Amitava Mitra

Executive or functional manager?: The nature of the CIO's job

The role of the chief information officer (CIO)_ continues to be the subject of much discussion and speculation. Is this just a new name for the MIS manager, or is there truly a new and significantly different function? How has the role of the information systems manager evolved with the changing needs of business? How does the CIO bridge the gap between the organizations strategy and its use of information technology?According to much of the prescriptive literature, bridging this gap is the CIOs definitive function. This article addresses these questions by studying five successful CIOs in five divergent industries. The CIOs were studied using the structured observation methodology employed by Mintzberg in his study of CEOs and by Ives and Olson in their study of MIS managers. The findings suggest that the CIO operates as an executive rather than a functional manager. He or she is an active participant in strategy planning and acts as a bridge between the information technology group, the functional areas, and external entities. This study provides a view of how these difficult tasks are accomplished on a day-to-day basis: through scheduled meetings, interaction outside the information technology unit, a skilled reading of situations, and a strategic focus. Factors affecting the CIOs participation in strategy planning meetings include whether he or she has formal are source allocation authority and their level of peer acceptance. Lessons learned from this research pertain to the delegation of day-to-day tasks, expenditure authority, avoiding adversarial relationships, liaison activities, careful use of language, being perceived as a user of information technology, and the need for quiet time.

Market share and warranty costs for renewable warranty programs

Abstract A majority of consumer products is associated with some type of warranty. The nature and extent of the warranty affect the sales, market share, costs and profits of many businesses. A warranty can be defined as an assurance from a seller to a buyer that the product sold is guaranteed to perform satisfactorily up to certain length of time, which is the warranty period. In case of product failure within the warranty period, it is assumed that the seller will conform to a rebate policy. In this paper the rebate policy is selected to be linear pro-rata or lump sum. The paper investigates warranty programs that offer customers the option to renew warranty, after an initial period, for a certain premium. The effect of such programs on market share and warranty costs is explored.

Six sigma education: a critical role for academia

Applications of the six sigma methodology to quality improvement abound in various sectors. A tremendous interest and increase in such practices have been witnessed in manufacturing and non-manufacturing areas. Sound application of the six sigma methodology requires a thorough grounding in the statistical concepts and foundations, the inherent assumptions made in using the techniques, and their limitations. Academia, therefore, has an important role to play in meeting these objectives.

Competitive benchmarking of health care quality using the analytic hierarchy process: an example from Korean cancer Clinics

Abstract Faced with mounting competitive pressures and continued health care reforms, a growing number of health care providers have begun to realize that their future success rests on the ability to undertake a continuous improvement of health care quality. The process of continuous improvement of health care quality is facilitated by health care providers developing reliable quality measures through competitive benchmarking. In an effort to develop a meaningful set of guidelines for competitive benchmarking, and determine comparative measures of health care quality of medical clinics, this paper proposes an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) that can help medical clinics formulate viable service improvement strategies in the increasingly competitive health care industry. This paper also illustrates the usefulness of the proposed health care quality measures using the case of prominent Korean cancer clinics.

A nonrenewable minimal-repair warranty policy with time-dependent costs

Estimating warranty costs during the life cycle of a product is important to the manufacturer, who has to plan for creating a fund for warranty reserves. Replacement or repair costs associated with product-failure within the warranty period are drawn from this fund. This paper considers a policy where warranty is not renewed on product failure within the warranty period but the product is minimally repaired by the manufacturer. This implies that, on repair, the failure rate of the item remains the same as just prior to failure. Repair costs are assumed to depend on the product age. Such policies are suitable for complex and expensive products where repair typically involves a small part of the product. s-Expected warranty costs and amount of warranty reserves, based on a selected level of s-confidence, are derived. Applications of the results to various product market situations are considered. The results demonstrate how cost information can be used to decide and determine the warranty length.

Inactivation of rotavirus by new polymeric water disinfectants

Two new insoluble polymeric materials were evaluated for their efficacies in inactivating rotavirus in flowing water in a biocidal filter application. The two polymers are N-chloro and N-bromo derivatives of a poly-styrene hydantoin prepared from commercial poly-styrene. The studies were conducted for rotavirus in halogen demand-free water at pH 7.0, 25 degrees C and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Test Water no. 2 at pH 9.0, 4 degrees C which contained heavy halogen demand. The range of flow rates studied was 0.16-1.22 ml s-1 corresponding to contact times in the range of 4-24 s. Both of the polymers were effective in inactivating rotavirus, the N-bromo derivative providing a 4-6 log reduction under the test conditions. The materials may be useful as supplemental filters for hand-held water purification units.

A multiple criteria approach to the location-allocation problem

Abstract This paper presents a model for the location-allocation problem which considers both qualitative and quantitative factors. The proposed model is based on a weighted objective function. The weights are determined on the basis of the relative importance assigned to the qualitative factors. Applications of the proposed method to real-world problems are discussed and two examples are presented to describe the proposed method. The familiar transportation method of linear programming is used to obtain optimal solutions. Solutions for the examples were compared with those obtained from using only the quantitative factor (transportation cost) and the corresponding results are discussed.

A multi-objective model for warranty estimation

Abstract Almost all consumer products are associated with a certain warranty time as stipulated by the manufacturer. Such a statement of warranty provides the buyer with an assurance on the performance of the product in the stated period. On the other hand, manufacturers use warranties for promotional and protectional purposes. The paper develops a methodology to aid the manufacturer in selecting the price and warranty time of its products. The model considers the case where the products are assumed to be complements of each other. A multi-objective model is formulated where it is assumed that the decision maker is able to prioritize his goals. Some of these goals may be conflicting to each other. The goals considered include the achievement of a specified market share for each product, limitation on the total warranty cost as a given proportion of total sales, limitation of the warranty reserve for a given product as a proportion of the total warranty reserve for all products, and attainment of a minimum level of warranty reserve for a given product as a proportion of the total warranty reserve costs. A goal programming approach is used and the effects of the chosen parameters on the optimal solution, as well as goal achievements, are discussed.

Quality Control Procedures to Determine Staff Allocation in a Bank

A major US bank has determined that none of its customers should have to wait more than three minutes for service. Presents a procedure that helps management allocate tellers to prevent any customer waiting time from exceeding the three‐minute limit. Uses X¯ and s charts to monitor the average waiting time and the standard deviation of waiting times. Customer waits exceeding three minutes and customer arrivals are monitored using c charts. The approach integrates the analysis of the c charts along with that of the X¯ and s charts to determine the number of tellers necessary to maintain customer service at the desired level. The lobby operations are simulated and the procedure illustrated using operational data supplied by the bank.

An integrated multicriteria model for warranty cost estimation and production

Warranty cost estimation for multiple products is considered. The decision variables include the price, warranty time, production quantity, and lot size. System constraints on the above decision variables are based on absolute minimum and maximum values between which those variables should lie. Several goals are considered at different levels of priorities. Some of these goals may be conflicting. The goals considered included operation within a limited resource capacity, the achievement of a specified market share for each product, limitation on the total warranty cost as a given proportion of total sales, limitation of the warranty reserve for a given product as a proportion of the total warranty reserve for all products, and attainment of a minimum level of warranty reserve for a given product as a proportion of the total warranty reserve cost. A goal programming approach is used to solve the formulated problem. An example is illustrated using the proposed formulation, and goal achievements are discussed. Sensitivity analysis is also conducted for some of the model parameters. >