Graham K. Rand

Beyond Partnership: Strategies for Innovation and Lean Supply

Markets and motor cars the automotive industries today shared technical change development of new automobiles customer-supplier relationships lean supply strategies for going lean what next?

Sequencing and Scheduling: An Introduction to the Mathematics of the Job-Shop

Over the years the journal literature on job-shop scheduling has proliferated. New approaches for standard problems have been presented, and many slight variations have been discussed and analysed. A number of monographs have also been published, aimed primarily at research workers. A straightforward text which sorts out the wood from all these trees has long been overdue. This book, based on a course for final year numerate undergraduates at the University of Manchester, achieves that object.

The effect of ignoring routes when locating depots

Abstract In physical distribution the location of depots and vehicle routes are interdependent problems, but they are usually treated independently. Here, we evaluate the effect of ignoring routeing when locating depots by using a two stage process (location and routeing). Using data from standard problems, it is shown that the best solution after the location stage does not necessarily generate the lowest cost solution after the routeing stage. This feature is found both when the best locations obtained from a variety of methods are compared, and when a single method is evaluated for different numbers of depots. A sensible way to determine the best combination of methods used in location and routeing is proposed.

Critical chain: the theory of constraints applied to project management

Abstract In his recently published third novel, Critical Chain , Eli Goldratt applied his Theory of Constraints to project management. This paper explores the relationship between the ideas developed in the novel and the CPM/PERT approach.

Incorporating vehicle routing into the vehicle fleet composition problem

An efficient heuristic for determining the composition of a vehicle fleet is developed which considers delivery routes whilst evaluating fleet mixes. The aim is to include a perturbation procedure within existing or constructed routes to reduce the total cost of routing and acquisition by improving the utilisation of the vehicles. This approach has been tested on twenty problems given in the literature and new best results are reported here. An extensive literature review is also given.

Cultural influences on service quality and customer satisfaction: evidence from Greek insurance

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of culture on service quality and customer satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach – By extending GIQUAL, an instrument developed for measuring service quality in Greek Insurance, to measure the culture of individuals, hypotheses on all 25 possible relationships between the dimensions of culture and of service quality are determined and tested. The relationships between the dimensions of service quality and customer satisfaction, in the light of culture, are further examined. Findings – Of the 25 hypothesized relationships between the dimensions of culture and of service quality, 23 are confirmed and the remaining two are directionally supported. The hypothesized importance of the service quality dimensions is also confirmed. However, the expected association between the importance of quality dimensions and the strength of their relationships with customer satisfaction is only directionally supported. Although the typology of Hofstede is used in the study, a culture different from the one specified for Greece by Hofstedes scores is exposed. Research limitations/implications – The main limitations of this study are first, that it is based on a single service industry and secondly, that convenience sampling is used. However, its methodology and conclusions provide a solid basis for future research. Practical implications – Insight on using culture for directing resources where quality investments are needed most is provided to managers. Although weak, the directional support for the hypothesized effect of the importance of quality dimensions on their relationships with customer satisfaction enhances the value of the findings. Different sub-cultures that may be found in varying market segments can be used for determining quality investment priorities. Originality/value – This study explores the effects of culture on service quality and customer satisfaction drawing evidence from Greek Insurance

Extensions to emergency vehicle location models

This paper is concerned with extending models for the maximal covering location problem in two ways. First, the usual 0-1 coverage definition is replaced by the probability of covering a demand within the target time. Second, once the locations are determined, the minimum number of vehicles at each location that satisfies the required performance levels is determined. Thus, the problem of identifying the optimal locations of a pre-specified number of emergency medical service stations is addressed by goal programming. The first goal is to locate these stations so that the maximum expected demand can be reached within a pre-specified target time. Then, the second goal is to ensure that any demand arising located within the service area of the station will find at least one vehicle, such as an ambulance, available. Erlangs loss formula is used to identify the arrival rates when it is necessary to add an ambulance in order to maintain the performance level for the availability of ambulances. The model developed has been used to evaluate locations for the Saudi Arabian Red Crescent Society, Riyadh City, Saudi Arabia.

An eclectic algorithm for inventory replenishment for items with increasing linear trend in demand

Abstract In recent years a small number of researchers have presented methods for the determination of the replenishment policy for a product whose demand is increasing linearly. Some of these methods have the same structure, and differ only by a single parameter in an equation. These will be compared on a range of problems, and an eclectic method suggested as a possible alternative.

Heuristics for replenishment with linear decreasing demand

Abstract For a product where demand is increasing, many methods have been proposed for the determination of the replenishment policy. However, there is little published research on replenishment when the trend in demand is decreasing, although it is of some importance. Here a new approach is proposed to overcome the difficulties in the linear decreasing case, and an analytic algorithm developed so that several well-known heuristics can be applied by simply varying the parameter vector, as in previous papers. It is shown that the average performance of this eclectic approach is superior to other heuristics.

A heuristic algorithm for determining lot sizes of an item subject to regular and overtime production capacities

Abstract The problem considered in this paper deals with the sizing and timing of replenishments for an item facing a time-varying, but known, pattern of requirements. Regular time and overtime (the latter at a cost premium) production options are available where there are production capacities that also can vary with time. The problem is to establish the pattern of replenishments so as to keep the total of setup, carrying and overtime premium costs as low as possible without any backlogging of demand and without violating any of the capacity constraints. A heuristic procedure, simple enough to implement manually, is developed and tested on a large representative set of problems. The resulting performance is excellent, namely an average cost penalty of only 0.5%.