A rapidly changing competitive landscape and dynamic customer expectations require manufacturing firms to seek flexibility in product development. Product concept flexibility (i.e., developing design options) and product prototype flexibility (i.e., creating working models) emerge as effective...

This paper examines an important scheduling problem resulting from a new process for continuously casting steel. A master slab caster produces slabs which are wider than customer needs, and therefore, these must be ripped longitudinally at least once before they can be processed to a...

Supply chain management is becoming critical as firms recognize that competition is shifting from company versus company to supply chain versus supply chain. Two important factors in building successful supplier relations are (1) defining criteria to select and evaluate suppliers and (2)...

Time-based competitors create product development and manufacturing practices that reduce response-time and enhance customization capabilities. These practices require an information-rich, internal environment capable of flexible resource deployment and direct and continuous feedback. These...