The operations strategy literature has identified four primary dimensions on which a firm competes with another. These are: price, quality, flexibility, and delivery dependability. Of these, quality is perhaps the most critical dimension in terms of the impact on the degree of competitiveness...

The article describes the tiffin carriers of Bombay (Mumbai), India, who pick‐up and deliver 200,000 hot lunches within a 3‐hour window. This business demonstrates the influence of culture and geography (urban infrastructure) on organizational structure, employee behavior, and the emergence...

Compressing the time from idea to market has become a focal competitive priority of global manufacturing companies. Develops a framework that assesses the strategic value of a company in terms of its “time” performance. The primary tool employed to accomplish this is an agility matrix whose...

Cellular manufacturing is a layout approach to increase productivity in manufacturing. The basic concept of cellular manufacturing is to exploit the similarity between parts and manufacturing processes. Parts similar in design and manufacture are grouped into families. Then machines are...

The current competitive business environment has forced business leaders to consider business process reengineering (BPR) in their search for dramatic improvement in organizational effectiveness. This paper provides an extensive review of the existing literature by classifying the articles into...

By means of a case study, illustrates how a Midwest service organization in the USA was able to improve the efficiency and productivity of its support staff. Suggests that the process can be used by other service organizations wanting to improve the efficiency and productivity of their support...

Illustrates how quality function deployment (QFD) can be used to measure customer satisfaction in educational institutions. Specifically, utilizes QFD in evaluating the MBA programme at Grand Valley State University. The inputs for the QFDs were obtained through several brainstorming sessions of...