The purpose of this paper is to highlight how systems thinking contributes to decision making in uncertain contexts that are characteristic of service systems. Based on the assumption that service systems face complex conditions, the paper posits that systems thinking may support the...

In this thesis we examine several business scenarios in which the owner (principal) of an inventory system, who is risk-neutral, delegates its design and/or implementation to an agent (internal manager, external supplier, or consultant) whose hidden effort influences the duration of the item's...

This dissertation develops optimal/near-optimal allocation and replenishment policies for a multi-level, periodic-review, fixed-route logistics system which is comprised of a Logistics Center and several non-identical retailers located along a fixed route. The Logistics Center coordinates the...

In this paper, 1 will describe examples of state-of-the-art practice in supply-chain management; e.g., vendor-managed inventory, quick response, and other contemporary systems, such as Wal-Mart's RetailLink. The perspective will be that of what I call the JDJB Portfolio; i.e., what Information...

“Wrong-product” delivery - the delivery of a product different from that desired - is a significant, but as yet unexplored problem in supply-chain management research. There are basically two reasons for wrong-product delivery: either the wrong product is mistakenly ordered or the right...

We consider the problem of a newsvendor that is served by multiple suppliers, where any given supplier may be unreliable. By unreliable we simply mean that the marginal amount received from a supplier is no more than, and typically is less than, the marginal amount ordered from the supplier. In...

This paper examines the introduction of information-sharing into the supply chains for pharmaceutical products in the United States. This introduction was unusual for several reasons. First, it was catalyzed from outside the industry, by a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation...