The primary objective of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is to help integrate an organization's business operations and processes effectively and efficiently. Not all firms have been successful in their ERP implementations and to that end research has helped to identify many factors...

Centralisation and decentralisation of the US economy is examined. How the organisational structures are changing, and why these changes are coming about, reasons such as technology changes in computers and communications, to the move from an agricultural to an industrial to a more service...

For the plant manager there are many suggested remedies for increased plant productivity. Detailed survey data from 555 factories, principally in the US, Europe and Korea, are used to examine the factors that contribute to productivity. Regression analysis is employed with five distinct measures...

In this article a case study is reported which deals with identifying the sources of downtime, and a procedure which could help management to predict whether the daily production standards in auto assembly‐line operations could be met given the intensity of sources of downtime. This study was...

In this article the properties of relational database management systems (DBMSs) are discussed. It is shown how they can be used as an effective tool for performing the function of primary‐key‐coding schemes for classifying product families in the application of group technology. The...

Champion Irrigation Products is a company which has started to employ the principles of Cellular Manufacturing in its operations. Undertakes the task of examining the applicability of Cellular Manufacturing at the company by using several methods for cell formation. Describes the design and...

Decentralization of mental health services delivery through the implementation of community‐based mental health centres has greatly increased the complexity in the administration of US mental health programmes. Decision makers have to allocate limited resources between traditional hospital...

The management in non‐profit humanitarian organizations is often preoccupied with its welfare objectives and ignores the operations efficiency and operating cost controls. Proposes an operations‐planning and control framework for small non‐profit humanitarian organizations. The proposed...

Describes the results of a survey returned by 97 purchasing managers who were asked to assess current patterns of global sourcing as practised by North American firms. Some of the issues examined include primary sourcing allocations, supplier evaluation criteria, operational performance measures...

Introduces the concept of a manufacturing strategy based on a service orientation. Traditional manufacturing strategies have often been driven by cost minimization decisions and have encouraged the over‐reliance by managers on inventories to satisfy demand. In today′s business environment, a...