Benefits of connecting rfid and lean principles in health care

The performance management process in health care is far behind compared to the manufacturing and service industries. Although nowadays the health care organizations are able to deal with a greater rank diseases, their cost, quality and delivery has essentially not improved significantly, and the difference with the other industries even seems to have increased. As opposed to this situation health care has a tremendous opportunity to deploy lean principles to reduce internal/external costs, improve patient safety, increase profits, reduce litigation and decrease the dependence on Government and Insurance. The application of these principles is being facilitated by the use of the new technologies. A new technology allowing personnel to constantly "see" what's happening with regards to patients schedule, backlog, workflow, inventory levels, resource utilization, quality, etc., is Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). The aim of this paper is to analyse the benefits that can be derived from the joint use of lean principles and RFID technology in health care

Innovation, marketing information sharing and new product success in the European insurance sector

Most companies the world over are actively participating in the race of investments in the service industry. The main question to solve is what new products and services should offer these companies to remain profitable. Avaílable frameworks aiming at aiding the managerial decision-making process, -as it regards to new products and services design and development, are largely based upon empirical data proceeding from the manufacturing sector. Given that services are different from goods, the expansion of insurance services may require sorne peculiar approaches. Morgan et al. say that the turbulent environment of the eighties, "created the pre-conditíons necessary lor the consumer direct insurance industry to become a laboratory 01 experimentation jor the financial servíces industry". So far, as Stone et al. (1997,354) suggest: "lnsurance companies are now having to manage customer bases where average persistence is substantially lower that it used to be. This means a much stronger jocus on customer retention, customer acquisition, and customer development". This article examines how far the manufacturing oriented frameworks elaborated for the design and development of new products apply to the service sector in general, and to the European insurance industry in particular. European insurance companies operate in a highly volatíle market, so their survival relies upon the identification of the outstanding cornerstones leading to market leadership. For that purpose, insurance firms must design and re-design the essential core elements that will allow them to identify new areas of business and attracting and retaining customer. Drew states that the success and/or faílure of the new product/service development process for service firms are influenced by factors similar to those encountered in industrial firms. Nevertheless, insurance products and services use to have short product life cycles and it is easy to copy them; thus, sorne differences may arise between industrial products and insurance services. It should be also taken into account that the managerial practices of the European Insurance companies may diverge as the companies belong to different countries, deal with different types of insurance premiurns, and achieve diverse performance success levels. So far, it is important to develop an explanatory model that allow both researchers and practitioners to recognise the isolated and conjoint effects of the different variables that affect the success of the New Service Development Process. In this article, we examine how most successful insurance companies, -as it pertains to the quality, frequency, and quantity of successful new services,apply their managerial practices. More particularly, we review the underpinning points between innovation degree, marketing information sharing -as related to managerial practices, new product success and corporate performance. The model is tested applying structural equation modeling techniques to a sample of 113 European Union Insurance firms. We identify the different explanatory relationships, as well as the relative importance of the different analysed variables

The explanatory power of trust and commitment and stakeholders' salience : their influence on the reverse logistics programs performance

There is a growing awareness among practitioners and scholars regarding the importance of Relationship Marketing and its advantages in the supply chain management context. This is particularly appropriate for Reverse Logistics (RL) activities, which are characterized by several relationships between different stakeholders and the firm. Drawing on multiple theoretical approaches, we propose that RL programs result from the combination of external, organizational, and individual factors. We emphasize the role of trust and commitment as key influential elements on the RL systems implementation and their subsequent performance

Financial service firms' entry-mode choice, network linkages and cultural diversity : Spanish companies in Latin America

For many years the management of international manufacturing operations has been complicated by the enormous changes taking place around the globe. Emerging markets in many newly industrialised countries have called the attention of managers of manufacturing companies that were facing heavy domestic and global domestic pressure. In spite of its economic relevance, there is still a lot to be done before all key barriers to the effective management of international manufacturing operations are identified. The situation is even worse when the management of international service operations is considered. The share of services in international trade, the amount of foreign direct investments made by service-sector companies, as well as the number of multinational service-sector enterprises has been increasing rapidly in the last two decades. However, this is a very young area of concern for both practitioners and academics. Consequently, the existing studies on service internationalisation apply a fairly broad theoretical base. This paper tries to contribute to filling this gap by examining the internationalisation behaviour of Spanish financial service-sector companies in Latin America to find out if general internationalisation patterns are applicable or if the manufacturing sector, which they are supposed to serve, might influence their internationalisation behaviour. The analysis is based on rank correlation between the internationalisation patterns of each company and the relevant indicators of this phenomenon for the period 1985 to 1996. Such relevant indicators are: 1) Total amount of Spanish net investments (no portfolio investments included), 2) Total amount of Spanish exports of manufactured products, 3) Index of deregulation and liberalisation of financial markets, 4) Leading international banking countries in Latin America, in terms of foreign banking activities, and 5) Leading international insurance countries, in terms of insurance premiums

Financial service firms' entry-mode choice and cultural diversity : Spanish companies in Latin America

Emerging markets in newly industrialised countries have caught the attention of managers of manufacturing companies facing heavy domestic and global pressure. Key barriers to the effective management of international manufacturing operations need to be identified. The same applies to the management of international service operations. The share of services in international trade, the amount of foreign direct investments made and the number of multinational service-sector enterprises has been increasing rapidly in the last two decades. Existing studies on service internationalisation apply a fairly broad theoretical base. This paper contributes by examining the internationalisation behaviour of Spanish financial service-sector companies in Latin America to find out if general internationalisation patterns are applicable or if the manufacturing sector influences their internationalisation behaviourPublicad