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The case would be relevant to undergraduate level or an introductory master's level course in operations management (OM), supply chain management and production.

The case can be used as part of a core OM course in the MBA curriculum or any OM or supply chain elective.

As a highly diversified manufacturing services company, Jabil's S&OP solution supports customers across many industries such as automotive, cloud computing, consumer packaging, healthcare, mobile, retail and telecommunications. Jabil's customers expect a rapid and accurate response to their demand within hours. Previously, Jabil used a series of legacy disconnected planning tools, unsynchronized data required time-consuming manipulation with Excel. Processes were conducted in siloes leading to a “load and chase” approach, which resulted in excess inventory, component shortages and inadequate capacity. The case focuses on one of the Jabil executives, Lizet Tymon (she). Struggling with the issues caused by the disconnected planning tools, Lizet champions implementing a fully integrated suite of services (built on top of the Kinaxis' RapidResponse software platform). The technology solution proposed by Lizet was ultimately implemented across the company, and the project received high marks, and it opened up career opportunities for her. However, it was not a smooth ride at the very beginning. The case focuses on the issues experienced by Lizet, as she is introducing a new technological solution approach and trying to earn support from her team, her peers, her immediate supervisor, her customers and her higher-level executives.

The teaching objectives include: understanding and appreciating the supply chain complexities experienced by a global contract manufacturer; helping students think critically regarding the issues around the sales and ops planning; identifying the data needs for the operation and management of a worldwide, connected supply chain; investigating agile solution approaches for information sharing, decision-making and decision-sharing; and exposing the challenges associated with a large-scale technology adaptation.

This case study describes the supply chain challenges experienced by a global manufacturing solutions provider and illustrates the technology adaptation led by a female executive.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 9: Operations and Logistics

The purpose of this study is to determine the mental health status and risk factors for the mental health of first-year university students on a health sciences campus.

This is a descriptive study. The research was conducted with first-year students in the health sciences, dentistry and medical faculties of a state university (n = 770). The data were collected with a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Risk Behavior of Young Adults Survey, the Bergen Insomnia Scale, General Health Questionnaire-28 and the Mental Health Improvement Scale. Body mass ındex was calculated.

Among the students, 53.7% experienced feelings of hopelessness in the last year and 1% had attempted suicide. The percentage of students found to be at risk in terms of mental health was 41.9%; 39.4% reported that they suffered from insomnia. It was found that those who had been subjected to bullying, felt hopelessness, had suicidal thoughts, planned to commit suicide and students who experienced sleeping problems were more at risk in terms of psychological issues (p < 0.01). Insomnia (β: 3.341) and smoking (β: 2.226) were identified as the strongest risk factors for mental health in first-year health sciences students (p < 0.005).

The results of the research offer an opportunity to get to know the characteristics of first-year university students who are at risk for mental health. It offers the opportunity to closely monitor and protect the mental health of students starting from the first grade.

In this study, it was determined that approximately half of the first-year university students were in the risk group in terms of mental health. Female gender, having a chronic illness, smoking a day or more in the past 30 days, not doing any physical activity, having a weak BMI, being bullied in the past 12 months, being cyberbullied in the past 12 months and having insomnia have been identified as risk factors that negatively affect mental health.

Cities and the tourism industry are closely related. Cities are destinations that serve for the welfare of the people and the tourists visiting the city. The tourism sector, on the other hand, uses the environmental and sociocultural resources of the cities, ensures that these resources are transferred to the future by protecting them, and contributes to the economic development of the cities by creating employment. Several urban models have been created within this framework to make urban tourism viable. Eco-city tourism is one of these urban design concepts. Eco-city tourism aims to protect cities from sociocultural, economic, and environmental factors while promoting their growth. Eco-city tourism, which includes a number of practices such as prevention of pollution, protection of biological diversity, consumption of renewable energy, production of local products, employment, and protection of cultural values, is easily implement in cities in an integrated manner with smart technological systems. Smart building and smart energy systems for energy saving, mobile applications, Wi-Fi, big data, Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud computing are among the smart technological systems used in the tourism sector.

This study examines how technical drivers as well as social drivers influence organic communication and top management involvement (TMI) in new product development (NPD) projects. Technical drivers are of strategic importance and product innovativeness and social drivers are of intrinsic and extrinsic relevance. Organic communication is defined as continuous, bidirectional and informal communication between top management and the NPD teams. Further, arguing that TMI must be studied as a multifaceted construct, it is conceptualized to occur as guidance, active motivation and providing resources and creating a tolerant climate. Subsequently, the effect of TMI and organic communication on NPD performance is investigated.

The data set, collected via surveys from top managers and project managers involved in 86 NPD projects in 85 firms, is analyzed using PLS structural equation modeling.

The authors show that the strategic importance of the project has a positive influence on TMI through active motivation, providing resources and creating a tolerant climate for innovation, but does not have an effect on guidance. Results also show that active motivation and organic communication improve budget and schedule adherence, whereas providing guidance and stimulating a tolerant climate have detrimental effects. In summary, the results show that only active motivation enhances all types of performance while stimulating a tolerant climate appears to have the opposite effect. The results revealed that organic communication between top management and the NPD team has a strong positive effect on all elements of TMI (providing guidance, actively motivating the NPD team, providing resources and creating a tolerant climate). In other words, when top management communicates with the NPD team throughout the project in an informal way and listens to them in addition to engaging in a one-way communication, they are more likely to be seen by the team as being deeply involved in the project.

Executives must walk a managerial tightrope to actively motivate and to assist in providing resources, yet they must not be overbearing with direct guidance and must limit their tolerance for failures.

Involvement of key organizational actors such as top management and the link to project performance has attracted significant attention in research. However, nuanced empirical insights into the dyad of top management and project teams has so far been absent. The study’s findings detail the effect of technical and social drivers of top management involvement in new product development projects. Most notably, (1) the effect of motivation and stimulating a tolerant climate on performance, and (2) the effect of organic communication on top management involvement. Moreover, this study is unique in that it empirically examines TMI from both top management and team perspectives.