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Behavioral operations management is a new and growing research field incorporating behavioral aspects of decision making into operations management models, challenging the assumption of fully rational decision makers. Behavioral aspects include risk-aversion, mental accounting, reference points, or bounded rationality. In this book the author presents experimental and empirical studies that address behavioral decision making in the supply chain contracting context. First, different behavioral aspects are incorporated in the decision making process of a buyback and a revenue sharing contract. Second, an empirical decision maker is analyzed facing a service level contract. Potential readership includes scholars and graduate students who are interested in the field of behavioral operations management and practitioners looking for behavioral aspects of decision making in supply chain contracting context.
During the last decades, freight transportation experienced a worldwide boom. At the same time, competition increased considerably, such that efficient cost structures are indispensable for any market player. One of the main challenges a transportation company faces is the efficient employment of its personnel in operations, commonly referred to as crew scheduling. In this book the author presents solution approaches to large-scale crew scheduling. Firstly, the implementation of state-of-the-art operations research methods for a setting at a major European freight railway carrier is presented. Secondly, the author discusses acceleration techniques that make the developed algorithms applicable even in short-term contexts. While the analysis is based on European freight railway settings, the gained insights also apply to other (crew) scheduling contexts. Potential readership includes scholars and graduate students who are interested in the fields of crew scheduling and column generation as well as practitioners from transportation companies looking for new planning approaches.
In recent years, the design of contracts in supply chains has received significant attention from researchers and practitioners. Companies try to improve their profits by designing efficient contracts that ensure a high availability of the product at a low cost. In this book the author presents a quantitative approach for designing optimal supply chain contracts. Firstly, service level contracts, which are frequently used between a supplier and a manufacturer, are analyzed. For this contract type, optimal contract parameter combinations are identified that lead to a coordinated supply chain. Secondly, an optimal contract selection strategy is developed for a supply chain where a manufacturer can choose among multiple potential buyers. Potential readership includes scholars of supply chain management and management science, graduate students interested in these areas as well as interested practitioners involved in negotiating contracts.
World-wide trends such as globalization, demographic shifts, increased customer demands, and shorter product lifecycles present a significant challenge to the road freight transport industry: meeting the growing road freight transport demand economically while striving for sustainability. Artificial intelligence, particularly machine learning, is expected to empower transport planners to incorporate more information and react quicker to the fast-changing decision environment. Hence, using machine learning can lead to more efficient and effective transport planning. However, despite the promising prospects of machine learning in road freight transport planning, both academia and industry struggle to identify and implement suitable use cases to gain a competitive edge. In her dissertation, Sandra Lechtenberg explores how machine learning can enhance decision-making in operational and real-time road freight transport planning. She outlines an implementation guideline, which involves identifying decision tasks in planning processes, assessing their suitability for machine learning, and proposing steps to follow when implementing respective algorithms.
Non-profit-maximizing behavior in supply chain management focuses on the human component in supply chain management. It develops behavioral models that consider individual and social preferences of supply chain members in order to improve our understanding of actual decision-making in supply chain management. The author challenges the common assumption of a selfish homo economicus and introduces the human component in three experimental studies: In the first study, he examines the effect of individual risk preferences in the Newsvendor context. In the second study, a common group identity to overcome incentive conflicts in forecast sharing is studied. The third study explores underlying cognitive processes in contractual decision-making. Potential readership includes scholars and graduate students who are interested in the field of behavioral operations management and practitioners looking for behavioral aspects of decision making in supply chain management.
Named one of the best strategy books of 2021 by strategy+business Get to better, more effective strategy. In nearly every business segment and corner of the world economy, the most successful companies dramatically outperform their rivals. What is their secret? In Better, Simpler Strategy, Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee shows how these companies achieve more by doing less. At a time when rapid technological change and global competition conspire to upend traditional ways of doing business, these companies pursue radically simplified strategies. At a time when many managers struggle not to drown in vast seas of projects and initiatives, these businesses follow simple r...
Supply chain security encompasses measures preventing theft, smuggling, and sabotage through heightened awareness, enhanced visibility, and increased transparency. This necessitates the adoption of a security-by-design paradigm to achieve effective and efficient security measures, yielding additional benefits such as diminished supply chain costs. Given their vulnerability, transportation and logistics service providers play a pivotal role in supply chain security. This thesis leverages systems security engineering and security-by-design to provide a methodology for designing and evaluating security measures for physical transport goods. It formulates nine principles that define security-by-design and establishes a supply chain security framework. An adaptation of the TOGAF architecture development facilitates the creation of secure-by-design enterprise architectures. Security measures are documented using security-enhanced processes based on BPMN. This enables an analysis and compliance assessment to ascertain the alignment of security with business objectives and the adequate implementation of requirements. The culmination of these efforts is exemplified through a case study.
The last decades have seen an increasing diversity of customer expectations and growing competitive pressure for a wide variety of industries. Customer segmentation and subsequent inventory rationing provide a way to cope with those customer demands while maintaining a competitive offer. The general idea resembles the yield management practised in the airline or hotel industries: Demand fulfilment for low priority customers might be refused or delayed in order to reserve stock for more important clients. This dissertation thesis from Karin Möllering provides a comprehensive introduction to inventory rationing. It gives an overview of the different approaches studied and identifies state-of-the-art rules. In a second step, the book particularly focuses on an easy-to-implement but highly efficient rationing strategy. For this strategy, a mathematical model is developed that allows for optimization under different objectives. Potential readership includes scholars of inventory control and management science, students interested in these areas as well as practitioners involved in formulating and implementing rationing strategies.