2015 Informs Annual Meeting

WC59

INFORMS Philadelphia – 2015

WC59 59-Room 110B, CC Strategy/Strategic Planning II Contributed Session

WC60 60-Room 111A, CC Flexible Manufacturing Systems Contributed Session

Chair: Karim Farhat, Stanford University, 475 Via Ortega, Huang Engineering Center 245A, Stanford, CA, 94305, United States of America, kfarhat@stanford.edu 1 - Product Spacing and The Quest for Survival: Organizational Learning in New Markets Josué Reynoso, PhD Student, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, In new product markets, entrants make choices about the characteristics of their products. Given the technological and market uncertainties, learning plays a key role on the success of product strategies. While product differentiation is related to faster learning, diffusion dynamics provide incentives to introduce products in the vicinity of what is already in the market. Product-level data is used to analyze this tension as well as pre-entry experience and order-of-entry effects. 2 - Is it Worth Trusting Your Manager? Elena Kulchina, Assistant Professor, Duke University, Fuqua School of Business, 100 Fuqua Drive, Durham, NC, 27708, United States of America, Elena.Kulchina@duke.edu Researchers have long been interested in the role of top managers in organizations. The research, however, has paid little attention to the social aspects of the relationships between managers and owners. We focus one such social aspectóthe asymmetry of trust between an owner and a manager. We demonstrate that under-trusted managers are associated with lower firm performance. Conversely, equal trust and over-trust have no negative association with the performance of firms with hired managers. 3 - A Theoretical Synthesis of Research on Strategy Implementation Effectiveness Alex Tawse, PhD Candidate In Management, University of Houston - Bauer College of Business, 4800 Calhoun Road, Houston, TX, 77004, United States of America, awtawse@uh.edu, Pooya Tabesh Strategy implementation (SI) is a critical component of organizational performance. Despite extensive efforts by researchers to define and develop factors that determine effective SI, a comprehensive framework of SI has yet to be developed. Through the synthesis of existing research, we propose a model that defines the process of SI, summarizes tools that promote SI effectiveness, and outlines three conditions for successful SI: coordination, commitment, and capability. 4 - Can Divestiture Foster Parent-firm’s Innovation? Proactiveness, Experiences and Relative Size Kyungsuk Lee, Seoul National University Business School, 599 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 151-916, Korea, Republic of, kxl5060@snu.ac.kr, Dong-kee Rhee, Taewoo Roh We investigate the impact of post–divestitures on innovative activities at firm- level. This study integrated research on knowledge–based view and organizational inertia and encompassed the model of financial distress in order to evaluate firm’s proactive–ness. Our findings contribute to understandings of how proactive divestiture can reinforce knowledge capacity, distant from previous studies that regarded divestiture as a reactive action vis-‡-vis financial pressure. 5 - Quantifying Competitive Strategy: Decision Analytic Modeling of Five-forces Framework 124 Ferry Street, Apt. 203, Troy, NY, 12180, United States of America, reynoj5@rpi.edu

Chair: Hakan Gultekin, TOBB University of Economicas and Technology, Sogutozu Cad No:43 Sogutozu, Ankara, Turkey, hgultekin@etu.edu.tr 1 - The Optimization of Agile Multi-Product Production Systems through Markov Decision Process Yuan Feng, Tsinghua University, Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China, fengyuan1216@gmail.com, Wenhui Fan In order to optimize the work-in-process (WIP) level in multi-product production systems, Markov Decision Process is used to obtain the optimal workforce scheduling policy, which dynamically allocates the cross-trained workforce according to the system state. The results from simulation experiments show that the WIP level of the optimal policy based on MDP is significantly lower than the WIP levels under Longest Queue, Shortest Queue, Longest Time, Shortest Time and Cyclic Policies in any case. 2 - Modeling and Analysis of a Flexible Manufacturing Cell with Three Machines and a Robot Mehmet Savsar, Professor, Kuwait University, College of Engineering, P.O. Box 5969, Safat, 13060, Kuwait, mehmet.savsar@ku.edu.kw This paper presents a stochastic model for analysis of a Flexible Manufacturing Cell (FMC) consisting of three flexible machines, one robot, and a pallet. Batch of parts are conveyed into and out of the cell by the pallet, while the robot loads and unloads the parts. The stochastic model is used to determine system performance measures, including production rate of the cell and utilization of the system components under different operational conditions. 3 - Cell Formation in under Uncertain Demand and Processing Times: A Stochastic Genetic Algorithm (SGA) Samrat Singh, Research Assistant, North Dakota State University, 1263 17th Avenue North, Unit 20 University Village, Fargo, ND, 58102, United States of America, samrat.singhnepal@gmail.com, Gokhan Egilmez This study addresses the stochastic cell formation problem with a newly proposed stochastic genetic algorithm (SGA) approach considering stochastic demand and processing times, thus capacity requirements. Statistical analysis was employed to convert the uncertain demand and processing times into stochastic capacity requirements. The stochastic nonlinear mathematical model (SNMM) and the newly proposed SGA approaches are compared on 10, 20 and 30-product problems. 4 - Balancing Dual Gripper Robotic Cells Hakan Gultekin, TOBB University of Economicas and Technology, Sogutozu Cad No:43 Sogutozu, Ankara, Turkey, hgultekin@etu.edu.tr, Betul Coban, Vahid Eghbal Akhlahi We consider a production line consisting of a number of machines and a dual- gripper robot. Each of the identical parts has a number of. The problem is to assign these operations to the machines satisfying the precedence constraints and to determine the robot activity sequence that jointly maximize the throughput rate. We develop both a mathematical programming formulation and a heuristic algorithm for this complex problem. The performance of the heuristic is tested through computational study. 5 - A Mathematical Model for Perishable Products with Price- and Displayed-stock-dependent Demand Erhun Kundakcioglu, Ozyegin University, Faculty of Engineering, Istanbul, Turkey, erhun.kundakcioglu@ozyegin.edu.tr, Arda Yenipazarli, Mehmet Onal In this study, we introduce a single store multi-product order quantity model incorporating product assortment, pricing and space-allocation decisions for perishable products. We assume that the demand rate of a product depends on the selling price and the on-display stock level of that item as well as other products in the assortment. A heuristic method is developed to solve this complex problem and the results are discussed with computational experiments to validate the proposed approach.

Karim Farhat, Stanford University, 475 Via Ortega, Huang Engineering Center 245A, Stanford, CA, 94305, United States of America, kfarhat@stanford.edu

We present a decision-analysis model of Porter’s Five-Forces framework, with a case-study in the solar PV industry. While capable of generating valuable insights, the Five-Forces have been mostly assessed qualitatively. This model quantifies the five competitive forces, and it accounts for market uncertainties as well as value- chain decisions. Thus, the model provides executives with a practical and robust methodology to evaluate future profitability and strategically position their business.

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