Temporal Changes of Airfares Toward Fixed Departure Date

Despite the existence of numerous published articles that examined the online fares for air-tickets, no prior studies have investigated the issue of temporal changes of airfares toward a fixed departure date. In other words, consumers have no knowledge of when the best time is to purchase their lowest fared air-tickets from the Internet. This study investigated the daily changes of fares for return air-tickets on five online travel agency (OTA) websites with fixed dates of departure during shoulder and high seasons. Empirical findings showed the lowest airfares from Hong Kong to Beijing and Bangkok, representing two most popular short-haul travel destinations, were not found at the initial stage of the data collection period. In other words, consumers should not make online purchase of air-tickets too early.     

Situated valuations: Affordances of management technologies in organizations

This article engages with the affordance literature and identifies a need for a reorientation of its use in organization and management studies. Thus far, affordances has mainly been used as part of the program of sociomateriality to describe the technology–user dyad. Only to a lesser extent have studies using the affordance concept been sensitive to the means in which contextual conditions outside the technology-user dyad configure technological affordances. In order to provide such a sensitization, this article mobilizes the emerging field of valuation studies. It contributes to affordance literature with a synthesis of valuation studies and affordance theory and by constructing the concept of situated valuation as an associate concept to affordances. This article demonstrates the worth of this association by drawing on a comprehensive, ethnographic study of Lean management in a children’s hospital.     

The disintegration of lean manufacturing and lean management

Lean management—in manufacturing, supply chains, healthcare, services—has lost its way. Telling evidence of lean’s dissolution shows up for inventory-intensive organizations in the form of worsening inventory numbers. My research of financial records of more than 1,500 global companies over 15 years shows growing inventories since the turn of the 21^st century. Reduction of inventory is a concrete and visual marker of leanness and quicker customer response, while inventory growth is one of the more salient factors that degrades financial health. As to what has gone wrong with lean, the answer is nearly everything: ambiguous terms and concepts, trivializing the essence, botching the basics, going through the motions, analysis paralysis, puffery masking action, abetting organizational silos, discontinuity, and losing interest. This article addresses these in more specific terms with reference to key outcome measures, especially those most customer-relevant.     

论现代服装产业时尚及设计理念的发展趋势

随着现代经济文化技术的发展,"时尚"将成为社会整体的价值观念和生活模式,服装设计的理念呈现多元文化共存的格局,同时也将对服装产业产生深远的影响.本文提出现代服装产业时尚及设计理念的发展趋势:多元文化交融、休闲化、季节模糊化、电子化、全面环保、个性化定制.     

New development: 4P recommendations for implementing change,from research in hospitals

How are hospital staff involved in process improvement initiatives such as Lean? What can we learn from Lean implementation experiences about the sustainability of such initiatives? The authors considered such questions in a study of workplace change in Australia and Canada. They found that Lean is more likely to be sustained when leaders adopted the 4P recommendations presented in this article.     

MODELING LEAN,AGILE, AND LEAGILE SUPPLY CHAIN STRATEGIES

The merits of lean and agile supply chain strategies have been much debated among practitioners and academics. While these strategies are often viewed as opposites, this research supports the view that they must not necessarily compete and can, in fact, be employed simultaneously through a so‐called “leagile” approach. Lean, agile, and leagile strategies are illustrated by modeling their respective applications at a tier‐1 supplier to the Heating, Ventilating, and Air‐Conditioning (HVAC) industry. Simulation analyses indicate that the lean system excels in customer service performance while the leagile system results in lower enterprise‐wide inventory levels under modeled circumstances. Subsequent analysis suggests that trade‐offs exist among the systems in the base case and under varying cost conditions.     

Coping with Crises- Case

ABSTRACT

As the number one tourist attraction in this remote mountain region, the historic Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad had become an economic mainstay. Now, in the midst of a dismal tourism season brought about by a weak national economy and international turmoil, management of this operation faced a crisis. A roaring wildfire was consuming thousands of acres of pristine forests, and tourism activities and expenditures were evaporating as the fire and smoke spread. Chief Executive Officer Allen Harper found himself caught between a rock and a hard place as the fire danger increased. Continuing to run the coal-fired trains in the isolated tinder dry mountains could cause additional fires, and firefighting resources were already stretched. Yet business owners who feared lost revenues if the train were idled urged management to keep the trains running. He knew he had to make a decision and announce it soon.     

Reconstituting lean in healthcare: From waste elimination toward ‘queue-less’ patient-focused care

With ultra-short sightlines to its patient-customers, healthcare should pursue lean in its own way rather than follow the often wayward lean practices of manufacturing, a sector in which few people ever see real customers. Because of the distance in manufacturing from end customers, this sector’s lean practices usually focus inward on operational efficiency through waste elimination. The nature of healthcare—with customers up close and immediate—calls for elevating its lean efforts toward customer-focused lean effectiveness: flexibly quick response along the multiple flow paths leading to and involving patients. This article illustrates that approach to lean by drawing from a case study in which widely scattered heart attack patients were transported to a central treatment hospital in a system-wide, highly coordinated program of quick response. This article shows that the keys to success—including high rates of saving lives and lean healthcare in general—boil down to just five lean methodologies, each focused on quick response. Lean healthcare, when practiced in this way, becomes deserving of status as a fixture in strategic management of the enterprise.     

Effects of HRM practices,lean production practices and lean duration on performance

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate the structural relationships between HRM practices, lean production practices, operational performance and firm performance of manufacturing firms that have implemented lean production. The data were collected from the firms operating in Sri Lanka, which fulfilled the selection criteria set for the study. Statistical techniques were used to test the hypothesized relationships. It was found that lean production practices and operational performance mediate the relationship between HRM practices and firm performance; lean duration moderates the relationship between HRM practices and lean production practices in such a way that the longer the duration, the greater would be the adoption of lean production practices. The essential contribution of the findings lie in presenting empirical data valuable for the advancement of research in HRM as well as for making decisions on people management when implementing advanced manufacturing technologies.     

上海地铁乘客平峰期出行行为影响因素及机理研究

针对上海地铁平峰期客座率不高、运能低的问题,对乘客愿意增加平峰期出行行为的影响因素进行归纳分析,并根据居民对地铁票价优惠、增值服务的需求进行现场问卷调查,统计分析各措施下乘客平峰期地铁出行意愿情况;建立平峰期出行意愿二项Logit模型,研究出行者特性、出行行为特性以及选择方案特性等因素的影响。由此为平峰期地铁客流提升制定更加有针对性的互联网营销方案奠定理论基础。