個案總覽

The case describes the efforts of Reliance Retail in establishing a dedicated supply chain for sourcing bananas directly from farmers and selling them through Reliance's retail outlets in urban India. Reliance intervenes at multiple points in the supply chain, educating the farmers about better ways of planting, growing and harvesting bananas, introducing hygienic techniques of ripening and bypassing several layers of middlemen. This results in greater income for farmers, lesser wastage in the supply chain and better quality of fruits for the consumers. While Reliance's efforts with bananas seem to be a success, there are various challenges in scaling the model and leveraging the supply chain to source other fruits and vegetables. By describing the challenges and various tradeoffs that Reliance had to make, the case highlights how a large commercial organization such as Reliance can establish a viable business model that makes a positive impact on the lives of poor farmers and traders.

Dr. Ananth Rao, who heads the Quality Department at Apollo Hospitals, Bangalore, had undertaken initiatives to measure and benchmark the hospitality services at the hospital. In-patients spend around 80% of their time under the care of the staff from different departments such as nursing, housekeeping, food & beverages, operations, and so on. The Quality team at Apollo Bangalore received 1,434 complaints from the 1,38,600 in-patients treated between March 2011 and December 2012. The feedback was generally open-ended, in the form of patients' comments, opinions, or suggestions. Of the 1,434 complaints received, the housekeeping department received the maximum number of complaints, while the dietary service had the least number. Some of the complaints were genuine concerns, while some were related to minor discomfort. Some of the complaints were very specific, while some were generic. All of these were analyzed, which would enable the hospital to work towards reducing the overall number of complaints. Text analytics was used to analyze the open-ended complaints. In order to gain deeper insights, "Defect-Defective" techniques were used to identify the processes that caused the defects. The processes were re-engineered to eliminate all the defects and a pilot study was done using the "Define Measure Analyse Improve and Control" (DMAIC) cycle. Dr. Rao and his team have developed benchmarks for several common complaints with three levels of service by adopting the Kano model. Critical to Quality (CTQ) metrics have been defined and Sigma levels were calculated for each CTQ. Dr Rao is pondering on what is a good Sigma score target to set given the importance of hospitality in Apollo Hospitals.

A carpenter was trying to decide how to arrange his production process for manufacturing the increasingly popular Swedish lawn game known as “Kubb.” The carpenter had handcrafted several game sets for his friends and family, and, since demand for the game had grown, he planned to sell his kubbs to the general public. The carpenter needed to increase production efficiency, but he was unsure of the best way to arrange the production process. Additionally, he was researching the effect that investing in new equipment, hiring part-time labour and purchasing pre-made supplies would have on the production process.

In response to a 22 per cent growth rate in their city over a 10-year period, the members of the McAllen Independent District School Board form a committee to research and analyze several potential expansion projects that would accommodate the growing number of students in the area. The committee discovers certain funding opportunities that may represent attractive options for discharging financial responsibilities to the city’s residents, but in order for these funding options to be considered, the residents will first need to be convinced that the selected option is sound. This process will require a series of careful steps on the part of the committee, including thoughtful negotiation.

Darden Business Publishing provides its own field case as a consultant is enlisted to help it streamline production using Lean principles. The case provides an overview of continuous improvement concepts applied in a service setting.

A consultant is enlisted to help an educational publisher streamline production using Lean principles. In the B case, the group prioritizes the problems it will address and identifies how success will be measured.

This third part of a three-part case provides an epilogue to the CPI initiative. One year later, the editorial office continues to see positive results.

This technical note explores open innovation--initiatives that are executed with organizations or individuals outside the typical boundaries of the R&D organization. Through a broadening of the interpretation of open innovation, the note aims to help managers who are trying to be more open with their innovation initiatives. Understanding what works or what doesn't work in different settings helps answer questions such as these: What types of projects are good candidates for open innovation? What should an open innovation portfolio look like? Or, more generally, how should firms manage open innovation initiatives?

A privately managed school in Raipur, India, is faced with concerns from parents regarding long commutes faced regularly by students. The school has grown from a modest 89 students and 12 faculty members in 1993 to more than 2,700 students. Today, student commutes range from a few steps to several kilometres on school buses of varied capacities. While the transportation manager has been making adjustments to bus routes and capacity at the beginning of each term, the issue has become too large for one person to manage. In response, management decides to hire a consulting firm specializing in supply chain modeling to find a solution that would reduce not only students’ travel times but also fuel consumption and greenhouse gases emitted by the buses, thereby reducing the school’s carbon footprint.

In 2012 several retailers, including Amazon and Walmart, experimented with same-day delivery. Home delivery of pizzas had been a very successful model in the United States and had been copied all over the world. In contrast, home delivery attempts by companies like Kozmo and Urbanfetch had failed; both of these companies went bankrupt. The goal of this case is to build a framework that helps students identify the factors that influence the success or failure of home delivery models.

The director of logistics at Walmart Canada, was developing plans for a new distribution centre in Alberta. Senior management had presented her with a challenge: why not build the most sustainable distribution centre in the world? Yet, much remained unclear about how to translate this challenge into specific actions, while keeping in mind corporate goals for sustainability. Her team now was exploring three options that promised to be significantly greener: hydrogen fuel cells for forklift trucks, LED lighting and renewable energy generation from on-site wind turbines. Any investment in these sustainable technologies had to make business sense, and any decision could dramatically affect the distribution centre’s operating performance.

General Micro Electronics (GME) designed, assembled, and tested semiconductors for wireless, memory management, wire line telecommunications, and networking applications. In January it purchased a new wire-bonder machine to support its growing contract assembly business. For the first couple of months the new machine performed well, but then its performance became more erratic and eventually was no longer meeting its internal standard for wire-bond strength. The strength of the wire-bond was an important quality dimension of semiconductor chips. With the use of overtime on the existing wire-bonding equipment being very close to full utilization, the need to improve the performance of the new wire-bonding machine was becoming critical. GME's operations personnel were continuously tweaking the new machine in an effort to find a combination of process parameters that would improve the machine's performance. Unfortunately, the performance of the machine continued to deteriorate.

Too often, companies launch sustainability programs with the hope that they'll be financially rewarded for doing good, even when those programs aren't relevant to their strategy and operations. They fail to understand the trade-offs between financial performance and performance on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. Improving one typically comes at a cost to the other. But it doesn't have to be this way. It's possible to simultaneously boost both financial and ESG performance--if you focus strategically on issues that are the most "material" to shareholder value, and you develop major innovations in products, processes, and business models that prioritize those concerns. Maps being developed by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, which rank the materiality of 43 issues for 88 industries, can provide valuable guidance. And broad initiatives undertaken by three companies--Natura, Dow Chemical, and CLP Group--demonstrate the kind of innovations that will push performance into new territory. Communicating the benefits to stakeholders is also critical, which is why integrated reports, which combine financial and ESG reporting, are now gaining in popularity.

The case tracks a large project for developing a chip for automobile entertainment systems. Participants evaluate the project's continuing progress and viability through three episodes. The case holds important lessons for evaluating complex new product development projects that lack visibility, as well as the efficacy of stage gates for monitoring such projects.

The case tracks a large project for developing a chip for automobile entertainment systems. Participants evaluate the project's continuing progress and viability through three episodes. The case holds important lessons for evaluating complex new product development projects that lack visibility, as well as the efficacy of stage gates for monitoring such projects.

The case tracks a large project for developing a chip for automobile entertainment systems. Participants evaluate the project's continuing progress and viability through three episodes. The case holds important lessons for evaluating complex new product development projects that lack visibility, as well as the efficacy of stage gates for monitoring such projects.

The case tracks a large project for developing a chip for automobile entertainment systems. Participants evaluate the project's continuing progress and viability through three episodes. The case holds important lessons for evaluating complex new product development projects that lack visibility, as well as the efficacy of stage gates for monitoring such projects.

The case tracks a large project for developing a chip for automobile entertainment systems. Participants evaluate the project's continuing progress and viability through three episodes. The case holds important lessons for evaluating complex new product development projects that lack visibility, as well as the efficacy of stage gates for monitoring such projects.

Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, a leading international airline providing both passenger and cargo services, had been operating under a collaborative arrangement with HATCL, the largest air cargo terminal operator in Hong Kong, since the opening of the new airport. Demand for Cathay Pacific's air cargo handling services outgrew the terminal's capacity of the operator. There were on-going discussions between the two partners on opening a new terminal, but no agreement had yet been reached on the service fee paid to HATCL. As a last resort, Cathay Pacific would need to consider the possibility of building an air cargo terminal for captive use. Peter Lee, a senior executive at the airline, was put in charge of the feasibility study. Although Peter had experience in leading special projects in the past within the company, this particular one was completely different given its scale and the amount of investment involved. Perceptibly, fundamental business elements such as targeted capacity, return on investment and competition had to be included in the study. Other soft issues like management expertise future cooperative relationship with HATCL should also be studied. Peter wondered what other considerations he should include in addition. He wanted to be sure that by tackling these issues from all angles, it would allow him to come up with a recommendation to the board: whether Cathay Pacific should build its own terminal.

Spreadsheet supplement to case ST19A