Nick J. Hubbard

Linking supply chain processes’ performance to a company’s financial strategic objectives

The main aim of this paper is to develop a performance measurement method which links supply chain (SC) processes’ performance to a company’s financial strategy through demonstrating and utilising the relationship between SC processes’ performance and a company’s financial performance.

What Makes for a Successful Hotel? Insights on Hotel Management Following 15 Years of Hotel Occupancy Analysis in England

Time series analyses of daily and monthly occupancy rates in different samples of hotels in England over a 15-year period reveal consistent temporal components of occupancy performance. These differentiate hotels in terms of overall occupancy levels, seasonality, length of season, trend and within-week variations. The components are related to the characteristics of hotels and their management using statistical methods and structured interview surveys, and the factors affecting occupancy performance of hotels are identified and calibrated. The policy implications for the results for successful hotel marketing and management are extracted.

A model of hotel occupancy performance for monitoring and marketing in the hotel industry

Abstract In this paper a conceptual and empirical basis is presented for the use of hotel occupancy data in monitoring hotel performance and marketing hotels. A model is developed differentiating between two fundamental aspects of a hotels occupancy performance-its proportionality component, reflecting its occupancy response to national demand conditions and its competitive component, resulting from regional, local and unique factors affecting its occupancy performance. Competitive occupancy performance is further disaggregated into unique, common, systematic, derived and local components. The model is fitted to daily occupancy from a national sample of over 700 hotels. Some of the empirical results are presented, but attention is focussed on the application of the model in monitoring and marketing hotels.

Creating a Logistics Competency Framework for Egyptian Clothing Companies

Egypt is one of the developing countries which face numerous challenges in accessing the international exports’ market. The Egyptian economy experienced an evident fall in its growth rate during 2001-2006 which made the government concerned with increasing Egypt’s competitiveness in the international market through a series of reforms targeting exports from the manufacturing sector (Enders, 2007). The Egyptian Textile and Clothing industry has proved to have good potential to succeed in the international market; however, according to a number of studies (World Bank, 2006) and (Fawzy and Masoud, 2003), there have been some logistics- related issues which are said to negatively affect exports. The lack of strong relationships with large retailers as well as the ability to implement quick order replenishment and lead time reduction presents logistical constraints that impact the volume of Egyptian clothing exports. The purpose of this research is to determine the logistics skills required to successfully perform the necessary logistics activities which result in building strong relationships with foreign retailers through the creation of a competency model specific to the logistics positions in the Egyptian clothing industry in order to set standards for logistics competence. This has been achieved through the examination of supplier selection models used by foreign retailers to select potential suppliers and determining the common logistics aspects included in the selection criteria. Consequently a list of the common logistics aspects has been developed and compared with the most important and frequent logistics activities performed in the supply chains of clothing companies. A short list of the logistics aspects used in supplier selection criteria has thus been created and an investigation has been conducted to search for the skills required for the successful performance of the logistics aspects used in supplier selection. This investigation included a review of related scientific journals, specialised associations reports, logistics job descriptions as well as structured interviews with managers in an Egyptian clothing manufacturer company ‘DYETEX’. The work responsibilities-driven approach by Rothwell (1994) was selected to create the model due to the availability of data necessary to build the model. The model comprises four main domains: interpersonal and workplace competences, apparel knowledge areas, logistics specific competences and finally logistics specific technical competences. Each domain includes a number of skills which are considered crucial to the successful performance of the logistics activities within the clothing supply chains. The contribution of this study is presented in the development of a logistics competency model specific to the requirements of the Egyptian clothing industry to set standards for logistics competence. This competency model can be further utilised as a tool to assess and evaluate the level of skills in Egyptian clothing companies to determine the skills and competences requiring improvement to increase the tendency of Egyptian clothing manufacturers to become potential suppliers for foreign retailers, thus increasing the volume of Egyptian exports to the international market.

Weekly occupancy fluctuations in Yorkshire and Humberside hotels 1982–1984: patterns and prescriptions

Abstract In this article it is argued that the formulation of planning policy for tourism in general, and the hotel industry in particular, requires detailed information on the temporal characteristics of visitor flows in relation to the capacity of the industry to accommodate them. In this light, a detailed analysis is performed on weekly fluctuations in visitor flows to hotels in Yorkshire and Humberside, as revealed by daily occupancy returns in 99 hotels over the study period. Clear temporal and spatial patterns are identified and linked with differences in market orientation, between areas, between hotels and between different seasons. Stepwise regression analyses relating occupancy performance to a range of hotel characteristics confirms the importance of market orientation and identifies other correlates of weekly occupancy pattern. Finally, the marketing and planning implications of the results are discussed, and different marketing options for improved occupancy performance are outlined.

Enterprise in logistics research: matching the needs of industry with academia

The 19th annual conference of the Logistics Research Network (LRN) was hosted by the Business School at the University of Huddersfield from 3rd to 5th September 2014. The focus this year was on bringing together logisticians from industry and academia to identify how meaningful logistics academic research can be undertaken and made applicable to the global world of business. The conference commenced with an engaging plenary session from Andrew Hodgkins (DHL Supply Chain) in which he challenged the world of academia to seek out and to undertake more applied research within the fields of logistics and supply chain. He also advised delegates from industry that we have a fantastic resource in our Universities which is perhaps not yet being sufficiently tapped by logistics and supply chain managers in pursuit of solutions to problems and creative confrontation. This theme continued into the main conference dinner where Jim Spittle (CILT) challenged academia to become more relevant to those industry needs. The remaining plenary sessions were concerned with the fascinating logistics challenges of holding major sporting tournaments (Mick Wright & Shaun Day, England Rugby 2015) and approaches to workforce development of health supply chains in low income settings (Andrew Brown, People that Deliver (UNICEF)). The annual LRN conference has become increasingly international in its make-up with papers being delivered by academics and practitioners from across the world – from Finland to South Africa and Thailand to Ireland. In total, 87 papers were scheduled for delivery, the most popular themes being green logistics and sustainability and supply chain risks and costs. Papers for this special issue of the International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications were selected according to their relevance to the main themes and direction of the journal and the quality and maturity of the research. The conference presentation by Anthony Velazquez Abad enthusiastically reported on research into the reduction of costs and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the running of Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGV). The subsequent paper by Velazquez Abad et al. indicates how low carbon technologies can be combined on an optimal basis by using a sim-heuristic approach, with the ultimate potential to create competitive advantage for U.K. HGV fleets. The importance of collaboration throughout the supply chain is emphasised in Pålsson’s paper (Pålsson and Hellström 2016) relating to packaging systems. Through the use of interviews with key personnel from case study organisations, he indicates that there is a need for adopting a supply chain perspective in the design and selection of packaging systems and for a greater understanding of the trade-offs that arise in decisions relating to packaging systems. The supply chain collaboration theme continues in the maritime-related paper by Seo, Dinwoodie, and Roe (2016). A large-scale survey of South Korean containerised maritime logistics professionals enabled the derivation of an instrument useful for managers in measuring supply chain collaboration based upon information sharing, knowledge creation, goal similarity, decision harmonisation and supply chain performance measurement.

Skills, Management Knowledge or Logistics Expertise - What Do Logistics Managers in Clothing Companies Really Need?

This paper presents the preliminary investigation of the research aiming at creating a competency framework for senior logistics managers in clothing manufacturing firms in Egypt. The purpose of this framework is to describe the knowledge and skills elements that are necessary to perform the most important tasks and functions of logistics managers in clothing manufacturing firms. The preliminary investigation described in this paper aimed at determining the skills and knowledge elements that structure the logistics manager’s competency. A content analysis of relevant published texts and interviews revealed 53 elements that relate to the skills and knowledge required for logistics managers. The frequency of these elements was recorded to examine the acknowledged skill and knowledge elements related to the logistics profession in the literature.

Spatial-temporal patterns in the English hotel and tourist industries: a time series analysis of competitive occupancy performance at the individual hotel level

Abstract This study demonstrates the use of hotel occupancy data in identifying spatial and temporal patterns in the performance of the hotel and tourist industries. It develops a standardisation procedure, analogous to shift-share analysis, which enables hotel occupancy data to be analysed at the individual hotel level without the distortions introduced by regional and local variations in hotel type. The procedure identifies competitive components of occupancy performance for individual hotels, measuring how their occupancy profiles compare with ‘expected’ occupancy profiles (the structural components) derived from similar hotels nationally. Individually, the competitive components serve to highlight the strengths and weaknesses in individual hotel occupancy performance. Collectively, they enable the identification of disaggregated spatial and temporal patterns in the performance of the hotel and tourist industries. Such patterns are obtained from an analysis of the occupancy performance of 266 hotels in England. These patterns provide valuable insights into the performance of the hotel industry and prompt the search for appropriate policy responses.