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- Creators: Department of Finance
Description
Social impact bonds (SIBs) are a multi-year contract between social service providers, the government, and private investors. The three parties agree on a specific outcome for a societal issue. Investors provide capital required for the service provider to operate the project. The service provider then delivers the service to the target population. The success of the project is evaluated by outside party. If the target outcome is met, the government repays the investors at a premium. Nonprofit service providers can only serve a small community as they lack the funding to scale their programs and their reliance on government funding and philanthropy leads to a lot of time focused on raising money in the short-term and inhibits them from evolving their programs and projects for long-term strategic success. Government budgets decline but social problems persist. These contracts share risk between the government and the investors and allow governments to test out programs and alleviate taxpayer burdens from unsuccessful social service programs. Arizona has a severe homelessness problem. Nightly, 6000 people are homeless in Maricopa County. In a given year, over 32,000 individuals were homeless, composed of single adults, families, children, and veterans. Homelessness is not only a debilitating and difficult experience for those who experience it, but also has considerable economic costs on society. Homeless individuals use a number of government programs beyond emergency shelters, and these can cost taxpayers billions of dollars per year. Rapid rehousing was a successful intervention model that the state has been heavily investing in the last few years. This thesis aimed to survey the Arizona climate and determine what barriers were present for enacting an SIB for homelessness. The findings showed that although there are many competent stakeholder groups, lack of interest and overall knowledge of SIBs prevented groups from taking responsibility as the anchor for such a project. Additionally, the government and nonprofits had good partnerships, but lacked relationships with the business community and investors that could propel an SIB. Finally, although rapid rehousing can be used as a successful intervention model, there are not enough years of proven success to justify the spending on an SIB. Additionally, data collection for homelessness programming needs to be standardized between all relevant partners. The framework for an SIB exists in Arizona, but needs a few more years of development before it can be considered.
ContributorsAhmed, Fabeeha (Author) / Desouza, Kevin (Thesis director) / Lucio, Joanna (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
"Improving Life Outcomes for Children in Arizona: Educational Social Impact Bond" is a creative project that is structured as a pitch to the Arizona Department of Education to consider social impact bonds as a way to fund pilot education programs. The pitch begins with a brief overview of the umbrella of impact investing, and then a focus on social impact bonds, an area of impact investing. A profile of Arizona's current educational rankings along with statistics are then presented, highlighting the need for an educational social impact bond to help increase achievement. The pitch then starts to focus particularly on high school drop outs and how by funding early childhood education the chances of a child graduating high school increase. An overview of existing early education social impact bonds that are enacted are then presented, followed by a possible structure for an early education social impact bond in Arizona. An analysis of the possible lifetime cost savings of investing in early childhood education are then presented, that are as a result of decreasing the amount of high school drop outs. Lastly, is a brief side-by-side comparison of the Arizona structure to the precedent social impact bonds.
ContributorsRodriguez, Karina (Author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Trujillo, Gary (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
P.F. Chang's China Bistro is a privately-held purveyor of Asian fare in the United States and internationally, known largely for its vibrant atmosphere and lettuce wraps. With hundreds of locations and dozens of menu items, procurement, logistics, and coordination of ingredient delivery to P.F. Chang's restaurants is no small task. Despite their difficulty, supply chain operations from suppliers to customers' plates must run efficiently if P.F. Chang's is to maintain customer loyalty, a trusted brand, and profitability. As such, supply chain initiatives that allow for faster, better, or lower-cost operation are valuable investments for P.F. Chang's. In this project, two initiatives focused on increasing visibility along the value chain (with the hope of creating immediate value and easier implementation for future strategies). The first initiative involved stakeholder interviews and academic research to determine evaluation methods for P.F. Chang's suppliers in the form of a scorecard. The second project required extensive data collection from suppliers to isolate and remove excess cost in the inbound logistics of P.F. Chang's inventory. Both initiatives led to incremental improvement at P.F. Changs and the latter provided substantial cost savings. Further investigation and work is likely to yield continued benefits for the company. The increased use of data in all supply chains to guide decision-making will be easier for P.F. Chang's as it manages ongoing visibility efforts. Although process explanation and general outcomes will be reported here, the proprietary nature of P.F. Chang's data precludes full disclosure of the project results in public documentation.
ContributorsBarger, Michael Richard (Author) / Taylor, Todd (Thesis director) / Miller, Steve (Committee member) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This Thesis was written to prepare myself for my career in supply chain management and to take a look at negotiations deeper than SCM 355 and 455 did. It was also written to utilize my internship knowledge as a sourcing supply chain intern at UTC Aerospace Systems. My internship has introduced me to all of the possibilities in the procurement part of supply chain and overall got me very excited about my career. Throughout this paper I used prior knowledge from SCM classes, researched SCM articles, and face-to- face negotiations I have been a part of at my internship. I was very excited to learn more and research about negotiations to help me further in my career as a Commodity Manager at American Airlines.
ContributorsCollinsworth, Amelia Danielle (Author) / Carter, Craig (Thesis director) / Sadusky, Brian (Committee member) / Evers, Justin (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
New Venture Group, a student-run consulting organization at ASU, collaborated with representatives from Intel Corporation to determine current best supplier management practices in the area of capital equipment procurement. The New Venture Group team accomplished this goal by completing the following deliverables: (1) Research and consolidate best practices for managing capital equipment suppliers. (2) Interview suppliers of capital equipment in the semiconductor industry to understand their motivators. (3) Examine top supply chain companies that utilize capital equipment manufacturers within their procurement systems. (4) Gather data and knowledge in conjunction with Intel Corporation's current practices to improve the effectiveness of the company's supplier management techniques regarding capital equipment manufacturers. The thesis report outlines the key insights and recommendations that our team extracted from the research that we performed. Our team analyzed peer-reviewed journal articles, conducted interviews with suppliers of capital equipment to semiconductor manufacturers, and surveyed buyers at top companies to reach important key insights. We then used these insights to develop the following strategies to improve Intel's capital equipment supplier management structure: All Suppliers 1. Allow high-performance suppliers to select one reward from an established portfolio of incentives. 2. Increase measurement frequency for specific metrics. 3. Use collaborative two-way measurement with a corresponding balanced scorecard. Key Suppliers of Critical Products 4. Conduct gap analysis through supplier self-assessments. 5. Implement collaborative target pricing. 6. Delegate an Ombudsman. 7. Create a value map to determine the strengths and incentivize collaboration. 8. Create comparison charts comparing supplier technological competencies versus Intel's product developments. 9. Establish a systematized product development process and strategic sourcing strategy that supports the continuation of Moore's Law.
ContributorsSantiago, Bryce (Co-author) / Chen, Jenny (Co-author) / Chang, Karen (Co-author) / Baldridge, Stephen (Co-author) / Laub, Jeffrey (Thesis director) / Brooks, Daniel (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor, Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Amazon Prime Air is the innovative new service that promises automated drone delivery in thirty minutes or less. The platform has not yet been brought to market, but there is a plethora compelling data available that suggests it will be a unique and highly disruptive business segment for Amazon. The aim of this thesis is to analyze the framework laid out by Amazon.com, Inc. for their anticipated Prime Air drone delivery platform, and offer our recommendations for what steps the e-commerce giant should take moving forward. Following a brief recap of the company's founding and a breakdown of its various business segments, we will begin our analysis by examining past strategic decisions that Amazon has made which have directly contributed to their current market position. It is our goal to construct a narrative of what events lead the company to begin developing a fleet of automated delivery vehicles. Following this history lesson, we will review and criticize the existing elements of Amazon's Prime Air platform, and explore any possible alternatives that they could have taken to optimize the development of this exciting new technology. Criticisms will touch upon elements such as cost efficiencies, brand management, and utilization of infrastructure to name but a few. These criticisms will be based upon data sourced from Amazon's available material as well as comments from market analysts and journalists. The culminating element of our analysis will be to offer our professional recommendations as to what we believe the next logical steps that Amazon should take for their Prime Air platform. These recommendations will be informed by our criticisms and our understanding of Amazon as a corporation. This chapter will be largely concerned with guiding Amazon towards a fully optimized drone delivery platform. Our recommendations will be based upon our extensive experience concerning cost and logistical efficiencies, as well as our knowledge of Amazon as a corporation. We will offer succinct suggestions for Amazon's immediate needs as well as long-term solutions to lingering obstacles that they may face.
ContributorsMcCaleb, Nicholas (Co-author) / Glynn, Reagan (Co-author) / Choi, Thomas (Thesis director) / Rogers, Dale (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
The purpose of this thesis is to gain a greater understanding of Ph. D research and how general research in the field of supply chain management and operations is being conducted in 2017. In order to gain a greater understanding, this thesis contains summaries and personal perspectives on four different supply chain management and operations seminars from visiting professors. There is also an expanded examination of the research area from the fourth seminar, process compliance. Multiple literature sources were used to construct a perspective on process development, process standardization, and process compliance origins and current state.
ContributorsBerg, Paul Joseph (Author) / Taylor, Todd (Thesis director) / Printezis, Antonios (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Hugh Downs School of Human Communication (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
This thesis investigates the potential of life cycle analysis for more sustainable sourcing strategies in organizations. Using the example of the College of Lake County (CLC) in Illinois, I study how life-cycle analysis can help to improve the procurement of products and services in higher education. Currently, CLC's purchasing team does not understand how sourcing affects operational and environmental performance. In addition, CLC's purchasing team does not communicate effectively with other departments from a product utilization standpoint. The objective of this research is to analyze CLC's current product procurement process and to assess the feasibility of implementing life cycle analysis tools. Further, I evaluate different life cycle analysis tools and provide recommendations to CLC about the applicability of these tools so that they may be implemented into the university in the future. First, I find that both the procurement and IT department at CLC are not familiar with life-cycle analysis tools and hence, do not know about the life cycle of their processes and services. Second, I identify professional life cycle analysis tools relevant for CLC. Two software options, GaBi and SimaPro, are discussed. Finally, I suggest six steps for a successful implementation of life cycle analysis at CLC: (1) form an interdisciplinary team, (2) analyze demand and collect additional data, (3) conduct a product life cycle analysis using a software tool, (4) define which products to analyze further, (5) conduct life cycle costing analysis with the same software tool, and (6) utilize these results for decisions and delegation of responsibility.
ContributorsGotsch, Rachel Lynne (Author) / Wiedmer, Robert (Thesis director) / Kashiwagi, Jacob (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Digital identification technology is the unsung hero of the LEAN manufacturing, Six sigma quality, and supply chain management movements. By tethering the physical to the digital world digital identification has helped usher industry into the information age. Today this technology continues to become more pervasive and advanced, in the future it is likely that it will have an even larger role to play. In this paper ten sources of current (last 12 months) academic literature will be reviewed in conjunction with two GE cases taken from personal experience in order to better understand the current applications and future trajectory of digital identification. The basis of this paper will be derived from understanding how the most prevalent form of digital identification, barcode is used to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of internal and external business operations. This "current state" knowledge will act as a benchmark to understand the potential diffusion and impact of future digital tracking technologies. The exploration of "up and coming" technologies will lead into a RFID technology deep dive encompassing its current applications and the frictions preventing widespread (barcode scale) implementation. In conclusion the "future state" of how RFID and more complex embedded communication devices will expand the scope of benefits granted by digital identification through a phenomenon known as the internet of things, along with the factors effecting its adoption will be discussed.
ContributorsCampbell, Ross Bradley (Author) / Printezis, Antonios (Thesis director) / Taylor, Todd (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
DescriptionThis is a business analysis of a small fashion jewelry importer. The analysis is primarily done from a Supply Chain Management perspective while also analyzing the company's marketing department.
ContributorsAggarwal, Rohit (Co-author) / Larson, Reed (Co-author) / Maltz, Arnold (Thesis director) / Brown, Steven (Committee member) / Easton, Kevin (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor)
Created2013-05