Tag: cell phones

Guest Post: Product/Service Lifecycle– Landlines, Operators and Cellphones

Prof. Howard Weiss is providing Guest Posts while I am travelling abroad.

Recently Bloomberg reported that AT&T will end its operator service in 21 states, meaning that 3 million customers with digital landlines can’t dial 0 and get directory assistance. At the conclusion of World War I, there were roughly 180,000 operators employed by telecommunication companies. The number peaked to 350,000 in the 1950s but is now down to 550.

The decline in the need for operators is due to two obvious factors:.
1) There has been a steep increase in the number of households that have replaced landlines with cellphones. In 2003, 3% of adults had wireless only service; in 2008, 19% had wireless only, whereas as of June 2022, 71% of adults had wireless only service. Unsurprisingly, the percentage usage of wireless only service is related to age in that 89% of persons 25-29 years old do not have landlines whereas only 45% of persons aged 65 and older do not have only landlines. As of 2017, only 10% of the 455 million telephone numbers in the U.S. were for landlines.

2) There has been an increase in the use of the internet to find phone numbers.

Clearly, landlines and operators are both in the Decline stage of the life cycle that is displayed in Figure 5.2 in your Heizer/Render/Munson textbook while cell phones are somewhere between the Growth stage and Early Maturity stage Other products and services that are related to landlines are showing similar declines.

Answering Machines
The first commercially viable answering machine was developed in 1949. Answering machines became more widely used after the restructuring of AT&T in 1984, which was when the machines became affordable and sales reached one million units per year in the U.S.

Voicemail
The main difference between answering machines and voice mail is that messages on answering machines are stored locally whereas voicemail messages are stored in a different location, such as the cloud. Many businesses no longer use voicemail but instead rely on contact forms and emails. In addition, for many consumers, contact via the web is preferred over phone calls.

Classroom discussion questions:
1. What other products are in a growth stage due to the increase in cellphone usage?
2. What professions are in a growth stage due to the increase in cellphone usage?

OM in the News: Apple Believes in Squeezing Its Supply Chain

To understand Apple’s evolving place in the tech world, consider that one of its most important executives today is a guy whose job is badgering suppliers to get costs down. Tony Blevins, VP-Procurement, will stop at little to get a favorable deal. He has paraded manufacturers past competitors in Apple’s lobby and spurned a UPS contract by sending it back to UPS executives through FedEx. He persuaded subcontractors not to pay a chip maker that Apple was in litigation with, depriving the chip company of $8 billion.

The supply chain was always a critical piece of the Apple formula—alongside, if duller than, its magic designs, writes The Wall Street Journal (Jan. 24, 2020). CEO Tim Cook built the supplier network and instilled rigorous frugality in it as he did so. Today the supply chain looms larger than ever at Apple. Slowing iPhone sales, combined with the increasing cost of new features, make the job of hammering down expenses critical.

The result is a company less identified with visionary leaders and more of an operations juggernaut with rich profit margins it intends to keep. Blevins enforces manufacturing deadlines that help the company fill orders on time around the world. He manages semiconductor suppliers, making him the bearer of bad news if Apple sets out to replace their chips with an in-house product. Under Blevins, Apple pays Intel $10 per modem chip, roughly 50% less than Samsung pays Qualcomm. Blevins even rotates staff members every few years to keep them from developing supplier relationships that might dilute their focus on saving Apple money.

Apple believes that saving 10% on the cost of parts could boost profits more quickly than selling more computers, exactly the point we make in the text on page 7 in Table 1.1, “Options for Increasing Contribution.”

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why is Blevins so important to Apple?
  2.  Explain the implications of Table 1.1.

Guest Post: Free Your Classroom from Cell Phones

Today’s Guest Post comes from Dr. Albena Ivanova, who is Associate Professor of OM at Robert Morris University in Pennsylvania.

Last semester I found this article on the APA website: https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/undergrad/ptacc/no-mobile-phones.pdf

The professor, whose name is not listed in the paper, uses a positive reinforcement strategy to provide a disincentive for the students to use cell phones during class. He/she gives an opportunity for the students to earn bonus points if they leave their cell phones on the front desk for the entire class the entire semester.

I tried this technique in one of my classes this semester (see the photo with each student’s spot numbered) and it worked well. I surveyed the students at the end of the semester and 84% stated that they did not miss their cell phones during class, 84% did not feel anxious during class without cell phones, 84% did not feel disconnected from the world without cell phones, 68% stated they were able to focus better, and 68% said were able to take better notes.

I will definitely use this technique again in my future classes. However, if the class relies too heavy on computer use, then the computer itself becomes a distraction. That is why I would recommend using this technique only if the computer usage in class is minimal.

Teaching Tip: Dealing with Students Multitasking in Your OM Class

The amount of multitasking students do during our OM classes and while studying is alarming. More than 85% of students in surveys nationwide say they have their phones on in class, are looking at texts as they come in and during class, and 70-90% say they respond to texts in class. And this is happening in courses with policies that prohibit cell phone use!

But this also happens when students study outside of class.  In one study where students were observed for 15 minutes, they were only on task (that is, studying what they were supposed to be studying) 65% of the time. In another study, where a 3-hour study period was carefully monitored with camera and eye tracking devices, students were distracted by media unrelated to studying 35 times.

Research studies have shown over and over that task switching and multitasking compromise learning outcomes. Students who use devices when they study and/or when they’re supposed to be listening, perform less well on quizzes and exams, and they receive lower course grades overall. Surely, if students knew how these devices were lowering their grades and diminishing their learning they would change their behavior.

But in two new studies cited in Faculty Focus (Jan. 31, 2018), educational interventions astoundingly failed to change students’ behavior.  In response to direct questions about the effects of multitasking, students were fully aware of the potential harms. They believed that their grades would improve if they paid better attention in class and the majority reported that they were motivated to improve their grades. What seems to be keeping the phones on is the high anxiety students feel when they’re off and how dependent they have become on these devices. (And are faculty totally immune?)

Learning is at stake, and we still have a lot to figure out.

Teaching Tip: Cellphones in Your OM Class

cell phoneAs faculty, it seems we are very concerned about cell phones in the classroom. Articles about the problem are popping up everywhere in the pedagogical literature, writes Faculty Focus (Oct. 14, 2015), and they often are the “most-read” articles listed on various websites. Is student use of electronic devices that pressing of a pedagogical problem? Research makes it abundantly clear that students can’t multitask, despite their beliefs to the contrary. Even a casual observation of them texting in class while they’re supposed to be listening and taking notes makes it obvious that it’s the listening and note-taking that are getting short shrift.

Does the use of the devices make it harder for other students to focus on learning tasks? More than 60% of students say it does, according to a recent survey. However, 80% of those surveyed reported using their cell phones at least once a class, with 75% saying that doing so was either acceptable or sometimes acceptable. Students in the survey didn’t rate a university policy, a syllabus policy, or a glare from the teacher as all that effective; some 40% said they would still text in class even after a teacher reprimand.

Does the use of devices disrupt faculty? It can. Students aren’t engaging with the material when they’re on their phones, and we have leadership responsibility for the classroom environment. Also, students aren’t listening to us, and that’s rude. Should we be taking this personally?  It feels like we should be doing something, but we’re justifiably reluctant to make the power moves that fix the problem when there’s such a high risk of collateral damage in our teaching evaluations. By the way, at DSI and POMS meetings I attend, faculty are on their devices not infrequently.

The bottom line: If we get too focused on the problem, then isn’t that taking away time we could be using to shape our content in interesting ways and to devise activities that so effectively engage students they forget to check devices? Maybe the best policy here is no policy, but instead some classroom discussions about the subject.

 

 

 

Teaching Tip: Dealing With Student Cellphone Use During Your OM Lectures

cellphonesStudents and their devices have become virtually inseparable, writes Faculty Focus (Jan. 8, 2014). They are using them constantly and find it difficult to disconnect for any amount of time. When they’re texting, looking at Facebook, or cruising on the Internet and listening to your OM lecture and trying to take notes, they aren’t dealing with the content as well as they would be if they just focused on listening and note taking. And the evidence of that keeps accumulating. The research below found: “. . . students who use their mobile phones during class lectures tend to write down less information, recall less information, and perform worse on tests than those who abstain from using their mobile phones during class.”

Can we get students to put away their phones and focus on learning? Even with a policy and overt attempts to enforce it, without constant surveillance, it is very, very difficult to ensure that students are not using their devices. If your class is large, it is all but impossible. And that kind of vigilant enforcement is not without costs to you as enforcer.

Here is an alternative: Give your normal presentation in class. Then 5 minutes before class ends, distribute or post a list of your 5 or 6 essential points made. Students could check their notes, or you could have students trade notes so that someone else is doing the checking, and see how many of those points they had. Some students may miss a few of the points because they aren’t all that good at taking notes. But were some of the students who missed most (all) of the points also texting or surfing during class? Encourage them to ask themselves the question and to look honestly at the evidence revealed by their notes. No, you aren’t going to be providing one of these lists at the end of every class, but you may consider doing it sometime during the next couple of weeks as the new semester begins. And if students are really interested in knowing how texting affects what they’re getting out of class, they should try listening and taking notes without doing anything else.

Reference: Kuznekoff. J. H. and Titsworth, S. (2013). The impact of mobile phone usage on student learning. Communication Education, 62 (3), 233-252.