May 1, 2009 – Paul R. Kleindorfer, Paul Dubrule Professor of Sustainable Development, INSEAD, & Anheuser-Busch Professor of Management Science (Emeritus), the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Risk and Global Supply Chain Management
This presentation considers the challenges and opportunities arising from risk management for global supply chains and supply networks. A great deal has been accomplished in the past decade in this arena, much of it centered at Washington University of St. Louis, and inspired by the early work of Meir Rosenblatt on linking risk and profitability to operations.
This talk will first review some of the main pillars of risk in supply chain management. These include the fields of disruption risk management, security management and coordination risk management. For disruption and security risk management, the essential themes are operational flexibility, crisis management and enterprise-risk management systems to discover and mitigate supply chain and site-specific disruption risks. The area of supply-demand coordination risk management is in one sense very well developed in operations management and marketing. Traditionally, this was focused on product, process and operations planning with supply management and procurement. What has changed in the last decade, driven by globalization, is the growth of B2B markets and associated financial instruments that enable better price discovery and provide also the means of hedging. New markets and new forms of contracting are supporting outsourcing, unbundling, contract manufacturing and a variety of web-based instruments for contracting and hedging. In tandem, revolutionary developments in transportation and integrated logistics providers such as FedEx, UPS and DHL are providing global fulfillment architectures for B2B and B2C.
Professor Kleindorfer will note research advances in this area and use two case studies to describe how the new science of supply chain risk management is transforming traditional supply management. He will discuss the evolution of supply risk management and hedging at the Unilever Corporation, emphasizing the challenges faced for companies with global operations in using market-based instruments to support hedging of commodity risks on the supply side. Second, he will discuss the evolution of carbon markets in the European Union, associated with Kyoto Protocol, and their impact on energy intensive industries like cement and electric power. Carbon markets are beginning now play a very significant role in such industries, impacting everything from technology choice to daily operations. This presentation is intended for a general audience, but Professor Kleindorfer will not resist the temptation to note the many open research questions that are emerging and shaping business applications of supply risk management.
September 7, 2007 – Boaz Golany, The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
Evaluation, Selection and Control of Multiple R&D Projects
Motivated by the unprecedented surge in R&D activity in Israel, the authors developed new methodologies aimed at improving the evaluation and selection processes of R&D projects in multiproject organizations. First, we developed a multicriteria approach for the relative evaluation of R&D projects in different stages of their lifecycle. The approach is based on the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and its weight restrictions extensions and the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) methods. The proposed model recognizes that the information available in R&D decision-making settings is uncertain, incomplete and partially qualitative; and addresses the three common goals that organizations are trying to accomplish: Effectiveness, Efficiency and Balance (in the use of inputs and the production of outputs). Next, we developed a methodology for the construction and analysis of portfolios of R&D projects with interactions. The process, which also relies on DEA, includes a resource allocation scheme to project categories; an evaluation and screening procedure of projects based on their relative value and on the portfolio requirements; a construction of candidate portfolios; and, finally, relative evaluation of these candidate portfolios.
September 15, 2006 – Steven Nahmias, Professor of Operations and Management Information Systems, Santa Clara University
The USGA Golf Handicapping System: Is it Fair?
The system adopted by the USGA (United States Golf Association) for computing golfers’ handicaps is a fairly complex procedure based on the best 10 of the most recent 20 rounds posted. The question is if this approach results in fair matches among players of different abilities. To test the fairness of the system, we have constructed hole-by-hole distributions for five hypothetical golfers at Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course and simulated a variety of different match and metal play scenarios among them. Our results indicate that the system tends to favor better players (lower handicappers), and steadier players (those with lower variance in their scores). However, we also observed some surprising results for formats other than one-on-one match or medal play.
October 28, 2005 – Warren Hausman, Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University School of Engineering
RFID: Challenges and Opportunities in Supply Chain Management
RFID technology is now experiencing a tremendous surge of growth. Although the technology has been around for several decades, recent technological advances now enable ever-lower prices for RFID tags, readers and related information technology infrastructure. These advances now support the economic use of RFID tags in a wide variety of supply chain management settings. This talk will introduce RFID and then describe several innovative applications of the technology. We’ll also cover applications (both actual and potential) in retail operations, general inventory control and replenishment, and manufacturing and assembly environments.
September 3, 2004 – Morris Cohen, the Matsushita Professor of Manufacturing and Logistics in the Operations and Information Management Department of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
Trends and Developments of Emerging, Performance Based Supply Chain Management
The last decade has witnessed a substantial shift in emphasis on the part of many firms from a focus on the products they produce to a concentration on their customers and the value that their customers derive from ownership and use of these products. This “customer-centric” perspective is correlated with the blurring of the line between products and services. Many companies that historically have competed by positioning themselves as manufacturers of cutting edge, high-technology products have shifted their competitive strategy towards providing solutions that generate value for their customers. In fact, today, most firms would describe their output as a bundle of goods and services and are seeing significant growth in the proportion of their revenue derived from services. For example, in 2001, maintenance servicing was responsible for over $5 billion of IBM’s revenues. A recent survey by AMR, (Bijesse et al [2002]), puts this percentage at 24 percent with many traditional manufacturing firms at over 50 percent and climbing, as reported in a recent Wharton-Stanford conference on the after-sales service industry, (see http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/fd/forum/). Not surprisingly, therefore, companies are beginning to direct their focus on their service supply chains, which I define as the network of resources that include the appropriate material, people and infrastructure required to deliver customer value.
September 26, 2003 - Hau Lee, the Thoma Professor of Operations, Information and Technology at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
Supply Chain Security and Disaster Management
The threat of terrorism and the unexpected events such as the Longshoremen's strike in Los Angeles and the SARS virus in Asia recently, have increasingly exposed the vulnerability of supply chains. Disaster management – to avoid disasters from happening as well as to respond to disasters effectively – is becoming an important part of supply chain management. Interestingly, the basic supply chain concepts and practices that have been developed over the years by researchers and practitioners are exactly what we need for supply chain disaster management. In this talk, I will highlight a very current and important disaster concern – supply chain security – and show how sound supply chain principles and information technology, can help to make a big difference. Supply chain security can be achieved at lower cost, once we make use of some sound practices of traditional quality and supply chain management.