Paying for a place in line at Disney
For a long time, one of my favorite service examples to discuss in class has been Disney’s FastPass system. In a nutshell, the program allowed guests to wait in a virtual line for a ride as opposed to...
View ArticleWaiting on the water
One of the evolving stories of the operational impacts of the pandemic has been port congestion. We (collectively) have been ordering more stuff — shifting consumption from services to goods — and...
View ArticleStuck in the middle of a canal
One of the biggest supply chain stories of the past week has been the saga of the Ever Given, the ginormous container ship blocking the Suez Canal. Bloomberg has a nice podcast interviewing the head...
View ArticleWhat service discipline is best for testing queues?
First in, first out (FIFO) is the service discipline that we are all most familiar with. If I get in line at the cafe before you do, I get to place my order first. Simple. Fair. But is that the best...
View ArticleManaging pricing without data
Take a moment to appreciate the conundrum airline pricing managers currently find themselves in. In normal times, the main task of pricing managers and the revenue management systems they oversee is to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Moving sales from the most profitable channel to the least profitable channel
More on shifting shopping habits and how firms are responding. Specifically, we are again looking at the growth of online grocery sales. The Financial Times has a really nice story examining why the...
View ArticleBoohoo, corona, amd supply chain ethics
To state the obvious, it’s bad when your brand gets associated with a phrase like “modern slavery.” That is just the situation that British retailer Boohoo finds itself in. To backtrack a bit. Boohoo...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Still empty supermarkets
Some interesting images from the Wall Street Journal (From Flour to Canned Soup, Coronavirus Surge Pressures Food Supplies, Jul 12). First up a look at supermarket out of stocks. Note that this graph...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Shrinking variety
A recurring theme in how the pandemic has changed operations has been that firms are limiting variety. If a firm is having a hard time keeping up with demand surges and shifts, then a basic step is to...
View ArticleWill pick up last past the pandemic?
One of my favorite examples I have learned from doing this blog is Chronodrive, a French chain specializing in pick up groceries. Specializing in the sense that this is all that they do. It makes for a...
View ArticleWhat to do with excess clothes (updated)
An interesting story from Reuters. What should retailers do with all of the inventory they had for the spring season? The interesting part here is that some retailers are willing to just sit on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
UPS and using contracts to share the risk of building new capacity
Imagine you are service provider and you line up a bunch of extra capacity because your customers tell you that they are expecting they are really going to need you. What should you do when your...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Developments in e-commerce fulfillment
There have been a handful of interesting article over the last week or two about online fulfillment centers. The first is from Bloomberg (Amazon’s Robot War Is Spreading, Apr 5) and discusses how many...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The benefits of supply chain speed
Here is an interesting graph. It comes from Goldman Sachs by way of Quartz (A new generation of even faster fashion is leaving H&M and Zara in the dust, Apr 6). It is showing that how sales growth...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Allocating escalator capacity revisited
Escalators are back in the news! A little over a year ago, Transport for London (i.e., the London Tube) got some press for an experiment they ran essentially prohibiting people from walking up the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A podcast on shipping containers
We have over the years had a number of posts on shipping containers but it’s not like the whole blog is about shipping containers. But what about a whole podcast on shipping containers? That now...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Starbucks that only take mobile orders
Last week I posted on the challenges Starbucks was having with an increasing number of mobile orders. Now, it seems that the company is going to test a different approach: A location that only takes...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How has mobile ordering impacted delays at Starbucks
In a perfect world, technology solves problems instead of creating them. Things don’t always go that way. Take, for example, Starbucks’ mobile ordering. This is, in theory, a convenience for users of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Printing fabric for couches
Have you ever ordered a couch or arm-chair and waited an interminable amount of time for delivery? The usual reason why getting upholstered furniture often takes forever is the fabric. From the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Just in time for the Super Bowl: Why NFL footballs start in Chicago
This is, of course, the weekend of the Super Bowl. While other business sections might focus on advertisements, the Chicago Tribune takes a hometown angle and talks pigskin — or more accurately...
View Article
![ONEW – KAKERA -Unmei no Piece- – EP [iTunes Plus M4A]](http://is1-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music221/v4/d0/fb/86/d0fb86a5-ba60-4bea-41fb-7f54c125f518/VEATP-45908.jpg/296x296bb.webp)
/pic9814888.png)