Using RFID to Improve Inventory Accuracy

Accurate inventory is a key to effective supply chain management and store execution, affecting forecasting, ordering, and replenishment. Prior empirical research, however, shows that retailer perpetual inventory (PI) is inherently inaccurate. Radio frequency identification (RFID)-technology enables visibility into the movement of inventories within the supply chain. This research investigates the effectiveness of this visibility in improving retail store inventory record accuracy. We perform daily physical counts of 337 stock keeping units in one category in 13 stores of a major global retailer over 23 weeks. Eight stores auto-adjusted PI based on RFID-enabled visibility; five stores were RFID-enabled but did not auto-adjust PI. The preliminary results of the study show that RFID-enabled visibility results in a significant decrease in PI inaccuracy. We conclude that this visibility can help retailers improve store execution, specifically by reducing surplus inventories and labor costs

Strategy and Culture: Hidden Secrets and Soft Skills in Supply Chain Best Practices from Africa

Objective: The paper identifies strategy and cultural hidden secrets and soft skills pertaining to supply chain management in African contexts that are pertinent to supply chain and operations management. Prior work: Africa is increasingly becoming attractive for not only multi-nationals but supply chain businesses that either want to diversify or expand their foot print. The market is complex, turbulent and highly competitive (Porter, 1986) and requires significant knowledge and understanding of the local context but also culture (Johnson, 1987; 1992; 2000), diversity and institutional dynamics (Ogbonna et al., 2002). Approach: Due to the complex nature of the emerging markets, the paper draws from multiple-disciplines (Sociology, Business, Management) and theoretical approaches namely: culture and strategy; Ubuntu, stakeholder theory and systems thinking, to elicit best practices. Utilizing qualitative methods comprising case study, interviews, focus group discussions and extensive document analysis, the study covers a variety of management practices ranging from strategy, culture to hyper market management. Results: This paper highlights lessons from successful supermarket chains in Africa particularly the hidden secrets and soft skills that are often ignored in mainstream operations and supply chain management or strategy research. Findings underscore the lessons of understanding strategy and culture implementation through practicing cultural values, treating the customer as a queen/king, knowing political skills, being a learning organisation and implementing continuous improvement. Implications: It contributes to management theory for academics, researchers & managers through strategy and culture, proposing inclusion of the cultural diversity into strategy implementation as a critical force affecting the behaviour of people inside the organization. Managers should take into account the cultural context and use it to promote organizational business excellence. Value: These lessons for business excellence are discussed within the context of external and internal organisational pressures in emerging economies and provides value to ward off competition in emerging economies. The paper fills a gap in qualitative research that is missing in supply chain or operations management and points out the fact that traditional supply chain management practices may be ineffective due to the complex and unique local characteristics of African emerging economies

When marketing and manufacturing departments integrate: The influences of market newness and competitive intensity

Although the effect of marketing-manufacturing integration on new product development (NPD) performance has been extensively studied, the question about how this integration is affected during the different stages of NPD remains unclear, especially when a firm faces a new market. In this study, we use resource dependence theory as the theoretical framework and collect survey-based data from manufacturing firms in China to investigate how market newness can affect marketing-manufacturing integration during the different stages of NPD. Our results indicate that market newness has a positive relationship with marketing-manufacturing integration during NPD's different stages, with this relationship being stronger in the early stages than in the subsequent ones. We also examine the effect of such integration during the early stages of NPD on the integration on subsequent stages of NPD. Moreover, we further investigate the moderating role of competitive intensity on the positive effect of market newness on marketing-manufacturing integration. Our findings suggest that a positive moderating effect is more prominent during the early and the final stages of NPD than during the intermediate ones. Our results provide a dynamic perspective on marketing-manufacturing integration and highlight the need for matching the appropriate level of integration with the different NPD stages

When marketing and manufacturing departments integrate: The influences of market newness and competitive intensity

Although the effect of marketing-manufacturing integration on new product development (NPD) performance has been extensively studied, the question about how this integration is affected during the different stages of NPD remains unclear, especially when a firm faces a new market. In this study, we use resource dependence theory as the theoretical framework and collect survey-based data from manufacturing firms in China to investigate how market newness can affect marketing-manufacturing integration during the different stages of NPD. Our results indicate that market newness has a positive relationship with marketing-manufacturing integration during NPD's different stages, with this relationship being stronger in the early stages than in the subsequent ones. We also examine the effect of such integration during the early stages of NPD on the integration on subsequent stages of NPD. Moreover, we further investigate the moderating role of competitive intensity on the positive effect of market newness on marketing-manufacturing integration. Our findings suggest that a positive moderating effect is more prominent during the early and the final stages of NPD than during the intermediate ones. Our results provide a dynamic perspective on marketing-manufacturing integration and highlight the need for matching the appropriate level of integration with the different NPD stages

Qualitative Case Studies in Operations Management: Trends, Research Outcomes, And Future Research Implications

Our study examines the state of qualitative case studies in operations management. Five main operations management journals are included for their impact on the field. They are in alphabetical order: Decision Sciences, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, Journal of Operations Management, Management Science, and Production and Operations Management. The qualitative case studies chosen were published between 1992 and 2007. With an increasing trend toward using more qualitative case studies, there have been meaningful and significant contributions to the field of operations management, especially in the area of theory building. However, in many of the qualitative case studies we reviewed, sufficient details in research design, data collection, and data analysis were missing. For instance, there are studies that do not offer sampling logic or a description of the analysis through which research out-comes are drawn. Further, research protocols for doing inductive case studies are much better developed compared to the research protocols for doing deductive case studies. Consequently, there is a lack of consistency in the way the case method has been applied. As qualitative researchers, we offer suggestions on how we can improve on what we have done and elevate the level of rigor and consistency

Omni-Channel Supply Chain Management: Assessing the Impact of Retail Service Operations in the Retail Supply Chain

The traditional retail environment, which is characterized by a clear division between brick-and-mortar and non-brick-and-mortar retail channels, has been recently disrupted by developments in e-commerce and mobile technologies. The result has been the emergence of omni-channel retailing. Within the reality of this new retail environment, it has been proposed that retailers should develop the necessary capabilities to fulfill consumer demand from anywhere – the store, the distribution center, or via drop-shipping from a supplier – which leads to the emergence of new operational complexities and challenges in the retail supply chain. In light of the growing popularity of these new fulfillment capabilities, it is important to not only consider the financial returns they provide to retailers, but also the potential impacts on the upstream supply chain. Moreover, omni-channel operations will allow retailers to offer new fulfillment services to consumers, such as cross-channel returns or in-store pick-ups, ultimately resulting in new supply chain service outputs in the consumer market. Thus, the aim of this dissertation is to investigate and obtain a holistic understanding of the importance and impacts of omni-channel fulfillment operations for successful retail supply chain management. This will be done by considering three different echelons in the supply chain, (retailer, supplier, and consumer), and investigating how emerging strategies in omni-channel fulfillment impact all three. Using the theoretical underpinning of ambidexterity, Essay 1 investigates how retailers manage their investments and developments pertaining to existing and new fulfillment operations, and how that may lead to improvements in a retailer’s operational and financial performance. To address this research question a structured content analysis in combination with secondary financial data was conducted. To explore how retail omni-channel fulfillment operations impact upstream supply chain members a qualitative research approach was executed in Essay 2 using the case study methodology. Essay 3 employs a series of experimental studies to explore how retail omni-channel fulfillment operations can be used to recover from a stockout. Using equity theory, this essay investigates how, in the case of a stockout, different attributes of omni-channel service operations may impact consumer satisfaction and their evaluation of a retailer’s physical distribution service quality (PDSQ)

Examining Top Management Commitment to TQM Diffusion using Institutional and Upper Echelon Theories

Total Quality Management (TQM) is an enduring approach for enhancing firm competitiveness. Still, there is dearth of research regarding organisational diffusion (post-adoption) of TQM. To address this gap, this research proposes a theoretical model rooted in institutional and upper echelon theories that explains TQM diffusion via top management commitment. We surveyed 300 senior quality managers representing 300 auto-components manufacturers in India to collect data to test the proposed model using variance based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings suggest that institutional pressures significantly influence top management commitment to TQM. Subsequently, top management commitment influences organisational diffusion of TQM via acceptance, routinization, and assimilation. Managers can use the findings of this research to better understand how to assimilate TQM so that anticipated benefits can be fully realized

Smart Maintenance - maintenance in digitalised manufacturing

What does digitalised manufacturing entail for maintenance organizations? This is a pressing question for practitioners and scholars within industrial maintenance management who are trying to figure out the best ways for responding to the rapid advancement of digital technologies. As technology moves faster than ever before, this is an urgent matter of uttermost importance. Specifically, in order to secure the success of highly automated, intelligent, connected and responsive production systems, industrial maintenance organizations need to transform to become leading enablers of high performance manufacturing in digitalised environments. In this thesis, this transformation is referred to as “Smart Maintenance”. The purpose of this thesis is to ensure high performance manufacturing in digitalised environments by enabling the adoption of Smart Maintenance. In order to stimulate adoption, a holistic understanding of Smart Maintenance is needed. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to describe future scenarios for maintenance in digitalised manufacturing as well as to conceptualize and operationalize Smart Maintenance. The holistic understanding has been achieved through a phenomenon-driven research approach consisting of three empirical studies using multiple methods. Potential changes for maintenance organizations in digitalised manufacturing are described in 34 projections for the year 2030. From these projections, eight probable scenarios are developed that describe the most probable future for maintenance organizations. In addition, three wildcard scenarios describe eventualities that are less probable, but which could have large impacts. These scenarios serve as input to the long-term strategic development of maintenance organizations.Smart Maintenance is defined as “an organizational design for managing maintenance of manufacturing plants in environments with pervasive digital technologies” and has four core dimensions: data-driven decision-making, human capital resource, internal integration and external integration. Manufacturing plants adopting Smart Maintenance are likely to face implementation issues related to change, investments and interfaces, but the rewards are improved performance along multiple dimensions when internal and external fit have been achieved. Smart Maintenance is operationalized by means of an empirical measurement instrument. The instrument consists of a set of questionnaire items that measure the four dimensions of Smart Maintenance. It can be used by practitioners to assess, benchmark and longitudinally evaluate Smart Maintenance in their organization, and it can be used by researchers to study how Smart Maintenance impacts performance. This thesis has the potential to have a profound impact on the practice of industrial maintenance management. The scenarios described allow managers to see the bigger picture of digitalisation and consider changes that they might otherwise ignore. The rich, understandable, and action-inspiring conceptualization of Smart Maintenance brings clarity to practitioners and policy-makers, supporting them in developing implementation strategies and initiatives to elevate the use of Smart Maintenance. The measurement instrument makes it possible to measure the adoption of Smart Maintenance in manufacturing plants, which serves to develop evidence-based strategies for successful implementation. Taken together, the holistic understanding achieved in this thesis enables the adoption of Smart Maintenance, thereby ensuring high performance manufacturing in digitalised environments

Communication Artifacts and Interaction Evaluation for Requirements Engineering

This paper aims to answer an important question regarding the development of new information systems (IS): What is the predominant factor for the selection of communication artifacts for requirements engineering (RE)? . Many researchers have focused on the RE and communication as separate disciplines, but little or no research addressed the RE communication issues. These problems are important because they often lead to misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the gathered requirements. We develop expectations about the RE communication process based on prior literature from both disciplines and we test them through several case studies. Our methodology consists of analysis of six case studies we investigated. We conducted interviews and then we used the data to answer the research question and to see if the data from the case studies were consistent with our expectations. The paper contributes to existing literature, as it provides evidence that organizational environment is the predominant factor in the selection of communication artifacts, and that the motivation of the participants plays a key role when determining the levels of interaction amongst participants. And finally, we investigate the transitional RE phases and discover that they are viewed as overlapping with the main RE phases and that there is some cross-communication between the participants during those transitional phases