A major US bank has determined that none of its customers should have to wait more than three minutes for service. Presents a procedure that helps management allocate tellers to prevent any customer waiting time from exceeding the three‐minute limit. Uses X¯ and s charts to monitor the...

The drum‐buffer‐rope/buffer management approach radically changes the content of production management practice, research and pedagogy. Documents the major impacts that drum‐buffer‐rope has on production management study and practice. In summary it provides a framework which distils the...

Direct product profitability (DPP) is a performance measure that was designed to show each SKU′s contribution to profit. Used by food retailers to assist with shelf‐space allocation and pricing decisions, DPP has been adopted only very slowly since it was first implemented in 1979. Operators...

Supply chain disruptions significantly impact businesses worldwide. Many organizations work towards improving flexibility so as to prepare for such disruptions and maintain competitive advantage. This research effort examines four activities that are associated with the contingency planning...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess and document the progress of postponement research, identify current gaps, and provide direction for future research efforts. Design/methodology/approach – Postponement literature published from 1999 to 2006 was reviewed. Findings – The...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide rankings of quality of peer reviewed periodicals for faculty research use, rankings of usefuless of both peer reviewed and non‐peer reviewed periodicals for teaching and outreach purposes, and rankings of usefulness of search engines for...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of a strategic approach (contingency planning) to minimize risk exposure to a supply chain disruption. Specifically, the relationship between several attributes of a contingency planning process and flexibility are examined....

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to identify the critical components of the reverse logistics (RL) disposition decision‐making process and suggest a decision framework that may guide future investigation and practice. Design/methodology/approach – The authors utilized a...

One useful way to determine how a proposed system change will influence profit performance and return on assets is by using the Strategic Profit Model (SPM). The SPM demonstrates that Return on Net Worth (RONW) is a function of three factors management can control: net profit, asset turnover and...

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to track the evolution of logistics research with a focus on the methods and orientation of the research from the past to the present. Specifically, this paper investigates the evolution of logistics research methodologies in an attempt to address...