Kashi N. Singh

Supply chain risk assessment during new product development: a group decision making approach using numeric and linguistic data

Companies strive to minimise supply chain related risks during new product development as any glitch while developing new products can lead to considerable delay in product launch with severe financial implications. However, many organisations face difficulty in properly assessing the vulnerabilities of their globally dispersed supply chains during the product development stage as no suitable procedure for that purpose seems to be readily available in the literature. The present research is an attempt to fulfil this requirement. A step-by-step approach for supply chain risk assessment during new product development, involving group decision making, is suggested. This approach can use both numeric and linguistic data and helps in determining vulnerability scores for various sub-systems and for each supplier of the most vulnerable sub-system. This is followed by failure mode effect analysis (FMEA) which helps prioritise failure modes of vulnerable suppliers and thus create specific control plans to mitigate supply related failures. Using this approach, organisations can devise control plans to alleviate the supplier related risks during new product development. Although, the methodology is illustrated through an application in aircraft manufacturing, it can also be used in other discrete and process manufacturing industries.

A Job-Scheduling Problem Involving Sequence-Dependent Changeover Costs

This paper studies a problem of job scheduling in a production line having various adjustable settings or ‘states’ that can process a variety of jobs. Each job can be processed when the line is in one of the several states at a cost dependent on the state used. One state is sufficient for the processing of each job. In addition, a sequence-dependent changeover cost is also incurred between states. The problem is to determine an optimal sequence of the states of the line, and allocation of jobs to states that minimizes the overall operating cost. An exact implicit enumeration algorithm, which exploits the similarity of this problem with the simple plant location problem, is proposed. Computational experience with the algorithm shows that any reasonable size problem can be solved in comparatively small computational effort.

Incorporating Impact of Economic Conditions on Pricing and Launch-sequence Determination of Commercial Vehicles

In any new product development (NPD) process, decisions regarding choice of products to launch, determination of their price and launch sequences are critical. In the context of commercial vehicles, these become more complex, as the prevailing economic conditions also affect the buying decisions of the fleet owners and transport operators. In this paper, we present mathematical models to illustrate how the impact of economic conditions can be incorporated in the above decision making process. Representative data from a commercial vehicle manufacturer in India, Vehicleindia Ltd.†, have been used for analysis. Our model, which determines launch sequence as well as price of the products, provides useful insights on the impact of economic conditions like boom or recession on prices, and also on cannibalization.

Servitization, Coopetition, and Sustainability: An Operations Perspective in Aviation Industry:

The dominant paradigm of being a pure product manufacturer is facing a transition towards also providing services along with the product. Although manufacturing has remained embedded in a pure product environment for several years, different factors have compelled manufacturers to move towards product-service systems (PSS) or the phenomenon of servitization, that is, when firms go beyond giving support to the customers in operating the equipment to offering the experience through owning and leasing the product. This strategic move by manufacturers to have a revenue stream through services is called servitization (Vandermerwe & Rada, 1988). The value proposition of this integrated offering called PSS has been widely studied (Anderson & Narks, 1995; Baines et al., 2007; Kim, Lee, Lee, Hong, & Park, 2012; Matthyssens & Vandenbempt, 1998; Neely, 2008; Ng, Parry, Wilde, McFarlane, & Tasker, 2011; Wise & Baumgartner, 1999). By definition, it consists of tangible products and intangible services, designed and combined so that they are jointly capable of fulfilling specific customer needs (Tischner, Verkuijl, & Tukker, 2002). Although the challenges that the manufacturing firms face while moving from being a product provider to a product-service provider are multipronged, this system could add economic, environmental, and social values for a diverse set of stakeholders in the system (Mont, 2000). Product-based manufacturing and process-based manufacturing have proved to be relatively easy to imitate by competitors, whereas servitization is less easy to replicate (Wilkinson, Dainty, & Neely, 2009). This has pushed many manufacturers to recognize the strategic integration of services as a source of sustainable competitive advantage and corporate profitability (Neely, 2008; Oliva & Kallenburg, 2003).

Risk Assessment of Supply Chain During New Product Development: Applications in Discrete and Process Manufacturing Industries

Supply chains have become increasingly global and complex over the years with manufacturers sourcing raw materials and components from geographically-dispersed suppliers. Reduced costs, access to capacity, focus on core activities, etc are some of the advantages associated with outsourcing different aspects of product development, manufacturing and logistics. However, managing a complex network of global suppliers and sub-contractors to ensure cost-effective, high-quality and timely deliveries has become a daunting task for practicing managers. Moreover, customers have become increasingly demanding and there is pressure on companies across industries to develop and launch a wide variety of products in shorter time. To manage a complex supply network, it is an imperative that supply chain decisions are made integral part of the new product planning. Any glitch in the global supply chain not only will raise costs related to the remedial actions which are required after the occurrence of the event but also can delay the launch of products with serious financial losses to the participating companies in the supply chain.

Two Period Product Choice Models for Commercial Vehicles

Choosing products to launch from a set of platform based variants and determining their prices are some of the critical decisions involved in any new product development (NPD) process. Commercial vehicles are products, whose sales are closely tied with the economic conditions. The manufacturers have to choose the variants of the commercial vehicles to launch and sequence the product launches in such a way that profitability is maximized. We develop a two period model to choose the platform based variants, their prices and launch sequences with the two periods, spanning two economic conditions, for example boom and recession. Our model helps in determining realistic prices of products in different economic conditions.