Barry Render

Teaching Tip: Global Trade, Deficits, and Logistics

If the trade deficit is a topic that arises in your OM class, a visual image of the Port of New York and New Jersey is worth 1,000 words. Fortune (Nov.15,2010,pp.14-15) discusses the “Container City” one passes in driving on the NJ Turnpike.

In the first 8 months of 2010, 70,000 more full cargo containers entered the Port than left it. In other terms, 45% of the containers exported from the Port are empty, a reflection of the US trade imbalance. Yet a 3rd statistic: 1.80 to 1 is the ratio of imports to exports, up from 1.75 to 1 last year.

Six of the world’s largest ports are now in China, up from two just a decade ago. The largest port in the US in the Port of Los Angeles, the world’s 16th biggest, down from 8th ranked a decade ago.

What all of this means, of course, is that we are running a huge trade deficit, of which the logistics imbalance is one surrogate measure. Who benefits? My cousin Bob is the only one I know. He ships scrap metal to China for recycling and pays only a fraction of the shipping charges he would if he were sending from China to the US.

OM in the News: The Rise of the (Orange) Warehouse Robot

If you remember back a decade ago, the e-grocery firm Webvan outfitted warehouses with 4.5 mile long mazes of conveyor belts and carousels meant to sort, box, and deliver groceries. The idea and company was a bust, going belly up in 2001. But its founder, Mick Mountz, decided that what was missing was robots. So in 2003, he founded Kiva Systems to provide warehouses so automated that any e-commerce firm could compete with Amazon. “Now you can get Amazon in a bottle”, says Mountz. “Everyone can have what Amazon has”.

According to this week’s Businessweek (Nov.10,2010),Kiva’s technology provides the backbone of Diapers.com, Zappos.com, and a dozen other retailers. Its squat orange robots scurry around warehouses and bring shelves of clothes, car parts, electronics, or whatever the product, to packing stations. There, humans pack and ship. The cheapest system ($1 million), comes with 30 robots and 2 packing stations. Most systems cost $4-6 million.

Kiva integrates with existing inventory management software and is smart enough to continuously reorganize inventory based on order flow. If there is an uptick for one SKU, the robots place that item closer to workers.

Here is an entertaining 4 minute video of the robots at work.

Discussion questions:

1. Why did Webvan fail?

2. What did Kiva do to change warehouse management?

3. What other kinds of firms could benefit from this approach?

Video Tip: Capacity Planning at Arnold Palmer Hospital

This is the 3rd blog I am making about the series of 7 Arnold Palmer Hospital video cases we filmed a few years ago. The 1st two were: The Quality of Culture (10/13/10) and Flowcharting Processes (11/2/10). If you plan to teach either Supp. 7, Capacity and Constraint Management, or Chapter 4, Forecasting, you may want to show this third film (8.5 min.) and assign the accompanying case study.

I like this video because there just aren’t many videos available on the subject and because this is such an interesting scenario. When the hospital decided to expand some years ago, it had already far exceeded its capacity. It had tried everything to increase throughput, including moving certain surgical procedures to a sister facility a mile away, having staff drive patients home as soon as they were ready for discharge….anything to free up a bed in a more timely manner.

When all else failed, the new building plan was put in place, but the issue of capacity planning continued. This time it was whether to build for forecast demand, or actual demand. Using Figure S7.6, the hospital used a lead stategy which allowed for major portions of the new building to be left in concrete shell form until a build-out was needed.

Although annual births had been on a constant increase for 15 some years, this turned out to be a good choice for capacity planning. As you may know, the economy in Central Florida (Orlando) has absolutely tanked, with less newcomers, and less births, in the area than was ever expected.

I usually present this video case when I teach Forecasting, as it presents an excellent integration of the topics of trend projection/regression analysis and capacity.

OM in the News: The Shrinking Roll of Toilet Paper

As Fortune points out in its latest issue (Nov.15,2010, p.21), in an article called “When Less is….Less?”, everything shrinks during a recession: GDP, your stock portfolio, and most definitely, products on a store shelf.

In Chapters 5 and 7 we allude to the choices the OM manager has to help increase profits when price increases are a bad option. Here are three: (1) cut your raw material costs, if possible; (2) cut the quantity—did you notice that OJ and ice cream containers are smaller?; (3) enhance the product –maybe a richer ice cream, or a stronger rake, or more miles between oil changes?

As one example, here is Fortune’s sad tale of your shrinking roll of Scott 1000 toilet paper over the past 15 years:

1995 –size of a sheet is 4.5 x 4.5″ when Kimberly Clark buys Scott Paper.

1999–size now 4.5 x 4.1″–called a “softness enhancer”.

2006–size drops to 4.5 x 3.7″–a nice pattern is added.

2010 –size reduced to 4.1 x 3.7″–“a 10% stronger tissue”.

The OM implications: not only less raw material usage, but smaller packages mean 12-17% more units fit on a truck. With fewer trucks, fuel use drops by 345,000 gallons per year.

Discussion questions:

1. Ask your students to name some other products that have “been enhanced” to increase profits or save money.

2. Besides smaller sheet size, what else can be done to reduce costs? (This was an alternative strategy chosen by Georgia-Pacific and P&G’s toilet paper changes).

3. How does sustainability enter the picture as an OM tool?

OM in the News: How Reliable is the Engine on Your Jet?

It was hard to miss the front-page headlines in almost every paper around the world last week when a massive engine exploded on a Qantas Airways A380 superjumbo jet. Early in my career, I worked on the design team for the GE CF-6 engine, also an immense device. So the news blasts caught my attention for 2 reasons: (1) I wanted to make sure the plane landed safely, and (2) I wanted to make sure it wasn’t an engine I had somehow touched.

The Qantas issue raises the question of just how reliable jet engines are (Ch.17). This particular engine, the Trent 900, made by Rolls-Royce was developed for the Airbus double-decker A380. But is is still what we call an “immature engine”, which has yet to meet expected levels of reliability. It is installed in only 21 planes (meaning 84 engines are in use). Other A380s use the GV7000 engine, jointly developed in the US by GE and Pratt & Whitney. Just for background, an A380 retails for about $300 million, of which $50 million is the cost of engines.

Qantas immediately grounded its A380 fleet for engine testing by Rolls-Royce experts. Rolls, according to the linked WSJ article has “been buffeted by a series of design and reliability issues affecting engines it supplies for other jetliner types”.

That brings up another related reliability issue. Later in my career, I worked at NASA headquarters and wrote a series of case studies on the Space Shuttle. The Shuttle has a reliability of 0.98 overall. This, of course, translates to a major disaster in 1 out of every 50 flights….which has indeed been the reality, with Challenger and Columbia exploding during 130 or so flights to date. You may want to discuss the Ethical Dilemma in Ch.17 that relates to such a 98% reliability.

Discussion questions:

1. What has taken place since this article was published?

2. Compare the reliability of a jet engine or plane to a Shuttle flight.

Good OM Reading: The Spread of Industrial Engineering in China…By an American

Most all of us know the story about how Dr. Edwards Deming became the father of quality control in Japan. With their factories and infrastructure destroyed, Deming helped rebuild post-war Japan into the industrial powerhouse we know. Deming’s reputation is so strong in Japan that the awarding of the annual Deming Prize for quality is broadcast live on TV.

Most of don’t know, however, the story of how China’s productivity revolution began some nine years ago. The improbable tale, written in a fascinating Wall Street Journal article (Nov.6-7,2010), describes Gavriel Salvendy, a 72 year old Hungarian-Israeli-American professor who is the father of Industrial Engineering in China. Dividing his time between China’s MIT (Tsinghua University in Beijing) and Purdue, Salvendy tore up the traditional Chinese academic hierarchy. Now more than 200 IE programs have sprung up around China mimicking that at Tsinghua.

I hope you can take 5 minutes to click on the link to the WSJ article and enjoy it as much as I did.

OM in the News: Where Should Starbucks Open More Stores?

Under pressure to increase sales and share prices, Starbucks needs to add new stores in the right locations. The trouble is, the US market is saturated. So far, Starbucks has done very well in a handful of overseas markets. About 55% of its sales are in Canada, Japan, the UK, and China. But now even the UK and Canada are near capacity. Toronto, Vancouver, and London already have more Starbucks per person than NY or Philadelphia.

So the title of The Wall Street Journal article (Nov.4,2010) on the subject tells it all: “Starbucks Must Open More Stores–Overseas“. The Journal suggests Starbucks follows the McDonald’s international expansion. Where will the growth be? Germany and France are two prime candidates, as Starbucks has relatively few locations in each.

While McDonald’s draws about half its operating profit from overseas, Starbucks gets only 15% abroad. The Journal concludes: “Whether dry or wet, tall or grande, Starbucks needs to find a combination for similar overseas success”.

Discussion questions:

1. Why was McDonald’s so successful in its expansion abroad, and why will it be harder for Starbucks?

2. How can Starbucks increase profits without going overseas?

OM in the News: Hospitals Fear Outsourcing Records to India

Whenever I blog on the subject of outsourcing (see Chapter 2), I find myself using the word “controversial” (as on 10/12/10). And, indeed, this week’s Wall Street Journal article (Nov.2,2010) describes the contentious issue of outsourcing digitizing of hospital medical records to India. Overseas providers, it is commonly feared, do not have the security and privacy controls that US hospitals require. “As soon as it leaves the confines of the US, its not subject to the same rigorous laws as we are”, says the CIO of a Texas chain of 40 hospitals.

Every company in IT wants to cash in on the lucrative $50 billion US health care market fueled by a federal mandate for hospitals to convert to electronic records by 2017. Amazingly, only 20% of US hospitals currently have electronic health records. Its a carrot and stick approach, with $6 million grants to an average sized hospital (I wonder where all this money comes from!) and penalties for missing the deadline. Its “like another Y2K opportunity” for software firms, says the head of New Delhi’s HCL Technologies.

So the real question is, who should get the contracts? Its not so simple. HCL has about 2,400 American employees in N.C. Then again, Cognizant Technology Solutions is a US firm in N.J., but has most of its staff in India. Indian tech giants Infosys, Wipro, and Tata are all lined up with bids. But so are IBM, Xerox, and Dell in the US.

Discussion questions:

1. How do students feel about sending medical records abroad for automation?

2. Can this impact relations with India, which sees this as protectionist? (President Obama visits India in 2 days).

3. Why was Y2K such a boon to the IT industry? (Some of your students may not remember the drama that year).

Teaching Tip: Teaching Inventory Modeling in the Real World

Our research shows that the most frequently covered topic in OM courses is Inventory Management (Ch.12). In that chapter, we do discuss the importance of record accuracy, cycle counting, and shrinkage. But what we do not discuss is the use of the numerous inventory models if inventory is only “partially observed”.

In today’s issue of Decision Line (Oct., 2010), an excellent article by Prof. Suresh Sethi, at U.Texas-Dallas, goes into the reasons for partial observation of inventory levels and then discusses how these impact modeling efforts. Here are 5 causes Suresh details:

1. Sales recorded wrong (eg, a clerk scans an item twice, when there were actually 2 different flavors of soup).

2. Misplaced inventory (eg, when items are stored dynamically, not in a fixed location). Suresh tells of a top retailer who discovered 16% of its items were misplaced.

3. Spoilage (eg, when customers tear open a package to look at the item inside, spill drinks on clothes, or scratch a car they test drive).

4. Product quality and yield (eg, when some items coming into the warehouse are unknowingly damaged).

5. Theft (eg, break-ins, employee pilferage, and customer shoplifting). The Limited, eg., recorded an inventory discrepancy of $142 million a few years ago—the equivalence of 21,000 ocean containers!

Suresh concludes, “By now it should be clear that the incomplete inventory information (i3) problem is quite common in practice, that policies in current use are neither optimal nor applicable”. He finishes the article by discussing 4 ways to classify i3 problems.

The real point worth making in class is that the models we discuss in Ch.12 depend on accurate record keeping, which may be impossible in a variety of real world companies.

OM in the News: New Products Drive Profits at 3M

I love reading The Wall Street Journal from cover-to-cover every day. Where else can you find an article on the importance of sandpaper and a quote from the 3M CEO, “Why can’t abrasives be sexy?” (Nov.1,2010)

I share this with you because the real gist of the article is not just how 3M spent three years trying to improve one of basic products, sandpaper (they did it by using new technology to make every grain on the material the exact same size and shape). Rather, the article ties directly to Figure 5.2 in our chapter called Design of Goods and Services.

For any company to be successful, a substantial portion of its sales must come from products less than 5 years old. We give examples of Disney and Cisco as industry leaders, with almost 50% of sales from new services or goods. 3M falls just under this, expecting 30% of its sales to come from products introduced in the last 5 years. This places it in what we call the “top third”.

CEO George Buckley believes his firm’s edge is due to spending 5-6% of sales on R&D, even during the recession. On average, US manufacturers spent 3.4% of sales on R&D in 2008.

What other “sexy” products is 3M pursuing? Its masking tape, an old standby, now comes with an edge lock that keeps paint from seeping under the tape, which could spoil the straight line. 3M knows it must keep those improvements coming to stay in the top third.

Discussion questions:

1. Discuss the success rate for introducing new products in the marketplace.

2. What other approach is 3M taking to boost sales?

3. Where do new product ideas come from?

Video Tip: Flowcharting at Arnold Palmer Hospital

Many of our colleagues think flowcharting is an invaluable tools we should be teaching in OM. I agree, and every semester I show the video Process Analysis at Arnold Palmer Hospital (7 min.).

APH believes that if a process takes place more than one time, it should be documented and flowcharted. There is even a staffer shown in the film, Diane Bowles, with the job title “Clinical Practice Improvement Consultant”, whose full-time work is charting scores of processes.

After I show the video in class, I assign small teams to flowchart the process of maternity patients moving through the hospital (see the video case at the end of Chapter 7). The Solutions Manual shows one possible chart. When you show the video, ask the students about the pre-registration function, how it can be used to streamline the operation, and why pregnant women benefit from it.

The key is that continuous improvement helps both patient and hospital function/efficiency.

OM in the News: Sustainability Means Emptying Your Own Trash Can?

In my 40 years working in industry, government, and academia, I can’t remember anyone ever asking me to empty my office garbage can. Not that it would have been beneath me, as I am personally in charge of all trash disposal in my own home. But yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article “Memo to all Staff: Dump the Trash”, caught my eye as it was packaged to workers as a sustainability issue (see Ch.7).

Its not just in the State of Texas, the City of Phoenix, and Brewer Science (a Missouri semiconductor company) that employees are being asked to tote their own trash and recyclables to common bins. The idea has also caught on that professors (yes profs!) at the U. of Washington and at Dartmouth College empty their own baskets as part of an environmental initiative.

There are some savings, of course. Texas saves $825,000 annually on labor costs. Brewer’s janitorial staff is now just a quarter of its original size. But Dartmouth presented the new program as part of a broad sustainability package, whose primary goals “are to increase campus recycling and reduce waste”, according to its VP.

Some question the college’s rationale. Psych prof Catherine Cramer is quoted as saying: “The real goals here, however prettily wrapped in sustainability rhetoric, are rather obvious”. She wonders if “its good use my professional time”.

Just to be clear, though. Not everyone in Texas is in the program. The governor and legislators have kept their original trash service.

Discussion questions:

1. Discuss the economics of transferring work from low-paid employees to higher-paid professionals.

2. What is your own campus doing to enable the sustainability/ recycling efforts?

OM in the News: Yield Management Turns to Sports

We discuss the subject of yield (revenue) management in detail in Chapter 13, Aggregate Planning. Examples are provided from the airlines(American), hotels (Marriott), car rental companies (Hertz), and even Disney’s theme parks. But the latest issue of Operations Management/Management Science (OR/MS) Today (Oct., 2010) turns to an interesting and relatively new application of revenue management that may interest your students, namely, major league baseball.

Ticket prices to sporting events have always been priced to depend on the seat’s location. But the San Francisco Giants have discovered that dynamic pricing of game tickets has increased 2010 revenues 6%. Ticket costs now depend on the opposing teams, pitching match-ups, day of the week, and even the weather forecast.

For example, a ticket in the Field Club, behind home plate, for the Oct. 1st game between the San Diego Padres and the host Giants cost $68 at the start of the season. It went to $92 on Aug. 1st,$121 a week later, $145 on Sept. 4th, and $175 just before the game!

Discussion questions:

1. Are other sports and teams replicating this concept of dynamic pricing ?

2. Will there be fan pushback to the idea?

3. How did the 2010 pennant race impact on the Giant’s decision to use yield management?

OM in the News: The Challenge of Forecasting Electric Car Demand

If only we had a nice time series of data to use in forecasting demand for the relatively new product like electric cars! We could take several of the quantitative models in Chapter 4, Forecasting, and present a report complete with error measures such as MAD.

But when the product is heavily promoted battery-powered vehicles about to appear on roads around the world, such math models do not apply. We talk about 4 qualitative methods in the chapter, and these become our toolbox. Most forecasting firms, as we see in The Wall Street Journal (Oct.28,2010), turn to consumer market surveys to predict sales through 2020.

J.D.Power, for example, thinks sales will remain low and be only a small slice of the global market even a decade down the road. That firm puts the combined forecast of hybrids (such as the Toyota Prius) and all-electric models (like the Nissan Leaf) at 5.2 million cars in 2020. This is just 7.3% of all 70.9 million passenger vehicles to be sold by then.

Boston Consulting Group, in its separate study, forecasts hybrid and electric autos making up 26% of the 2020 global market. PRTM, yet another forecasting group, estimates the total at 30% of the market. PRTM thinks battery prices will fall enough to make prices the same as standard models.

Why the huge spread? “Based on our research of consumer market attitudes towards these technologies, we don’t anticipate a mass migration to green vehicles in the coming decade”‘ says one J.D. Powers VP. “Everybody feels that everybody else should be driving environmentally friendly vehicles”, says another Powers VP. But the CEO of a different firm states, “I think we might be underestimating the enthusiasm of the customers”.

Discussion questions:

1. Discuss the dangers of using consumer market surveys to forecast.

2. How have firms forecast the demand for other new products, like color TVs or HDTVs?

3. What could have a major impact on buyers’ behavior?

OM in the News: Detroit Moves Up in Auto Reliability, But Asia Still Rules

People buy cars for all sorts of reasons: styling, prestige, safety, and even color. But a reputation for quality and reliability is the one constant to almost every consumer, according to The Wall Street Journal (Oct.27,2010). With this week’s release of Consumer Reports’ rankings of new auto reliability, there is some good news for Detroit.

Ford and GM have greatly improved the reliability of their vehicles, and in some sectors are ranked better than their Asian counterparts. The Ford Fusion, for example, is now tops in the “family car” segment–bettering the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, and Nissan Altima. Ford is the top American company overall.

Chrysler, sadly, has still not taken off and is dead last in the rankings. Toyota’s once sterling reputation was also dinged; its Prius hybrid fell to “average” from its once high-rating because of recalls and brake problems. BMW ranked only 24 out of 27 brands, underlining how luxury car makers face quality challenges as they insert advanced technologies (that don’t always work perfectly) into their vehicles.

Good quality, as we in OM all know, creates an upward circle: the more reliable the car, the more people are willing to pay, and then the less discounts are needed. “It doesn’t take very long to lose a good reputation, but it takes 5 or 10 years to gain one”, says a Consumer Reports director.

Discussion questions:

1. Give some examples of products (cars included) where it took years to rebuild a damaged quality reputation.

2. Why is the Honda family of vehicles ranked consistently high?

3. Ford is now ranked 10th out of the 27 auto makers. What will it take to move to the top of the pack?