Strategic and Operational Management of Supplier Involvement in New Product Development: a Contingency Perspective

This paper examines how firms succeed to leverage supplier involvement in product development. The paper extends earlier work on managing supplier involvement by providing an integrated analysis of results, processes and conditions both at the level of individual development projects and the overall firm. Following a multiple-case study approach with theoretical sampling, the study is carried out by examining eight projects in which four manufacturers from different industries involve multiple suppliers. The findings suggest that successful supplier involvement is dependent on the coordinated design, execution and evaluation of strategic, long-term processes and operational, short-term management processes and the presence of enabling factors such as a cross-functional oriented organization. The required intensity of these processes and enablers depends on contingencies such as firm size and environmental uncertainty. In contrast with previous research, we find no indications that managing supplier involvement requires a different approach in highly innovative projects compared to less innovative projects.innovation;new product development;purchasing;supplier relations;R&D management

A study of a kanban based assembly line feeding system through integration of simulation and particle swarm optimization

With increase in differentiation and decreasing batch size of products, feeding the assembly line at regular intervals is considered to be a critical problem in today's manufacturing sector. Yet no clear solution has been developed for this problem; therefore, the main focus of this research is to discuss the different aspects of line feeding, the latest trend in literature, and to propose an innovative method to support solving the problem. A discrete event simulation model is developed and a mathematical model based on particle swarm optimization is used to support the simulation. The hybrid model is finally applied to practical situations. Results show how different settings of kanban influence the performance of the assembly line feeding system. The biggest novelty item is certainly the recognition of the trade-off between kanban size and number of kanban and the importance of investigating its behaviour during the design of the system. (C) 2019 by the authors; licensee Growing Science, Canad

Feeding Ourselves Thirsty: How the Food Sector is Managing Global Water Risks

The global food sector faces extraordinary risks from the twin challenges of water scarcity and water pollution. Growing competition for water, combined with weak regulations, failing infrastructure, pollution and climate change impacts threaten the sector's water security and contribute to a water availability emergency that was recently ranked the world's "top global risk" by the World Economic Forum.This report examines how water risks affect the profitability and competitive positioning of 37 major food sector companies in four industries: packaged food, beverage, meat and agricultural products. It evaluates and ranks these companies -- the majority of which are U.S. domiciled and publicly-traded -- on how well they are positioned to anticipate and mitigate these risks, as well as contribute to improved water resource management.The report provides recommendations for how analysts and investors can effectively evaluate food sector companies on their water risk exposure and management practices. It also provides recommendations for how food companies can improve water efficiency and water quality across their operations and supply chains to reduce risks and protect water resources

Responsiveness of Health Systems: a Barometer of the Quality of Health Services

In the health field, quality is a complex and multidimensional variable. The complexity is shown by different levels of quality, which provide a global picture of the performance of a health system: compliance with mandatory rules, compliance with professional recommendations/references, action of steady improvement aiming at resolving health problems, risk management or excellence seeking, etc. The multidimensional character is provided by various dimensions to be covered by evaluation indicators of the performance of a health system: acceptability in what points the health system meets our expectations; accessibility knowing whether we can receive the services where and when we need them; adequacy knowing whether the care meets our needs and is based on established rules; competence knowing whether knowledge and skills of health services providers are consistent with the care they provide; continuity matching services – coordination, integration, easy access; effectiveness concerning the services in operation and in what point they influence our health; efficiency achieving best results at the lowest cost; security minimizing possible risks in a health area or service. Out of these dimensions – which, from a synergetic perspective, define the overall performance of a health system – we retain for a detailed analysis only those concerning acceptability, adequacy and competence, which determine the responsiveness to the patients’ expectations. Moreover, for working out a methodology for assessing the quality of health services, it is necessary to analyse various standard procedures for assessing the performance of health services initiated and rendered by international organisations and promoted, first of all, by the World Health Organisation. Our paper also deals with actions already taken worldwide, which now are undergoing structural improvements as well as with opportunities for making market surveys (opinion polls) among the beneficiaries of a health system: the citizens.health system; health system responsiveness; health system performance; health condition; determinants of health condition

A mathematical model for supermarket location problem with stochastic station demands

This paper aims to investigate the effect of station demands variations on supermarket location problem (SLP). This problem arises in the real-world assembly line part feeding (PF) context where supermarkets are used as the intermediate storage areas for stations. To this purpose a stochastic SLP model is developed to optimize the total cost of PF in terms of shipment, inventory and installation costs. The computational results over a real case as well as different test instances verify that the station demands variation has an effect on the SLP solutions.CC BY-NC-ND 4.0</p

preventing ergonomic risks with integrated planning on assembly line balancing and parts feeding

In this paper, we advise to perform assembly line balancing simultaneously with decision-making on parts feeding. Such integrated planning may open additional potential to reduce labour costs. Additional planning flexibility gained with the integrated planning may be used to mitigate ergonomic risks at workplaces. We formulate the integrated assembly line balancing and parts feeding planning problem, propose a mixed-integer model and compare integrated planning to a common hierarchical planning approach in a detailed case study on the assembly of a self-priming pump. Our case study illustrates that workplaces with high ergonomic risks may emerge even in productions that involve handling parts and workpieces of low weights and avoid static and awkward postures. We also show that the proposed integrated planning approach may eliminate excessive ergonomic risks and improve productivity indicators simultaneously

Quality problems in materials kit preparation

Increasing customisation, together with a focus on assemblers’ value added time, inflates the number of component variants required in assembly, and drives implementation of kitting processes. Practice indicates that current kitting process designs exhibit quality problems, but research is scarce concerning which problems arise and why. Therefore, this paper provides a decomposition of quality in kitting processes by establishing a framework consisting of types, causes and determinants of quality problems in kitting processes. Through a multiple case study, several underlying mechanisms of quality problems and why they arise were revealed, thereby extending the current frame of knowledge

Generic simulation model for assembly line supply

In this paper a simulation model for materials supply to mixed-model assembly lines is discussed. The model is created in FlexSim and demonstrates the in-plant logistical flows involved to supply parts from the warehouse to the use-points at the assembly line. The materials supply methods shown are bulk feeding (also referred to as line stocking) and kitting. The results of the simulation model are compared to the results of a deterministic mathematical cost model to study the impact of real production variations and dynamics. Testing is done based on a case study where 438 parts are supplied to 23 work stations o of which 146 are supplied in bulk, while the remaining parts are kitted. To create this specific model an automatic model generator is used. The findings of this study are reported

Evaluation of Pull Production Control Strategies Under Uncertainty: An Integrated Fuzzy Ahp-Topsis Approach

Purpose: Just-In-Time (JIT) production has continuously been considered by industrial practitioners and researchers as a leading strategy for the yet popular Lean production. Pull Production Control Policies (PPCPs) are the major enablers of JIT that locally control the level of inventory by authorizing the production in each station. Aiming to improve the PPCPs, three authorization mechanisms: Kanban, constant-work-in-process (ConWIP), and a hybrid system, are evaluated by considering uncertainty. Design/methodology/approach: Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods are successful in evaluating alternatives with respect to several objectives. The proposed approach of this study applies the fuzzy set theory together with an integrated Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and a Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method. Findings: The study finds that hybrid Kanban-ConWIP pull production control policies have a better performance in controlling the studied multi-layer multi-stage manufacturing and assembly system. Practical implications: To examine the approach a real case from automobile electro-mechanical part production industry is studied. The production system consists of multiple levels of manufacturing, feeding a multi-stage assembly line with stochastic processing times to satisfy the changing demand. Originality/value: This study proposes the integrated Kanban-ConWIP hybrid pull control policies and implements several alternatives on a multi-stage and multi-layer manufacturing and assembly production system. An integrated Fuzzy AHP TOPSIS method is developed to evaluate the alternatives with respect to several JIT criteriaPeer Reviewe