Gang Li

In this paper, we develop a supply chain sourcing model that incorporates both sustainability and operational performance measures. The model selects suppliers and determines sustainability investments and order allocations among the selected suppliers. High sustainability performance as well as cost efficiency are achieved while a high operational performance level is maintained. We formulate the problem as a nonlinear bi-objective integer-programming model, discover the model’s special features, and propose an effective and computationally efficient algorithm to solve it. To quantify a supply chain’s sustainability performance, we adopt the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) index. Instead of searching for just one sourcing solution, we find the Pareto optimal set of effective solutions. Numerical tests verify that our algorithm outperforms an existing sourcing algorithm in terms of computational efficiency. A simulation of Apple’s sourcing decisions demonstrates the effectiveness of the model in business practice. Our work also provides managerial insights on how sustainable operations alter traditional supply chain sourcing decisions. It helps practitioners make fast and effective sourcing and investment decisions to implement their sustainability strategies at the operational level.

The postpandemic world requires a renewed focus from service providers on ensuring that all customer segments receive the essential services (food, healthcare, housing, education, etc.) that they need. Philanthropic service providers are unable to cope with the increased demand caused by the social, economic, and operational challenges induced by the pandemic. For-profit service providers offering no-pay services to customers, allowing them to self-select a service option, is becoming a popular strategy in various settings. Obtaining insights into how to efficiently balance societal and financial goals is critical for a for-profit service provider. We develop and analyze a quantitative model of customer utilities, vertically differentiated product assortment, pricing, and market size to understand how service providers can effectively use customer segmentation and serve the poor in the lowest economic strata. We identify conditions under which designing the service delivery to be accessible to the poor can simultaneously benefit the for-profit service provider, customers, and the entire society. Interestingly, we observe that the increasing customer valuation of the no-pay option because of a superior quality service offered by a service provider need not benefit customers. Our work provides a framework to obtain operational, economic, and strategic insights into socially responsible service delivery strategies.

Today's service companies operate in a technology-oriented and knowledge-intensive environment while recruiting and training individuals from an increasingly diverse population. One of the resulting challenges is ensuring strategic alignment between their two key resources - technology and workforce - through the resource planning and allocation processes. The traditional hierarchical decision approach to resource planning and allocation considers only technology planning as a strategic-level decision, with workforce recruiting and training planning as a subsequent tactical-level decision. However, two other decision approaches - joint and integrated - elevate workforce planning to the same strategic level as technology planning. Thus we investigate the impact of strategically aligning technology and workforce decisions through the comparison of joint and integrated models to each other and to a baseline hierarchical model in terms of the total cost. Numerical experiments are conducted to characterize key features of solutions provided by these approaches under conditions typically found in this type of service company. Our results show that the integrated model is the lowest cost across all conditions. This is because the integrated approach maintains a small but skilled workforce that can operate new and more advanced technology with higher capacity. However, the cost performance of the joint model is very close to the integrated model under many conditions and is easier to implement computationally and managerially, making it a good choice in many environments. Managerial insights derived from this study can serve as a valuable guide for choosing the proper decision approach for technology-oriented and knowledge-intensive service companies.

The anti-bullwhip effect, coined by Li et al. in 2005 based on the findings in a simulation study, is the contrary effect of the well-known bullwhip effect. Although there is ample empirical evidence that suggests both effects exist, current literature has not yet provided an integrated framework to address how the two effects are related with each other. By extending the classic work of Lee, Padmanabhan, and Whang of 1997 to a multi-stage supply chain, we derive closed-form formula to analytically describe how the two effects originate initially and then evolve over time and space in the supply chain. Our results show both the bullwhip effect and the anti-bullwhip effect can occur when facing different end-customer demands. However, the magnitude of these effects gradually decreases when moving upstream. We also show the impact of long lead-time on increasing the magnitude of information transformation at the next stage and simultaneously decreasing the magnitude at higher stages. These analytical results provide a theoretical explanation to most simulation findings of Li et al.'s 2005 work and can be used by researchers and practitioners to examine the empirical data and design innovate marketing strategies to convert the unwelcome bullwhip effect into the anti-bullwhip effect.

In this study, the authors focus on how service providers can meet rising customer value expectations through service process designs that are not only lean but also with high service quality. The authors consider two design approaches: one with separate (decoupled) front-office and back-office operations and one that integrates the front-office and back-office operations with a combined workforce. They develop a decision support framework to compare these two approaches in terms of both cost and service level. The integrated design approach, based on a constant staffing model, takes a systems perspective to designing the service delivery process, thereby creating opportunities to share employee resources between front-office and back-office activities due to their differing time sensitivities. Using data from a community bank case study, the authors find that the integrated design is both leaner and has a higher service level than the decoupled design. Simulation results over various scenarios confirm that the integrated design achieves better performance than the decoupled design over a wide range of parameters found in services with both front-office and back-office operations, although the decoupled design is better for some settings. This suggests that the authors' decision support tool can help service providers design lean service processes with improved service quality tailored to their own operating environments.