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Many companies still overlook the virtues of electronic invoice and payment systems: Some 70% of U.S. business-to-business transactions involve paper invoices and checks, and managing them costs about $116 billion a year. Electronic systems can help cut accounts payable overhead by more than 50%--but suppliers need to be converted quickly.

A "reverse logistics" value chain strategy--what you do with goods your customers send back--can strengthen your company's competitiveness according to the authors of a recent article in the "Academy of Management Perspectives." Estee Lauder built a $250-million product line from returned cosmetics.

Arresting thieves and investing in technology, the main approaches to retail loss prevention, haven't managed to diminish it over the past 15 years. A study of companies that have successfully reduced shrinkage uncovers nine practices behind their success, beginning with organizational and senior management commitment to making loss prevention a priority.

Communication may not be on managers' minds at companies that design complex, highly engineered products, but it should be. When mistakes take place, it's often because product-component teams fail to talk. The consequences can be huge: Ford and Bridgestone Firestone lost billions by not coordinating the design of the Explorer with the design of its tires. The major delays and cost overruns involved in the development of Airbus's A380 "super jumbo"--which most likely led to the CEO's exit--were a result of unforeseen design incompatibilities. To help managers mitigate such problems, the authors present a new application of the design structure matrix, a project management tool that maps the flow of information and its impact on product development. Drawing on research into how Pratt & Whitney handled the development of the PW4098 jet engine, they have developed an approach that uncovers (a) areas where communication should be occurring but is not (unattended interfaces, usually bad) and (b) areas where communication is occurring but has not been planned for (unidentified interfaces, usually good). After finding the unattended and unidentified interfaces, the next step is to figure out the causes of the critical ones. If a significant number of unattended interfaces cross organizational boundaries, executives may need to redraw organizational lines. Executives can then manage the remaining critical interfaces by extending the responsibilities of existing integration teams (those responsible for cross-system aspects, such as a jet engine's fuel economy) to include supervising the interaction, by dedicating teams to specific interfaces, or by formally charging teams already involved with the interfaces to oversee them. Finally, it's important to ensure that the teams are working with compatible design equipment; inconsistencies between CAD tools have cost Airbus dearly.

Karl Henderson was a senior manager at Metrionic Systems, a Santa Clara, California-based provider of networking solutions. During his time there, he had worked on and managed various cross-functional teams. When he was given the opportunity to manage a team that was spread across five continents, Henderson was confident that with a little groundwork, he could manage perfectly and deliver on time as he had always done. Due to a recent increase in the number of breaches into enterprise networks by hackers, Metrionic's vice president wanted the team to develop the next-generation network-security product for IT professionals. Companies were seeking advanced security devices that could prevent any further attacks. The home bases of the individuals on the team created by the vice president stretched across five continents. For the first time in his life, Henderson had to consider the various aspects of managing a team virtually. After reading the case, students can be given a role to play from the virtual team. They must decide how to proceed in the first conference call. In addition, the Henderson role must consider issues, such as how to create and manage the communication across the globe. See BC-0211 for the B case.

Dean Venky of the newly launched School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is faced with a range of opportunities and challenges as he presides over the launching of a new school of engineering at Harvard University. His opportunities include an ample endowment, a small but elite faculty, and the potential to collaborate with the other schools within Harvard. His challenges include attracting the best faculty and students, creating linkages across the university, and determining a strategy that will make Harvard engineering as well known as its other schools. Students must analyze the engineering school's strengths and weaknesses relative to other top schools, the political challenges of organizational change, and the most appropriate strategy for the Dean to follow.

A summer employee at NoVeggie Inc. (NoVeggie) of Toronto, Ontario, was analyzing the viability of changing delivery companies. NoVeggie's largest client, Select Grocers (Select), had recently decided to introduce NoVeggie's products to a new group of Select's grocery stores in Ontario. Although this move would increase sales, it was also expected to increase delivery costs. Now the summer employee is trying to determine the actual delivery costs in order to assess whether the increase in sales would be beneficial, or whether changes in the delivery system were necessary.

This case chronicles the creation and transformation of a Singaporean joint venture, Eagle Services Asia (ESA). It describes some early start-up problems, including a forced shutdown by the Civilian Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS). The resulting shakeup of the ESA management team provides a fresh start and an opportunity to reinvigorate the company using lean management principles. Managerial decisions play a key role in ESA's success, together with the discipline and training of the workforce. Students will gain an understanding of cultural difficulties associated with international joint ventures, and learn fundamental aspects of lean management including how to create and sustain a lean culture. The case also provides insight into the worldwide aircraft engine business, the engine overhaul process and cultural barriers that may arise when managing operations in foreign countries.

The principal of St. Clement's School was considering a potential expansion to the school's facilities. There were many issues for the principal to consider including how to fund the expansion, the impact on the school's programs, and the impact on the school of increased enrollments. Most importantly, she had to consider the impact of an expansion on the distinct culture of the school. This case is an introductory capital budgeting example set in a non-profit organization rich in context.

Disney began internationalizing its theme park operations with the opening of Tokyo Disneyland in 1983, which is regarded as one of the most successful amusement parks in the world. Disney attempted to replicate this success in France, which is the largest consumer of Disney products outside of the United States. In 1992, they opened Disneyland Resort Paris, which is largely regarded to be much less successful than the park in Japan. This case explores Disney's efforts to open its third park outside the United States; Hong Kong Disneyland. It begins by discussing the experience of Tokyo and Paris Disneylands, and then discusses the opening of Hong Kong Disneyland, including the structure of the deal, and how the operations, human resources management and marketing were tailored to fit the Chinese cultural environment. The case also discusses the tourism industry in Hong Kong and the particular problems that were encountered during the first year of operations. The stage is set for students to discuss whether Disney's strategic assets have a good semantic fit with Chinese culture.

Case (A) describes how a major player in the agricultural chemicals industry struggles to transform a fragmented group of newly acquired businesses into an integrated supply chain. The case highlights the firm's operational and organizational problems from the perspective of the European supply chain manager, whose primary objective is to streamline operations and cut costs.

The challenges and best strategies for the commercialization of university technologies are illustrated in this case which documents an MRI breakthrough that arose from the Charles Marcus laboratory at Harvard. Students discuss the interdependencies of intellectual property protection, strategy choices for science based breakthroughs, and business models for university technology.

Partners in Health is a Boston-based, not-for-profit that provides health care to people in some of the poorest regions of the world, including Haiti, Malawi, Rwanda, and Peru. In 1998, PIH established a program (PACT) in Boston to bring care to AIDS and TB patients who were not well served by existing care delivery systems. Describes PIH's programs in the developing world and the way in which lessons learned in these countries informed the design and management of PACT. Examines the balance between customized and standardized approaches to care and challenges students to examine their preconceived notions of the social role of a health care delivery organization. Dr. Heidi Behforouz, PACT's director, must decide whether a service design honed in developing countries can be rolled out more broadly in one the world's richest nations.

This award-winning case series examines how optimization-based decision-making leads to a new business design for a timeshare exchange: an exchange fair. Students model a complex managerial problem as a linear program, identify the types of data needed, and use models to provide decision support. The series covers linear and integer programming, multiple-criteria decision-making, network flow problems, local search heuristics, and Pareto-optimality. The series demonstrates the advantages and difficulties involved in applying management science techniques to a real-life business environment. It teaches standard techniques of extracting relevant data from a mass of more- and less-relevant information and forces students to confront issues consultants face: How do you motivate management to even consider a management science approach? How do you build a "business case" demonstrating the shortcomings of the methodology already in place? The case provides background on the timeshare industry, exchanges, and the exchange fair, in which owners submit their existing intervals to a centralized pool, together with requests for the intervals they want to exchange; the exchange determines who gets which interval. Various aspects of a functioning exchange fair are presented, and, starting from a heuristic, the series effectively guides students toward the "better" optimization-based way of executing the exchange. This case series is a winner of the 2005 INFORMS case competition and received an honorable mention at the 2005 DSI case competition. Suitable for both general MBA and executive education programs and as a basis for an exam or assignment, this series is also appropriate for specialized undergraduate and graduate programs in services management (e.g., tourism and hotel administration), logistics, and industrial and systems engineering.

This case provides an extension of the A case (UVA-QA-0709) by including two types of owners' requests that were omitted in the A case for simplicity. Solving it requires knowledge of integer programming and how it can be used to reinforce logical conditions. Could be used as an assignment or part of an exam. A supplemental Excel spreadsheet is available.

The U.S. Navy Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Depot (AIMD) Lemoore Power Plants Division (F404 engine maintenance) was a real mess. Not-Ready-For-Issue parts were everywhere. Division through-put was poor (35 engines and 190 modules awaiting maintenance), there were 30 F/A-18 aircraft with bare firewalls (no engines), the maintenance crews were working 12-hour days, manning was at 61% of authorized levels, reenlistment rates were an abysmal 50%, and crew morale was lousy. And more parts and engines arrived in daily. The Officer-in-Charge of the Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Detachment decided to use Lean manufacturing to tackle the challenge. It would be the first application of the Lean concept to Naval Aviation.

Business-to-Business (B2B) online reverse auctions have become a popular way to source products and services. Due to their relative newness and conflicting reports, however, several myths and misconceptions about them still exist. Investigates the truth behind five common myths associated with reverse auctions and, based on insights obtained from 30 case study companies, provides prescriptive evidence and direction for supply managers regarding how not to fall victim to these myths. Presents useful guidance to achieve the following realities: First, while a lower price is one objective in reverse auctions, it is often not the most important, and can easily be complemented with non-price attributes; Second, commodity items are usually easier candidates for reverse auctions, but non-commodity items can also be bid successfully; Third, reverse auctions can frequently hurt buyer-supplier relationships, but there are many ways to prevent this from happening; Fourth, while first-time bidding events generally result in higher savings, continued cost advantages are possible; and Fifth, even though there is a decline in reverse auctions usage, they are here for the long run.

Geoffrey Ryans, a regional department store, faced two major issues relating to its retail furniture line: a large percentage of stock received from East Asian vendors was not in sellable condition, and furniture pieces had high customer return rates. Discusses different options for the Shipment Quality Group, including the use of vendor scorecards and product quality checks in the furniture division. Before agreeing on any particular course of action, the Shipment Quality Group must also consider the implications of any changes on their East Asian vendor core.

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