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This paper aims to explore methods of defining ejecting zones (EZs) used in automatic picking systems (APSs), particularly in A-frame APSs. An A-frame APS automatically ejects products onto a conveyor, which then brings the products to their destination. EZs are moving zones on a conveyor, and each EZ corresponds to one picking order. Products are ejected as a zone passes channels in which the products are stored.

First, three EZ types are defined, and their operations are explained. Second, picking orders are analyzed and categorized by considering the structure and the picking mechanism of an A-frame APS. In addition, picking-order instances reflecting actual data are randomly generated according to each category. Finally, the performance of the EZs is evaluated using the picking-order instances and computer simulations.

The results from the computer simulations suggest the EZ types suitable for use with various picking order types considering order fulfilment speed and energy usage.

In this paper, the authors only adopt a triangular distribution which is considered most practical distribution in the industry.

It is believed that these results can provide managers and operators with useful guides to facilitate the effective operation of an A-frame APS. The provided ideas have been implemented at the pharmaceutical warehouse of the largest logistics company in Korea.

The result shows that the proposed idea could save energy consumption and the APS have potential to save labor involvement in picking.

It is essential to define the EZs when operating an A-frame APS efficiently, but there is almost no research in this area. This paper focuses on defining EZs, as well as methods to utilize these zones.

The applicability of manufacturing planning and control methods differs between environments. This paper explains the fit between the planning environment and material and capacity planning on the detailed material planning and shop‐floor planning levels. The study is based on a conceptual discussion and a survey of 84 Swedish manufacturing companies. Results show the use of planning methods and their levels of user satisfaction in complex customer order production, configure to order production, batch production of standardized products and repetitive mass production, respectively.

After considering the search process and functions of index entries, a classification of entry types is offered, based on index term context, predominant term order, and between‐term function words. Then a multiple entry generation scheme is described, comprising rules for term manipulation, input and output. After discussing access points and cross reference measures, a preliminary linguistic analysis is given, showing links with psycholinguistics. The study forms the basis of a current laboratory investigation (EPSILON) into a number of entry types.

In services, customers’ successful performance of expected roles is critical to ensuring successful service outcomes. To help customers perform their roles better, service providers offer them feedback on their performance. To improve the design of customer feedback that contains both positive and negative messages, the purpose of this paper is to examine the order and the repetition effect of feedback message types on customer feedback satisfaction, motivation, and compliance intention, focusing on the moderating effect of customer involvement level. This paper also examines whether feedback satisfaction and motivation mediate the moderation effect of the order or repetition of feedback message type and customer involvement level on compliance intention.

This study employs two between-subject quasi-experimental designs: 2 (feedback message order: positive message first vs negative message first) × 2 (involvement level: high vs low) and a 2 (repeated feedback type: positive vs negative) × 2 (involvement level: high vs low). Data collection occurred through an online survey using eight health checkup scenarios. Hypotheses were tested by using MANOVA and PROCESS.

The customer involvement level moderated the effect of the presentation order of feedback message type on customer responses. With highly involved customers, offering positive feedback initially produced responses that were more favorable. With customers with low involvement, the order did not matter. The effects of feedback satisfaction and motivation as mediators in the effect of order on compliance intention were significant only with highly involved customers. The mediation effect of motivation was much stronger than that of feedback satisfaction. The repetition of a particular feedback type took effect only with customers with low-involvement level. Compared to the no-repetition condition (positive-negative), when positive feedback was repeated (positive-negative-positive), motivation increased. Compared to the no-repetition condition (negative-positive), when negative feedback was repeated (negative-positive-negative), feedback satisfaction and compliance intention decreased. In terms of mediating effect, only feedback satisfaction was a meaningful mediator and only when negative feedback was repeated to low-involvement customers.

This study contributes to research by extending feedback studies in services to include a consideration of the order and repetition of feedback message types as design variables; it contributes practically by suggesting how to design feedback for better customer responses such as feedback satisfaction, motivation, and compliance intention.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest an innovation-based perspective on company performance and develops a conceptual framework.

This is a research paper, which builds on prior theoretical and empirical management research.

The innovation-based view is grounded in interfirm differences in innovation, and it underscores the opportunities to achieve sustainable superior firm performance by innovating internally besides the increasing trend toward open innovation. The innovation-based perspective goes beyond many firms’ focus on product innovation by examining its interdependencies with other essential first-order innovations such as service, process, business model, and management innovations. The innovation-based perspective further addresses the dynamic and intertemporal transformation of innovation activities based on second-order innovations, which provide a more realistic view of organizations’ innovation over time. This transformation affects organizational boundaries and how a firm sustains superior performance.

The innovation-based view revises extant approaches to competition and firm boundaries. The new arguments help to reconcile inconsistent earlier findings, and they deepen the understanding of interfirm differences in innovation and performance.

The operational outcomes of form postponement (FP) have been increasingly investigated in the last two decades under the effects of escalating product variety and diffusion of mass customisation strategies. However, conflicting or hard‐to‐relate findings are quite frequent in the literature, so that a unifying framework for operations decision making is still lacking. The purpose of this paper is to develop a typological theory that reconciles into a coherent picture extant research on FP effects on operational performance.

The paper defines three mutually exclusive and exhaustive types of FP at the company level of analysis. Then, it revisits, through the lens of this typology, the literature on FP and formalizes how, why and under which assumptions each FP type affects operational performance.

The paper demonstrates that, to predict and explain FP effects on operational performance, three types of FP should be distinguished. In fact, it is shown that either these FP types have different effects on a given performance dimension, or they have the same effect but the logical justification for this effect is often different according to the FP type being considered.

The paper's synopsis of past research accomplishments indicates that future work will have to investigate the operational implications of a specific FP type almost ignored in the literature, as well as test the relationships hypothesized in the literature. Further opportunities for future research include extending the level of analysis beyond the boundaries of the company and linking the paper's FP typology to the operations strategy discourse.

The lack of understanding of the benefits and costs of FP has been found to be a major obstacle to FP implementation. The paper's typological theory supports managerial decision making by clarifying what FP alternatives companies have and what are the operational implications for each of these alternatives.

The paper's typological theory reconciles apparently conflicting findings in the literature by explaining such differences in terms of differences in the FP type being investigated. Additionally, the typology helps avoid a twofold risk: on the one hand, the risk of generalizing an effect or mechanism that only applies to a specific FP type and, on the other hand, the risk of failing to detect type‐specific effects or mechanisms.

This research examines stock traders' disposition effects and contrarian/momentum behavior in the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE). Specifically, we first investigate disposition effects across all trader types and then examine the relationships between disposition effects, trader types, and order characteristics. Next, we explore contrarian and/or momentum behavior and analyze the relationships among the contrarian/momentum behavior, investor type, and order characteristics. Finally, the links among trader types, order characteristics, and investment performance are detected. This chapter yields the following findings. (1) Individual investors exhibit the strongest disposition effects compared to other investors. (2) Foreign investors, investment trusts, and individual investors tend to use large orders to sell loser stocks. (3) Investment trusts are inclined to be momentum traders, while individual investors tend to perform contrarian strategies. (4) Institutional aggressive and large orders perform better than individuals' orders. (5) The performance of foreign investors' selling decisions is better than that of retail investors.

The advent of grocery sales through online channels necessitates that bricks-and-mortar retailers redefine their logistics networks if they want to compete online. Because the general understanding of such bricks-and-clicks logistics systems for grocery is still limited, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the internal logistics networks used to serve customers across channels by means of an exploratory study with retailers from different contexts.

A total of 12 case companies from six European countries participated in this exploratory study. Face-to-face interviews with managers were the primary source for data collection. The heterogeneity of the sample enabled the authors to build a typology of logistics networks in grocery retailing on multiple channels and to understand the advantages of different warehousing, picking, internal transportation and last-mile delivery systems.

Bricks-and-mortar grocery retailers are leveraging their existing logistics structures to fulfill online orders. Logistics networks are mostly determined by the question of where to split case packs into customer units. In non-food logistics, channel integration is mostly seen as beneficial, but in grocery retailing, this depends heavily on product, market and retailer specifics. The data from the heterogeneous sample reveal six distinct types for cross-channel order fulfillment.

The qualitative analysis of different design options can serve as a decision support for retailers developing logistics networks to serve customers across channels.

The paper shows the internal and external factors that drive the decision-making for omni-channel (OC) logistics networks for previously store-based grocery retailers. Thereby, it makes a step toward building a contingency and configuration theory of retail networks design. It discusses in particular the differences between grocery and non-food OC retailing, last-mile delivery systems and market characteristics in the decision-making of retail networks design.

This paper focuses on multi-objective order allocation with product substitution for the vaccine supply chain under uncertainty.

The weighted-sum minimization approach is used to find a compromised solution between three objectives of minimizing inefficiently vaccinated people, postponed vaccinations, and purchasing costs. A mixed-integer formulation with substitution quantities is proposed, subject to capacity and demand constraints. The substitution ratios between vaccines are assumed to be exogenous. Besides, uncertainty in supplier reliability is formulated using optimistic, most likely, and pessimistic scenarios in the proposed optimization model.

Covid-19 vaccine supply chain process is studied for one government and three vaccine suppliers as an illustrative example. The results provide essential insights for the governments to have proper vaccine allocation and support governments to manage the Covid-19 pandemic.

This paper considers the minimization of postponement in vaccination plans and inefficient vaccination and purchasing costs for order allocation among different vaccine types. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no study in the literature on order allocation of vaccine types with substitution. The analytical hierarchy process structure of the Covid-19 pandemic also contributes to the literature.

With the development and growth of the Washington Library Network Computer System in recent years, it has emerged as an effective and efficient automated system to support acquisitions, cataloging and other technical processing functions in libraries of all types and sizes. The online union catalog and COM catalog production has greatly expanded the effectiveness of reference and interlibrary loan services. This article covers all features of the computer system. It outlines system hardware, software, and the file structure as well as providing a description of the use of the system. Also discussed are system features such as authority and bibliographic quality control, precision database searching, and automated fund accounting for acquisitions and fiscal management. Other areas covered in this paper are: governance, administration, training, research and development, and types of users, both online and those which want to transfer software as in the recent successful installation of WLN software at the National Library of Australia.