Reopening Under Uncertainty: Stress-Testing California's COVID-19 Exit Strategy
We used the Robust Decision Making approach to stress-test California’s COVID-19 reopening strategy. This Perspective presents lessons learned from these experiments and outlines four characteristics of the best reopening strategies.
Will the United States Declare Freedom from COVID-19 Too Soon?
We analyzed what could happen with COVID-19 deaths in the United States if restrictions all go away on July 4. Fully reopening the economy before Biden’s vaccination target was met doubled the average number of COVID-19 deaths between Independence Day and the end of the year.
Inducing Brazilian manufacturing SMEs productivity with Lean tools
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a method for assisting micro and small companies of the industrial sector with the adoption of Lean practices. Design/methodology/approach – The paper outlines the method construction steps, which used a design science research approach. Findings – This research led to the structuring of a method for implementing Lean Manufacturing tools in micro and small companies of the industrial sector. The developed method contributed to the knowledge in Lean Manufacturing by systematizing its tools in a heuristic approach that can be applied to an operation using overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) as a guiding indicator. Practical implications – This method can be used to guide the implementation of Lean tools in SMEs industries. Originality/value – The originality of this paper lies in the adoption of an operation-focused approach only (rather than an approach that begins with the mapping of an entire process) and the use of OEE as the basis for prioritization of improvements to be performed and operational control.
Do Socioeconomic Contextual Factors Influence SMEs Service Quality? A cross-sector and cross-city SERVPERF Analysis
There is an increasing body of knowledge on service quality relationship with many contextual factors, including culture, firm size, and public vs. private settings. However, local socioeconomic factors influence towards SMEs Service Quality is still unknown. We conducted statistical analyzes to observe the relationship between contextual socioeconomic factors of an SMEs city and its services quality performance using a SERVPERF survey database of more than 3,000 Brazilian SMEs. While Service Performance did not linearly correlate with the analyzed socioeconomic factors, a closer look at the data shows significant differences in Service Performance among groups of SMEs on highly developed and underdeveloped cities from the other cities. The paper discusses theoretical and managerial implications derived from these findings and proposes new research questions to generate data-backed knowledge to support SMEs service quality improvement.
The Impacts of Additive Manufacturing on Production Systems
Additive Manufacturing has been growing in adoption in the last decades, holding the potential to fundamentally transform traditional production systems. Yet, its prospected impact on Production Systems and Operations Strategy is controversial. This article contributes to this debate by examining and summarizing the prospected impact of Additive Manufacturing on Production Systems, in the light of the Competitive Dimensions through a Systematic Literature Review. In particular, this paper organises this debate by highlighting the specific impacts prospected by the literature for each competitive dimension.