Tag: management

Research published by Olin faculty in the area of supply chain management is ranked #24 worldwide in the annual ranking published by The SCM Journal List^TM. The ranking is based on output in the leading supply chain management journals that are primarily analytically-focused including: Management Science, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, Operations Research, and Production and Operations Management. Each year’s ranking is based on the research published in these journals during the prior five years.

In congratulating members of the Operations & Manufacturing Management (OMM) faculty on their prolific and high quality publications in top journals, Todd Milbourn, Vice Dean and Moog Professor of Finance, said, “Keep in mind that our faculty is smaller than many of the schools in this ranking, and some of the supply chain management research in these journals comes from engineering schools. The competition is stiff and Olin should be proud of this recognition of our excellent output in this field.”

Milbourn also pointed out that if the ranking were limited to purely OMM focused journals such as Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, and Production and Operations Management, Olin would be ranked #10 rather consistently over the years.

Operations and Manufacturing Management faculty:
Sergio Chayet | Kaitlin Daniels | Lingxiu Dong | Amr Farahat | Jake Feldman | Panos Kouvelis | Iva Rashkova | Danko Turcic | Dennis Zhang | Fuqiang Zhang

Operational risk can have a crippling effect on a company if not managed properly. This is especially true in the financial services industry. Banks and investment firms must pay close attention to variables that have the potential to impact their operations, not only from the breakdown of technology and processes, but also from a personnel perspective. The responsibility of managing one’s money is great, and the inability to properly anticipate and manage potential risk factors can have a devastating effect, all the way up to the industry level. A case in point was the subprime mortgage crisis of the late 2000s, which led to a nationwide economic recession.

Mike Pinedo, the Julius Schlesinger Professor of Operations Management at New York University’s Stern School of Business, is an expert in risk management research, particularly in the context of the financial services industry. In his presentation at The Boeing Center’s 13th annual Meir Rosenblatt Memorial Lecture, he described the main types of primary risks in a financial services company: market risk, credit risk, and operational risk. Ops risk, which is the risk of a loss resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes, people, or external events, may be the most important factor, he claimed.

Pinedo goes on to describe various types of operational costs such as human resources, I.T. investments, and insurance costs, and how they impact corporate risk management. For example, rogue traders can pose a risk if they make inadvisable decisions, so some investment firms choose to take out insurance against that possibility. Other types of ops risk include transaction errors, loss of or damage to assets, theft, and fraud, all of which can pose a catastrophic risk at the industry level. Pinedo adeptly inserted anecdotes into his lecture to provide examples of these risk factors playing out in the real world.

The annual Meir J. Rosenblatt Memorial Lecture brings the “rock stars” of supply chain and operations to the Danforth Campus every fall. Each lecture gives prominent thinkers and practitioners alike the opportunity to hear an expert in the field highlight emerging trends.

This lecture series was established in 2003 to honor the memory of Meir J. Rosenblatt, who taught from 1987 to 2001 at Olin Business School as the Myron Northrop Distinguished Professor of Operations and Manufacturing Management. A leader among faculty, Rosenblatt often won the Teacher of the Year award at Olin and authored the book “Five Times and Still Kicking: A Life with Cancer,” having battled cancer multiple times throughout his life.

For more supply chain digital content and cutting-edge research, check us out on the socials [@theboeingcenter] and our website [olin.wustl.edu/bcsci]

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A Boeing Center digital production

Supply Chain  //  Operational Excellence  //  Risk Management

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Technology is changing the landscape of supply chain at a breakneck pace, and organizations that are able to stay ahead of the curve often enjoy a significant advantage over their industry competitors. Digitization, cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence are all major factors in shaping operational strategy. These manufacturing innovations have given rise to a trend dubbed Industry 4.0.

John Stroup, President and CEO of Belden Inc., paid a visit to The Boeing Center to share his wealth of knowledge, and to give a brief history of Industry 4.0, aka the Smart Factory. He explained that Industry 4.0, a term coined in Germany, is the fourth major iteration in manufacturing processes. “‘Smart Manufacturing,’ ‘Intelligent Factory,’ and ‘Factory of the Future’ all describe an intelligent, flexible, and dynamic production facility, where machinery and equipment will have the ability to improve processes through self-optimization and autonomous decision-making,” said Stroup. The major improvements from 3.0 to 4.0 are the ability to automate complex tasks (even remotely) and the access to data across the whole supply chain that allows for greater flexibility and connectivity.

Stroup went on to discuss the key characteristics of the Smart Factory and how innovations in digital technology have improved existing business models and enabled new ones. Such innovative technology allows for improved productivity, flexibility, and decision making, all of which benefit manufacturers and consumers alike.

For more supply chain digital content and cutting-edge research, check us out on the socials [@theboeingcenter] and our website [olin.wustl.edu/bcsci]

• • •

A Boeing Center digital production

Supply Chain // Operational Excellence // Risk Management

Website  • LinkedIn  • Subscribe  • Facebook  • Instagram  • Twitter  • YouTube

For Anheuser-Busch InBev, it’s difficult enough to manage the most efficient beer supply chain in the U.S. As they acquire an ever-growing number of craft breweries, the complexity of their distribution increases dramatically. But with extremely accurate production planning and time-tested transportation methods, the largest brewer in the world is able to spread the joy of delicious craft beer to the farthest corners of the earth.

Chris Pickett, Senior Director of Tier 1 Warehousing & Transportation, paid a visit to The Boeing Center to talk about his role in AB InBev’s operations. He shared insights on effectively integrating craft beers into a macro beer supply chain, as well as managing load complexity and shipment quantities across brands.

Product mix complexity is managed by AB InBev using three main strategies. First, they use rigid cycle production to maximize output for each SKU. Second, they plan pallets using optimized order quantity, which helps them to meet wholesaler demand using the fewest number of shipments. Third, they build pallets using proprietary technology in the warehouse environment, ensuring the most beneficial product stacking patterns. All of these techniques allow AB InBev to manage an efficient supply chain, while maintaining an extremely high service level for their craft beer offerings.

For more supply chain digital content and cutting-edge research, check us out on the socials [@theboeingcenter] and our website [olin.wustl.edu/bcsci]

• • •

A Boeing Center digital production

Supply Chain // Operational Excellence // Risk Management

Website  • LinkedIn  • Subscribe  • Facebook  • Instagram  • Twitter  • YouTube

The Boeing Center for Supply Chain Innovation presents…an interview with Professor Panos Kouvelis, Emerson Distinguished Professor of Operations and Manufacturing Management and Director of The Boeing Center for Supply Chain Innovation at Washington University in St. Louis, about the Global Supply Chain Benchmark Study, a collaborative research initiative of faculty at leading business schools including Olin. Below is an excerpt of the report; for the complete report, go here → http://bit.ly/GSCBS2016

BACKGROUND

“For the past 25 years manufacturing offshoring to low-cost locations like China has been the dominant strategy for many western manufacturing companies. This has led to a significant reduction of manufacturing jobs in developed economies. Recently, many manufacturers have reported they plan to bring back at least a part of their global production volume to developed countries. General Electric, for example, announced in 2012 they would relocate manufacturing and R&D of their household appliances business, which had previously been offshored to China and Mexico, to Louisville, KY in the USA.1 Similarly, Plantronics, a U.S. based manufacturer of headphones, shifted production volume back from China to Mexico.2 At the same time companies from perceived low-cost countries have reported investments in manufacturing capacity in developed economies. For instance, the Chinese company Lenovo recently brought back the production of personal computers to North America.

While there seems to be an emerging trend to reshore production, traditional offshoring to developing economies continues to be a viable phenomenon. For example, General Motors recently announced a USD 12bn investment in new plants in China.4 These examples offer just a glimpse of the magnitude of manufacturing location decisions companies are currently making in a wave of restructuring of their global supply chains.”

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

“Despite the growing attention in the business press to reports of companies relocating manufacturing to western countries, there is very little empirical research on the scale of such decisions, their drivers and their impact. Hence, in this study we investigate current trends in production sourcing. Based on a survey of 74 leading manufacturing companies predominantly from North America, Europe and Japan we shed some light on (1) what production sourcing decisions are currently being made, (2) what drives these decisions and (3) what results do they lead to.

Our research suggests that there is a significant wave of restructuring of global supply chains in progress. Companies de- and increase production volume all over the globe as shown in the overview presented in Exhibit 1. However, we did not observe a dominant strategy for sourcing production volume. Companies make different decisions for a variety of reasons. While China continues to be the most attractive country for manufacturing, many companies reported following (also) other strategies. Moreover, we see that decision making has evolved from simple cost comparisons to more complex trade-offs between a magnitude of factors that are deemed important, i.e., across quality, market access and risk. Based on these and other reported drivers we see a shift of production not only to China but also to Eastern Europe and the ASEAN countries which are being used as nearshore sources of production for Western European and Chinese markets respectively.

For North America we see evidence for a return of manufacturing. It is not a strong trend but in our sample more companies report shifting production volume to North America rather than offshoring to other countries. This pattern is not consistent with the much cited reshoring trend predicted by many business and political commentators. The movement we observed is not driven by the reshoring of American firms but rather by European and Asian firms offshoring who account for 60% of the production volume increase in North America. While this is good news for manufacturing in North America, the indicators for the future of manufacturing in Western Europe appear to be less bright. Indeed, Western Europe is one of only two regions for which our sample reports a net decrease of production volume. Companies reported offshoring for a variety of reasons including shifting to either less costly locations or to places closer to market demand.

Despite the decline in production volume in certain regions, there is no evidence for a further decline in manufacturing jobs. In fact our sample reports that for China, Western and Eastern Europe their sourcing decisions hardly impacted employment. Moreover, it was only for North America and Japan that growth of manufacturing employment is observed.

We believe the analyses and insights presented in this research not only inform but also call for action. Executives should look at their supply chains critically by challenging their current footprint and production sourcing choices. We explicitly encourage benchmarking against the companies in our sample within their industry and across industries. Insights into market expectations and the forces driving the reported production sourcing and technology decisions should stimulate a discussion about future strategic actions.

For policy makers – especially in Western (European) countries – this research provides information concerning the perceived attractiveness of regions worldwide. Reading the report will provide policy makers with data about the trends in industry and the factors that have led companies to shift production into or away from particular regions and can thus inform the debate on how manufacturing policy can boost competitiveness, attract and retain manufacturing jobs.”

For the complete report, go here → http://bit.ly/GSCBS2016