Tarikere T. Niranjan

Measuring information distortion in real-world supply chains

After years of being thought to be an inevitable fact of life, demand information distortion (Bullwhip effect) is now increasingly coming under scrutiny by researchers, with conflicting findings being reported about its existence. The conflicting reports are partly due to the measurement issues surrounding Bullwhip, and partly due to the changed business practices in some sectors which the Bullwhip construct was perhaps not originally designed to capture. This article attempts to reconcile these issues. It integrates two distinct dimensions of information distortion: amplification of order variance and schedule instability, and proposes a framework to capture the underlying information distortion more comprehensively. The framework is illustrated through a case study of an automotive supply chain under real-world considerations such as capacity limits and contemporary IT-enabled information sharing practices. The ‘degree of over-ordering’ was found to be a good indicator of information distortion.

Prerequisites to vendor-managed inventory

Vendor-managed inventory (VMI) has become a widely used tool for supply chain performance improvement. However, not all VMI implementations are successful. Therefore, the aims of this research are to contribute to a better understanding of the critical issues surrounding VMI implementation, and to support corporate practice with a methodology for evaluating the VMI readiness of firms. Fifteen features that determine the suitability of VMI are identified. These can be broadly categorised as product-, company-, and supplier-related features. The framework developed in this research is validated through its application in 10 case study firms. The framework can be used by other firms to support the decision of whether or not to adopt VMI by providing valuable insight into how firms score on suitability for VMI adoptions along several dimensions.

A unifying view of goods and services supply chain management

Ambiguities in the constructs that are the building blocks of research may have hindered advancement of service operations knowledge/research. To alleviate this situation, the authors identify similarities and differences between goods and services to inform a view of constructs (e.g. inventory, capacity, and Bullwhip effect) that are equivalent and are of relevance to both sectors. A unifying paradigm that allows transference of ideas across the two broad sectors is proposed and illustrated with case studies.

A simulation-based methodology to analyse production line disruptions

This article proposes a discrete event simulation (DES) framework to analyse the impact of disturbances, their parameter values, and their interactions, on production line efficiency. The framework is demonstrated by means of a case study of a manufacturing process in an Indian automotive manufacturer. Various scenarios are generated and studied using design of experiment (DOE) to investigate the effects of changes in product, technology, cycle time, and worker competency, and to derive the optimal set of process and decision parameters.

An Alternative Theoretical Explanation and Empirical Insights into Overordering Behavior in Supply Chains

The beer game and the supply line underweighting theory are central to our knowledge of decision making in dynamic environments such as supply chains. The core of these theories is that people are incapable of recognizing the pipeline inventory and this is the main cause of overordering and dysfunctional behavior. This article identifies lacunae in the theoretical and empirical foundations of extant literature and proposes an alternate explanation, a “correction model,” explaining why overreactions occur. We adopt a multi-method research design, comprising a field case study and laboratory experiments, to ground our findings. [Submitted: July 19, 2010. Revisions received: December 8, 2010; March 14, 2011. Accepted: March 28, 2011.]

The behavioural causes of the bullwhip effect: breaking the mould

The Bullwhip Effect (BWE) has been a major challenge facing supply chains for several decades. An important stream of literature has developed around Supply Line Underweighting (SLU) and hoarding behaviour as the behavioural causes of BWE. The present study builds on these studies and devises novel experiments to replicate and verify them. The findings suggest that the aforementioned behavioural causes do not hold and point to a need to break new ground on this well-researched topic. The paper concludes with the managerial and research implications.

Trends and directions in service triads research

Service triads refer to tripartite relationships in which client firms serve their customers through third-party service providers. The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the nascent but fast-growing literature on service triads to explore the broad themes along which the literature has grown, and to identify the gaps and future research opportunities.,Systematic literature review (SLR) approach is adopted to retrieve, select, and synthesise relevant service triads studies. A citation network analysis on the corpus resulting from the SLR identified the core articles of the literature.,The SLR uncovered ten themes of research along the articles’ objectives, theories and methodologies. The classification framework of service triads, the roles of customers and providers, the size of the provider, triadic risks, controlling service delivery and service quality, regulated triads, the stability of the triads, and cross-country, cross-culture triads emerged as significant under-researched areas.,The paper illustrates research trends and provides insights into the neglected and under-researched problems of service triads. This is the first SLR on service triads.

A client-centric risk-based taxonomy of service triads

In client-provider-customer service triads, direct interactions between the providers and customers result in clients’ exposure to various risks. This paper develops a taxonomy of service triads based on four attributes of outsourced services that result in those risks: 1) business impact; 2) customer contact; 3) mode of interaction; and 4) relationship continuity. We conduct a qualitative study to develop a contextually rich understanding of the resulting taxonomy. Characterization of the four taxons, namely, ‘low-hazard,’ ‘easily-monitored,’ ‘to-be-watched,’ and ‘vulnerable’ service triads, based on agency theory, contributes to the understanding of how these services have traits and risks that are different from one another. It also provides insights into how the providers in each of the four taxons should be contracted and managed.

Sustainable Value Creation through E-waste Management: The Role of Marketing–Retailers–Operations Interface

This study investigates how sustainable value can be created from end-of-life returns in the electrical and electronic industry (E-waste) by effective marketing–retailer–operations interface. By using a case study approach, this study demonstrates that the retailer is a vital linkage between marketing and operations interface in value creation. Retailers can help enhance the corporate image as well as address operational challenges in the E-waste collection network. Further, we find that sustainable value creation is best achieved when there are policies and processes and appropriate incentive system across the returns management process. Such a marketing–retailers–operations interface in E-waste management can be a firm’s competitive differentiator, creating economic and environmental value for society and subsequently improving firm profitability.