2016 INFORMS Annual Meeting Program

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INFORMS Nashville – 2016
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SA37
3 - Analyzing The Impact Of Surgical Process Changes On
Patient Flow
Justin Kistler, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC,
United States,
Ramkumar Janakiraman, Vikram Tiwari, Subodha Kumar
Leveraging unique patient level encounter data through econometric techniques,
we examine the impact of two process changes on surgical operations at a medical
center. Building on management and operations literature, we posit that a process
change, and a subsequent intra-operative IT enabled process change, will
significantly improve surgical operations flow time. Given the high opportunity
cost of resources associated with surgical procedures, this finding has important
implications for surgical process owners and participants.
SA35
205A-MCC
Adversiting, Trade-ins, and Distribution Channels
Sponsored: Manufacturing & Service Oper Mgmt,
Service Operations
Sponsored Session
Chair: Shuya Yin, University of California-Irvine, Merage School of
Business, Irvine, CA, 92697, United States,
Co-Chair: Rachel Rong Chen, University of California-Davis,
Graduate School of Management, Davis, CA, 95616, United States,
1 - Exploring The Rational Behind Outlet Stores
Jiaru Bai, University of California, Irvine,
Haresh Gurnani, Shuya Yin
Outlet stores have been both complementary to and competing with the main
stores. In this project, our goal is to understand the tradeoffs involved in offering
outlet stores. In particular, we study how much differentiation should be kept
between the main and outlet stores from three perspectives: price, product and
location.
2 - Fit-revelation Sampling And Advertising: Complementary
Or Substitutable?
Rachel Rong Chen, University of California-Davis, Davis, CA,
United States, , Shiming Deng, Lingli Wu
Buyers are often uncertain about how a product fits their individual preferences.
In such situations, fit-revelation sampling can be offered to allow consumers to
resolve such uncertainties before purchase. When advertising is jointly offered,
fit-revelation sampling may have a correction effect that could enhance or
weaken the valuation added by advertisements. This paper studies the profit
implications of the interactions between advertising and fit-revelation sampling.
3 - Replenishment Strategies For Micro-retailers In
Developing Countries
Sean Zhou, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong
Kong, , Christopher S. Tang, Kairen Zhang
When formal distribution channels are absent in developing countries, micro-
retailers travel long distances to replenish their stocks directly from key suppliers.
We examine a model where multiple competing retailers collectively determine
the replenishment strategy among three possible strategies: informal, formal, and
hybrid. We show that when the stores engage in quantity competition, the hybrid
strategy maximizes the retailers’ total welfare when either the travel cost is
sufficiently high or the fixed operating costs are sufficiently low.
SA36
205B-MCC
Data-driven Operations Management Research
Sponsored: Manufacturing & Service Oper Mgmt, Supply Chain
Sponsored Session
Chair: Fuqiang Zhang, Washington University in St. Louis,
St. Louis, MO, United States,
Co-Chair: Tianjun Feng, Fudan University, Shanghai, China,
1 - An Empirical Investigation Of Network Effect In Automobile Sales
Tianjun Feng, Fudan University, ,
Fuqiang Zhang, Peiwen Yu
This paper investigates the network effect in automobile sales by using a unique
dataset from a large city in China. We demonstrate the existence of a positive but
diminishing marginal effect of the local owner base on the sales of automobiles.
2 - The Operational Value Of Social Media Information
Dennis Zhang, Northwestern University, 1500 Chicago Avenue,
Apt.712, Evanston, IL, 60201, United States,
, Antonio Moreno-Garcia,
Ruomeng Cui, Santiago Gallino
This paper empirically studies whether using publicly available social media
information can improve the accuracy of daily sales forecasts. We collaborated
with an online apparel retailer to implement a variety of machine learning
methods to create daily sales forecasts. We find that using social media
information results in statistically significant improvements in the out-of-sample
accuracy of the forecasts, with relative improvements ranging from 12.85 percent
to 23.23 percent over different forecast horizons.
3 - When You Work With A Super Man, Will You Also Fly?
An Empirical Study Of The Impact Of Coworkers On Performance
Serguei Netessine, INSEAD,
Fangyun Tan
We examine a large operational data set in a casual restaurant setting to study
how coworkers’ sales ability (measured as servers’ sales premium) affects
workers’ performance in terms of service speed and service quality. We find that
servers react non-linearly to their coworkers’ ability. In particular, when
coworkers’ overall sales ability is low, increasing this ability may trigger servers to
redouble both upselling and cross-selling efforts at the expense of slower service
speed. Our empirical findings imply that managers should mix servers having
heterogeneous ability levels during the same shift.
4 - Ceo Overconfidence And Inventory Management
Fuqiang Zhang, Washington University in St. Louis,
, Tianjun Feng, Qing Zhang
Using the data of the US-listed companies in the manufacturing industry during
1999-2011, this study empirically investigates the relationship between CEO
overconfidence and firms’ operations efficiency. Specifically, we focus on
inventory turnover, a widely used operations efficiency measure for inventory
management. We find that firms with overconfident CEOs are associated with
higher inventory turnover.
SA37
205C-MCC
Operations in an Omnichannel World
Sponsored: Manufacturing & Service Oper Mgmt,
Service Operations
Sponsored Session”
Chair: Santiago Gallino, Dartmouth College, Tuck School of Business,
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, 03755, United States,
Co-Chair: Antonio Moreno-Garcia, Northwestern University,
Kellogg School of Management, Evanston, IL, 60208, United States,
1 - Impact Of Physical Retail Channel On Customers’ Online
Purchase Behavior
Anuj Kumar, University of Florida,
Amit Mehra, Subodha Kumar
We use customer-level data of a large apparel retailer to estimate the treatment
effect of store openings on the online purchase behavior of its existing customers.
The retailer’s store openings resulted in a 29 percent increase in annual online
purchase revenue of the existing customers. The increase in online purchases of
existing customers after store opening could be attributed to: (1) higher
engagement with the retailer from their higher store interactions and (2)
availability of a low cost option of returning their online purchases in store if it
does not fit their needs. The effect of store opening was found to be higher for
customers who experience higher reduction in their store distances.
2 - When The Bank Comes To You: Branch Network And Custsomer
Multi-channel Banking Behavior
Vibhanshu Abhishek, Carnegie Mellon University,
Beibei Li, Dan Geng
Customers today increasingly interact with their banks using digital channels,
lifting the necessity for banks to rethink the distribution of physical branches and
customer behavior in a multi-channel environment. Using approximately 1.2M
anonymized individual-level data from a large commercial bank in US over 6
years, our paper investigates the traditional channel - bank branches - and the
impact of its network change (branch opening or closure) on customer multi-
channel preferences and other banking behavior. Our results show that both
branch opening and closure are associated with decreasing transactions through
offline channels and increasing transactions in online banking.