This paper constructs a model of a supply chain to examine how demand volatility is passed upstream through the chain. In particular, we seek to determine how likely it is that the chain experiences a bullwhip effect, where the variance of the upstream firms’ production exceeds the variance of...

To improve a firm's supply chain performance, it is essential to have a vendor evaluation process to be able to showcase an organization's success in the present aggressive market. Hence, the process of evaluating the vendor is a crucial task of the purchasing executives in supply chain...

Project(s) to succeed four key factors are important; they are manpower, finance, material and time. The finance is an essential component than the rest and the key role played by the finance department is critical for project completion success. The project manager ensures that the project...

This Working Paper gives insights into the concepts of productivity and efficiency. Both concepts are popular measures for evaluating productive units, either on macro or micro level. This paper provides clear definitions for both concepts and outlines key areas of interest in this context, such...

In this paper we study the problem of determining a production schedule for an order of n jobs on a single machine which is subject to stochastic machine failures. To avoid long downtime of the machine caused by unexpected failures, preventive maintenance should be planned as well. If a failure...

Who's your city? For companies in the developing world, this question determines their market sizes, access to innovative ideas, regulatory environment and proximity to innovative staff. In this brief, we identify the most attractive metropolitan areas to locate in to sell in emerging markets....

Multivariate Tobit models are estimated using German cross-sectional data to test whether strategic complementarities exist between expenditures in four different types of ICT-components. If two ICT-components are complements, they are correlated (provided that agents act rationally)....