Kalsun Inc: Sourcing in Asia

Karen Young, Purchasing Manager at Kalsun Inc., a producer and retailer of home office accessories, has to make a sourcing decision for one of the company’s best-selling items, an adjustable laptop stand. The coronavirus pandemic has led to more people working from home and thus significant demand growth, but also supply challenges. While Kalsun has a reliable Chinese supplier, potential changes in the supplier’s product strategy, increasing costs, and U.S. - Sino political tensions are motivating Karen to evaluate supply alternatives

Analyzing the Tradeoff Between Efficiency and Flexibility in Cellular Manufacturing Systems

A limitation of Group Technology (GT)-based cellular manufacturing systems is that their limited routing flexibility offsets the setup and material handling efficiencies they offer. Virtual Cellular Manufacturing (VCM) systems do not encounter the problem of limited routing flexibility, but do not yield the same efficiencies as GT-based cellular systems. This study compares the performance of a GT-based cellular manufacturing system that utilizes operations overlapping to further improve material flow efficiency with that of a virtual cellular manufacturing system. Results suggest that while the use of operations overlapping in a GT-based cellular manufacturing system can to some extent compensate for the system’s low routing flexibility, it cannot fully overcome the high flow time variance that results from the permanent dedication of machine resources. As a result, GT-based cellular manufacturing performs comparably to VCM only under a limited set of conditions

Supply Chain Integration: Cluster Analysis of the Impact of Span of Integration

Purpose This paper aims to explore whether firms that integrate only with partners adjacent to them in the supply chain exhibit different patterns of supply chain practice and performance than those that also integrate with partners more distant in the supply chain. Design/methodology/approach Cluster analysis of survey data is used to partition firms based on the span of the supply chain involved in their integration efforts. Findings Firms with a broad span of integration have a greater focus on alignment with suppliers and customers, and have more of a supply chain focus than those with a narrow span. They also demonstrate higher levels of performance attributable to supply chain relationships. Practical implications Results highlight the importance to supply chain professionals of taking a broad view of the supply chain rather than focusing only on first tier suppliers and customers. They also suggest the importance of exploring opportunities to facilitate broader participation in supply chain integration efforts. Originality/value Past research has identified the importance of supply chain integration without addressing the importance of how much of the supply chain should be involved in such efforts. This study provides empirical support for the need to involve partners across the supply chain

Just in Time, Quality Management, Supply Chain Management, and Business Performance: A Structural Analysis

Just in time, quality management, and supply chain management are three philosophies firms have used to respond to competitive forces and enhance business performance. They are also complementary strategies that can be used as part of an integrated strategy to streamline material flows, reduce waste, and improve product quality, while satisfying market demands for shorter lead times, increased responsiveness, and lower cost. This study proposes and tests a structural equation model that relates just in time, quality management and supply chain management practices with a firm’s supplier management practices and identifies their relationships with business performance. Results indicate that while just in time, supply chain management, and quality management strategies are mutually supportive, quality management alone has a direct impact on business performance

Supply Chain Management: Supplier Performance and Firm Performance

This research examines the relationship between supply chain management (SCM) practices, supplier performance, and company performance. The results provide empirical evidence that selected purchasing practices and customer relation practices are strongly ssociated with the perceived financial and market success of firms responding to the survey

Cultivating Systemic Thinking in the Next Generation of Business Leaders

In response to criticism that they do not train students to be effective decision makers, many business schools have attempted to modify their graduate management programs. We suggest that a primary ingredient missing from these attempts is a comprehensive treatment of systemic thinking. While most business functions teach about the systems housed within them, we suggest that few teach their students to think systemically. We propose a 3-part description of systemic thinking and provide results of a survey that investigates the claim that students are not being taught to think systemically

More Than 100 Students Travel to Six Countries on Global Learning Experiences in Spring 2013

What do the Brazilian aircraft maker Embraer, Nike, the Reserve Bank of India (India’s ‘Fed’), and Toyota have in common?https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/huntsman_news/1102/thumbnail.jp

Attitudes of U.S. and European Managers to Supplier Selection and Assessment and Implications for Business Performance

As competition motivates firms to exploit their core competencies, outsourcing takes on greater significance. Increased reliance on supplier capabilities and technologies, however, increases the impact that supplier selection and assessment can have on the buying firm and in particular, its performance. While prior studies of supply management provide considerable evidence of the criteria used by firms to select and assess suppliers, they provide little insight into the relationships between selection and assessment and the buying firm\u27s performance. This research describes an empirical study of attitudes towards supplier selection and assessment of American and European companies and their impact on business performance. Results illustrate that while both American and European managers consider objective selection and assessment criteria such as cost and price to be more important than subjective criteria such as supplier commitment, it is the more subjective criteria that have a greater impact on firm performance. Moreover, while for American companies there are strong relationships between attitudes towards supply management and performance, similar relationships do not appear to hold for European companies

The Impact of Family Based Scheduling on Transfer Batches in a Job Shop Manufacturing Cell

Past research has shown that the performance of manufacturing cells can be improved if family orientated scheduling heuristics are used, or if jobs are split into smaller transfer batches for processing and material handling purposes. The research has also shown that large amounts of lot splitting results in increased setup frequency due to the reduction in transfer batch size. This can offset any gains in performance. This study examines the combined effect of lot splitting in a manufacturing cell that utilizes family-based scheduling heuristics. The results show that family-based scheduling is an effective means of reducing the negative impact of lot splitting on flow time. Lot splitting, however, has little benefit for due date performance even when scheduling rules that reduce setup frequency are used