Editorial

Citation

Moutinho, L. and Huarng, K.-H. (2011), "Editorial", Journal of Modelling in Management, Vol. 6 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jm2.2011.29706baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Modelling in Management, Volume 6, Issue 2

Welcome to Issue 2 of Volume 6. This issue is slightly skewed towards supply chain management (SCM), although there are other interesting articles.

Yohanes Kristianto Nugroho’s paper focused on production ramp up modeling on built-to-order manufacturers facing customized demand. The general purpose is to present a novel approach to managing collaboration, by considering information exchange between the manufacturer and the supplier.

The methodology applies feedback control mechanism to analyze supplier responsiveness and customer order decoupling point to represent the need for collaboration. A two-stage game is applied ahead of control system application to optimize the capacity decision, with the ultimate goal being profit maximization. The results show that a higher product commonality degree gives more opportunity for quick response built-to-order supply chains, which are managed by feedback control, and at the same time to possibly mitigate the bullwhip effect caused by demand information noise.

The analytical model here focused on symmetrical information sharing between two parties, so the supplier assumes that the manufacturer is the only customer; hence, the issue of information security and strategic alliance should be carried out in the future. This paper helps the manufacturer to act optimally by considering the possibility of information exchange with the supplier and deciding on the product commonality degree, in taking into account the customer’s lead time requirement.

A control system model of “built-to-order supply chain” is proposed by including product commonality and response analysis in the simulation model. Furthermore, a contribution to collaborative supply chains is shown by applying a synchronized supply model to represent supplier and the manufacturer communication.

Wan Hasrulnizzam Wan Mahmood, Nurulain Mat Tahar, Mohd Nizam Ab Rahman, Baba Md Deros paper reviews the methods used by an automotive manufacturer in enhancing the SCM system through a product and vendor development (PVD) programme. The PVD was developed to eliminate problems resulting from late delivery and poor quality of supplies and availability of supplies. The paper explores step-by-step methodologies. Results show that the PVD has improved the SCM system, especially in the areas of quality and delivery services. The PVD also shows to cut the costs due to problems that arose in the shortcomings of the supply services.

Studies about management controllers’ skills in an ERP environment are non-existent. The article by Wilfrid Azan and Marc Bollecker addresses the issue of MSI where developments in IT have had a significant impact on competencies. The paper explores this notion which has received little coverage in IS literature to date, with a focus on the field of accounting and management control. Many authors have voiced their uncertainty about how the control function will evolve in the future. In effect, information system developments challenge controllers’ competencies if the latter’s know-how fails to keep up with technological developments. To the best of our knowledge, studies on management controllers’ skills in an ERP environment are non-existent. Academic papers tend to focus more on how their role and positions have developed, and therefore address the issue from the standpoint of a hypothetical evolution in their knowledge. Ongoing changes to management controllers’ competencies also have an impact on professional trainers, since they require academic programmes proposed by professional associations, universities and business schools to be adapted accordingly.

The author analyses the makeup of controllers’ competencies and, in particular, the need for the latter to be able to use ERP systems. It proposes the concept of technological contingency as a means to understand evolutions in ERP controllers’ competencies in comparison with traditional controllers. Technological progress broadens controllers’ competencies, and ERP plays the role of a medium through which increased contingency takes place. Organisations of a certain size are compelled to implement ERP, leading to management controllers having to adjust their skills set. The study provides an ERP model to be used by controllers.

To select the best strategies in the presence of both deterministic and non-deterministic data in the uncertain environments, without relying on weight assignment by decision makers, the article by Reza Farzipoor Saen and Majid Azadi proposes an innovative approach, which is based on mathematical programming that called chance-constrained data envelopment analysis (CCDEA). Choosing the best strategies is usually a difficult task. Managers encounter this difficulty because they lack perfect foresight. They must choose a course of action today, whose success depends on future conditions, without knowing exactly what the future looks like. Therefore, in selecting a strategic alternative, the manager is actually placing a “bet”: he is using his beliefs about the future to choose a plan that best fulfills his firm’s objectives. This paper proposes a method which systematically excludes and compares different strategies.

Managers should find the framework helpful in placing their strategic bets for a number of reasons. One, given the manager’s beliefs about the future, the framework shows which strategy produces the optimal results and why. It compares the performance of the optimal strategy vis-à-vis that of alternative strategies, thereby indicating to managers how costly the use of non-optimal strategies can be. Since the framework systematically evaluates strategies, it can also illustrate to managers how changes in environment about the future affect the performance of a strategy. Two, the business environment is becoming more competitive and complex. Various factors have increased competitive pressures in markets, and made relationships between environmental factors more complex (e.g. global markets, faster technology transfers, etc.). Weaker firms are being driven from markets, with the more aggressive survivors having significant resources to exploit any strategic opportunity. In such an environment, a competitive advantage is the ability to quickly and correctly interpret changes in the environment, and determine what actions, if any, the firm should take. Strategy selection is one of the most challenging decision-making areas the management of a company encounters.

It is widely accepted that an established firm can discourage entry by charging a price below its short-run profit-maximizing level to affect a prospective entrant’s perception of the profitability of entering the market. An incumbent’s first period price may be used as a signal of her unknown costs under a rational set of expectations.

In this article, Jorge Tarziján extends this result to a setting where an entrant is contemplating to enter one of alternative markets that produce complementary goods. The analysis of entry deterrence in this setting is particularly attractive since by deterring entry an incumbent may not only benefit from avoiding being “hurt” in its own profits by having more competitors in its market but, if the entrant goes to the other market, it may also receive a benefit by facing a more competitive market for the complementary product. There are several sectors in which entrants may be contemplating to enter one of different complementary markets.

Enjoy the reading, thanks for the continued support.

Luiz Moutinho, Kun-Huang Huarng