In this paper, a case study conducted on a small third-party logistics (3PL) company in Hong Kong is presented. This company is interesting in that it has been designated as the "king" of Hong Kong's ...3PL (in-bound) logistics companies. The company has been successful in its overall business performance and in satisfying customers. This company's strategic alliances with both clients and customers have helped to improve the utilization of its resources, such as warehouse space and transportation fleets. Also, the company is in the process of expanding its operations across greater China, with the objective of becoming a full-pledged 3PL company. The analysis of this case focuses on the critical success factors (strategies and technologies) that have allowed a small company started only in 1996 to become so successful in its operations. Also, a framework has been provided for the company to develop its logistics operations as a full-pledged 3PL company.
The consignment stock (CS) is an innovative approach to manage inventories in which the vendor removes his inventory and maintains a stock of materials at the buyer's plant. The aim of this paper is ...to promote a successful application and comprehension of the CS policy both in literature and practice. In this paper, we deal with a multi-echelon inventory system in which one vendor supplies an item to multiple buyers. The study develops a single-vendor and multi-buyer consignment stock inventory model in which many clients can establish a CS policy with the same vendor. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the real economical and logistic benefits from the point of view of both the partners and the whole supply chain, following the adoption of a CS policy. We determine the maximum and minimum inventory stock levels to store in the buyers' plant warehouse and the optimal quantity delivered from the vendor to each buyer in order to minimise total supply chain costs. Space constraints in clients' plant warehouse, stock-out risk due to the variability of consumption and obsolescence risk for the materials stored are also considered.
Agile manufacturing, a recently popularised concept, has been advocated as the 21st century manufacturing paradigm. It is seen as the winning strategy to be adopted by manufacturers bracing ...themselves for dramatic performance enhancements to become national and international leaders in an increasingly competitive market of fast changing customer requirements. This paper identifies the drivers of agility and discusses the portfolio of competitive advantages that have emerged over time as a result of the changing requirements of manufacturing. The need to achieve the competitive advantages of manufacturing in synergy and without trade-offs is fundamental to the agile paradigm. To further the understanding of agility, this paper reviews the meaning of agility from different perspectives and suggests a comprehensive definition which can be adopted as a working definition by practitioners. Four underlining concepts of agility has emerged from the working definition and the paper presents a representation of these concepts and their interactions. Finally, the paper highlights some of the key enablers of agility and identifies potential future research directions.
The bullwhip effect represents the information distortion in customer demand between orders to supplier and sales to the buyer. Demand forecasting is one of the main causes of the bullwhip effect. ...The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of exponential smoothing forecasts on the bullwhip effect for electronic supply chain management (E-SCM) applications. A simulation model is developed to experiment the different scenarios of selecting right parameters for the exponential smoothing forecasting technique. It is found that longer lead times and poor selection of forecasting model parameters lead to strong bullwhip effect in E-SCM. In contrast, increased seasonality helps to reduce the bullwhip effect. The most significant managerial implication of this study lies in the need to reduce lead times along the E-supply chain to mitigate the bullwhip effect. While high seasonality would reduce the forecast accuracy, it has a positive influence on the reduction of bullwhip effect. E-SCM managers are therefore strongly suggested to utilize exponential smoothing by selecting lower values for
α and
β and a mid-value for
γ to keep the bullwhip ratio low, while at the same time to increase forecast accuracy.
This research aims to investigate the current status and future direction of the use of information systems for logistics and supply chain management (LSCM) in South East Europe. The objectives are ...threefold: (1) to identify major challenges and developments on the use of information systems for LSCM by enterprises, (2) to examine the actual level of satisfaction of current policy on LSCM, and (3) to reveal the actual need of enterprises in South East Europe on effective use of information systems for LSCM. Mixed methodology of literature review and questionnaire survey is adopted in this research. Data collected from 79 enterprises are analysed using descriptive analysis in SPSS. The findings suggest that enterprises in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Romania, and Serbia and Montenegro, face similar challenges but all are in different stages of developments of LSCM. Their use of information systems explains their heavy focus on supply chain partnership and weakness in demand chain partnership. Major findings suggest that companies and governments alike in that region do not seem to be ready for playing a significant and demanding role in global supply chains. Current deficiencies, including limited abilities in building valuable forward relations, weak strategic planning and organisation, and infrastructural problems, are major obstacles for fast development in LSCM. At the same time though, traces of changing mentalities do exist, setting the ground for improved performance and ultimately for a better position in global business.
Business process design and business process reengineering (BPR) depend crucially on linking production procedures and organizational services to business goals and objectives. There is currently ...very little formula support for this kind of reasoning as analytical tasks are usually carried out informally and individual design decisions are hard to relate to business objectives. If BPR is carried out without understanding the way it is done, then the most likely outcome would be continuing less-than-satisfactory current practice and automating outdated processes. This kind of practice misses opportunities for innovation and rationalization. The modelling and analysis of business processes along with business strategies and organizational structures are essential to study the implications of BPR. In this paper, an attempt has been made to study the modelling, analysis and tools/techniques used for modelling of BPR with the help of a survey on the recently (1993-2000) employed methods and tools used for BPR modelling and analysis. A framework for modelling and analysis, and guidelines for the selection of tools/techniques of business process reengineering are presented.
Evaluate the effect of Hepatitis B vaccine (HepB) on C-reactive protein (CRP) levels in healthy term infants.
A prospective controlled study in an academic medical center serving an inner city ...community. Subjects were singleton, term and late pre-term infants delivered vaginally with normal physical examination and without risk factors for or signs of sepsis. CRP levels were measured in cord blood and at the time of newborn genetic screening. The early HepB group received HepB within a few hours after birth. The late HepB group had HepB delayed until after the repeat CRP.
One hundred and eighty-two infants were enrolled (94 early HepB, 88 late HepB) with similar demographic features in each group. Neither the mean cord CRP (early HepB, 0.24±0.23 vs late HepB, 0.30±0.68 mg l(-1), P=0.37) nor the median of the repeat CRP (early HepB, 2.6 (interquartile range, 1.18 to 7.03) vs late HepB, 1.7 (interquartile range, 0.73 to 5.8) mg l(-1), P=0.14) showed significant differences between the two groups.
HepB does not affect CRP levels in healthy term infants.
Considering the contribution of small and medium enterprises to the national economic development, employment opportunities generation and total manufacturing output, their role cannot be ...overemphasized. SMEs have more ability to innovate and flexibility as compared to large organizations irrespective of their size as well as organizational structure. Therefore, it is important to improve their competitiveness and performance. This may be done by the implementation of computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM), because it plays a vital role in SMEs from all aspects of competitiveness both in terms of products and production techniques. An effort has been made in this paper to develop a model by considering four parameters such as top-management support and strategic alliance, business structure, structural attributes and integration of systems. Furthermore, multiple case studies have been conducted in British SMEs to explore the potential of CIM with the help of the proposed model. The result shows that there is lack of long-term strategic vision of the top management in HHW company. Whereas, a survey of SMEs have pointed out increase in reliability of delivery date, throughput/production volume, level of product customisation, reduction in manufacturing costs, WIP inventory and improvement in the image of the companies with the implementation of CIM.
(ERP) II is a way of managing information and designing work processes to facilitate all of this. In sounding as profound as the concept does, it also raises a number of questions. This research ...seeks to establish a set of clear business benefits and impediments, hindrances to success. It initially builds this set through an extension of pertinent literature on ERP (as ERP is retained at the heart of ERP II) and through logical deduction (cause and effect) of the current (anecdotal) literature on ERP II. It then tests these sets, through an online survey, with select industry experts on ERP who are anticipated to be amongst the first to move to ERP II. The survey also gives these respondents an opportunity to add their ‘free’ thoughts to construct the ERP II involvement further. Part of this research also deals in formalising the collaborative structures suitable for ERP II. The research finds that most existing benefits/impediments of ERP can still be carried forward besides ‘new’ ones built through logical deduction. The research further finds a number of future research objectives that spawn from the respondents’ concerns. Finally, it identifies three collaborative structures suitable to aid information exchange in a real-time collaborative scenario, namely joint ventures, networks and Japanese-style ‘purchasing partnership’.
Background: The objective of this study was to record the PEFR values in children aged between 6 to 14 years.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among 1205 children aged 6 to 14 years in ...department of paediatrics at a medical college hospital. In a pre-structured questionnaire, the age, sex and PEFR values were recorded. PEFR was considered as primary outcome variable. SPSS version 20 was used for data analysis.Results: Total of 1205 children, 51% were boys and 49% were girls. Ninety children of age 6 years ranged between 60 to 200 with 111.1±29.4 and 7 years ranging from 70 to 210 with 136.3±30.5. One hundred and five of age 8 years had 156.9±33.3 ranging from 90 to 230 and 126 of age 10 years with 195.7±38.8 ranging from 110 to 290. Mean PEFR for boys increased with their age and was greater than girls.Conclusions: The overall mean PEFR values for the age group 6 to 14 years was 225±90.07 l/min. Boys have higher PEFR value than girls of the same age group. Hence, PEFR values in this study can be used clinically as reference value for children aged 6 to 14 years.
PDF
