Syed Asif Raza

A distribution free approach to newsvendor problem with pricing

The newsvendor problem with pricing is an important tool that provides the relationship between the operational and marketing issues at the firm’s level. This paper investigates the use of the distribution free approach to solve the standard newsvendor problem with pricing and its extension to the holding and shortage cost case. The approach is vital for the situations in which a firm may be missing demand distribution information or historical demand data may not fit any standard probability distributions. The approach develops deterministic approximations by establishing lower bounds on the expected revenues of the standard newsvendor problem with pricing and its extension. The lower bounds are shown jointly concave in price and order quantity. It is also demonstrated that the use of this approach can yield closed form expressions for jointly optimal pricing and order quantities which can find many practical managerial applications in several industries facing yield management decisions. Numerical experimentation demonstrates the performance of the distribution free approach under various demand situations.

A risk-based availability estimation using Markov method

Purpose – Asset intensive process industries are under immense pressure to achieve promised return on investments and production targets. This can be accomplished by ensuring the highest level of availability, reliability and utilization of the critical equipment in processing facilities. In order to achieve designed availability, asset characterization and maintainability play a vital role. The most appropriate and effective way to characterize the assets in a processing facility is based on risk and consequence of failure. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – In this research, a risk-based stochastic modeling approach using a Markov decision process is investigated to assess a processing units availability, which is referred as the risk-based availability Markov model (RBAMM). RBAMM will not only provide a realistic and effective way to identify critical assets in a plant but also a method to estimate availability for efficient planning purposes and resource optimizatio...

Measuring patients' satisfaction with pharmaceutical services at a public hospital in Qatar

PURPOSE The aim of this paper is to study pharmacy service impact on patient satisfaction and to determine what factors saliently link with pharmaceutical service performance at Hamad General Hospital. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH A patient satisfaction questionnaire was designed using the literature and consultation with Hamad General Hospital medical experts. The questionnaire contained 22 items that focused on five influencing factors: promptness; attitude; supply; location; medication education; and respondent demographic aspects. A total of 220 respondents completed the questionnaire. An exploratory factor analysis was used to group items and a structural equation model was developed to test causality between five factors along with their influence on patient satisfaction. FINDINGS The study establishes statistical evidence that patient satisfaction is positively influenced by service promptness, pharmacist attitude, medication counseling, pharmacy location and waiting area. Several socio-demographic characteristics have statistically different effect on satisfaction, notably: gender; marital status; health status; age; educational level; and ethnicity. However, medication supply did not influence patient satisfaction. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS Pharmaceutical services are recognized as an essential healthcare-system component. Their impact on customer satisfaction has been investigated in many countries; however, there is no such study in Qatar. ORIGINALITY/VALUE The findings identify pharmaceutical service performance indicators and provide guidelines to improve Qatari pharmaceutical services.

Joint optimal determination of process mean, production quantity, pricing, and market segmentation with demand leakage

The selection of an optimal process mean is an important problem in production planning and quality control research. Most of the previous studies in the field have analyzed the problem for a fixed exogenous price. However, in many realistic situations, besides product quality, product pricing is a paramount factor that determines the purchase behavior in the market. In the experts’ opinion an integrated framework that incorporates pricing as a decision tool could significantly improve a firm’s profitability. Most of the manufacturing firms yield products with distinguishable characteristics and therefore it is desirable to sell these products on the market at differentiated prices. Whereas the market segmentation achieved using differentiated prices is often imperfect, a firm may experience demand leakages. Thus, an optimal price decision must incorporate demand leakage effects for the firm to benefit from its differentiated pricing strategy. In this paper, these issues are addressed by proposing an optimal framework for joint determination of process mean, pricing, production quantity and market segmentation using differentiated pricing. This research discusses a production process that manufactures multi-class (grade) products based on their quality attribute. The products are sold in primary and secondary market at differentiated prices while experiencing demand leakages. The nonconforming items are reworked at an additional cost. Mathematical models are developed to address the problem under both price-dependent deterministic and stochastic demand situations. We propose a harmony search meta-heuristic for solving the models. A numerical experimentation is presented to study the significance of the proposed integrated decision framework.

The impact of differentiation price and demand leakage on a firm’s profitability

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of differentiation price which has been utilized to segment demand, but results in imperfect segmentation. The use of a differentiation price is among the most widely used Revenue Management (RM) techniques to segment a firm’s demand to augment profitability. Design/methodology/approach – Mathematical models are developed for a firm’s RM which use a differentiation price to categorize its market demand into two segments. Three distinct demand situations are considered: price-dependent deterministic demand, price-dependent stochastic demand whose distribution is known and price-dependent stochastic demand whose distribution is unknown. Models are analyzed to determine optimal joint control of a firm’s pricing and inventory decisions for each market segment. Findings – The analysis of the firm’s RM model has shown that revenue is jointly concave in pricing and order quantity. In most demand situations, closed-form mathematical expressions for optima...

IT outsourcing intent in academic institutions in GCC countries: An empirical investigation and multi-criteria decision model for vendor selection

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the reasons behind the intent for information technology (IT) outsourcing in academic institutions in GCC countries. It also aims to develop a multi-criteria decision model (MCDM) to aid the critical decision of IT outsourcing vendor selection. Design/methodology/approach – The research utilizes a questionnaire-based survey to investigate reasons of IT outsourcing intent and the factors considered important for IT outsourcing vendor selection in academic institutions. The results of questionnaire-based study were utilized to develop a grey theory-based MCDM for vendor selection. Findings – The results show that facilitating access to new technology, focus on core-competence, saving staff costs, and improved customer service are the most important factors for IT outsourcing intent while reputation of vendor, access to the state of art technology, quality of service, and knowledge of industry were considered as the most important factors for IT outsourcin...

The status of project portfolio management practices adoption and awareness in Gulf Cooperation Counties: an empirical study

Project portfolio management (PPM) is a set of tools that help in aligning projects, funding and resources with the organisational objectives. A sound PPM practice is expected to minimise project delays, assist in risk mitigation and enable the best utilisation of organisation resources. Many countries in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region are experiencing high volume of projects carried in all of sectors. Delegates to the first Euro money Global Infrastructure Finance Conference held in Dubai, in association with HSBC, reported that the expected total GCC expenditure on infrastructure for the next decade is

A case study to estimate design effort for Pratt & Whitney canada

1.5 trillion (Middle East: daily newspaper, Tuesday, 29 January 2009). With this immense increase in the number of projects, an efficient framework such as PPM is inevitable for the organisations operating in the GCC region. This study aims to report the status of PPM awareness and adoption in the organisations from GCC countries. A conceptual model based on structural equation modelling approach is proposed using a survey carried out among the GCC organisations. The model explores the status of PPM adoption, awareness and its impact on GCC organisations in improving their risk management and budget controls. The statistical analysis of the conceptual model supported that PPM practices in the GCC organisations have improved risk management and budget controls as well as helped achieving their strategic goals.

A multi-constrained maintenance scheduling optimization model for a hydrocarbon processing facility:

Abstract The design effort required to complete a project is an important aspect of a project. It impacts the final cost, as well as the lead-time of a project. In this paper, a case study, which is carried out at Pratt & Whitney Canada, a global leader in the design and manufacture of aircraft engines, is presented. A Parametric model is proposed to estimate the design effort required in for a particular department to complete their design phase of an integrated blade-rotor low-pressure compressor fan. In a sensitivity analysis, the model estimation is compared with the actual estimates and the comparison demonstrates that the parametric model results in a good estimation. The analysis further explores the impact of various factors used to develop the parametric model, as well as demonstrates the significance of the proposed modeling methodology.

An Integrated Approach to Pricing, Inventory, and Market Segmentation Decisions with Demand Leakage

A maintenance scheduling optimization model considering equipment risk, total maintenance cost, system reliability and availability is proposed. This work is motivated by gas processing operator’s concern of high maintenance cost, poor availability and reliability caused by inefficient maintenance scheduling. The approach presented in this article addresses the optimization of maintenance cost by efficiently scheduling maintenance task subject to reliability and availability constraints. Four maintenance actions are considered for each equipment, namely, corrective, replacement, maintenance and inspection. The proposed solution develops maintenance schedules for complex repairable system with equipment operating in series. Two single-objective, nonlinear mathematical models are presented to find the optimal maintenance cost subject to reliability and system reliability subject to availability constraint. A goal programming model is also proposed to simultaneously deal with multiple criteria based on their importance and defined goals. A gas absorption system of a hydrocarbon processing facility is used to ensure the practicality of the proposed formulation to real industry problems. A comparison of existing and proposed formulation is carried out to show that the proposed optimization approach is an efficient method for optimizing maintenance schedules and flexibility to adjust schedules in a complex operating system.