This paper explores the possibility of solving supply chain capacity allocation problems using internal markets among employees of the same company. Unlike earlier forms of transfer pricing, IT now makes it easier for such markets to involve many employees, finegrained transactions, and frequently varying prices. The paper develops a formal model of such markets, proves their optimality in a baseline condition, and then analyzes various potential market problems and solutions. Interestingly, these proposed solutions are not possible in a conventional market because they rely on the firm's ability to pay market participants based on factors other than just the profitability of their market transactions. For example, internal monopolies can be ameliorated by paying internal monopolists on the basis of corporate, not individual, profits. Incentives for collusion among peers can be reduced by paying participants based on their profits relative to peers. Profit-reducing competition among different sales channels can be reduced by imposing an internal sales tax. And problems caused by fixed costs can be avoided by combining conditional internal markets with a pivot mechanism.

No description available.

No description available.

Les entreprises industrielles évoluent désormais dans un environnement de plus en plus incertain. Ces incertitudes sont liées à la fois à l'amont et à l'aval de la chaîne logistique, mais aussi à la configuration interne de la chaîne et de ses systèmes d'information ou encore à des comportements organisationnels néfastes. Cette thèse a pour objectif de comprendre comment les entreprises industrielles gèrent les incertitudes présentes dans l'environnement de leurs chaînes logistiques. Notre recherche se déroule en deux étapes : une étude préliminaire et principale. L'observation participante menée en étude préliminaire a permis de montrer qu'une entreprise réputée en management de la chaîne logistique a choisi de restructurer ses ressources afin de diminuer la vulnérabilité de sa chaîne logistique. Ainsi, l'étude principale s'articule autour de l'approche basée sur les ressources et du courant des capacités dynamiques. La revue de la littérature montre que l'agilité et la résilience sont deux capacités dynamiques du management de la chaîne logistique. Mobilisant la méthode des cas comme heuristique permettant d'organiser la recherche, six études de cas sont menées au sein d'entreprises industrielles de tailles hétérogènes et de secteurs d'activités variés. Une fois les données collectées et codées sous forme de codage multithématique sur le logiciel NVIVO 8, les résultats s'organisent autour du protocole de cas. Ils retracent les incertitudes rencontrées par les entreprises industrielles et s'attachent à montrer quels outils, pratiques et stratégies sont développés pour diminuer la vulnérabilité. Ces outils, pratiques et stratégies sont des construits des capacités dynamiques et permettent d'identifier si les entreprises font preuves d'agilité et de résilience. Puis, les résultats montrent les difficultés au développement des capacités dynamiques et l'analyse identifie le manque de connaissance en management de la chaîne logistique comme barrière principale. La discussion de la thèse s'oriente autour de la connaissance comme réponse à l'incertitude. La thèse met en avant un décalage entre des connaissances académiques avancées en management de la chaîne logistique et des connaissances plus restreintes en entreprises. La littérature académique s'intéresse principalement aux entreprises matures en management de la chaîne logistique. Cependant, elles ne sont pas représentatives des autres entreprises industrielles. En s'intéressant au lien entre recherche, enseignement et pratique, il est possible d'identifier que le manque de connaissance en management de la chaîne logistique laisse un espace à la création d'effets de mode à la fois dans le monde de la pratique et de la recherche. Finalement, la thèse met en avant les conditions d'émergence de formes d'isomorphisme institutionnel dans les institutions universitaires, engendrant des effets de mode dans les travaux académiques, le tout n'ayant qu'un lien relatif avec la réalité empirique. / Industrial companies evolve from now on in a more and more uncertain environment. These uncertainties are linked to upstream and downstream the supply chain, but are also linked to the internal configuration of the supply chain and its information systems, or even linked to possible fatal organizational behavior. This thesis has for objective to understand how industrial companies manage their supply chains environmental uncertainties. The research takes place in two stages: a preliminary and main study. The participating observation led during the preliminary study showed that a company, famous in supply chain management, chose to restructure its resources in order to decrease the vulnerability of its supply chain. So, the main study is built around the Resource-based view based and around the dynamic capacities. The literature review shows that agility and resilience are two dynamic capacities of supply chain management. Using the case-study method as an heuristics allowing to organize the research, six case studies are conducted within industrial companies of heterogeneous sizes and varied business sectors. Once the data were collected and coded in the form of multithematic coding on the software NVIVO 8, the results get organized according to the case study protocol. They redraw the uncertainties met by industrial companies and attempt to show which tools, practices and strategies are developed to decrease the vulnerability. These tools, practices and strategies are some constructs of the dynamic capacities and allow identifying if companies show agility and resilience capabilities. Then, the results show the difficulties in the development of the dynamic capacities and the analysis identifies the lack of knowledge in supply chain management as the main barrier. The discussion of the thesis turns around knowledge as the answer to uncertainty. The thesis identifies a gap between strong academic knowledge in supply chain management and a more restricted knowledge in companies. The academic literature is mainly presenting the supply chain management held in mature companies. However, they do not represent other industrial companies. Focusing on the link between research, education and practice, it is possible to identify that a lack of knowledge in supply chain management leaves some room for the creation of latest fads in the world of practice and research. Finally, the thesis shows the emergence conditions for several forms of institutional isomorphism in the university institutions, engendering latest fads in the academic works, having only a relative link with the empirical reality.

No description available.

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Brian C. Briggeman / Garden City Co-op, Inc. is a farm cooperative in Southwest Kansas. It provides marketing and storage of grain, fertilizer, crop protection products, seed, and petroleum to both member and non-member accounts. The cooperative also operates a transportation company called Western Transport. Western Transport provides transportation of anhydrous ammonia (NH3), liquid fertilizer (32-0-0 or 10-34-0), diesel, gasoline, and propane utilizing semi-tractors and trailers to Garden City Co-op, Inc. as well as to other agribusinesses in the region. The purpose of this thesis is to integrate and optimize the supply chain strategies for the cooperative’s fertilizer and petroleum products as it relates to storage and transportation of those commodities. Utilizing the framework of an aggregate production plan, a model is constructed to minimize costs associated with inventory holding, net storage asset depreciation after tax savings, net transportation asset depreciation after tax savings, labor, operations, and freight. By varying the quantities of petroleum and fertilizer the cooperative purchases, sells, and stores each month over a one-year period, an optimum mix of storage and transportation assets is determined. Two different demand scenarios are evaluated that relate to demand during a drought year versus demand during a non-drought year. Also, different model scenarios include varying beginning period inventory and ending period inventory to stress transportation assets versus storage assets. The model is optimized using a genetic algorithm solver in the software program Evolver produced by Palisade Corporation. Results of the optimization provided two feasible strategies for the cooperative. By continuing services to non-member accounts, there was a greater investment placed on transportation. Investments included additional trucks, NH3 trailers, petroleum trailers, and drivers. The strategy favored a just-in-time inventory approach versus inventory smoothing with storage. When discontinuing services to non-member accounts, investment between storage and transportation assets were relatively equal. The model favored a reduction in NH3 trailers, liquid fertilizer trailers, trucks, and drivers. However, additional storage was necessary as well as petroleum trailers. The scenario favored an inventory smoothing approach across the model year.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:23:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-02-23Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:49:51Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 rissi_nmn_me_botfm.pdf: 2074655 bytes, checksum: c2de28eb7106d02424aba876e6895b5a (MD5) / Fundação Amaral Carvalho / Na assistência ao paciente, a qualidade dos medicamentos é fundamental para que a farmacoterapia atinja o objetivo esperado. A preservação da qualidade do medicamento deve ser garantida desde sua fabricação até dispensação ao paciente. A Central de Abastecimento Farmacêutico é uma unidade de assistência farmacêutica que realiza várias atividades como: recebimento, estocagem e distribuição dos medicamentos na instituição hospitalar. A gestão de desvios técnicos no recebimento de medicamentos é um instrumento para prevenção de falhas no recebimento e distribuição de medicamentos, sendo um elo importante para que o hospital alcance seu propósito final de proporcionar um atendimento de qualidade, uma vez que tais desvios, quando não identificados, podem atingir diretamente o paciente ou inviabilizar a sua assistência. O objetivo desse estudo foi identificar e avaliar os desvios técnicos no recebimento de medicamentos na Central de Abastecimento Farmacêutico (CAF) do Hospital Amaral Carvalho de Jaú, como forma de estabelecer ações preventivas e/ou corretivas para os desvios técnicos observados. A pesquisa foi realizada no período de Julho de 2009 a Julho de 2010, após aprovação pelo Comitê de Ética em Pesquisa da instituição. Os resultados obtidos mostraram uma média mensal de 10,19% de desvios técnicos no recebimento de medicamentos, sendo que dos desvios analisados os mais frequentes foram: prazo de validade abaixo do estabelecido (47,80%); divergência de lote e validade entre nota fiscal e produto (35,82%); medicamento divergente com as especificações solicitadas (10,30%). Como sugestão para minimizar os desvios técnicos no recebimento de medicamentos foi elaborada uma proposta para qualificação dos fornecedores de medicamentos da instituição / In Patient’s assistance, the quality of the medication is fundamental for pharmacotherapy to reach the expected objective. The quality preservation of the medication must be guaranteed from manufacture to dispensing to the patient. The Central Pharmacy Supply is a pharmaceutical assistance unit that performs several activities such: receiving, storage and distribution of the medication in the hospital Institution. The Management of Technical Deviations on Receiving Medicines is an instrument for preventing failures on the receiving and distribution of the medicine, being an important bond for the hospital to achieve its final proposal of providing a quality care, since such deviations, when unidentified, can directly reach the patient or even derail his assistance. The object of that study was to identify and evaluate the technical deviations on receiving medicine in the Central Pharmacy Supply of Hospital Amaral Carvalho from Jaú, as a way to establish preventing actions and/or corrections for the observed technical deviations. The research was done from July 2009 to July 2010, after approval of the Research Ethics Committee of the Institution. The obtained results showed a monthly average of 10,19% of technical deviations on receiving medicine, and the most frequent analyzed deviations were: expiration date under the established (47,8%); divergence between batch and expiry date of invoice and product (35,82%); divergent medication with the required specifications (10,30%). As a suggestion to minimize the technical deviations on receiving medicines it was prepared a proposal for qualifying the Institution’s medicine suppliers

The service industry worldwide continues to face unprecedented challenges in decision-making and in managing the operations involved in delivering products at low cost and ever-faster delivery speeds. These pressures exert an even greater impact upon small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) involved in this industry who, influenced by globalisation, have to respond by handling the dynamic complexity within their operational supply chain. Many larger firms have implemented Lean and Six Sigma (LSS) and end-to-end integrated real-time information systems (RTI) that provide the information and the mechanisms needed to support flexibility and prompt decision-making. The recent emergence of new technologies such as multi-agent systems (MAS) provides enhanced capability to address complexity and decision-making with greater ease of use at a reduced cost. Whilst the application of Lean and Six Sigma are supported by significant published research, the application of integrated LSS and MAS in food distribution, especially in SMEs, is not. This study seeks to provide research to address this shortcoming for SMEs within the food distribution sector within Saudi Arabia, how this integrated approach can offer considerable performance improvement in SMEs and provide a base for further contributions in this field. This research undertook an empirical case study in Saudi Arabia to test the application of LSS in a food distribution SME. This approach demonstrated a significant improvement in the Six Sigma for late delivery. A single-stage MAS application extended this improvement, demonstrating that there is value in its application. The study conducted a survey of 39 firms in this sector to gain an insight into their current practices and challenges. The findings indicated there was a lack of Lean and Six Sigma principles adopted and that a lack of use of interconnected real-time systems to support decision-making and complex operational SCs. These findings identified the opportunity to design a conceptual framework with a stepped approach that integrated LSS with MAS, which was then developed on a Java-Assisted DEvelopment Framework (JADE) platform and tested using real-world data in an SME empirical case study. The results of the sequence of applications and the final simulations proved that this integrated Lean multi-agent system (LMAS) solution offered such substantial improvements in quality, time and costs that the SME considered that those factors justified making its implementation a priority.

M.Ing.

M.Tech. / The Water Services Authorities in South africa are currently responsible for the management and operation of rural water supply in the country.Many of these comunity water supply schemes are in poor conditions due to lack of proper operation, maintenance, poor design and/or poor construction with the result that they experience serious water losses through physical losses(leakage)and apparent losses, and often fail to meet the consumer's demand during peak periods.Indications are that substantial quantities of water are lost in the systems due to leakage, wasteful use, illegal connections and meter errors. As a result of these problems, the levels of service delivery are often very poor leading to low cost recovery resulting in water services institutions becoming ineffective and inefficient businesses. The investigation attempted to identify effective techniques and/or strategies for water loss reduction in Dinokana Village (Central District Municipality). The study identified and defined various procedures/methodologies for managing Non Revenue Water in community water supply schemes. Some of the strategies developed from the findings of this research have been implemented with a view of quantitatively verifying their effectiveness.