Lynn A. Fish

Graduate Student Project: Employer Operations Management Analysis.

Part-time graduate students at an Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business-accredited college complete a unique project by applying operations management concepts to their current employer. More than 92% of 368 graduates indicated that this experiential project was a positive learning experience, and results show a positive impact on content learning. Among 16 course offerings, the project was modified and included periodic feedback and project-weight modification. Periodic project feedback did not improve project performance, but it did enhance exam learning and highlight the critical balance between instructor feedback and student performance. Course-weighting schemes do not always affect student task performance—as instructors may expect—and such schemes may negatively affect other course tasks.

One-Up, One-Back ERM in the Food Supply Chain

ABSTRACT Repeated outbreaks of E. coli and other food poisonings call attention to the need for fast, accurate tracing capabilities to identify sources of contamination and track contaminated foods to their destinations. Concerns about biological agents contaminating food or beverages led to the U.S. Bioterrorism Act of 2002. This Act requires those in the food supply chain to identify the immediate previous source (“one-back”) of all food received and the immediate subsequent recipient (“one-up”) of all food released, but recordkeeping remains seriously inadequate. In this article, we examine the role of radio frequency identification (RFID) in electronic record management (ERM) to improve supply chain operations and responses to public health crises.

Operator-specific model: An assembly time prediction model

A model was developed to predict assembly time for a circuit board assembly task. It was based upon the GOMS language developed for task time prediction in human-computer interaction. It incorporated sequential elements of information processing, defined by cognitive, motor, and perceptual processors, in a critical path network. The model was used to predict assembly time for four assembly strategies using four different combinations of workstation and assembly sequences. The model was useful in predicting cognitive changes associated with the development of expertise. As assemblers gained experience, structural changes in the network implied that several processors were chunked.