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This field-based case introduces iFixit, a small business with a mission to change consumer behavior around prosperity so that they would no longer toss away broken products. iFixit offered repair guides and the sale of parts and tools to make repairs on over 30,000 different devices-mostly electronic. iFixit's business model was based on creating more value than it captured-repair was sustainable. iFixit intended to keep electronics out of landfills by providing accessible and easy information for free, so anyone could fix their devices. That plan put the founders Kyle Wiens and Luke Soules head-to-head against industry leaders in the electronics space-large manufacturers that worked against iFixit's efforts to offer repair guides. For nearly 20 years, Wiens and Soules had worked toward giving consumers the right to repair what they owned. What would it take to move the needle so manufacturers would work with, instead of against, iFixit? This cases also explores the concept of forward and reverse loops within the electronics value chain. It's recommended for use with two technical notes: "Regulations and Standards: Electronics Supply Chain" (UVA-OM-1714) and "Electronics Supply Chain Overview" (UVA-OM-1716).

In 2021, Kevin "Bud" Couch, a retired Navy captain who was now working as a civilian employee of the Navy Safety Center, was trying to determine how best to reduce the risk of Navy mishaps. The Navy had experienced a series of major mishaps in 2017 that had led to a closer examination of how it operated and what it could improve.

In May 2022, a consultant with global management consulting firm Kearney was working on a project for a private equity client, OPW Partners Inc. (OPW). The client was looking to acquire a high-end wine producer in Oregon and had engaged Kearney to complete an operational due diligence of its wine-making operations. The consultant and his team would be flying to Oregon to complete a series of site visits and ask questions directly to the wine-making team. These meetings would allow the consultant to confirm his assumptions and would provide him with an opportunity to investigate possible operational constraints and identify potential solutions. Kearney's due diligence report was expected to evaluate potential longer-term operational issues, specifically whether Silverton would have sufficient capacity to support OPW’s expansion plans, which were expected to start in the 2023 harvest season.

Handout for Case UV8525

Spreadsheet Supplement for Case UV8525

Anugnyaa Agricultural Association (AAA), a non-profit organisation, wants to introduce a cross subsidisation scheme between tomato farmers with good yield and those whose yield is affected by a crop infection. They want to partially absorb the risk of infection while ensuring their revenues are large enough to cover all costs. Further, they also have the technology to identify early onset of infections in certain cases, treat those crops and ensure high yields. Can a management trainee help AAA price their services and analyse their risks in different cases?

The case is designed to be used in courses on Nonprofit Operations Management, Data Analytics, Six Sigma, and Business Process Excellence/Improvement in MBA or Executive MBA programs. It is suitable for teaching students about the common problem of lower rates of volunteerism in nonprofit organizations. Further, the case study helps present the importance and application of inferential statistics (data analytics) to identify the impact of various factors on the problem (effect). The case is set in early 2021 when Shefali Sharma, the Strategy and Learning Manager with Teach For India (TFI), faced a few challenging questions from a professor at the Indian School of Business (ISB) during her presentation at an industry gathering in Hyderabad, India. Sharma was concerned about the low matriculation rate of TFI fellows, despite the rigorous recruitment, selection, and matriculation (RSM) process. A mere 50-60% matriculation rate was not a commensurate return for an investment of INR 6.5 million and the massive effort put into the RSM process. In 2017, Sharma organized focused informative and experiential events to motivate candidates to join the fellowship, but it was not very clear if these events impacted the TFI matriculation rate. After the industry gathering at ISB, Sharma followed up with the professor to seek his guidance in performing data analytics on the matriculation data. Sharma wondered if inferential data analysis could help her understand which demographic factors and events impact the matriculation rate.

Spreadsheet Supplement for Case ISB325

Spreadsheet Supplement for Case HK1351

This case focuses on the experience of a newly hired procurement manager who wanted to turn around the inventory management system at an oil and gas drilling contractor company-a step that seemed imminent. The case walks students through the inventory management process of a typical oil and gas drilling contractor to eliminate inefficiencies. By studying this case, students will realize the importance of efficient inventory management for the profitability of the company, identify inefficiencies in the existing inventory management process, learn the complexities involved in the inventory management process, and come up with their own optimum solutions.

Born in 2008 as a small startup selling flip flops, by mid-2021 Zalando had turned into an online fashion company with an assortment of more than 4,500 international brands, 45 million active customers, and a presence in 23 European markets. An essential component in the company's ambition to become Europe's "starting point for fashion" was the ongoing transition from an online retailer to a platform business. The management team grappled with numerous strategic decisions. How could Zalando accelerate its transformation? Which new markets and novel customer propositions should the company invest into? And how should it balance the needs of consumers and partners?

Circulr was a start-up that provided a solution for consumer waste by collecting used packaging, washing it, and selling it back to the original brand and product manufacturer so that the packaging could be reused. Instead of building its own washing facility, Circulr rented spare washing capacity from industrial kitchens. The company’s co-founders had ambitious goals for Circulr, but in order to achieve them, there were two essential issues that needed to be resolved. The first issue was that of incentivizing brands, manufacturers, and end-users to reuse their packaging. Disposable packaging remained extremely convenient for consumers, and Circulr needed to develop a collection system that made it easy and rewarding for consumers to place their used packaging in Circulr’s collection bins instead of in the garbage can. The second issue was that of operational scale and configuration. If Circulr were to successfully grow demand and supply over time, how would its operational system evolve to achieve the necessary capacity and capabilities? Could the use of third-party washing facilities continue to be sustainable at scale? How would processes and policies evolve to gain competitiveness?

Spreadsheet to accompany product W28382.

Circulr was a start-up that provided a solution for consumer waste by collecting used packaging, washing it, and selling it back to the original brand and product manufacturer so that the packaging could be reused. Instead of building its own washing facility, Circulr rented spare washing capacity from industrial kitchens. The company's co-founders had ambitious goals for Circulr, but in order to achieve them, there were two essential issues that needed to be resolved. The first issue was that of incentivizing brands, manufacturers, and end-users to reuse their packaging. Disposable packaging remained extremely convenient for consumers, and Circulr needed to develop a collection system that made it easy and rewarding for consumers to place their used packaging in Circulr's collection bins instead of in the garbage can. The second issue was that of operational scale and configuration. If Circulr were to successfully grow demand and supply over time, how would its operational system evolve to achieve the necessary capacity and capabilities? Could the use of third-party washing facilities continue to be sustainable at scale? How would processes and policies evolve to gain competitiveness?

In August 2017, Concentrix Corporation (CNX) partnered with Photon Life Insurance Company (PLI), a leading insurance provider in India, to support PLI's customer management service. On February 1, 2018, Mohit Khanna, global operations manager at CNX, undertook a promising task to improve PLI’S customer persistency at minimal operational cost. If all policyholders with an approaching due date were to be called, then the number of service agents required would be very high, leading to significant operational cost increases. Khanna’s challenge was to design a contact prioritization strategy that could be implemented at minimal cost and improve persistency.

Student Spreadsheet to accompany product W25821.

Instructor Spreadsheet to accompany product W25822.

In response to the uncontrollable second wave of COVID-19 in the south Indian state of Telangana in April 2021, a few like-minded social activists in the capital city of Hyderabad came together to establish a 100-bed medical care center to treat COVID-19 patients. The project was named Ashray. Dr. Chinnababu Sunkavalli (popularly known as Chinna) was the project manager of Project Ashray. In addition to the inherent inadequacy of hospital beds to accommodate the growing number of COVID- 19 patients till March 2021, the city faced a sudden spike of infections in April that worsened the situation. Consequently, the occupancy in government and private hospitals in Hyderabad increased by 485% and 311%, respectively, from March to April. According to a prediction model, Chinna knew that hospital beds would be exhausted in several parts of the city in the next few days. The Project Ashray team was concerned about the situation. The team met on April 26, 2021, to schedule the project to establish the medical care center within the next 10 days. The case is suitable for teaching students how to approach the scheduling problem of a time- constrained project systematically. It helps as a pedagogical aid in teaching management concepts such as project visualization, estimating project duration, float, and project laddering or activity splitting, and tools such as network diagrams, critical path method, and crashing. The case exposes students to a real-time problem-solving approach under uncertainty and crises and the critical role of NGOs in supporting the governments. Alongside the Project Management and Operations Management courses, other courses like Managerial decision-making in nonprofit organizations, Health care delivery, and healthcare operations could also find support from this case.

This case study applies data envelopment analysis (DEA), a well-known performance measurement methodology, to assess and compare individual store's efficiency of Saint Honore Cake Shop. Students will learn the major concepts of benchmarking store-level performance and how to proceed with DEA to identify the most efficient retail stores (benchmarks) and less efficient ones. For the less efficient stores, students will also have the opportunity to perform sensitivity analysis to explore different ways to improve their performance.