Browsing by Subject "operations management"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The best of times and the worst of times: empirical operations and supply chain management research
    (Taylor & Francis, 2017) Melnyk, Steven A.; Flynn, Barbara B.; Awaysheh, Amrou; Occupational Therapy, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
    We assess the current state of empirical research in operations and supply chain management (OSM), using Dickens’ contrast between the best of times and the worst of times as a frame. The best of times refers to the future that empirical OSM research is now entering, with exciting opportunities available using big data and other new data sources, new empirical approaches and analytical techniques and innovative tools for developing theory. These are well aligned with new research questions related to the digital economy, Industry 4.0, the impact of the millennial generation as consumers, social media, 3D printing, etc. However, we also explore how it is the worst of times, focusing on the challenges and problems that plague empirical OSM research. Our goal is to show how OSM researchers can learn from the worst of times, in order to be poised to take advantage of the best of times. We introduce the research diamond as a vehicle for emphasising the importance of a balanced research perspective that treats the research problem, theory, data collection and data analysis as equally important, requiring alignment between them. By learning and addressing the issues in this period of the best of times and the worst of times, we can take advantage of the opportunities facing our field to generate research that is balanced, insightful, rigorous, relevant, impactful and interesting.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Coordination of Autonomous Healthcare Entities: Emergency Response to Multiple Casualty Incidents
    (Wiley, 2017) Mills, Alex F.; Helm, Jonathan E.; Jola-Sanchez, Andres F.; Tatikonda, Mohan V.; Courtney, Bobby A.; Kelley School of Business – Indianapolis
    In recent years, many urban areas have established healthcare coalitions (HCCs) composed of autonomous (and often competing) hospitals, with the goal of improving emergency preparedness and response. We study the role of such coalitions in the specific context of response to multiple-casualty incidents in an urban setting, where on-scene responders must determine how to send casualties to medical facilities. A key function in incident response is multi-agency coordination. When this coordination is provided by an HCC, responders can use richer information about hospital capacities to decide where to send casualties. Using bed availability data from an urban area and a suburban area in the United States, we analyze the response capability of healthcare infrastructures under different levels of coordination, and we develop a stress test to identify areas of weakness. We find that improved coordination efforts should focus on decision support using information about inpatient resources, especially in urban areas with high inter-hospital variability in resource availability. We also find that coordination has the largest benefit in small incidents. This benefit is a new value proposition for HCCs, which were originally formed to improve preparedness for large disasters.