Nondebtor Releases in Chapter 11 Reorganizations: A Limited Power

This note concerns the ability of bankrupt companies to file Chapter 11 reorganization plans that contain provisions releasing the liabilities of parties other than the companies themselves. One such mechanism, used in conjunction with the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, is a trust releasing a financially-troubled company from liability to certain types of tort claimants. The author argues that although bankruptcy courts do have the power to approve such plans, such power should be carefully limited when companies seek to grant releases to insiders and insurance companies

Improved detection scheme for chipless RFIDs using prolate spheroidal wave function-based noise filtering

A novel, highly sensitive scheme to detect the resonance peaks in the spectrum of chipless RFID signals is presented. The detection is based on finding the zeros in the derivative of the group delay of the received signal. In order to be able to accurately detect these zeros in the presence of noise, the received signal is filtered using a prolate spheroidal wave function-based model. This allows great increases in the distance at which chipless RFIDs can be accurately read. The detection method can be used standalone or in addition to traditional amplitude-based detection schemes

Advantages of PSWF-based models for UWB systems

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Logistic Efficiency Through Horizontal Cooperation: The Case of Flemish Road Transportation Companies

This paper describes a practical application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to the Flemish road transportation sector.The efficiency of 82 road transportation companies responding to a large-scale survey focused on horizontal cooperation is evaluated, based on two inputs and two outputs.Various DEA models are used to identify differences between subgroups of respondents.The results demonstrate that, in general, Flemish road transportation companies operate at unacceptably low efficiency levels.Given the findings that the median company is operating on too small a scale one apparent remedy would be a dramatic increase in market concentration through mergers and acquisitionshorizontal cooperation;road transportaion companies;data envelopment analysis

Novel compact model for the radiation pattern of UWB antennas using vector spherical and Slepian decomposition

A new compact model is described for the 3D radiation pattern of an ultrawideband antenna, using a vector spherical and Slepian decomposition. Vector spherical modes are known to provide a good basis for the angular dependency of the radiation pattern. This paper is the first to extend such a model to also incorporate the frequency dependency of a radiation pattern. This is achieved by using a Slepian mode expansion. It is shown that this model requires considerably less coefficients than traditional sampling to accurately describe a frequency-dependent 3D radiation pattern. Also, generating the Slepian modes is computationally more efficient than comparable techniques, such as the singularity expansion method ( SEM). The coefficients can then directly be used to efficiently calculate performance measures such as the antenna Fidelity Factor for all angles (phi, theta) without reconstructing the radiation pattern, or to reduce the noise contribution

Preparing for new competitive challenges: special issue on the 24th annual IPSERA conference

The 24st IPSERA conference in Amsterdam addressed the various new competitive challenges organizations face now that business environments are changing. While we can observe an increased role of - but also an increased concentration in - logistic services and IT services acting as a bonding agent of the various business processes, we also see an increased specialisation among suppliers, resulting in roles like capacity supplier, co-maker and broker. In terms of Systems Thinking: the subsystem of ‘Suppliers’ is breaking up into three sub-systems with distinctive different characteristics, and the traditional sub-system ‘Purchasing’ has transformed into an aspect-system connecting or involving all other sub-systems, while similarly, ‘Logistics’ and ‘IT’ have developed into intertwined aspect-systems, being part of each and every sub-system. These transformations have increased managerial complexity, greatly influencing the purchasing and supply chain functions within firms. The seven papers selected from the conference examine seven aspects of those changes in detail and elaborate on the role of the PSM field in this process: PSM answers to challenges by providing answers on how to move forward in practice

Consumer behaviour and order fulfilment in online retailing – a systematic review

This paper provides a systematic review of consumer behaviour and order fulfilment in online retailing. The objective of this review is threefold: first, to identify elements of order‐fulfilment operations that are relevant to online consumer behaviour (purchase, repurchase, product return); second, to understand the relationship between order‐fulfilment performance and consumer behaviour; and third, to inspire future research on developing consumer service strategies that takes account of these behavioural responses to order‐fulfilment performance outcomes. The paper is based on a systematic review of literature on online consumer behaviour and order‐fulfilment operations, mainly in the fields of marketing and operations, published in international peer‐reviewed journals between 2000 and September 2015. This study indicates that the current literature on online consumer behaviour focuses mainly on the use of marketing tools to improve consumer service levels. Very little research has been conducted on the use of consumer service instruments to steer consumer behaviour or, consequently, to manage related order‐fulfilment activities better. The study culminates in a framework that encompasses elements of order‐fulfilment operations and their relationship to online consumer behaviour. This paper is the first comprehensive review of online consumer behaviour that takes aspects of order‐fulfilment operations into account from both marketing and operations perspectives

Joint Route Planning under Varying Market Conditions

Purpose - To provide empirical evidence on the level of savings that can be attained by joint route planning and how these savings depend on specific market characteristics.Design/methodology/approach - Joint route planning is a measure that companies can take to decrease the costs of their distribution activities. Essentially, this can either be achieved through horizontal cooperation or through outsourcing distribution to a Logistics Service Provider.The synergy value is defined as the difference between distribution costs in the original situation where all entities perform their orders individually, and the costs of a system where all orders are collected and route schemes are set up simultaneously to exploit economies of scale.This paper provides estimates of synergy values, both in a constructed benchmark case and in a number of real-world cases.Findings - It turns out that synergy values of 30% are achievable.Furthermore, intuition is developed on how the synergy values depend on characteristics of the distribution problem under consideration.Practical implications - The developed intuition on the nature of synergy values can help practitioners to find suitable combinations of distribution systems, since synergy values can quickly be assessed based on the characteristics of the distribution problem, without solving large and difficult Vehicle Routing Problems.Originality/value - this paper addresses a major impediment to horizontal cooperation: estimating operational savings upfront.Horizontal cooperation;Distribution;Outsourcing;Vehicle routing with time windows;Retail