A Major Appliance Manufacturer Rethinks its Inventory Policies for Service Vehicles

A major appliance manufacturer needed to effectively manage $7 million in inventories of repair and replacement parts housed in more than 1,300 service vehicles used for warranty repairs. The manufacturer wanted to optimize the inventories while ensuring that its technicians carried the parts they needed to repair customers’ appliances on the first visit. Typically, service vehicles carry only 400 of the 70,000 parts stocked centrally. Thus, the appropriate composition of vehicle stock is essential to attain acceptable levels of service and costs. We developed and applied an intuitive, efficient, effective, and easy-to-implement heuristic solution to this vehicle-stocking problem and found that the firm could trim more than$3 million per year from its warranty repair costs and increase its first-visit repair rate from 86 percent to 90 percent. The results of a pilot study supported these findings, and we estimated a payback of less than two years on full-scale implementation. The manufacturer is implementing these improved vehicle-stocking policies across its national network

An aesthetic for sustainable interactions in product-service systems?

Copyright @ 2012 Greenleaf PublishingEco-efficient Product-Service System (PSS) innovations represent a promising approach to sustainability. However the application of this concept is still very limited because its implementation and diffusion is hindered by several barriers (cultural, corporate and regulative ones). The paper investigates the barriers that affect the attractiveness and acceptation of eco-efficient PSS alternatives, and opens the debate on the aesthetic of eco-efficient PSS, and the way in which aesthetic could enhance some specific inner qualities of this kinds of innovations. Integrating insights from semiotics, the paper outlines some first research hypothesis on how the aesthetic elements of an eco-efficient PSS could facilitate user attraction, acceptation and satisfaction

Strategic manufacturing effectiveness: an empirical analysis

The difficulties that faced many manufacturing firms were attributed by Skinner (1969) to the inadequate attention given by top managers to the manufacturing function. He proposed a holistic framework of manufacturing strategy development that link manufacturing with corporate strategy. This work of Skinner is the first of three stages in the progression of thinking with respect to the strategic role of manufacturing as pointed out by Hum and Leow (1993). The other two stages being the demand of manufacturing to support and be consistent with corporate strategy (Wheelwright, 1978), and the present thinking that manufacturing can lead other functional areas in its contribution to the development of corporate strategy. This research is concerned with the current understanding of the strategic role of manufacturing which was provided by Wheelwright and Hayes (1985). They suggested that even though strategic manufacturing effectiveness is developed along a continuum, there are four identifiable stages that can indicate a firm's position. Furthermore, they suggested that strategic manufacturing effectiveness can be operationalised through the emphasis that firms place on manufacturing choices and decisions; there are factors that affect strategic manufacturing effectiveness; and the higher the level of strategic manufacturing effectiveness, the better the firm's performance. With respect to the factors affecting manufacturing effectiveness, Wheelwright and Hayes (1985) perceived five such dimensions. They are the attitude of top managers towards manufacturing, the involvement of manufacturing managers in setting the strategic direction of the firm, the emphasis on formulating manufacturing strategy, manufacturing proactiveness, and the co-ordination between manufacturing and other functions. The framework of Wheelwright and Hayes (1985) is a diagnostic tool that is used to appraise manufacturing's role within a firm. However, the relationships among its constituents have not been examined in detail before. This research develops a model that clearly identifies such dimensions and how they influence manufacturing effectiveness. Also, the notion that there are four identifiable stages is investigated. Moreover, mediating effects of the types of industry, the sizes of firms, and the types of production process on manufacturing effectiveness are also examined. The results from hypotheses testing indicated the significance of the attitude of top managers towards manufacturing and the involvement of manufacturing managers in setting the strategic direction of the firm as being the key factors that influence the process of acquiring strategic manufacturing effectiveness

PROCEEDINGS 5th PLATE Conference

The 5th international PLATE conference (Product Lifetimes and the Environment) addressed product lifetimes in the context of sustainability. The PLATE conference, which has been running since 2015, has successfully been able to establish a solid network of researchers around its core theme. The topic has come to the forefront of current (political, scientific & societal) debates due to its interconnectedness with a number of recent prominent movements, such as the circular economy, eco-design and collaborative consumption. For the 2023 edition of the conference, we encouraged researchers to propose how to extend, widen or critically re-construct thematic sessions for the PLATE conference, and the paper call was constructed based on these proposals. In this 5th PLATE conference, we had 171 paper presentations and 238 participants from 14 different countries. Beside of paper sessions we organized workshops and REPAIR exhibitions

Renewables 2015 Global Status Report

The REN21 Renewables Global Status Report (GSR) provides an annual look at the tremendous advances in renewable energy markets, policy frameworks and industries globally. Each report uses formal and informal data to provide the most up-to-date information available. Reliable, timely and regularly updated data on renewable energy are essential as they are used for establishing baselines for decision makers; for demonstrating the increasing role that renewables play in the energy sector; and illustrating that the renewable energy transition is a reality. This year 19s GSR marks 10 years of REN21 reporting. Over the past decade the GSR has expanded in scope and depth with its thematic and regional coverage and the refinement of data collection. The GSR is the product of systematic data collection resulting in thousands of data points, the use of hundreds of documents, and personal communication with experts from around the world. It benefits from a multi-stakeholder community of over 500 experts

Fundamentals of Business

Fundamentals of Business, fourth edition (2023) is an open education resource intended to serve as a no-cost, faculty-customizable primary text for one-semester undergraduate introductory business courses. It covers the following topics in business: Teamwork; economics; ethics; entrepreneurship; business ownership, management, and leadership; organizational structures and operations management; human resources and motivating employees; managing in labor union contexts; marketing and pricing strategy; hospitality and tourism, accounting and finance, personal finances, and technology in business

Business Law and the Legal Environment

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