Category Archives: Operations Management

Using customer financing of prototype designs to cover manufacturing costs

Posted on September 24, 2011 by aviyer2010

A New York Times article (Sept 23, 2011) describes Kickstarter – a crowdsourcing website model to fund designs.  Designs are proposed along with a fundraising goal with an “all or nothing” model – if the minimum is not met, no … Continue reading →

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College apparel and provider sourcing strategies

Posted on September 24, 2011 by aviyer2010

A New York Times article (Sept 23, 2011) describes frustration expressed by student groups at Ohio State and University of Southern California because contracts for manufacturing their school apparel was granted to a unit of the Dallas Cowboys that has … Continue reading →

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Postponing Customization of the Prius to the NJ port

Posted on September 24, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article in the New York Times (Sept 23, 2011) describes customization of the Toyota Prius, manufactured in Japan, at the Newark port. Cars are tailored to customer requirements such bluetooth, accessories, quality touchup, satellite radios, alloy wheels etc.  This … Continue reading →

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Financing sustainability driven retrofits and thus manufacturing growth

Posted on September 20, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article in the New York Times (Sept 19, 2011) describes a new consortium, including Lockheed Martin and Barclays bank, that will finance retrofits of buildings to decrease energy costs, cutting energy use and utility bills by 33 %.  Building … Continue reading →

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Airbus and Boeing long term airplane demand forecasts

Posted on September 20, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article in the New York Times (September 19, 2011)  states that Airbus predicts that a demand for 27,800 airplanes by 2030 with a potential revenue impact of $ 3.5 trillion and an implied air traffic growth rate of 4.8 … Continue reading →

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The efficiency benefit of eliminating van keys at UPS

Posted on September 19, 2011 by aviyer2010

A Wall Street Journal article (Sept 26, 2011) describes the efficiency benefit to eliminating keys for vans – they are instead using a keyless system to start vehicles with a digital remote fob on the drivers belt.  UPS claims to … Continue reading →

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The impact of infrastructure on Colombian exports

Posted on September 19, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article in the Economist (Sept 17,2011) describes the poor infrastructure in Colombia as resulting in export costs of a container that are 20 % higher than a similar task in Argentina. Thus, the poor infrastructure is estimated to be … Continue reading →

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Measuring Hospital compliance with routines

Posted on September 17, 2011 by aviyer2010

A New York Times article (Sept 14, 2011) summarizes a report (http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/249296-joint-commission-report-on-quality-and-safety.html) that measures compliance to established protocols to treat diseases like heart attack and pneumonia.  The interesting outcome is that several reputed large hospitals did not make the list … Continue reading →

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Cold water laundry, consumer preferences and environmental impact

Posted on September 17, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article in the New York Times (Sept 16, 2011) describes continued resistance by consumers to doing their laundry in cold water – just 7 % of US white laundry loads.  About 75 % of the energy used,and greenhouse gases … Continue reading →

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Will China’s inflation impact the USA ?

Posted on September 17, 2011 by aviyer2010

A report by Hale and Hobijn (http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2011/el2011-25.html) suggests that imports from China account for 2.7 % of US consumer expenditure. Of that 2.7%, over 55 % consists of services in the US, thus imports of China constitute 1.2 % of … Continue reading →

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