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7 Days Inn, a leading hotel group in China, was established in 2005 and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2009. It now operates more than 1,000 hotels in 168 major Chinese cities and has enrolled more than 30 million customers in its membership club. Its success is largely due to its innovative business model and operations strategy, which includes designing product services with the vertical cutting approach, enhancing customer loyalty through a membership system and direct sales, managing a hotel chain with different governance structures and expanding a hotel chain with an innovative franchised-and-managed model. In particular, the case introduces the company's shepherd management philosophy. However, as the company expands, it has become difficult for headquarters to manage and supervise all the hotels. In addition, the resignation rate of hotel managers has gone up to 30 per cent in the past few years. What should 7 Days Inn do to deal with these challenges? Does the company need to break the rules again and innovate its business model, operations strategy or operating model - or all of them?

Material requirements planning (MRP) systems have been widely used by manufacturing firms to maintain an optimum flow of inputs for the best production results. By using an MRP system, a firm can prepare a production plan that specifies the number of sub-assemblies that go into a final product along with the exact timeline of an order, from placement to completion. <br><br>In the case, an A-CAT employee is assigned the task of preparing an operating plan for the next eight weeks for a product. She has to decide how much to produce to be able to meet the requirements economically, taking into account the forecasted demand. The case examines the intricacies of procurement, warehousing, and processing costs of various material components by critically evaluating different techniques in practice. Using situational scenarios, the case presents lot-sizing techniques — including lot for lot, economic order quantity, least total cost and least unit cost — for balancing costs such as set-up costs, ordering costs, and inventory-holding costs.

Innovations that radically redefine how a service is delivered can create tremendous value for customers and for providers. But they require deep insight into clients' needs and the revising of basic assumptions. It's possible, for example, that a doctor can treat more than one patient at a time. Organizations can redefine service delivery along four dimensions. A change in one may unlock--or block--possibilities for innovation in the others. 1) The structure of the interaction. Sometimes the service becomes more valuable to clients if they share it with others or if multiple providers coordinate closely to deliver it. 2) The service boundary. If a segment of clients uses the same complementary services and has trouble accessing them, a provider might consider integrating them into its offering. 3) The allocation of tasks. Who actually delivers the service? Employees' expertise might not match their assigned tasks. 4) The delivery location. This should be defined by the client's needs, not the provider's.

This case describes the sourcing policy for a consumer electronics company. The company must decide how to structure contracts with their supplier - using a purchase contract, an option contract, or combination of the two. The company can also buy from the spot market. The students use a spreadsheet model with Monte Carlo simulation to analyze the contracting options.

Considers whether New Balance, one of the world's five largest manufacturers of athletic footwear, should respond to Adidas' planned acquisition of Reebok-a transaction that would join the second- and third-largest companies in the industry. Highlights the unique aspects of New Balance's strategy-focusing on fit and performance by offering long-lived shoes in a wide variety of widths and eschewing celebrity endorsement of its products-and discusses New Balance's operations decisions to support that strategy. These include significant use of domestic manufacturing at a time when nearly all other competitors sourced finished shoes from Asian suppliers and an emphasis on improving inventory management for its network of small and large retailers. Set just after the announcement of the Adidas-Reebok transaction in 2005, with New Balance having recently initiated a companywide effort to improve operational performance through the application of concepts from lean manufacturing and the Toyota Production System. Asks students to consider whether New Balance should change aspects of its operations strategy in light of the consolidation among its competitors or whether the Adidas-Reebok transaction represents an opportunity for New Balance to emphasize the importance of moving forward with its current approach.

This technical note describes the "OpCo/PropCo" process of valuing a real estate intensive business. The term "OpCo/PropCo" refers to a business arrangement in which a consolidated, real estate-intensive enterprise is split into two separate businesses: (1) A property company and (2) the underlying operating business.

Getting product assortment right isn't easy, yet it's absolutely critical to retail success. Unlike inventory management and pricing, where retailers have lots of data and analytical tools to guide decision making, assortment optimization is still much more art than science. And making the wrong call can be disastrous. A new approach to assortment planning addresses this deficiency. The foundation for the approach is the notion that most of the time customers don't buy products; they buy a bundle of attributes. For instance, when customers consider buying a TV, they think about screen size, resolution, price, LCD or plasma, and brand. The new method uses sales of existing products to estimate the demand for their various attributes and then uses those estimates to forecast the demand for potential new products on the basis of their attributes. This technique helps retailers do a better job of replacing slow sellers with new ones, understanding whether customers are likely to settle for another choice if they don't find their ideal product, and customizing assortments of individual stores or clusters of stores.

Think you need exceptional employees, advanced IT, or rigid controls to build a high-performance organization? The dabbawalas of Mumbai prove otherwise. Six days a week, these 5,000 self-managed, semiliterate workers deliver upwards of 130,000 lunches from customers' homes to their offices with astonishing precision--negotiating the crowded city by train, bicycle, and handcart, without the aid of any technology or even cell phones. The 100-year-old service is legendary for its reliability: Despite monsoons, floods, riots, and terrorist attacks, mistakes by the dabbawalas are extremely rare. Thomke, an HBS professor, studied the dabbawalas to find the keys to their success. He uncovered a unique system with four pillars: organization, management, process, and culture. A flat structure, consisting of autonomous units of 25 people each, is well suited to providing low-cost service. The tight schedule of the train lines over which meals are ferried regulates everyone's work. Buffer capacity is built in to address extremely thin margins of error; each unit has extra workers who fill in wherever they are needed, and members are cross-trained in all activities. Variations that might derail the works are discouraged; the lunchboxes used, for instance, are all a standard size. A simple coding system helps workers quickly sort lunches and get them where they need to go. And democratic decision making and deep emotional bonds among workers promote a high degree of cooperation. The dabbawalas show that with the right system, even ordinary workers can achieve the extraordinary.

This case chronicles the challenges of establishing an innovative tissue bank service to accelerate the research and development processes of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies worldwide. Asterand's two major challenges involved achieving a standardized approach to collecting tissue samples in hospitals all over the world and achieving the highest possible quality of tissue samples shipped to their primary customer, Amgen. Despite the identified need for high-quality tissue samples, Asterand was experiencing multiple quality control problems in their processes and procedures. Tissue samples were being packaged poorly, labeled incorrectly or delivered at the wrong time or to the wrong place. Additionally, there were quality issues with the RNA analysis of the samples, which was a critical factor in the usability of the tissue sample for research and development of new therapies and drugs. The head of pathology at Amgen's California facility was threatening to terminate their existing order and communicate the failure of Asterand to all company employees, which would have had a devastating ripple effect across the industry and likely destroyed opportunities for any future orders with Asterand. If this happened, Asterand would not have been able to secure contracts with customers and would've been at risk of losing investors and going bankrupt.

This case chronicles the challenges of establishing an innovative tissue bank service to accelerate the research and development processes of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies worldwide. Asterand’s two major challenges involved achieving a standardized approach to collecting tissue samples in hospitals all over the world and achieving the highest possible quality of tissue samples shipped to their primary customer, Amgen. Despite the identified need for high-quality tissue samples, Asterand was experiencing multiple quality control problems in their processes and procedures. Tissue samples were being packaged poorly, labeled incorrectly or delivered at the wrong time or to the wrong place. Additionally, there were quality issues with the RNA analysis of the samples, which was a critical factor in the usability of the tissue sample for research and development of new therapies and drugs. <br><br><br><br>The head of pathology at Amgen’s California facility was threatening to terminate their existing order and communicate the failure of Asterand to all company employees, which would have a devastating ripple effect across the industry and likely destroy opportunities for any future orders with Asterand. If this happened, Asterand would not be able to secure contracts with customers and was at risk of losing investors and going bankrupt.

The president of a Chinese auto parts manufacturer is facing a crisis. For nearly 10 years the company's production lines have not been able to keep up with the orders. Deliveries are due, but the in-house stock is in short supply despite the production lines operating under extended hours. Quality issues have resulted in recent recalls in the United States, making the company's prospects worrisome. Faced with worsening international trade conditions and mounting problems, the chair and president decide to expedite the initiative of transforming their company into a lean manufacturer based on the Toyota Production System. However, the company has no in-house expertise or experience in lean production. The case presents a challenging situation faced by many companies as they move up the ladder of production competence and operational excellence. The major learning focuses on the adoption of Japanese production practices in an emerging Chinese company as it implements lean production.

The president of a Chinese auto parts manufacturer is facing a crisis. For nearly 10 years the company's production lines have not been able to keep up with the orders. Deliveries are due, but the in-house stock is in short supply despite the production lines operating under extended hours. Quality issues have resulted in recent recalls in the United States, making the company's prospects worrisome. Faced with worsening international trade conditions and mounting problems, the chair and president decide to expedite the initiative of transforming their company into a lean manufacturer based on the Toyota Production System. However, the company has no in-house expertise or experience in lean production. The case presents a challenging situation faced by many companies as they move up the ladder of production competence and operational excellence. The major learning focuses on the adoption of Japanese production practices in an emerging Chinese company as it implements lean production.

This case examines how a premium credit card company, American Express Canada (Amex Canada), is attempting to differentiate itself from its competition and to realize value for-and from-its cardholder members through a focus on providing apt quality services and servicing. In April 2011, the president and chief executive officer of Amex Canada is considering his options in sustaining the company's stance in the ultra-rich end of the premium payment cards segment in the face of competition from credit card companies that previously targeted the Canadian mass market. The situation is compounded by the after-effects of the economic downturn that began in the United States in 2008. Amex Canada has to develop a viable strategic and operational plan to realize its vision of becoming "the most respected service brand," an ambition that is founded upon what it calls the "Total Service Experience" it provides to its card members. The case looks at the history of the company, provides an overview of the Canadian payment card industry, and explores core service and servicing issues salient to the design and provision of the Total Service Experience that Amex Canada hopes will not only satisfy existing cardholders but will attract new card members across its array of payment card options.

This case examines how a premium credit card company, American Express Canada (Amex Canada), is attempting to differentiate itself from its competition and to realize value for—and from—its cardholder members through a focus on providing apt quality services and servicing. In April 2011, the president and chief executive officer of Amex Canada is considering his options in sustaining the company's stance in the ultra-rich end of the premium payment cards segment in the face of competition from credit card companies that previously targeted the Canadian mass market. The situation is compounded by the after-effects of the economic downturn that began in the United States in 2008. Amex Canada has to develop a viable strategic and operational plan to realize its vision of becoming the most respected service brand, an ambition that is founded upon what it calls the Total Service Experience it provides to its card members. The case looks at the history of the company, provides an overview of the Canadian payment card industry, and explores core service and servicing issues salient to the design and provision of the Total Service Experience that Amex Canada hopes will not only satisfy existing cardholders but will attract new card members across its array of payment card options.

Supply Chain Planning: Practical Frameworks for Superior Performance is a six-chapter book written by Matthew J. Liberatore, the John F. Connelly Chair in Management and Director of the Center for Business Analytics at the Villanova School of Business, Villanova University, and Tan Miller, the Director of the Global Supply Chain Management program in the College of Business Administration at Rider University. The book was published in October of 2012 by Business Expert Press. Intended for supply chain managers and executives as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students, the book presents frameworks and techniques used by the authors to support supply chain operations management and planning. These frameworks describe supply chain strategic planning and project selection techniques, integrated manufacturing-distribution planning and scheduling approaches, performance measurement and balanced scorecard methodologies, customer logistics and inventory development decision support systems, and other well-tested management frameworks. Building upon the integrated framework introduced in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 outlines the supply chain strategic planning process. The authors begin by discussing fundamental components of supply chain strategy, then explain the three phases of planning covered by this framework using a detailed case example. The authors focus at length upon a framework they call the (MOS) approach, a well-known planning scheme that helps users to develop the mission, objectives, and strategies of a firm's supply chain functions.

Supply Chain Planning: Practical Frameworks for Superior Performance is a six-chapter book written by Matthew J. Liberatore, the John F. Connelly Chair in Management and Director of the Center for Business Analytics at the Villanova School of Business, Villanova University, and Tan Miller, the Director of the Global Supply Chain Management program in the College of Business Administration at Rider University. The book was published in October of 2012 by Business Expert Press. Intended for supply chain managers and executives as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students, the book presents frameworks and techniques used by the authors to support supply chain operations management and planning. These frameworks describe supply chain strategic planning and project selection techniques, integrated manufacturing-distribution planning and scheduling approaches, performance measurement and balanced scorecard methodologies, customer logistics and inventory development decision support systems, and other well-tested management frameworks. In Chapter 3, the authors further define and explain hierarchical supply chain function-planning frameworks. The rationale for employing hierarchical frameworks is presented, followed by the introduction of a generic framework for hierarchical supply chain planning. A case study discussing one firm's implementation of a hierarchical production and distribution-planning framework is used to explain how individual supply chain functions, such as manufacturing and distribution, can coordinate their planning activities. The authors also highlight the benefits for overall supply chain operations that result when each supply chain function maintains its own hierarchical planning framework.

Supply Chain Planning: Practical Frameworks for Superior Performance is a six-chapter book written by Matthew J. Liberatore, the John F. Connelly Chair in Management and Director of the Center for Business Analytics at the Villanova School of Business, Villanova University, and Tan Miller, the Director of the Global Supply Chain Management program in the College of Business Administration at Rider University. The book was published in October of 2012 by Business Expert Press. Intended for supply chain managers and executives as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students, the book presents frameworks and techniques used by the authors to support supply chain operations management and planning. These frameworks describe supply chain strategic planning and project selection techniques, integrated manufacturing-distribution planning and scheduling approaches, performance measurement and balanced scorecard methodologies, customer logistics and inventory development decision support systems, and other well-tested management frameworks. Chapter 4 builds upon decision support systems (DSS), a broad category of data and analytical tools, ranging from mathematical optimization algorithms to large-scale information technology data warehouses, which facilitate supply chain operations. The chapter begins by introducing the basics of DSS, then, explains their value to an organization and considers strategies for building comprehensive DSS to serve operational requirements. The authors flesh out their presentation by offering several short case studies that illustrate the importance and power of DSS when properly implemented.

Supply Chain Planning: Practical Frameworks for Superior Performance is a six-chapter book written by Matthew J. Liberatore, the John F. Connelly Chair in Management and Director of the Center for Business Analytics at the Villanova School of Business, Villanova University, and Tan Miller, the Director of the Global Supply Chain Management program in the College of Business Administration at Rider University. The book was published in October of 2012 by Business Expert Press. Intended for supply chain managers and executives as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students, the book presents frameworks and techniques used by the authors to support supply chain operations management and planning. These frameworks describe supply chain strategic planning and project selection techniques, integrated manufacturing-distribution planning and scheduling approaches, performance measurement and balanced scorecard methodologies, customer logistics and inventory development decision support systems, and other well-tested management frameworks. In Chapter 5, the authors examine several frameworks for supply chain performance measurement that enable a firm to synchronize its plans and decisions with key performance indicators to monitor the impact of the actions taken. The authors present a general framework for supply chain performance metrics and then introduce the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model. Next, the authors discuss a process for linking the selection of a firm's broader performance measures directly to its supply chain strategy. The chapter concludes with the examination of an innovative methodology by which executives can create a customized management index to monitor their supply chain's performance.

Supply Chain Planning: Practical Frameworks for Superior Performance is a six-chapter book written by Matthew J. Liberatore, the John F. Connelly Chair in Management and Director of the Center for Business Analytics at the Villanova School of Business, Villanova University, and Tan Miller, the Director of the Global Supply Chain Management program in the College of Business Administration at Rider University. The book was published in October of 2012 by Business Expert Press. Intended for supply chain managers and executives as well as graduate and advanced undergraduate students, the book presents frameworks and techniques used by the authors to support supply chain operations management and planning. These frameworks describe supply chain strategic planning and project selection techniques, integrated manufacturing-distribution planning and scheduling approaches, performance measurement and balanced scorecard methodologies, customer logistics and inventory development decision support systems, and other well-tested management frameworks. The sixth and final chapter presents a brief summary of the books key ideas and offers the authors' final thoughts and recommendations on how practitioners can incorporate the frameworks and tools presented in this book into their own supply chain planning and management processes.