George N. Kenyon

Mitigating Supply Chain Vulnerability

Competitive pressures are forcing companies to adopt practices and supply chain structures that will produce high quality, reliable, reasonably priced products with continuously shorter lead times. In order to meet these goals, companies are utilizing flatter organizational structures and narrower supply chains. Flatter structures and narrower supply chains typically reap the benefits of reduced coordination costs and improved organizational efficiencies. However, there exists an associated burden of an increased risk of a single point of failure that could leave the supply chain unable to deliver products to the market in a timely manner. This research study develops a model of risk, called the risk assessment index, to assess the vulnerability of different supply chain structures. It is determined that there exists significant trade-offs between the number of suppliers in the supplier base, product diversification, supply chain coordination, and supply chain efficiency that must be examined for a supply chain to remain competitive in a highly risky, vulnerable environment.

A Model for Assessing Consumer Perceptions of Quality

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a model for linking the dimensions of quality and how customers create their perceptions of quality in the products and services that they purchase. This provides a holistic framework for a better understanding of the various dimensions of product and service quality and their impact on consumer perceptions.Design/methodology/approach – A holistic framework for the understanding of the various dimensions of product and service quality and their impact on the creation of consumer perceptions is presented. In addition research questions for future investigations are proposed.Findings – Consumer satisfaction is directly related to how well their expectations for a product or service are met. These expectations are developed from the customers perceptions about the product or service. If the firm wishes to develop new products and services that can create competitive advantage, they must understand how the various product characteristics, or service attributes, effect the creation of consumer perceptions.

The Impact of Information Technologies on the US Beef Industry's Supply Chain

Historically, the growth of the beef industry has been hampered by the various entities (breeders, cow-calf producers, stockers, backgrounders) within the beef industry’s supply chain. The primary obstacles to growth are the large number of participants in the upstream partners and the lack of coordination between them. Over the last decade significant advances have been made in information technologies. Many new companies have been founded to promote these technical advances. This research looks at the upstream participants, primarily the buyer agencies and principles between the cow-calf producers and the meat packing companies, to determine the degree to which information technologies are currently being utilized and the degree to which these new technologies have driven improvements within the beef industry’s supply chain. We find through our survey that, by and large, the beef industry does not use information technologies to their benefit and that the U.S. beef supply chain is not yet strategically poised to enable the use of these technologies.

A Model for Evaluating Supply Chain Risk

Companies are being forced to adopt practices and structures that will produce high quality, reliable, reasonably priced products with continuously shorter lead times. In order to meet the above goals, companies are utilizing flatter organizational structures and narrower supply chains. Breadth and depth reductions in a firms supply base yields fewer alternatives in response to failures. The vulnerability of different supply chain structures is assessed and a model for designing robust solutions under risk is presented.

The Value Proposition

As mentioned in the introduction, the purpose of any business is to generate money. The logic behind this objective is that without financial viability, the business cannot maintain or grow resources. The business will not be able to develop new products or services, hire, and pay employees or any other activity that society regards. The question is how does a business consistently generate money? The simple answer is through the creation of value for its customers, employees, investors, and the country. Furthermore, due to the interests of these three groups being inextricably linked, sustained value can only occur when value is created for all three groups simultaneously.

An Adaptive Model for Assessing Supply Chain Risk

This research builds upon our previous research by extending a risk-indexing model to an adaptive indexing model, taking into account several additional factors. The new adaptive risk model includes the analysis of varying levels of contributions among firms, different consequences of the sub-product groups, the effects of learning over time, the effects of economic change over time, and the effects of multiple product lines. The research concludes with the rationale for the inclusion of these factors and the development of the adaptive risk model.

The regional impact of monetary policy on house prices

This paper examines how house prices respond to monetary policy in the nine census regions of the USA. A polynomial distributed lag regression model is estimated for each region. The dependent variable in each equation includes growth for the index of regional house prices. The independent variables include: (1) growth for an index of national house prices; (2) difference between the regional unemployment rate and the national unemployment; (3) the growth in M2. The money stock variable enters each equation as a polynomial distributed lag. Given this specification, regional house prices are positively correlated with money stock growth in some regions, and negatively correlated in others.

A Comparison of Information Technology Usage across Supply Chains: A Comparison of the U.S. Beef Industry and the U.S. Food Industry

Historically, the growth of the beef industry has been hampered by various entities, i.e., breeders, cow-calf producers, stockers, backgrounders, processors, etc..., within the beef industry’s supply chain. The primary obstacles to growth are the large numbers of participants in the upstream side of the supply chain and the lack of coordination between them. Over the last decade significant advances have been made in information and communication technologies, and many new companies have been founded to promote these technical advances. This research looks at both the upstream and downstream participants to determine the degree to which information technologies are currently being utilized and the degree that these new technologies have driven performance improvements in the beef industry’s supply chain. Through surveys, the authors find that the beef industry does not use information technologies to their benefit and that the US beef supply chain is not yet strategically poised to enable the use of these technologies.

Process Improvement Methods and Tools

The productivity of its transformational processes (i.e., production systems) has an enormous impact on the firm’s ability to deliver quality products and services to consumers. External customers rarely see a company’s production systems and in most cases are not interested in its details. However, being able to get the products and services, they desire in a timely fashion greatly affects consumer perceptions of those products and services. Even if the product or service is perceived as being of good quality, the inconvenience of not getting it in a timely fashion reduces the customer’s since of value and often causes dissatisfaction. With respect to internal customers, the higher the effectiveness and efficiency of the production systems, the greater their sense of value and perception of quality.

The Philosophy of Quality

The philosophy of quality has traditionally focused upon the development and implementation of a corporate wide culture that emphasizes a customer focus, continuous improvement, employee empowerment, and data-driven decision making. The drivers of this philosophy are rooted in the alignment of product and service systems design with customer expectations, along with focusing on quality during all phases of development, production, and delivery. The philosophy is process centric and emphasizes the reduction of variability as well as a continuous improvement in the functionality of the final product or service.