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3,249
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Citations since 2017
Publications
Publications (46)
The increasing number of disasters of natural and technological origin represents a significant challenge for countries and organisations globally. Scholars complain about the lack of models and guidelines to navigate the ‘during’ phase of disaster management, particularly in the contexts of crises characterised by unprecedented or unclear demands....
A debated issue in the literature regards whether the effect of employee involvement for continuous improvement on organisational outcomes differs in contexts with different degrees of production repetitiveness. Divergent positions can be found both in the OM and HRM field. This paper aims at investigating the direct and indirect effect (through Ju...
This paper offers a systematic literature review on the fit among context, supply chain integration (SCI) and performance based on the analysis of 116 articles published in 28 peer-reviewed journals. By using Venkatraman’s (1989) model, which distinguishes fit into different forms, to frame previous literature, and Hakansson’s (1982) interaction mo...
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the most influential determinants of healthcare employees’
problem-solving capabilities and attitudes towards kaizen initiatives, and clarify how these determinants are
related to social outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on the input-process-outcome framework, applied to kaizen
initia...
Lean management (LM) has attracted the interest of scientists and practitioners since 1990, when Womack et al. (Womack, J.P., Jones, D.T. and Roos, D. (1990). The Machine that Changed the World. New York, NY: Rawson Associates) popularized the Japanese manufacturing approach aimed at eliminating waste to improve operational performance and customer...
Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) is a key process that improves integration and communication between business functions and aligns the plans of a company into one integrated set of plans. This article focuses on the so-called S&OP ‘maturity models’, which describe the successive stages in the advancement of S&OP process according to a precise...
Purpose –This paper deals with lean transfer between different units in multi-plant organizations with different levels of adoption of lean practices. It investigates how certain influential contextual variables – i.e. lean standards development, lean transfer team composition, source characteristics, recipient national environment and corporate le...
Purpose
– Research on business-to-business (B2B) pricing has been mainly focussed on the supplier’s pricing process, thus adopting traditionally an internal perspective and perceiving pricing as a profit distribution parameter rather than an opportunity for collaboration with customers. Recently, the opportunity to develop win-win, collaborative re...
The original paper investigated which is the role of operations and supply chain management in luxury fashion companies’ success. It presented the results of the exploratory stage of a research project carried out at Politecnico di Milano and dealing with supply chain management in the luxury fashion industry. In total, 12 Italian luxury fashion re...
This paper aims to investigate the supply network (SN) characteristics affecting the extension of lean programmes to SN and the interactions between lean practices and these characteristics to understand how to create more favorable conditions for lean extension programmes. A multiple case study methodology is implemented to analyze different lean...
Several multinational corporations are launching multi-plant lean programmes to increase the coordination of dispersed and heterogeneous plants and promote the growth of the organisation as a whole. Such programmes represent an emerging field of research that seeks to understand the most important mechanisms to transfer lean concepts and practices...
Several multinational corporations (MNCs) have faced the challenge of transferring lean knowledge across manufacturing units in past years. This paper focuses on early stages of lean knowledge transfer (LKT) projects, considering initiatives carried out by lean knowledge owners to instill the lean philosophy to non-lean plants. Seven cases were ana...
Several multinational corporations have been engaged in transferring lean knowledge across manufac-turing units while seeking competitive advantage. However, transform a subsidiary in a lean organization it is not a simple task to fulfill. This paper reports on a recent transfer project successfully conducted by an Italian company in its non-lean s...
The aim of this research is to develop a framework to support cost transparency implementation. Though cost transparency is a well-known practice in supply chain management literature, there is a lack of guidelines supporting managers to effectively implement it. The study has been developed using empirical findings from an action research, the aut...
This study addresses Lean Supply Chain Management (LSCM) adoption through a case study of four different supply networks of the aeronautics supply network. A literature review has identified a set of factors that were subsequently evaluated empirically and classified as initial facilitators or inhibitors for each of the supply networks. The finding...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study whether a fast supply network structure interacts with customer integration (CI) by positively moderating the relationship between CI and efficiency performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors developed two hypotheses, incorporating dimensions of CI, fast supply network structure and efficienc...
Value Analysis is a structured technique aimed at improving product functionalities and
reducing related costs. Despite being an established methodology, there is a lack of investigation on how the knowledge base acquired and created during the execution of
a Value Analysis study can be effectively transferred and reused in following projects in or...
Though Open Book Accounting (OBA) is a well-known practice in supply chain management, the lack of guidelines to support managers to implement it effectively has been highlighted in the literature. This paper discusses a methodology to support the selection of suppliers with whom to successfully cooperate in OBA projects and the identification, for...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to study whether just in time (JIT) supply practices interact with JIT production practices by positively moderating the relationship between JIT production and efficiency/delivery performance.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, six hypotheses are developed on the relationships between JIT production, JIT su...
This study reveals that in supply networks both external and internal integration practices have a significant and positive impact on responsiveness. The use of an international supplier network acts as a contingency factor on the relationship between external integration practices and responsiveness, as in an international context the effect on pe...
Just-in-time (JIT) practices are very useful to improve operational performance. These practices, that represent the core of Lean management methodology, were firstly developed in Toyota, where the production is highly repetitive, and for many years researchers have thought that this methodology could be applied in contexts characterised by repetit...
Downstream integration is a key managerial area to improve performance in supply networks. Though most studies agree that downstream integration positively influences performances, the literature also reports cases of failures in achieving significant improvements. This evidence suggests that some factors may act as moderators on the downstream int...
Purpose
This research intends to investigate whether there are synergies that a firm could or should exploit by simultaneously implementing customer and supplier integration. In particular, the aim is to analyze the impact of customer integration on efficiency, and the moderating role of supplier integration.
Design/methodology/approach
This study...
This paper investigates how formalized methodologies can effectively support the implementation of knowledge transfer practices in the multi-project setting. We propose a knowledge collection and transfer model grounded on the Value Analysis technique, empirically developed and validated through an action research in the shipbuilding industry. The...
Born in manufacturing environment, only recently Lean Management has been implemented in services. In particular, the role of automation and information technology in leaning processes is controversial and literature still lacks a strong empirical evidence to clarify how Lean Management can be applied in a pure service context, such as banking serv...
In the cruise ship industry product development and production activities are really complex and must follow strict rules imposed by naval registries. Designers are frequently required to choose among several alternative solutions (e.g., materials, components, layouts, etc.). Because of time constraints, as a matter of fact, design decisions are ma...
Born in manufacturing environment, only recently Lean Management has been implemented in service context. However, in literature
we didn’t find a strong empirical evidence to clarify how Lean Management can be applied in a pure-service context, such as
banking/financial services, where there is an intensive use of automation and Information Technol...
Lean manufacturing impacts several operational performances. The usefulness of JIT links with suppliers is also well known.
However, literature lacks strong empirical evidences to exhibit the relationship between lean manufacturing, operational performances
and JIT linkages with suppliers. This paper aims to investigate this relationship. A questio...
This paper investigates a pivotal problem in supply chain management: how to configure supply networks and business processes to achieve time performance. The study focuses on the time-sensitive casual wear industry. Initially, Zara's and Benetton's supply networks are cross-compared to understand the rationale behind their differences in time perf...
The radical changes that are affecting world economy have highlighted new structures and ways of competing for firms and networks of firms. A possible and robust way to increase a firm's competitiveness and cope with globalisation challenges is to implement and act as firm clusters. The term cluster traditionally refers to an industrial model that...
This paper tells the story of Geox, an Italian footwear manufacturer that, in less than a decade, has become one of the world's largest shoe manufacturers. Applying the related notions of complementarity and performance landscape to study strategic positioning in the footwear industry, we show that, though grounded on product innovation (the origin...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate routes towards supplier and production network internationalisation.
Design/methodology/approach
Multiple case‐study analysis has been applied to a sample of 11 Italian footwear and apparel companies with headquarters located in the North‐east of Italy. Within and cross‐case analyses illustrate a...
Purpose
The aim of the current study is to develop an understanding of the decisional process that leads a company, at a given point in time, to choose the subsequent supply chain management (SCM) initiative to be implemented.
Design/methodology/approach
This research adopts the descriptive case study research design, as defined by Yin and McCutch...
Purpose
This paper explores what suppliers and customers do in order to integrate their operations across the supply chain. It also identifies on what contextual factors these specific CSI practices are contingent.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses the multiple case study methodology as a basis for theory formulation. Insights from nine c...
This paper explores the process that dynamically links the why's, how's and what's of supply network internationalisation. We propose a conceptual framework that adapts and extends the Uppsala internationalisation model and apply it to analyse nine case studies of Italian footwear and apparel companies involved in relocating some segments of their...
Finn-Power Italia produces automated machines for sheet metal bending, which it sells in more than 60,000 configurations, obtained by combining several options. Furthermore, designers often modify the product. Bending machines can produce very different products, from baking ovens to panels for ventilation systems for cruise ships. We developed and...
We apply the related notions of complementarities and performance landscapes to study strategic positioning in the footwear industry. We use this theoretical framework to analyze Geox, an Italian footwear manufacturer that, in less than a decade, has grown to be one of the world largest brown shoe manufacturers, outperforming the industry in terms...
In an effort to better respond to heterogeneous customer needs, an increasing number of companies in different sectors deal with the combination of high variety and frequent product changes/modifications. This entails planning, designing, purchasing and manufacturing activities and exacerbates the alignment of Sales, Production Planning and Enginee...
The theory of network coordination provides a theoretical basis to explain how companies can overcome organizational boundaries and constraints to jointly manage business processes across supply networks. In particular, this paper focuses on Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR), a collaboration process whereby supply chain t...
Within the pharmaceutical industry, several recent environmental changes have led companies to put into practice SCM initiatives. This article investigates the implementation of improvement initiatives that pharmaceutical companies undertake to obtain better supply network performance. It reports on four networks whose central firms are leading pha...
Literature on supply chain management (SCM) emphasises the importance of co-ordination and integration mechanisms to manage logistics processes successfully across supply networks. This requires managers to (1) know the driver variables that must be addressed, since they determine how such processes can be designed and managed; and (2) understand h...
Supply chain management (SCM) is conceived by academics and practitioners as either an extension of logistics or an all-encompassing approach to business integration. From the authors’ point of view, SCM involves not only logistic activities but also other processes such as quality management. This paper seeks to understand how quality can be manag...
There can be little dispute that supply chain management is an area of importance in the field of management research, yet there have been few literature reviews on this topic (Bechtel and Mulumudi, 1996, Proceedings of the 1996 NAPM Annual Academic Conference; Harland, 1996, British Journal of Management 7 (special issue), 63–80; Cooper et al., 19...
Projects
Projects (3)
Supply chain responsiveness has become a key competitive capability in most industries, given the competitive dynamics competitive capability in most industries. On the other hand, Information and Communication Technologies (ITs) related to what is known as "Industry 4.0" facilitate the visualization of the different levels of the supply chain in order to
to detect potential problems, while improving demand forecasting.
However, so far, the impact of these ITs on the supply chain has not been explored in depth.impact that these ITs have on supply chain flexibility and agility supply chain. This project focuses on this issue.
The supply chain’s ability to respond has become a key competitive capability in most industries and can be understood from a dual perspective: a) as an improvement to its flexibility or b) as an improvement to its agility. This capability addresses the challenges that derive from the large doses of uncertainty and variability in the environment in which supply chains operate and the challenges sparked by globalization. Globalization is creating greater levels of complexity in the supply chain due to the need to outsource some of the production and is generating growing environmental awareness.
This project seeks to investigate the role that the context of the supply chain and the sector in which the focal company operates on the degree of supply chain flexibility or, one and the same thing, on the degree to which Lean Supply Chain Management is implemented. In addition, it aims to analyze the way that the context of the supply chain and of the sector in which the focal company operates affects the supply chain’s agility or, one and the same thing, Agile Supply Chain Management.
With this in mind, the project has been structured around three cardinal factors in order to separately investigate the impact that the supply chain’s degree of complexity, the degree of variability of the sector in which the focal company operates, and the degree of business partners’ engagement with environmental activities have on the supply chain’s flexibility and its agility. A differentiated examination will also be performed of the interrelationship that exists between these characteristics of the supply chain and the sector and the supply chain’s flexibility, on the one hand, and the supply chain’s agility, on the other and, finally, on business results.
The aim of this project is identifying what is understood by LSCM on the operative level, the mechanisms that can facilitate it, and how to evaluate the results that this type of management yields. For this, the project has been split into three different but very interrelated sections. The first of these is designed to characterize lean supply chain management by developing and validating a multidimensional measure that captures conceptually the degree to which this LSCM is implemented. The purpose of the second section is to configure Lean Supply Chain Management, i.e., to detect mechanisms that lead to or facilitate this management.The last section is aimed at evaluating Lean Supply Chain Management by providing a reliable system to measure the results that are anticipated from LSCM and a monitoring and evaluation system that enables the easy and timely detection of any significant deviations from predicted results.
