Building operational excellence in a multi-node supply chain

This thesis shows how a combination of macro-economic, business, and organizational factors can lead a well-run company to adopt a "launch-and-expedite" behavior with detrimental effects on operational efficiency. It also demonstrates how it is possible, for an organization that finds itself in such a state, to apply basic operations principles and a data driven approach to systematically get out of the "launch-and-expedite" mode. The thesis presents a method to characterize a real, functioning supply chain in the context of changing conditions and in the absence of perfect data. It shows the analysis, recommendations, and results from a particular supply chain case study at Agilent Technologies, Inc. The project first analyzes and maps the current supply chain to characterize demand and supply variability. A selected menu of operational building blocks is then recommended to improve overall supply chain performance by reducing the internal bullwhip effect and improving on-time delivery. The recommendations are implemented in a successful pilot study and key operational metrics are recorded such as supply chain inventory, on-time delivery, variability of lead-time, and number of expedite/schedule change requests.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Sahney, Mira K. (Mira Kirti)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Stephen Graves and Abbott Weiss.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Mechanical Engineering.
• Leaders for Manufacturing Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34862

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34862