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- All Subjects: Supply Chain Management
- All Subjects: Supply Chains
- Creators: Department of Supply Chain Management
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Description
This is a creative thesis project on the topic of the third party logistics industry, and the improvements that are possible through the implementation of goods to person technologies. The scope of the project entails the relationship between Company X, which is a third party logistics provider, and Company Y, a major toy retailer. This thesis identifies current trends for the third party logistics industry such as rising operating costs and average savings achieved through these business relationships. After identifying the negative trends that Company X is vulnerable to such as high human resources costs, and cost of quality issues. Given the findings derived from industry data, a final recommendation was settled on to improve productivity and ultimately reduce the use of temporary labor for Company X. The implementation of a goods to person technology solution provides the opportunity to reduce hours of operation, man hours, as well as direct and indirect costs such as labor. Research has proven that firms operating in the retail industry rely heavily on temporary labor to handle the seasonal demand brought by the holidays, thus this recommendation could be applied to a variety of operations. The data compiled throughout this thesis have major implications for the third party logistics industry and achieving long term profitability in operations management.
ContributorsFonseca, Tanner (Author) / Printezis, Antonios (Thesis director) / Kellso, James (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This article summarizes exploratory research conducted on private and public hospital systems in Australia and Costa Rica analyzing the trends observed within supply chain procurement. Physician preferences and a general lack of available comparative effectiveness research—both of which are challenges unique to the health care industry—were found to be barriers to effective supply chain performance in both systems. Among other insights, the ability of policy to catalyze improved procurement performance in public hospital systems was also was observed. The role of centralization was also found to be fundamental to the success of the systems examined, allowing hospitals to focus on strategic rather than operational decisions and conduct value-streaming activities to generate increased cost savings.
ContributorsBudgett, Alexander Jay (Author) / Schneller, Eugene (Thesis director) / Gopalakrishnan, Mohan (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The rationale behind this thesis is grounded in nearly two years of experience interning at UTC Aerospace Systems (UTAS). I was able to gain a wide exposure to different facets of the supply chain management organization during my time as an intern, from strategic sourcing and commodity management, to tactical procurement and supplier development. In each of these respective areas, I observed a variety of initiatives that did not reach their full potential because employees were not provided the tools for success. One of these areas in particular is the New Product Introduction (NPI) process management, in which there is not a standard process for program managers to follow from start to finish. I saw this as an opportunity to hone in the scope of my thesis research and experience at UTAS to improve a process and provide standard work and tools for it to be consistently executed. The current state process is not formalized \u2014 it merely tracks certain metrics that are not necessarily applicable to the overall health of the program because they do not monitor the progress of the program. This resulted in heavy costs incurred from inadequate planning, a skewed timeline, and customer frustration. The aim of the desired state NPI process is to gather cross-functional expertise and weigh in, adhere to a strict entry to market timeline, and increase customer satisfaction, all while minimizing costs incurred throughout the life of the program. The dominant output of this project will be a cross-functional flow chart of the process for each group to follow and standard work and tools to support the process across a variety of NPI program applications.
ContributorsThorn, Taylor Aiko Marie (Author) / Brown, Steven (Thesis director) / Arrigoni, Gregory (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This study was conducted to better understand the making and measuring of renewable energy goals by the federal government. Three different energy types are studied: wind, solar, and biofuel, for two different federal departments: the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy. A statistical analysis and a meta-analysis of current literature will be the main pieces of information. These departments and energy types were chosen as they represent the highest potential for renewable energy production. It is important to understand any trends in goal setting by the federal government, as well as to understand what these trends represent in terms of predicting renewable energy production. The conclusion for this paper is that the federal government appears to set high goals for renewable energy initiatives. While the goals appear to be high, they are designed based on required characteristics described by the federal government. These characteristics are most often technological advancements, tax incentives, or increased production, with tax incentives having the highest priority. However, more often than not these characteristics are optimistic or simply not met. This leads to the resetting of goals before any goal can be evaluated, making it difficult to determine the goal-setting ability of the federal government.
ContributorsStapleton, Andrew (Co-author) / Charnell, Matthew (Co-author) / Printezis, Antonios (Thesis director) / Kull, Thomas (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
In order to discover if Company X's current system of local trucking is the most efficient and cost-effective way to move freight between sites in the Western U.S., we will compare the current system to varying alternatives to see if there are potential avenues for Company X to create or implement an improved cost saving freight movement system.
ContributorsPicone, David (Co-author) / Krueger, Brandon (Co-author) / Harrison, Sarah (Co-author) / Way, Noah (Co-author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Hertzel, Michael (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
This piece aims to discuss the roles of emerging geographies within the context of global supply chains, approaching the conversation with a "systems" view, emphasizing three key facets essential to a holistic and interdisciplinary environmental analysis: -The Implications of Governmental & Economic Activities -Supply Chain Enablement Activities, Risk Mitigation in Emerging Nations -Implications Regarding Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility In the appreciation of the interdisciplinary implications that stem from participation in global supply networks, supply chain professionals can position their firms for continued success in the proactive construction of robust and resilient supply chains. Across industries, how will supply networks in emerging geographies continue to evolve? Appreciating the inherent nuances related to the political and economic climate of a region, the extent to which enablement activities must occur, and sustainability/CSR tie-ins will be key to acquire this understanding. This deliverable aims to leverage the work of philosophers, researchers and business personnel as these questions are explored. The author will also introduce a novel method of teaching (IMRS) in the undergraduate business classroom that challenges the students to integrate their prior experiences both in the classroom and in the business world as they learn to craft locally relevant solutions to solve complex global problems.
ContributorsVaney, Rachel Lee (Author) / Maltz, Arnold (Thesis director) / Kellso, James (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Upon investigating the current state of the high scrap problem at Niagara Bottling's Phoenix manufacturing facility, it was found that 49% of the scrap was being generated at the bottling lines in the form of plastic bottles, and 39% of scrap took the form of preforms accumulated at either the bottling lines or the injection molding machines. The scope of this project includes all forms of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), but the large accumulation of scrap in these areas suggests a primary focus on the bottling lines and the injection molding machines. Further analysis of the bottling lines found that the filler at each line as well as the blower on line X1 were the biggest contributors to the scrap accumulation problem. Each of these machines was seeing over 0.4% of bottles rejected at the visual inspection units. Due to the underlying status and quality issues of the injection molding machines that were beyond the scope of this project, this process was only investigated for solutions involving the overall processes and people. Based on the data and process flow analysis there were several solutions proposed including a root-cause analysis of the highest faulting machines, the repair of the injection molding overhead conveyor systems, the creation of a low waste environment, and the implementation a scrap tracking and analysis process. Based on the current high variability in the scrap experience across all machines, it is recommended that Niagara Phoenix pursue the scrap tracking and analysis alternative. After the implementing the scrap tracking and analysis process, the initial results were encouraging and could potentially warrant the investment in a software platform that could automate the collection of data necessary for this process. Based on the initial results of the manual collection and analysis process, each individual line show signs of potential reduction in the scrap rate of over 50%. According to this improvement, purchasing the software platform would see a payoff period of only 36 days.
ContributorsSanchez, Thomas Camden (Author) / Kellso, James (Thesis director) / Lupe, Munoz (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The purpose of this thesis research project is to explore blockchain technology and its present and future applications within supply chain management. Emerging blockchain technologies, both public and private, are already showing great promise for a number of applications in and outside supply chain management. Our sole focus is to understand the fundamentals of blockchain, smart contracts, current applications in supply chain, and the future possibilities for blockchain to shape global supply chains. Many have theorized about how private blockchains can be implemented and used; however, there is little research to date that has collected and explored the actual use cases in industry today. The mission of this research paper is to separate theory from the current state of the technology and provide a clearer understanding of where the technology is headed in the near future. We aim to produce a work that will provide a comprehensive description and commentary on current use cases for the education of students and industry professionals alike. With any new technological developments, terminology and technicalities can be paralyzing, and this is particularly true for blockchain technology. For this project, our goal was to create a document that cuts through the complexities and allows a non-technical audience to gain a strong foundational understanding of blockchain's potential and current limitations within supply chains. Provided this, some highly technical concepts and implementation details will not be explored due to the complexity and minimal understanding even amongst industry experts. As future supply chain professionals, we are motivated to further our understanding of blockchain technologies and the potential for this technology to shape the future of supply chain management.
ContributorsBecker, Logan (Co-author) / Falco, Alexander (Co-author) / Murphy, Thomas Brian (Co-author) / Taylor, Todd (Thesis director) / Wiedmer, Robert (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
When making investment decisions many different indicators are taken into consideration before picking a stock/corporation to invest in (retail or institutional). Traditionally these indicators tend to be financial measures such as earnings per share, price to earnings ratio, price to book value ratio, dividend yield/payout ratio, etc. Often these indicators do not take into consideration the actual running intricacies of a company as they are simply based on historical financial statements, thus limiting an investor's decision-making ability. In this paper I analyze several companies stock performance to see if analyzing operational factors such as supply chain management before making an investment decision would have resulted in a profitable investment and thus prove as a reliable investment indicator. To do this I focused my analysis over a period of 5 years on two companies within three different industries; Fast Food, Processing, and Ecommerce. These industries were selected as the nature of their businesses require intensive supply chains thus this strategy would be most applicable to them as opposed to a software or IT company. Of the two companies selected from each respective industry one company would be listed/analyzed in Gartner's ranking of the "Annual Supply Chain Top 25" while the other company would not be. This Gartner ranking would serve as a measure of whether or not a company had a good supply chain. These companies then had their traditional financial metrics evaluated to see if supply chain analysis indirectly encapsulated some of these metrics as well. The goal of this analysis was to find if there was a strong correlation between companies listed on Gartner's rating scale and strong stock performance. If this was true this would suggest that there is a benefit to be captured by investors through using supply chain analysis as an indicator when making investment decisions.
ContributorsThompson, Tyler Thomas (Author) / Kellso, James (Thesis director) / Smith, Geoffrey (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The purpose of this thesis is to gain a more nuanced understanding of what research is currently going on in the academic realm of supply chain management. This thesis is composed of two parts. The first part contains summaries and personal takeaways from four different supply chain management seminars that were put on by professors who were visiting the ASU campus. These seminars include general topics such as RFID readability, supply chain cash conversion cycles, risk management within the healthcare supply chain, and building trust and trustworthiness in global business. The second part of the thesis will then use a literature review to expand upon the topic of risk management within the healthcare supply chain, and to explore how previous research ties into the current happenings of the industry, as well as its future implications.
ContributorsHemzacek, Noah (Author) / Printezis, Antonios (Thesis director) / Choi, Thomas (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05