Category Archives: Service Operations

Airflow Sensor shortage from Japanese supplier and auto OEM impact

A Wall Street Journal article (March 24, 2011) describes the supply chain impact of part shortages from a Japanese company, Hitachi Automotive, that has a 60 % world market share of mass airflow sensors that measure airflow to car engines. … Continue reading

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Efficient Bagging and Supervalu competitiveness

A Wall Street Journal article (March 22, 2011) describes rules at Supervalu to increase bagging efficiency and thus decrease the more than 1.5 billion plastic and paper bags used across stores. The articles reports that a projected 5 % savings … Continue reading

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Wal-Mart Assortment, gas prices and one stop shopping

A Wall Street Journal article (March 21, 2011) describes adjustments to Wal-Mart’s strategies to increase the number of shoppers who do one-stop shopping at the store. Wal-Mart’s US chief, William Simon, claims that as gas prices increase, shoppers will be … Continue reading

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Brick and Mortar Retailers urge sales tax collection by etailers

A Wall Street Journal article (March 17, 2011) describes a move by retailers such as WalMart and Target to force internet merchants to collect sales tax – a much needed source of revenue for struggling states. The move has resulted … Continue reading

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The Projected Impact of New Kidney Allocation Rules

An Op-Ed piece in the New York Times (Friedman Ross and Hippen, March 5, 2011) contests the impact of new kidney allocation rules that would provide preference to allocate the organs of young donors to young recipients.  The authors suggests … Continue reading

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Rebound or Backfire Effects of Energy Efficiency Mandates across the supply chain

A New York Times article (March 8, 2011) describes the impact of energy efficiency mandates across products. Front loading washers, a response to energy efficient washer mandates, are observed to result in dirtier clothes and perhaps, as a consequence multiple … Continue reading

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Amazon’s Subscribe and Save Pricing and Supply Chain Impact

An article in the New York Times (March 5, 2011) describes Amazon’s Subscribe and Save service in which consumers get 15 % off and no shipping for committing to deliveries of select products with a certain frequency .  The article … Continue reading

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Eliminating the ban on Mexican trucks crossing the US border

A Wall Street Journal article (March 4, 2011) describes the announcement of the end of the 20 year ban  on Mexican truckers driving across the US border (the ban was a violation of the Nafta agreement). That ban has resulted … Continue reading

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Shrinking Retail Store Sizes

A Wall Street Journal article (March 3, 2011) describes a move by Best Buy, Staples and WalMart to move to smaller stores with a smaller range of SKUs. The article suggests that the very large selection of SKUs at Amazon.com … Continue reading

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Overlapping programs and agencies in the US government and streamlining potential

A Wall Street Journal article (March 1, 2011) describes a new GAO (General Accounting office) report on overlapping  programs and their responsibilities across US govt agencies. The report lists 80 programs to help disadvantaged people with transport, 80 programs to … Continue reading

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