O aumento da competitividade entre as empresas no mundo globalizado vem exigindo das mesmas uma melhoria constante das suas operações para buscar ou manter produtos e serviços de alta qualidade a baixos custos e, assim, manterem-se no mercado. Um dos pilares utilizados pelas empresas para sustentar esta melhoria constante é a filosofia de produção enxuta. Com esta filosofia, elas eliminam desperdícios e se beneficiam da redução do inventário, do lead time e custos de produção, melhoram o fluxo de trabalho e a qualidade dos produtos, entre outros. Outro pilar adotado por várias empresas é o suprimento global. As melhorias necessárias, no entanto, podem ser alcançadas com outros pilares além desses, mas que não serão abordados neste estudo. Com o suprimento global, as empresas se beneficiam de custos reduzidos na aquisição dos produtos, acesso a produtos de alta qualidade e conquista de novos mercados através da disponibilização de produtos inexistentes no mercado doméstico. Entretanto, o longo lead time de entrega dos produtos, conseqüente de vários fatores, provoca um aumento do nível de inventário, penalizando os objetivos da produção enxuta. O objetivo deste trabalho é identificar e analisar fatores críticos que tornam, até certo ponto, conflitantes a associação entre as áreas de produção enxuta e de suprimento global. Os fatores identificados na literatura foram: idioma e cultura, flutuação de câmbio, desembaraço alfandegário, complexidades legais, infraestrutura de transporte, ruptura da cadeia de suprimentos, fuso horário, serviço pós-venda, necessidade de consolidação de volumes no transporte e a relação entre fornecedor-cliente. A presença desses fatores como agentes interferentes na relação entre a produção enxuta e o suprimento global foi analisada em um estudo de caso, uma empresa do ramo da saúde. A maioria dos fatores detectados mostrou-se presente na empresa analisada sendo que desembaraço alfandegário, complexidades legais, ruptura da cadeia de suprimentos e variação cambial foram considerados os fatores de maior impacto. Este trabalho poderá contribuir fornecendo subsídios para a elaboração de propostas que amenizem os aspectos aparentemente conflitantes entre as duas áreas mencionadas e, assim, garantir os benefícios de ambas. / The increasing competitiveness in today\'s global marketplace has compelled companies to continuously improve their internal operations while offering high quality products at lower costs. Lean production has been adopted by companies as a way to boost improvement efforts. The lean philosophy aims at eliminating waste and reducing inventory, which in turn may bring about various benefits such as reduced lead time, lower production costs, better workflow and increased quality of products. Global sourcing has also emerged as another philosophy to help companies increase competitiveness. Other philosophies and practices are believed to bring companies the same benefits, but they have not been addressed in this research. Some of the benefits that may result from global sourcing are lower purchasing costs, access to higher quality products and entrance to new markets by offering new products to the domestic market. However, the long lead time required to delivery products, which may result from a variety of reasons, will cause inventory to increase, thus reducing the benefits of lean production. Hence, the objective of this work is to identify and analyze the factors that cause conflict between global sourcing and lean production. The literature points out some factors, such as language, culture, fluctuation of the exchange rate, customs paperwork, legal issues, transport infrastructure, disruptions in the supply chain, time zone, after-sales service, the need to consolidate transport volumes and the buyer-supplier relationship. The impact of these factors over global sourcing, as well as the lean production initiatives, was analyzed during a case study conducted in a firm from the health sector. Most of the aforementioned factors could be detected during the case study, whereas customs paperwork, legal issues, disruptions in the supply chain and fluctuations in the exchange rate were the ones that most affected the company. The results of this work contribute to the body of knowledge by providing evidence for the development of new approaches that seek to mitigate such factors while maintaining the benefits of both lean production and global sourcing.

The aim of this dissertation is to contribute to research on pay-as-you-go data integration through the proposal of an approach for targeted feedback collection (TFC), which aims to improve the cost-effectiveness of feedback collection, especially when there is uncertainty associated with characteristics of the integration artefacts. In particular, this dissertation focuses on the data source selection task in data integration. It is shown how the impact of uncertainty about the evaluation of the characteristics of the candidate data sources, also known as data criteria, can be reduced, in a cost-effective manner, thereby improving the solutions to the data source selection problem. This dissertation shows how alternative approaches such as active learning and simple heuristics have drawbacks that throw light into the pursuit of better solutions to the problem. This dissertation describes the resulting TFC strategy and reports on its evaluation against alternative techniques. The evaluation scenarios vary from synthetic data sources with a single criterion and reliable feedback to real data sources with multiple criteria and unreliable feedback (such as can be obtained through crowdsourcing). The results confirm that the proposed TFC approach is cost-effective and leads to improved solutions for data source selection by seeking feedback that reduces uncertainty about the data criteria of the candidate data sources.

O aumento da competitividade entre as empresas no mundo globalizado vem exigindo das mesmas uma melhoria constante das suas operações para buscar ou manter produtos e serviços de alta qualidade a baixos custos e, assim, manterem-se no mercado. Um dos pilares utilizados pelas empresas para sustentar esta melhoria constante é a filosofia de produção enxuta. Com esta filosofia, elas eliminam desperdícios e se beneficiam da redução do inventário, do lead time e custos de produção, melhoram o fluxo de trabalho e a qualidade dos produtos, entre outros. Outro pilar adotado por várias empresas é o suprimento global. As melhorias necessárias, no entanto, podem ser alcançadas com outros pilares além desses, mas que não serão abordados neste estudo. Com o suprimento global, as empresas se beneficiam de custos reduzidos na aquisição dos produtos, acesso a produtos de alta qualidade e conquista de novos mercados através da disponibilização de produtos inexistentes no mercado doméstico. Entretanto, o longo lead time de entrega dos produtos, conseqüente de vários fatores, provoca um aumento do nível de inventário, penalizando os objetivos da produção enxuta. O objetivo deste trabalho é identificar e analisar fatores críticos que tornam, até certo ponto, conflitantes a associação entre as áreas de produção enxuta e de suprimento global. Os fatores identificados na literatura foram: idioma e cultura, flutuação de câmbio, desembaraço alfandegário, complexidades legais, infraestrutura de transporte, ruptura da cadeia de suprimentos, fuso horário, serviço pós-venda, necessidade de consolidação de volumes no transporte e a relação entre fornecedor-cliente. A presença desses fatores como agentes interferentes na relação entre a produção enxuta e o suprimento global foi analisada em um estudo de caso, uma empresa do ramo da saúde. A maioria dos fatores detectados mostrou-se presente na empresa analisada sendo que desembaraço alfandegário, complexidades legais, ruptura da cadeia de suprimentos e variação cambial foram considerados os fatores de maior impacto. Este trabalho poderá contribuir fornecendo subsídios para a elaboração de propostas que amenizem os aspectos aparentemente conflitantes entre as duas áreas mencionadas e, assim, garantir os benefícios de ambas. / The increasing competitiveness in today\'s global marketplace has compelled companies to continuously improve their internal operations while offering high quality products at lower costs. Lean production has been adopted by companies as a way to boost improvement efforts. The lean philosophy aims at eliminating waste and reducing inventory, which in turn may bring about various benefits such as reduced lead time, lower production costs, better workflow and increased quality of products. Global sourcing has also emerged as another philosophy to help companies increase competitiveness. Other philosophies and practices are believed to bring companies the same benefits, but they have not been addressed in this research. Some of the benefits that may result from global sourcing are lower purchasing costs, access to higher quality products and entrance to new markets by offering new products to the domestic market. However, the long lead time required to delivery products, which may result from a variety of reasons, will cause inventory to increase, thus reducing the benefits of lean production. Hence, the objective of this work is to identify and analyze the factors that cause conflict between global sourcing and lean production. The literature points out some factors, such as language, culture, fluctuation of the exchange rate, customs paperwork, legal issues, transport infrastructure, disruptions in the supply chain, time zone, after-sales service, the need to consolidate transport volumes and the buyer-supplier relationship. The impact of these factors over global sourcing, as well as the lean production initiatives, was analyzed during a case study conducted in a firm from the health sector. Most of the aforementioned factors could be detected during the case study, whereas customs paperwork, legal issues, disruptions in the supply chain and fluctuations in the exchange rate were the ones that most affected the company. The results of this work contribute to the body of knowledge by providing evidence for the development of new approaches that seek to mitigate such factors while maintaining the benefits of both lean production and global sourcing.

Cette thèse porte sur l’optimisation de l’approvisionnement dans les zones géographiquement lointaines. Au moment de planifier des approvisionnements de matières premières ou de composants dans des pays lointains, la longue distance géographique entre l’acheteur et le fournisseur devient un enjeu essentiel à prendre en compte. Puisque le transport se fait souvent par la voie maritime, le délai d’approvisionnement est si long que les besoins peuvent évoluer pendant la longue période de livraison, ce qui peut engendrer un risque de rupture élevé. Cette thèse présente des approches adaptatives afin d’élaborer des plans d’approvisionnements lointains d’une manière rentable. Tout d’abord, nous proposons un cadre d’adaptation de la planification des approvisionnements lointains. Il déploie des techniques de prévision de la demande et des méthodes d’optimisation d’approvisionnements à horizon glissant. En utilisant ce cadre, nous transformons le problème de la planification sur l’horizon globale en plusieurs problèmes standards de lotissement avec demandes stochastiques sur des sous-horizons. Ce cadre permet aussi d’évaluer la performance sur une longue période des méthodes utilisées. Nous considérons ensuite la planification optimale d’approvisionnement sur les sous-horizons. Deux hypothèses de ruptures de stocks sont considérées: livraison tardive et vente perdue (ou sous-traitance). Nous développons des approches optimales ou quasi-optimales pour faire des plans d’approvisionnement tout en minimisant les coûts totaux prévus de commande, de stockage et de rupture sur les sous-horizons. Les méthodes proposées peuvent servir de repères pour évaluer d’autres méthodes. Pour chaque hypothèse, nous menons des expériences numériques pour évaluer les algorithmes développés et les approches adaptatives de planification globales. Les résultats expérimentaux montrent bien leur efficacité. / This research discusses procurement planning problems engaged in global sourcing. The main difficulty is caused by the geographically long distance between buyer and supplier, which results in long lead times when maritime transport is used. Customer demands of finished products usually evolve during the shipment, thus extra costs will be produced due to unpredictable overstocks or stockouts. This thesis presents adaptive planning approaches to make adequate long-distance procurement plans in a cost-efficient manner. Firstly, an adaptive procurement planning framework is presented. The framework deploys demand forecasting and optimal planning in a rolling horizon scheme. In each subhorizon, demands are assumed to follow some known distribution patterns, while the distribution parameters will be estimated based on up-to-date demand forecasts and forecast accuracy. Then a portable processing module is presented to transform the sub-horizon planning problem into an equivalent standard lot-sizing problem with stochastic demands.Secondly, optimal or near-optimal procurement planning methods are developed to minimize expected total costs including setup, inventory holding and stockout penalty in subhorizons. Two extreme stockout assumptions are considered: backorder and lost sale (or outsourcing). The proposed methods can serve as benchmarks to evaluate other methods. Numerical tests have validated the high efficiency and effectiveness of both sub-horizon planning methods and the overall adaptive planning approaches.

Submitted by Maicon Juliano Schmidt (maicons) on 2015-04-28T13:13:18Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Alexandre Ricardo.pdf: 1235702 bytes, checksum: 8d217266e93004d02ecb516fc57035cd (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-28T13:13:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Alexandre Ricardo.pdf: 1235702 bytes, checksum: 8d217266e93004d02ecb516fc57035cd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-01-31 / Nenhuma / A crescente competição por mercados consumidores, impulsionada pela globalização, tem demandado das organizações a implementação de estratégias para suportar estas novas condições comerciais, de forma a manter a sua participação nos negócios, bem como propiciar crescimento. Neste contexto, destaca-se a necessidade de adoção de estratégias e processos eficientes de gestão entre matriz e subsidiárias, em destaque, a gestão de fornecimento de insumos para produção. O presente estudo tem como tema central a gestão de global sourcing. O objetivo geral da pesquisa foi analisar como as subsidiárias de produção de empresas multinacionais estrangeiras, instaladas no Brasil, estão inseridas e participam da estratégia de global sourcing da organização. Para tanto, foi conduzida, inicialmente, uma pesquisa na bibliografia sobre a estratégia de global sourcing, onde se identificou uma lacuna em relação à interação da subsidiária na estratégia global de fornecimento. Os estudos desenvolvidos, até então, possuem foco na matriz, abordando os formatos de gestão a partir destas. A pesquisa de campo foi adotada como método, utilizando-se entrevistas semi-estruturadas em profundidade com gestores locais de fornecimento, além de pesquisas documentais. A amostra foi composta de oito empresas multinacionais estrangeiras com unidades produtivas no Brasil. Foram verificados diferentes estágios da função de compras, conforme modelo proposto por Monczka e Trent (2003a), sendo a maior parte da amostra caracterizada por arranjos organizacionais, formas de gerenciamento e controle classificados na estratégia de global sourcing, e, em menor representatividade, empresas com atuação no nível de compras internacionais. Destaca-se o formato de participação da subsidiária de produção como parcialmente alinhado com a estratégia de global sourcing, reativo às demandas originadas a partir desta com maior representatividade na amostra. O estudo sugere uma revisão do formato de abordagem das subsidiárias de produção, passando a uma gestão mais proativa, alinhada com as estratégias de global sourcing da organização, bem como atendendo, no seu nível de atuação, as melhores práticas referenciadas na bibliografia pesquisada. / The growing competition for consumer markets, driven by globalization, has required organizations to put in practice strategies to support new business conditions in order to keep its market share and provide continuous growing. In this context, we highlight the needs to implement strategies and processes to have efficient management between headquarters and subsidiaries, highlighted the management of supply. This paper is focused on the management of global sourcing. The aim of the research was to perform analysis of how the production subsidiaries of foreign multinationals, operating in Brazil, are embedded and attend to organizations global sourcing strategies. Initially, an extensive literature research on the global sourcing strategy was made, which identified a gap related to the interaction of the subsidiary in the overall supply. Previous studies have been focused on the organization world headquarters, strategies to implement and manage global sourcing. The field research was adopted as a research method, using visits, and semi-structured interview in-depth with local supply managers, and documentary research. Sample was composed of eight foreign multinational companies with production facilities in Brazil. Different stages of the purchasing function have been identified, according to stage model proposed by Monczka e Trent (2003a). Most of them were characterized by organizational arrangements, management and control forms classified in global sourcing strategy, and significantly less, companies operating at the level of international purchases. Noteworthy, it was identified in most of companies visited, that production subsidiary participation is partially aligned with the strategy of global sourcing, reactive to the demands from world headquarters. The study suggests that local production subsidiaries should review its approach related to the global sourcing management, becoming more proactive, aligned with the organization global sourcing strategy, as well as serving in their level of expertise, best practices referenced in the literature.

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to find out when Research and Development (R&D) becomes a suitable attribute for a production company to outsource. In an environment where innovations are following up quickly up and uncertainty about the type of innovation and customer is a fact, external sourcing can bring a competitive advantage. The empirical evidence shows that when R&D is outsourced the total cost does not increase at a due cause of outsourcing in this given study.</p><p>Although a lot of theory explains outsourcing as a cost increasing factor, the internal experience and frequent relation between the technical production company Beta and its R&D vendor company Alfa can decrease costs considerably due to lower communication and governance costs. This was not explicitly expressed in related theory and is therefore a contribution to the academia as well as for managers who seek to find an answer to the question of when to outsource and when not to outsource.</p>

The purpose of this thesis is to find out when Research and Development (R&amp;D) becomes a suitable attribute for a production company to outsource. In an environment where innovations are following up quickly up and uncertainty about the type of innovation and customer is a fact, external sourcing can bring a competitive advantage. The empirical evidence shows that when R&amp;D is outsourced the total cost does not increase at a due cause of outsourcing in this given study. Although a lot of theory explains outsourcing as a cost increasing factor, the internal experience and frequent relation between the technical production company Beta and its R&amp;D vendor company Alfa can decrease costs considerably due to lower communication and governance costs. This was not explicitly expressed in related theory and is therefore a contribution to the academia as well as for managers who seek to find an answer to the question of when to outsource and when not to outsource.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. / This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. As such, it is in the public domain, and under the provisions of Title 17, United States Code, Section 105, it may not be copyrighted. / MBA Professional Report / In an effort to align sources with requirements, the Department of Defense has implemented initiatives that mirror industry's strategic sourcing practices. These initiatives include Consolidated Purchasing, Commodity Councils and Regionalization. This project will examine a successful Commodity Council (CC), a failed CC, and one in the early stages of development. We will seek characteristics common to both successful and unsuccessful councils, as well as characteristics that differentiate the outcomes. We will include a brief history of strategic sourcing as a long-term supply-chain management solution in the private sector, the impetus behind AF implementation of strategic sourcing through CCs; associated transactions costs, and finally, the resource management practices necessary to move beyond theory to practical application. The results are illustrated in a case study which will provide a template for successful implementation.

The study focuses on the use of information systems in the Heavy Engineering industry in South Africa and the decision to make, buy or rent information systems. Special focus was placed on the factors that influence the decision to make, buy or rent information systems. It is undeniable that changes in the competitive environment, such as technological advances and globalisation, are driving organisations toward new ways of operating. In striving to become flexible, lean, and more competitive, organisations have been increasingly swift to externalise support service functions. Every organisation must adapt to the current economic environment, the technology available in its industry and consider the risk and rewards within the industry framework. Organisations should carefully analyse the impact of their decisions, especially in consideration of the extent to which organisational competencies and competitive advantage could be affected. An extensive literature study was conducted on the factors that influence the decision to make, buy or rent. The literature study portrays the ideal state or methodologies for acquiring information systems and the best practices used in evaluating the best option for the organisation. The literature indicated the criteria for evaluating the decision to make, buy or rent information systems are the business need, in–house experience, project skills, project management and the time frame. These criteria can be broken down into the factors that have an influence on the decision, competitive advantage, security, skills, expertise, available resources, cost, time, implementation, support, maintenance, performance, quality, documentation, vendor issues, size of organisation, expected annual transactions, software control, functionality, productivity and increased turnover. Calculating the benefit that can be achieved from information systems must also include measures to incorporate the total benefit, not only the financial benefit. The balance scorecard approach measures the total return accompanying an investment in information systems, broken down into four sections, the financial perspective that measures the tangible outcomes, the customer perspective that measures customer value (quality, delivery and skill), the internal process perspective that measures the internal processes that add value and have the greatest impact on strategy and finally the learning and growth perspective that measures the intangible assets which focuses on human capital. Information systems form part of the corporate strategy, competitive positioning and must be aligned with the overall strategy of the organisation. A survey was done to determine the opinions about the different options managers/organisations have to consider when seeking to fulfil organisational requirements for information systems. Methodological issues as well as considerations with regard to gathering the data were discussed. A questionnaire was designed to collect data to obtain the information needed to solve the research problem. The internal consistency of the questionnaire was tested and it was found that a moderate to high level of consistency exists. The survey results were then presented in frequency tables and were analysed using descriptive statistics as well as inferring possible trends or conclusions based on relationships between certain responses on specific related questions and referring to the literature study. A framework was compiled from the literature study and empirical study that can be used for the purpose of decision–making in the make, buy or renting of information systems in the heavy engineering environment in South Africa. Benefits from purchasing software from a vendor include competitive advantage, available resources, implementation of the system, support to the system, system performance, documentation and training, and business functionality. Benefits from open source offerings include the size of the organisation and the number of expected annual transactions by the organisation. Benefits from SaaS (Software as a service) include competitive advantage, expertise, system performance and business functionality. Benefits from the outsourcing of development and other IT functions include competitive advantage, security, skills, available resources, implementation of the system, support to the system, system performance, documentation and training, business functionality and technical functionality. Benefits from developing in–house all or part of the effort include competitive advantage, security, skills, expertise, available resources, time, implementation of the system, support to the system, maintenance and upgrades, system performance, quality, documentation and training, business functionality, technical functionality, productivity improvements and increased turnover. Overall the linkage between the literature study and the empirical study concludes / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2012.

Problem – Companies are increasingly focusing on sustainability issues in response to internal and external pressure. Research on sustainable performance of focal companies is vast; however there is a lack of guidelines for managing sustainability in extended supply chains. Scholars claim a need for additional research on intra- and inter-organizational diffusion of best sustainable practices. Besides, the outcomes of sustainable sourcing practices are still uncertain. The gap between potential benefits of sustainable sourcing and actual performance is attributed to lack of capabilities, instruments, and efficient processes. Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore existing sustainable sourcing practices which are used by leading multinational companies. Based on the obtained knowledge we aim to develop a framework that will suite as a guideline for enforcing sustainable sourcing practices. Method – The research has been conducted through the method of grounded theory, enabling the researchers to constructively interpret data from documentary primary data and semi-structured interviews. This approach was utilized in order to explore what are the most common practices of managing sustainable sourcing applied by the companies awarded as Industry leaders by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Conclusion We found that a commonly accepted approach towards managing and enforcing sustainable sourcing is absent both in theoretical discourse and practice. However, the most frequently mentioned tools and approaches were defined. They include the adoption of suppliers’ code of conduct, establishment of dedicated sustainability departments, procurement personnel training, suppliers’ capability building, risk assessment and categorization of suppliers, IT platforms for information sharing, supplier self-assessment, audit, joint projects with suppliers, meetings and conferences, and suppliers’ scorecards. Finally, we developed a Sustainable Sourcing Enforcement framework which could serve as a guideline to enforce supplier’s commitment to act sustainably. The framework consists of five chronologically connected pillars: Objectives alignment, Commitment creation, Supplier selection, Ongoing development and Work with stakeholders.