Matching Items (6)
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- All Subjects: Supply Chain
- Creators: Simonson, Mark
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
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
This paper serves as an analysis of the current operational conditions of a real-world company – referred to as “Company X” – with respect to the IC substrate industry. The cost of substrates, a crucial component in the production of Company X’s product, has recently diverged from Company X’s predictions and is contributing to declining profitability. This analysis aims to discover the underlying cause for price divergence and recommend potential resolutions to improve the forecast of substrate costs and profitability. The paper is organized as follows: Chapter 1 is an introduction to IC substrates and the industry as a whole, Chapter 2 is a breakdown of the specific factors responsible for substrate prices, and Chapter 3 delivers a final recommendation to Company X and concludes the paper.
ContributorsO'Loughlin, Connor (Author) / Fares, Ari (Co-author) / Aggarwal, Bianca (Co-author) / King, Camden (Co-author) / Guillaume, Riley (Co-author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Hertzel, Mike (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
This thesis discusses the case for Company X to improve its vast supply chain by implementing an artificial intelligence solution in the management of its spare parts inventory for manufacturing-related machinery. Currently, the company utilizes an inventory management system, based on previously set minimum and maximum thresholds, that doesn’t use predictive analytics to stock required spares inventory. This results in unnecessary costs and redundancies within the supply chain resulting in the stockout of spare parts required to repair machinery. Our research aimed to quantify the cost of these stockouts, and ultimately propose a solution to mitigate them. Through discussion with Company X, our findings led us to recommend the use of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) within the inventory management system to better predict when stockouts would occur. As a result of data availability, our analysis began on a smaller scale, considering only a single manufacturing site at Company X. Later, our findings were extrapolated across all manufacturing sites. The analysis includes the cost of stockouts, the capital that would be saved with A.I. implementation, costs to implement this new A.I. software, and the final net present value (NPV) that Company X could expect in 10 years and 25 years. The NPV calculations explored two scenarios, an external partnership and the purchase of a small private company, that lead to our final recommendations regarding the implementation of an A.I. software solution in Company X’s spares inventory management system. Following the analysis, a qualitative discussion of the potential risks and market opportunities associated with the explored implementation scenarios further guided the determination of our final recommendations.
ContributorsHolohan, Joseph Michael Houston (Co-author) / Shahriari, Rosie (Co-author) / Aun, Jose (Co-author) / Heineke, Christopher (Co-author) / Gurrola, Macario (Co-author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Hertzel, Michael (Committee member) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
This thesis examines real experiences of how small businesses responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in order to generate recommendations for said businesses post pandemic from a finance and supply chain perspective. A literature review finds that several trends that emerged over the pandemic, such as supply and demand changes, workforce difficulties, financing struggles, and the effectiveness of the Payment Protection Program. Next, we conducted a survey of local small businesses based on the findings in the literature review. The survey aimed to examine managers’ struggles, strategies, and responses to the pandemic. The survey responses were examined and then analyzed to find how they compare to the statistics from the literature review. The findings from the results and other sources served as the basis for which small business recommendations are made on how to prepare for future unprecedented economic crises and better situate themselves to respond.
ContributorsThomas, Ryan (Author) / Onyszchuk, Ethan (Co-author) / Printezis, Antonios (Thesis director) / Simonson, Mark (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
This thesis examines real experiences of how small businesses responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in order to generate recommendations for said businesses post pandemic from a finance and supply chain perspective. A literature review finds that several trends that emerged over the pandemic, such as supply and demand changes, workforce difficulties, financing struggles, and the effectiveness of the Payment Protection Program. Next, we conducted a survey of local small businesses based on the findings in the literature review. The survey aimed to examine managers’ struggles, strategies, and responses to the pandemic. The survey responses were examined and then analyzed to find how they compare to the statistics from the literature review. The findings from the results and other sources served as the basis for which small business recommendations are made on how to prepare for future unprecedented economic crises and better situate themselves to respond.
ContributorsOnyszchuk, Ethan (Author) / Thomas, Ryan (Co-author) / Simonson, Mark (Thesis director) / Printezis, Antonios (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor)
Created2022-05