Multiplant MRP

Many manufacturing firms have multiple manufacturing plants, located in geographically diverse parts of the world. This situation is becoming more common, as firms establish new plants in foreign countries to take advantage of low labor cost. In such cases, it is not unusual for the firm to retain production capability of certain key parts in a backup plant, with the necessary equipment and trained workforce in place. High volume production could be obtained relatively quickly from the backup plant in case of an emergency at the main supplying plant. In such multiplant settings, the transportation costs are significant. Throughout this paper, we use the term “multisourced parts” to describe parts produced in more than one location.Material Requirements Planning (MRP) is the component of a total manufacturing control system that is designed to manage inventory and plan orders for parts and material with dependent demand (demand derived from the demand of other items). Most of the literature on MRP systems discusses MRP methodology in a single-plant environment. Most MRP software systems in use today are single-plant systems.Currently, it is common for firms with multiple plants treated as cost centers to use an independent single-plant MRP system for each and handle the transshipment problems manually. Because of lack of coordination of production schedules between supplying and demanding plants, those firms hold more inventory and experience longer lead times than necessary to compensate for uncertainties in schedules and supply policies.The purpose of this article is to enhance single-plant MRP systems for coping with multiplant situations in which: the plants are regarded as cost centers, there exist multisourced parts, and the transportation costs are significant. The multiplant MRP system should recognize that parts are produced in different plants, make offset calculations for in-transit lead times, and consider transportation costs when establishing production requirements and shipping routes for multisourced parts. The objective is, beginning with the corporate-determined master schedule for finished products, to communicate in one planning cycle time-phased planned order release schedules and shipping/delivery schedules to each manufacturing plant producing components for the finished products.We first present a simplified framework for the multiplant MRP system, where a transportation algorithm is incorporated into the MRP logic. Then we refine this simplified framework to handle more complex aspects of a multiplant network. These complexities include the treatment of requirements that are not shipped on time and the regeneration of new MRP schedules. We also observe that the solution to the transportation problem described above is affected by the lot-sizing rules employed. In addition, we discuss several important issues and decisions that confront a firm when implementing a multiplant MRP system.     

Measuring central bank independence: a tale of subjectivity and of its consequences

The paper first scrutinises the two indices of central bankindependence (CBI) most commonly used in the empirical literature.It defines and discovers an impressive interpretation spread,a major criteria spread but a negligible weighting spread inthose indices Second, it framing the robustness of the empirical‘common knowledge’ on the benefits of CBI. It findsthat, when rankings produced by various CBI indices are regressedwith, among others, average inflation, 87 5% of die regressioncoefficients are not statistically significant Third, followingrecent theoretical developments, it suggests an alternativeapproach to the measurement of a central bank's operationalstatus.     

Do economic freedom,business experience,and firm size affect internationalization speed? Evidence from small firms in Chile,Colombia, and Peru

Journal of International Entrepreneurship - This paper focuses on SMEs from the Latin American region and aims to build on existing literature on the emergence of the institution-based view in...     

Exploring cruise ship passenger spending patterns in two Uruguayan ports of call

The cruise industry has become a significant component of the Uruguayan tourism economy in the last few years. The present study aims to provide a better understanding of the cruise industry by considering the expenditure of cruise ship passengers disembarking at the ports of call of Montevideo and Punta del Este as a key variable in the economic analysis of the costs and benefits. We estimate two cross-sectional regression models for cruise passenger expenditures, and show that the size of the group the visitors travel with and visitor mobility within the country are the most important variables to explain individual expenditure behaviour. We also include some management recommendations that policy-makers could implement in order to improve the economic profits from cruise ship tourism.     

The generalized bin packing problem

In the Generalized Bin Packing Problem (GBPP), given two sets of compulsory and non-compulsory items characterized by volume and profit and a set of bins with given volume and cost, we want to select the subset of profitable non-compulsory items to be loaded together with the compulsory ones into the appropriate bins in order to minimize the total net cost. Lower and upper bounds to the GBPP are given. The results of extensive computational experiments show that the proposed procedures are efficient and the bounds are tight.     

Exploring the Intensive and Extensive Margins of World Trade

World trade evolves at two margins. Where a bilateral trading relationship already exists it may increase through time (intensive margin). But trade may also increase if a trading bilateral relationship is newly established between countries that have not traded with each other in the past (extensive margin). We provide an empirical dissection of post–World War II growth in manufacturing world trade along these two margins. We propose a “corner-solutions version” of the gravity model to explain movements on both margins. A Tobit estimation of this model resolves the so-called “distance puzzle”. It also finds more convincing evidence than recent literature that WTO-membership enhances trade. JEL no. F12, F15     

Antecedents of Purchase Intention in the Online Context

The understanding of the determinant factors of customer purchase intention is necessary, and it is equally important to study the online purchase context, since this context is disseminated among customers. A theoretical model has been elaborated on and tested, considering the constructs of information quality, distrust, and perceived risk as antecedents of purchase intention, and aiming to analyze the relationship among these constructs in the online purchase context. A quantitative research study has been performed by means of the application of a survey. Multivariate statistics techniques have been applied for data analyses, including structural equation modeling. This study contributes to the evolution of the empirically tested concepts by providing a greater individual understanding of each construct presented in the theoretical model, as well as the relationship among them as determinants of purchase intention; the indication is that meaningful relationships were found which may impact greater profitability and, consequently, greater competition for online retailers.     

Linking Exploration with Exploitation through Relationship Memory*

Companies that are able to help clients make better decisions and enhance their business capabilities to flourish. However, there is often poor rapport between operating personnel who are in touch with end customers and executive personnel who make decisions. Through exploration and exploitation processes, new ideas and actions flow from the individual (i.e., operating personnel) to the organization (i.e., the rest of individuals and groups that form part of the organization). This paper examines the relative importance and significance of “the relationship memory” as a bridge between “exploration” and “exploitation” processes and its effects on the creation of “customer capital” through an empirical investigation of 139 small to medium‐sized enterprises in the Spanish optometry sector using structural equation modeling validated by factor analysis.     

Mergers and Acquisitions and Market Volatility of Brazilian Banking Stocks: An Application of GARCH Models

The main objective of this research was to investigate the impacts caused by announcements of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on the volatility of the returns of Brazilian bank stocks from 1994 to 2015. In order to achieve the proposed objective, this study applied Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedastic (GARCH) class models to the series to model their volatility. Our results confirmed the impact of the announcement of M&As on volatility. They suggest that M&A announcements are expected to cause a negative reaction if related to an expansion or a deal involving a less-well known bank, and a positive reaction if it involves well-known bank with good reputation—a higher level of confidence and a lower level of information asymmetry for investors.