Nada R. Sanders

Lehigh University · Department of Management

Sustainability has become a global corporate mandate with implementation impacted by two key trends. The first is recognition that global supply chains have a profound impact on sustainability which requires “greening” the entire supply chain. The second is technology—digitization, artificial intelligence (AI), and “big data”—which have become ubiq...

Forecasts have traditionally served as the basis for planning and executing supply chain activities. Forecasts drive supply chain decisions, and they have become critically important due to increasing customer expectations, shortening lead times, and the need to manage scarce resources. Over the last ten years, advances in technology and data colle...

Big data has the potential of offering valuable insights into the way organizations function, and it is changing the way organizations make decisions. Nine invited essays provide a wide range of perspectives on the role of big data in customer‐driven supply chains, healthcare operations, retail operations, demand planning and manufacturing, environ...

“Big data” has become ubiquitous. It is impacting every aspect of how companies organize and manage their supply chains. Supply chains are evolving into digital networks connected via devices and sensors revolutionizing how data is generated, shared, and communicated. It is also unlocking new research streams. In this paper, we introduce papers in...

In this issue, Cui et. al. (2017) show how the quantity and quality of user-generated Facebook data can be used to enhance product forecasts. The intent of this note is to show how another type of user-generated content – customer search data, specifically one obtained from Google Trends - can be used to reduce out-of-sample forecast errors. Based...

Companies routinely increase product variety in order to enhance competitiveness and grow sales. Unfortunately, increasing product variety creates operational challenges and results in higher inventory levels. The large number SKUs deteriorate decision quality and can introduce forecast bias - the tendency to consistently over or under forecast – i...

To accelerate research discoveries-those required to address paramount challenges facing business today-researchers from diverse disciplines must work together. Interdisciplinary research (IDR) is a research that involves bringing together perspectives from two or more disciplines in an integrative manner to address complex and multifaceted supply...

The impact of forecast error magnification on supply chain cost has been well documented. Unlike past studies that measure forecast error in terms of forecast standard deviation, our study extends research to consider the impact of forecast bias, and the complex interaction between these variables. Simulating a two-stage supply chain using realisti...

Since its introduction over three decades ago, the field of supply chain management (SCM) has undergone numerous transformations. Today it is a prevailing theme in scholarly and popular research, and numerous disparate disciplines claim its ownership. Despite the field's evolution there continues to be little agreement on the domain and unifying th...

Since the term Supply Chain Management (SCM) was first introduced over 30 years ago, the field of SCM has undergone numerous transformations. Today it is a prevailing theme in scholarly and popular research, and numerous disciplines claim its ownership. However, current and emerging supply chain management (SCM) research challenges are becoming inc...

Existing research focuses on the positive returns to operational performance of firms’ supply chain integration (SCI) with suppliers, buyers, and customers. We draw on differentiation‐integration duality and contingency theory to suggest that manufacturing firms should seek to achieve both integration through supply chain coordination activities an...

To achieve differential performance in today’s marketplace, supply chain decision makers must manage complex, multifaceted, and nuanced issues. To help decision makers, and advance the supply chain discipline, researchers need to consider how multidisciplinary and/or multimethod research can provide greater insight into today’s and tomorrow’s chall...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of buyer investment in interorganizational, information‐related connectivity enablers on supplier firm performance within the context of buyer‐seller matched dyads. Design/methodology/approach Data for this study were obtained from a field survey. A mail questionnaire was constructed that...

The connectivity and communication requirements of leading supply chains have created the emergence of a more advanced role for third-party logistics providers 3PLs. They have evolved from providing logistics capabilities to becoming orchestrators of supply chains that create and sustain a competitive advantage. This article uses a theoretical pers...

The ability to offer rapid delivery of a wide variety of customised products requires companies to maintain high levels of product inventories to quickly respond to customer demands. One alternative for reducing final product inventories while providing the required customer service level is delayed product differentiation, known as postponement. T...

Our study evaluates the impact of forecast errors on organizational cost by simulating a labor-intensive warehouse environment using realistic cost data from a case study. Unlike past studies that measure forecast error in terms of forecast standard deviation, our study also considers the impact of forecast bias, and the complex interaction between...

Throughout history, human civilizations have been afflicted by and have responded to large-scale destructive events, impacting both the individuals living within them and the overall social environment. Earlier occurrences such as the repeated pandemics of the bubonic plague, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the Irish potato famine, and the 1777 Lis...

The field of supply chain management and operations management is at a starting point for a methodological revolution or paradigm shift. The diffusion of innovations work of Rogers can provide a valuable perspective to better understand how such revolutions to, or shifts in, paradigms can occur. The diffusion and adoption of innovations follow an S...

The post–WWII economic expansion of economies such as Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and more recently China and India was enabled to a significant degree by the increasingly complex, global supply chain networks of large Original Equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the United States, European Union, and Japan. By linking buyers an...

The use of information technologies between supply chain organizations has been shown to promote organizational coordination and have a positive impact on performance. Drawing from organizational theories of learning, we build on this research by proposing a model that relates the pattern of supplier use of IT to specific types of supply chain coor...

The use of e-business technologies between supply chain organizations has been thematic in recent literature. Organizational collaboration, the foundation of supply chain management, has been enabled by the development and use of e-business technologies. Organizational collaboration and information sharing, in turn, are expected to improve organiza...

The growth of outsourcing has resulted in numerous different outsourcing arrangements, ranging from out-tasking and managed services to business process outsourcing and transformational outsourcing. The growing lexicon of outsourcing terminology has caused confusion for many managers and academicians alike, who tend to view outsourcing as a fixed,...

The use of e-business technologies between supply chain organizations has primarily been examined from the viewpoint of buying firms or retailers, with little attention given to the benefits accrued to suppliers. Further, previous studies have been limited to either financial or marketing performance measures, or a narrow range of operational measu...

The purpose of this research is to determine if prior findings that favor simple forecasting techniques and technique combinations hold true in a short-term forecasting environment, where demand data can be quite volatile. Twenty-two time series of daily data from a real business setting are used to test one-period ahead forecasts, the epitome of s...

Deployment of interorganizational information technology (IT) throughout supply chain networks has usually been championed by supply chain network leaders — large firms that typically dominate a supply chain network. In order to participate in a particular network, supplier firms must acquire the requisite IT enabling them to be technologically ali...

The development and use of information technology (IT) have been thematic in recent literature. IT has been viewed as an enabler of internal and external firm collaboration, which is the foundation of supply chain management. Firm collaboration and information sharing, in turn, are expected to improve firm performance. A model of the relationship b...

The impact of forecast errors on organizational cost, and the usefulness of worker flexibility measures in offsetting their negative effects were evaluated in a labor intensive warehouse environment. Unlike past studies measuring forecast error in terms of forecast standard deviation, this study also considers the impact of forecast bias, which occ...

Accurate forecasting has become a challenge for companies operating in today's business environment, characterized by high uncertainty and short response times. Rapid technological innovations and e-commerce have created an environment where historical data are often of limited value in predicting the future. In business organizations, the marketin...

A three-tiered hierarchical production plan (HPP) for a strictly make-to-order steel fabrication plant with the objective of developing a production plan and master schedule for a set of product archetypes is implemented. Data are collected from an actual steel fabrication plant located in the Midwestern section of the US. An aggregate linear progr...

In an era where forecasts drive entire supply chains forecasting is seen as an increasingly critical organizational capability. However, business forecasting continues to rely on judgmental methods despite large advancements in information technology and quantitative method capability, prompting calls for research to help understand the reasons beh...

Universities have traditionally played a dual role inthe nation's innovation system. On the one hand, they enhance the stocks ofknowledge and human capital through research and teaching. On the other hand,universities indirectly contribute to innovation in industry and economicgrowth.In the past few decades, many universities have formallyincorpora...

Using survey data from 240 US corporations, we evaluated practitioners' use and satisfaction with forecasting software and its performance. Despite the many commercial forecasting soft-ware packages, only 10.8 percent of the respondents reported using them. Forty-eight percent reported using spreadsheets to make forecasts. Sixty percent reported be...

Information technology (IT) is the backbone of supply chain management (SCM). However, selection of specific IT applications must be made in alignment with the organizations' competitive priorities. This article profiles differences between firms based on their level of IT usage focusing on organizational competitive priorities, choice of specific...

Outsourcing has been a significant industry trend over the past decade. However, some scholars have stressed that companies may have gone too far by outsourcing core, as well as non-core competencies. Using a survey of large U.S. corporations our study documents the current status of outsourcing, differentiating between core and non-core competenci...

Judgmental and statistical forecasts can each bring advantages to the forecasting process. One way forecasters can integrate these methods is to adjust statistical forecasts based on judgment. However, judgmental adjustments can bias forecasts and harm accuracy. Forecasters should consider six principles in deciding when and how to use judgment in...

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This study evaluates the impact of task properties feedback on the time series forecast accuracy of four different judgmental forecasting processes. Specifically, we test the impact of providing information on time series data patterns amd degree of noise level to knowledgeable subjects to interpret this information. Ninety eight subjects were used...

This research investigates the benefits in forecast accuracy by combining judgmental forecasts with those generated by statistical models. Our study differs from prior research efforts in this area along two important dimensions. First, two different types of judgmental forecasts are evaluated for combination with statistical forecasts — one based...

The usage of formal statistical forecasting procedures has been shown in numerous studies to improve forecast accuracy and, consequently, organizational performance. However, the process of implementing and managing this technology can run into many stumbling blocks. Identifies six major organizational problems when implementing and developing form...

By surveying current forecasting practices at 500 US corporations, we explored the reasons managers rely heavily on judgmental forecasting methods and attempted to identify what needs of practitioners are not met with current procedures. Although managers are more familiar with quantitative forecasting methods than in the past, the level of usage h...

This study compares the performance of judgmental and statistical forecasts, as well as the judgmental revision of statistically derived forecasts, for artificial time series with a number of controlled characteristics. Judgment is found to produce inferior and more biased forecasts overall. However, results suggest that judgmental revision may hav...

The purpose of this research is to assess the extent to which judgmental forecasts are improved by having more contextual and technical knowledge. Contextual information is knowledge gained by practitioners through experience on the job, consisting of general forecasting experience in the industry as well as specific product knowledge. Technical kn...

The conditions under which forecasts from expert judgement outperform traditional quantitative methods are investigated. It is shown that judgement is better than quantitative techniques at estimating the magnitude, onset, and duration of temporary change. On the other hand, quantitative methods provide superior performance during periods of no cha...

This empirical study compares the accuracy of combined forecasts, found by averaging individual forecasts from univariate time-series techniques, with judgmental forecasts actually made daily by experienced practitioners in real business settings. The value of judgment is assessed, used alone and in combination with quantitatively derived forecasts...