves to argue that FM = HM + BM. We map these advanced manufacturing technologies to the strategy of the organization. Later we give several interesting hypotheses and conjectures. Finally we draw a table that relates different types of flexibilities of HM, FM and BM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Companies spend a lot of time and money training their employees, and when they leave, it hurts. When employees leave the company, it's important to know why they're leaving. An organization can't apply the same analytical method for each and every one of its employees, regardless of the industry or kind of business. We created two groups called cost leaders and differentiators to categorize firms based on strategy, structure, and uncertainty. In order to decrease employee turnover, cost leaders utilize 'predictive/prescriptive analytics, whereas differentiation leaders use 'descriptive/diagnostic' analytics to do so. It is critical for HR Analytics to pay attention to the organization's strategy and structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here we give standard 0-1 mixed integer linear program of CLSPSPIB. In this formulation we eliminate shortage variables and setup (0-1 integer) variables to pose the problem as 'all real' linear program in inventory and production variables. Based on its solution, we keep select variables as zeros or ones in the original CLSPSPIB. We get very good solutions in much reduced CPU time. Detailed computational experience is given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we give 91 hypotheses and 6 conjecturers that relate various aspects of Information Technology / Systems (IT/S) as related to the strategy of the firms (cost leadership, differentiation and innovators). These are virtual teams (VTs) in track 1, enterprise social media (ESM) in track 2, analytics, strategy of organization (cost leadership/differentiation) and types of innovators (continuous innovation, modular innovation, architectural innovation and radical innovation) in track 3 and machine learning, artificial intelligence, types of programming (OOP, extreme and scrum) and internet of things (IoT) in track 4. These are new hypotheses and have tremendous implications for top management of firms as they go about managing its IT/S infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we pose the location-allocation problem (single stage) with shortages and inventory variables in a style similar to Sharma (1991). Vimal Kumar (2012) gave a novel method of eliminating shortages and this is considered here (this leads to reduced number of variables). Next he problem SSCMPWLP is formulated in the conventional manner where no variable can be eliminated. We derive a formulation where the resulting 0-1 MILP is solved by Bender's decomposition and the associated all real problem is solved by Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition where the sub problems are posed as min-cost-network flow problems. It offers computational advantages. Thus we give three different methods to solve the problem SSCMPWLP. An empirical investigation is underway to see which of these three methods perform the best. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

H1: Thematic based ads appealing to customer's cognition can be dubbed in different languages and used in different countries or states. H2: Thematic based ads (using pictures and symbols) appealing to customer's emotions should NOT be dubbed in different languages and should not be used in different countries or states. It is known that ads shown internationally are prone to misunderstanding. Hence, we argue that messages appealing to 'cognition' are prone to less misunderstanding than messages that are appealing to 'emotions' (in an international context: with cultural differences and in multi-country/state settings). Particularly true in Industrial marketing where messages are typically targeting 'cognitions'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation is very important in current times. It is a major weapon that enhances competitive advantages. Four types of innovations are reported in literature: continuous improvement, modular innovation, architectural innovation and radical innovation. In this paper we give theoretical framework that relates modular (MI) and architectural innovations (AI) to different organizational variables. Contribution of authors on modular and architectural innovation is scattered. Here we put all these in one place. In this paper we present eighty nine theoretical propositions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we relate different OD interventions to the strategy of the firm (as given by Miles and Snow 1978: these being cost leaders (CL) and differentiators (DIFF)). Later we identify essential personality attributed of OD consultants (in the Big-5 and MBTI personality typology). Interesting testable hypotheses are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we give a new method for solving the MID CPLP problem that results when vertical decomposition is applied to two-stage capacitated warehouse location problem (see Sharma and Agarwal (2014)). In the MID CPLP problem, warehouses are locatable in stage 1 and stage 2 (thus incurring fixed costs), and we incur transportation costs as goods are transported from stage 1 to stage 2. Here in MID CPLP, we minimize the sum total of the cost of warehouse location (stage 1 and stage 2) and transportation. In the method due to Sharma and Agarwal (2014), the decomposition is followed where location variables at one of the stages are relaxed, and it is reduced to LHS CPLP (Left Hand Side Capacitated Plant/Warehouse Location Problem), and reasonable bounds are obtained by the procedures given by Verma and Sharma (2007). Thus, in the method, due to Sharma and Agarwal (2014), the problem TSCWLP is reduced to LHS CPLP, MID CPLP (that is again reduced to LHS CPLP) and an RHS CPLP. This paper reduces the problem TSCWLP to LHS LP (linear program), MID CPLP and RHS LP (linear program). It is expected to offer good computational advantages. This procedure is outlined in detail in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to discuss the directional influence of Culture and Personality, together, on consumer switching. Culture and Personality in isolation will have a definitive effect on consumer switching but in unison there influence on consumer switching will be totally different and will depend on their direction. We prepared a matrix to show directional influence of Personality & Culture to influence consumer switching. In each cell of Matrix we show if personality/culture influences are opposing or act in unison in term of Consumer Switching. In our research paper we project this directional influence on phenomenon of consumer switching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing trends in technological advancements have opened up a new horizon of opportunities for organizations. With the penetration of mobile technologies, the aspirant organizations have found a new medium to engage their stakeholders. Brick and mortar retailers often seem to invest high costs on technology and infrastructure, but the need of time emphasises to change the behavior of decision making. Various technology adoption models (TAM) have been deployed in past which help to adopt new technologies to sync with current systems. A new format called 'brick and click' retailers has flipped the traditional format of retail models and has opened up new possibilities for upcoming technologies. This study helps in identifying the upcoming Internet of Things (IoT) technology suitable for different formats of retailers, i.e., e-hypermarkets, e-specialty stores, and e-convenient stores. The model analyses assertive compatibility of IoT and Intranet of Things with the existing retail formats. For this study we have considered various e-tailer formats operating in Asian region specifically India, and empirical investigation is performed. The study proves significant at global level as the structure of e-tailers are seminal throughout the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant location is a crucial decision in meeting the customer demand efficiently and effectively. The researchers have given different formulations for solving this optimization problem and such problems are NP Hard due to various integer variables and non linear formulation. Sharma and Muralidhar (2009) approach to model relaxed Simple Plant Location Problem (SPLP) resulted in two weak formulations and a strong formulation. It is found that weak formulations give an inferior bound compared to strong formulation but their computational time is comparatively very less. The reason being the constraints in strong formulations go quadratic in number. It has been observed by many that for smaller sized problems, the weak formulation of SPLP is superior to Strong formulation of SPLP in terms of computational time. Here hybrid formulations are proposed to accommodate benefits of both the formulations. We take full weak formulation (either weak one or weak two) and add to it only the most promising strong constraints. It is claimed that this approach (hybrid) is better than weak and strong formulation of SPLP in terms of upper bound and computational time. We also provide additional strong constraints based on various transportation and location costs assumptions that can improve the relaxed solutions of the SPLP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the contribution of Sharma and Muralidhar (2009) to problem Simple Plant Location Problem (SPLP), we now have two weak formulations and a strong formulation SPLP. It is noted that the total number of constraints in the weak formulation is linear, whereas the number of constraints in the strong formulation go quadratic. Though relaxed weak formulations give the inferior bound but their computational time is much less compared to the relaxed strong formulation of SPLP. Many researchers observed that this computational advantage of the weak formulation is significant for smaller sized problems however for large sized problems bound provided by it is poor. Hence hybrid formulations are proposed by many. We propose the similar model for capacitated plant location problem (CPLP). We modify the Sharma and Muralidhar (2009) weak formulations and add to them only the most promising strong constraints to have advantages of both. Here in this paper, we also introduce an additional constraint that the number of plants located is less than some number 'n' or greater than 'n+1'and hope that this will lead to significantly better LP relaxation bounds (we hope that this improvement will be dependent on the value of 'n'). Two criteria for computing 'n (n1 and n2)' are also explored. We further modify the formulation by adding one more constraint based on the assumption of opening up all plants to have bound based on simple transportation problem. This is also done with the hope of getting better bounds without causing significant computational complexity addition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A dominant paradigm in academics prescribed customer satisfaction as a primary precursor to customer loyalty. But changes in business regulations across the globe and rapid technological advancement have lowered the switching barriers and thus fueling propensity to switch despite being satisfied with an existing service provider. Recent researches empirically confirm the changing reality of markets by empirically highlighting the inability of customer satisfaction as a construct to fully explain consumer switching behavior, particularly in the context of E-services wherein switching barriers are perceived to be even lower. The lack of any comprehensive study to explain the consumer switching intention in the context of E-services has been the primary motivation behind this study. The main aim of this study is to examine the role of consumer switching barrier in consumer switching behavior. Since acquiring new customers is much more difficult than retaining new one, marketers has widely deployed Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools to operationalize their intent. Our research indicates that besides satisfaction from core service offering, organizational antecedents such as service bundling, subscriber lock-in, asset specificity, and network value can lead to consumer switching barriers that in turn reduce switching intention in E-Services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of SMAC technology, the paper investigates the analytics focus that plays a vital in the business strategy. The SMAC technology has been using to insight into business issues to increase the firm's performance and sustain the business. On the basis of a comprehensive literature survey, we explore the two business strategy such as cost leadership and differentiation and two types of innovation focus such as exploratory & exploitative. Analytics focus in the firms is increasingly recognized as the application base that leads to enhancing competitiveness. Further, we build a theoretical framework and give four propositions that can clearly identify how the different strategic firms would require different types of analytics. In addition, we investigate the relationship between exploratory/exploitative innovation, cost leadership/differentiation strategy, and analytics applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manufacturing organization as an entity is a combination of various functions ranging from production or operations, finance, marketing, human resources, R&D or innovation. For the successful running of a manufacturing organization, all these functions needs to be aligned, coordinated and implemented in for the achievement of common goals of the organization. Functional flexibility is one of the essential aspects which equips the organizations to deal with uncertain and dynamic environments. It is also interesting to learn that there exists evidence of synergistic relationships between the various functional flexibilities within an organization. These relations if properly identified and studied can be exploited further for gaining competitive benefits for the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additive Manufacturing (AM) or digital manufacturing is the new paradigm shift in the manufacturing domain which refers to technologies such as 3D printing, rapid prototyping, digital direct manufacturing, layered manufacturing, additive fabrication etc. The products are manufactured or printed using 3D printers directly from the CAD model without undergoing the conventional step of process planning that exists between the CAD and CAM systems. This technology is still to reach a stage where it could be commercially exploited by different manufacturing organizations to gain competitive benefits. Literature suggests that it has been already applied to some specific areas where it has levied promising results. To realize the long term benefits, it becomes imperative to align the organizational structure and strategy which should support the AM functions or could be successfully implemented. The paper focuses on some organizational implications which will pave the way to fully reap the benefits of AM and its successful implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to draw a map which allows a Virtual Team to be utilized efficiently in different organizations in consideration with types of personalities, which facilitates deployment of the same. Virtual teams and e-collaborations are a suggested substitute to traditional formats of bulk working style and enables to remove constraints like physical space and time. Virtual teams if driven by meticulous planning, able leadership, interpersonal trust and effective utilization of ICT will help in achieving efficiency in the supply chain for different type of organizations. In general ICT, organizational functions and traits of supply chain participants must synchronize in a way which creates an environment of a lean process and thus helps the supply chain to compete with the other existing supply chains of different organizations. This study focuses mainly on the best fit of the discussed vital factors which are somehow neglected or were not considered in the previous researches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to clarify the concept of Market Mavens in the age of e-commerce/brick and click retail. The paper also discusses about the alternatives for Market Mavens for current scenario. Paper also highlights the importance of various factors responsible for behavior of Market Mavens. Papers also present the way market mavens has evolved over time and its changing role according to the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culture of a society is considered to be one of the influencing factors for a consumer when switching a brand of a product. It not only shapes the underlying behavior but also influences the perception of a consumer in decision making. Since behavior of a consumer would be effected his/her inherent cultural values which in turn would rely on culture of its society he/she is a part of, it's important to study it in consumer switching context. Previous studies linking this phenomenon with culture has mostly found to be focusing on cross - cultural references, using variety, novelty, curiosity and vanity-seeking behavior of consumer. But there is hardly any study using cultural as a construct for consumer switching taking primarily in account different dimensions of culture. Our research is one such attempt to explore consumer brand switching using cultural dimensions given by Hofstede. Effect of culture on consumer switching is explored using Hofstede's six-cultural dimensions taking into account different levels of involvement (High, Medium and Low) of consumer and Value of product as moderators. As depending on involvement of consumer, the cost in terms of time and effort invested for purchase, switching is going to differ, effecting satisfaction and loyalty construct. Similarly, when it comes to value of product the switching levels might differ for a cost-effective and premium category product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we propose a novel formulation of Multi Item Capacitated lot sizing problem considering set up, Inventory and shortage cost. This Formulation is motivated from the work by Vimal (2012) and Sharma (2018). We extend the results developed by Sharma (2018) to multi item lot sizing problem. The new formulation has less number of variables as shortage variables are removed and hence offers computational advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here a capacitated lot sizing problem is formulated differently (by using the formulation given by Vimal (2012 in a totally different context of warehouse location distribution problem); and it leads to new formulation of CLSP with set up, production and inventory costs; and hence valid inequalities given in Miller et. al. (2000) are applicable with few modifications. It opens up new area of research, and we give an additional valid in equality CLSP in this paper (see (9) below). It is to be noted that the model proposed here has additional inequality (apart from less number of variables as in Sharma et. al (2017)), and it would lead to further computational advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additive manufacturing (Wiki on 3-D printing) is an emerging manufacturing technology that needs to be perfected before it can start delivering. It is a game changer. It is planned that the AM printer will be kept in the customer's premises and will receive instructions head office over IoT (Wiki on IoT) for printing layer by layer and the job will be done before the eyes of the customer. It has been proposed in the literature that for optimal performance of AM printing Taguchi Methods (Wiki on Taguchi Methods) can be used for parameter optimization. If AM is deployed for customization, then experiments (and generating required sampling points) is likely to be costly. We touch on a few AM-related organizational issues such as strategy (cost leader CL and differentiator DIFF). Finally, we give a few heuristics for scheduling jobs on AM machines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consider the standard multi-item, multi-period, capacitated lot sizing problem with setup, inventory and backorders (MIMPCLSPWSIB). To this problem we add the issue of setup carry over. This is explained as follows. If an item i is scheduled last in period (t-1), and is scheduled first in period 't', we do not incur setup time and setup cost in period 't'. We incur setup cost and setup time only in period 't-1'. This results in problem MIMPCLSPWSCIB. We give here two formulations of problem MIMPCLSPWSCIB. We discuss the merits of each formulation in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]