Subba Rao

• University of Toledo

Process capability indices are widely used in the industry as part of TQM practices. The reliability of indices like Cp and Cpk depends on the assumption of a normal distribution that underlies the production process. Departures from normality, especially skewness and kurtosis, can lead to situations where a process with a high Cp such as 1.5, can...

Maximum likelihood and uniform minimum variance unbiased estimators of steady-state probability distribution of system size, probability of at least ℓ customers in the system in steady state, and certain steady-state measures of effectiveness in the M/M/1 queue are obtained/derived based on observations on X, the number of customer arrivals during...

Supply chain sustainability has been reflected over time in three dimensions: environment/nature, economic, and social. The metrics of each have been investigated with a primary focus on environment/nature. This study will encompass defined boundaries and metrics for life cycle assessment, based on both life cycle costs and inventory along the supp...

The research team conducted in-depth, on-site interviews with executives from four companies to understand how these organizations cope with automation and integration. The authors contend that management's approach to automation and integration, which was developed in the industrial stage, may not be successful as firms enter a post-industrial env...

Increasingly, the global market environment is becoming more turbulent, complex and uncertain. Literature has explored the importance of supply management and its direct impact on performance. However, the nature of strategic supply management and its impact on supply flexibility needs further clarification in the context of the use of supplier res...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of an exploratory survey administered in North America on advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs). The objective of the survey is to compare the status of AMT investment, planning and implementation, and performance in two different regions: Anglo America (developed countries) and Mid...

Purpose – The manufacturing community has embraced the concept of total quality management (TQM) but little research has been published on how each aspect of quality is measured. This paper provides a deeper understanding of current quality measures and recommendations for appropriate TQM practices. This article adopts meta‐analysis approach to stu...

This study investigates the issue of strategic fit between Advanced Manufacturing Technologies (AMT) investments and Planning and Implementation Activities (PIA), and its impact on performance in Mexico and Costa Rica, with the purpose of gaining insights regarding operations strategy of companies in developing countries. Using survey data collecte...

Purpose – This paper seeks to present an international comparative study on cultural differences and quality practices of four countries – Korea, USA, Mexico, and Taiwan. The paper aims to present a model, which depicts the relationships among cultures (i.e. power distance and collectivism), employee empowerment, and quality results (i.e. internal...

Manufacturers face the question of how to manage and organize their operations to compete successfully in a rapidly changing external environment. To examine this question, data from 224 manufacturers were collected and divided along two dimensions: (1) levels of time based manufacturing practices and (2) stable versus turbulent external environmen...

Effective supply chain management (SCM) has become a potentially valuable way of securing competitive advantage and improving organizational performance since competition is no longer between organizations, but among supply chains. This research conceptualizes and develops five dimensions of SCM practice (strategic supplier partnership, customer re...

MBAA International 2006 2 ABSTRACT This research investigates the nature of decision making in small and medium-sized manufacturing companies (SMEs). The role of adaptation is explored through a new proposed construct, adaptive decision making. Adaptive decision making is defined as "a conscious or unconscious tendency to place a high priority on a...

Purpose To examine the relationship of performance in advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) to the levels of AMT investments and planning and implementation activities in two regions of America: Anglo‐Saxon (USA and Canada) and Hispanic (Mexico and Costa Rica). Design/methodology/approach Survey methodology was employed to collect data. The in...

From a trading perspective, Internet-based e-commerce (electronic commerce), the most widely known form of e-commerce, refers to the exchange of products and services via electronic networks that may include value-added networks (VANs), the Internet, corporate intranets and extranets. E-commerce can be described and discussed from a strategic persp...

It is widely argued that competition is no longer between organizations, but among supply chains. Effective supply chain management (SCM) has become a potentially valuable way of securing competitive advantage and improving organizational performance. This research conceptualizes, develops, and validates six dimensions of SCM practices (strategic s...

The 1990s have witnessed the proliferation and hypergrowth of the Internet which, combined with traditional IT technologies, is creating a global, and cost-effective platform for businesses to communicate and conduct commerce. Because of today’s shrinking world, companies must create new sources of competitive advantage almost on a daily basis. Thi...

From a trading perspective, Internet-based e-commerce (electronic commerce), the most widely known form of e-commerce, refers to the exchange of products and services via electronic networks that may include value-added networks (VANs), the Internet, corporate intranets and extranets. E-commerce can be described and discussed from a strategic persp...

This paper investigates the linkage between one aspect of supply chain strategy and TQM principles and outcomes. We empirically test the relationship among strategic quality planning, supplier-based relationships, and some TQM practices such as product design, product innovation, dependable deliveries, and value-to-customer quality and organization...

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is transforming the global economy. Today, web technology not only impacts the way businesses function, but is impacting the way entire economies work. As a large part of the global economy, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have new opportunities in the strategic use of e-commerce to extend their customer b...

This paper first develops six dimensions (strategic supplier partnership, customer relationship, information sharing, information quality, lean system, and postponement) that capture the content of Supply Chain Management (SCM) practices. Based on the 196 responses collected from managers, t-tests and ANOVA are used to verify whether SCM practices...

Total quality management provides a sound foundation upon which small and medium enterprises (SMEs) can compete and grow in the global arena. A survey based research was conducted in five countries (USA, India, China, Mexico and Taiwan) to assess the quality management practices in small and medium size companies. Our findings reveal that very high...

Presents the results of a study on quality management infrastructure practices and quality performance in manufacturing companies located in the North and Central regions of Mexico and the US Midwest region. Seven quality management infrastructure practices – top management support, strategic quality planning, quality information availability, empl...

This paper reports the results of a study aimed at conceptualizing and developing valid measurements for key dimensions of quality management in the international context. The quality management framework is conceptualized in terms of 13 dimensions. Subsequently, operational indicators for the 13 dimensions are developed in terms of managerial perc...

Total quality management is imperative for new industrializing countries in order to achieve international competitiveness and economic growth. An empirical research was conducted in three new industrialized countries (India, China, and Mexico) to assess the practices in the human resource development dimension of quality management. Our findings r...

The authors review and categorize the research in applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and expert systems (ES) in new product development (NPD) activities. A brief overview of NPD process and AI is presented. This is followed by a literature survey in regard to AI and ES applications in NPD, which revealed twenty four articles (twenty two a...

Improving manufacturing and attaining manufacturing excellence to gain competitive advantage has attracted a lot of attention in the last few years. Many manufacturing operations and many of the technological advances in manufacturing systems like FMS, AGVs, GT, CIM, cellular manufacturing, AS/RS and JIT production systems admit modelling via waiti...

In this paper we compare the quality management practices and quality results between Taiwanese manufacturing and service companies, based on a survey of 131 manufacturing and 109 service companies. The results presented here are focused on eight critical factors of quality management - quality leadership, strategic quality planning, quality inform...

In this paper we compare quality management practices in three different countries: India, China and Mexico. Various constructs representing quality management practices and quality results were conceptualized. Using a questionnaire survey instrument, data was collected in India, China, and Mexico. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was use...

Abstract The past few years have witnessed an increasing global interest in ISO 9000 standards. Thousands of companies have already been certified. However, doubts have been raised about the effectiveness of ISO 9000 standards for infusing quality within organizations. In this paper, we empirically explore, in the international context, the relatio...

Seeks to compare the quality management practices in three different countries: USA, India and China. For this research various constructs representing quality management practices and quality results were conceptualized. A questionnaire survey instrument was developed, pre-tested and the final version of the questionnaire incorporated the results...

In this paper a conceptual model for facility life cycles is developed. The model suggests that facilities exhibit a life cycle comprised of stages, each stage of a facility life cycle being characterized by several dimensions. These include throughput, costs and utilization. The factors that influence a facility's progression through its life, con...

Bounds for design parameters in certain queueing systems are obtained by the application of extreme value theory. The motivation for obtaining such bounds is the design of queueing systems.

In this paper the relationship between work-in-process inventories, lead times and queues that build up in typical manufacturing setups like flow lines and job shops is described. It is shown how queuing theory (waiting line analysis) can play an important role in understanding these aspects of manufacturing. A brief review of some of the significa...

The bootstrap procedure proposed by B. Efron is a resampling method which has nice estimation properties. We believe that the method has many useful applications to areas in OR and management science. In this paper, the bootstrap procedure is the demonstrated in the context of estimating the lead-time demand distribution and reorder points for an i...

Some approximate results for a single server queue in which the service times form a semi-Markov process and which is non-equilibrium (traffic intensity >1) is considered. Approximate results for mean queue length and waiting time have been given.

Small business contribute significantly to the economy. New information system technologies, like expert systems have the promise of improving the efficiency and competitiveness of small businesses. This paper reviews the issues related to application of expert systems in a small business and discusses their capabilities and limitations. The role o...

In this new paper a new method is proposed for determining the safety stock when daily demands are autocorrelated and lead times follow an arbitrary distribution. The method is then used as a basis for examining effects on the safety stock when the usual assumptions, namely, independence and normality of daily demand and normality of lead times, ar...

In the imbedded Markov chain analysis of the M|G|1 queue the number of arrivals in nonoverlapping service intervals forms a sequence of i.i.d. random variables. In particular for the M|E k |1 queue the common probability mass function involves only a single parameter ρ, the traffic intensity. This fact has been exploited to investigate the estimati...

This paper provides an overview of the literature on statistical analysis of queueing systems. Topics discussed include: model identification, estimation, hypothesis testing and other related aspects. Not all of these statistical problems are covered in books on queueing theory or stochastic processes. The bibliography is not exhaustive, but compre...

In many queueing applications, a performance characteristic of great importance and interest is the traffic intensity ρ, i.e., the ratio of mean arrival rate λ to mean service rate μ. In this paper the authors present a method to detect changes in the traffic intensity in queueing systems of the M/G/1 and GI/M/s types based on the sequential probab...

This paper presents a statistical technique for the control of the traffic intensity in single-server queuing systems with (i) Poisson arrivals and general service times and (ii) recurrent arrivals and exponential service times. The procedure is such that the system is readjusted only if the number of customers in the system either falls and stays...

Typescript. Thesis (M.S.)--University of Toledo. "A thesis [submitted] as partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Science degree in Manufacturing Management." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-101). Advisor: Dr. S. Subba.

Many researchers consider information technology (IT) a great enabler for the practices of supply chain management (SCM). Meanwhile, the practices of SCM depend on good partner relationship, which is built on trust, commitment and shared vision between supply chain partners. This research develops and validates a set of measurements of IT enablers...