Time as a source for competitive advantage has been widely acknowledged, yet the motor industry struggles to provide quick response to customer demand. Current new vehicle supply is still based on large inventory in the market-place, and customers are left with the choice of either taking a...

Purpose: This paper contributes to the understanding of the context of major projects and their management from an Operations and Supply Chain Management (OSCM) perspective; we provide a foundation for exploring how the body of work on lean thinking (our ‘old’ theory) can contribute to the...

Direct digital manufacturing, or ‘3D printing’ as it is more commonly known, offers a wealth of opportunities for product and process innovation, and is often touted to ‘revolutionize’ today’s manufacturing operations and its associated supply chains structures. Despite a growing...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an update to the Supply Chain Volatility Index (SCVI), and expand on prior work by presenting a conceptual framework illustrating how firms can deal with persistent volatility, the ensuing risk and mitigate the cost implications for their supply...

Process improvement methods –such as Lean, Six Sigma and Agile– have been widely studied, and we know what tools work, and where. Yet our longitudinal study of 204 improvement projects shows that one year into a successful implementation about half of all projects backslide. After two years,...

Hospitals increasingly adopt standardized policies as a way to improve the efficiency of healthcare delivery. One key policy has been to reduce a patient's length of stay, which is commonly perceived as an effective means of improving patient outcome, as well as reducing the cost per procedure....