Search results

The purpose of this paper is to identify how organizations can evaluate the green product deletion decision within an environmentally sustainable consumption and production environment through a hybrid multistage multiple criteria evaluation approach.

This paper proposes a decision-making model by integrating “soft computation” using neighborhood rough set theory, fuzzy cluster means, and cumulative prospect theory. Literature is used to identify various factors for the decision environment. An illustrative problem provides insights into the methodology and application.

The results indicate that green products can be evaluated from both their relative environmental burdens and benefits. Sustainable consumption and production factors that play a role in this multifactor decision are identified. The results show that a comprehensive evaluation can capture an effective overall picture on which green product(s) to delete.

The opaqueness of the proposed methodology may cause less acceptance by management. The methodology made a number of assumptions related to the data. An actual application of the tool rather than just an illustrative example is needed.

The main contribution of this study is the novel integration of supply chain perspectives, both upstream (supply and production) and downstream (demand/usage), with green product deletion decision making. The hybrid multistage technique has advantages of being able to incorporate many factors that have a variety of quantitative and qualitative characteristics to help managers address green product deletion issues as well as its impact on greening of supply chains and organizational environmental sustainability. This paper adds value to product deletion, supply chain management, and sustainable production and consumption literatures.

Product portfolio management is a strategic concern. Product portfolio management includes decisions associated with adding new products, maintaining existing products and deleting or phasing out problematic products. This paper first introduces a framework to identify risks of product deletion along supply chain activities. It utilizes failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) to identify, analyse and evaluate product deletion risks on supply chains and proposes managerial implications for risk management in dynamic business scenarios. It is meant to build upon and address a gap in the product deletion and supply chain linkage literature.

FMEA is utilized in this study to structure and manage potential risks in product deletion decision-making on supply chains. FMEA is based on an analysis of severity, occurrence and detectability of failure modes. FMEA provides methods to help identify managerial preventive solutions to avoid and mitigate risk consequences of such decisions.

Ten top product deletion risks are identified in this study; discussions of their negative impact on supply chain performance, and possible managerial recommendations are followed for risk control, monitor and elimination.

Findings help managers to predict, avoid and mitigate risk consequences of product deletion decisions; especially those related to the supply chain. A framework to structure various risks of product deletion in the supply chain can be useful to both practitioners and researchers.

This study advances product portfolio management through enhanced understanding of product deletion decision-making in organizations; and especially contributes to a broader investigation of such decisions in supply chain management. It also structures the factors that play a role in identifying risks.

This paper revisits the causes of product deletion, an important if somewhat neglected part of product management theory. The causes of product deletion are important in the way they compromise a product manager’s ability to pursue the organisation’s product objectives. Without a knowledge of when or why a product may become sick, it is doubtful that proactive product management can be successfully accomplished. The documented causes of why products become terminally ill are explored to provide a conceptual background for the reported study. The findings of a qualitative study into the factors that cause product deletion in the financial services sector are presented. The key issues relating to both the financial services and the physical goods sector are analysed and discussed. The outcome of this is a realisation that the development of a universal model for the identification of why products become weak is unsafe. The results of this study suggest that there is a clear need for research that explores the relationship between the causes of product decline and the formulation of triggers of deletion.

Market uncertainties require organizations to consistently revisit their product portfolio. Theoretically the link between corporate strategy, supply chain and operations for Product Deletion (PD) decisions is lacking. The purpose of this study is to develop a decision support tool that enables managers to evaluate PD decisions across business, supply chain strategies and customer considerations; rationalizing product portfolio variety while realizing long-term organizational competitiveness.

This study applies Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to formalize PD decision-making across multiple functional strategy perspectives. Manufacturing, supply chain, finance and marketing functions are included along with incorporating multiple stakeholder voices from multiple organizational levels—including top-management team members, cross-functional managers and customers. A case study application is conducted using an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) perspective.

The interrelationships between business, supply chain strategies and customer requirements are identified, along with tensions and tradeoffs using a series of “houses” or relationship matrices. The methodology provides managers with a decision support tool that can be flexible and applicable to aid sound PD decision-making incorporating multiple stakeholders.

Product decisions at the decline stage—for example product retirement or deletion—are neglected both in research and in practice. Having a formalized systematic process can make PD outcomes more objective. The proposed QFD approach is one of the early PD decision support tools—products can be deleted for strategic, operational and customer-related reasons, and the hierarchical interrelationships among various reasons need to be carefully managed to ensure sound product portfolio rationalization.

An empirical examination of the product elimination decision‐making processes in American and British manufacturing firms was presented. Specifically, two areas of the product elimination decision‐making process are presented: (1) the precipitating circumstances which “triggered” the product elimination decision‐making process to begin; and (2) the variables used to make the elimination/retention are reviewed. It was concluded that the decision making processes were similiar in the two countries.

This research is primarily concerned with studying the impact of brand workers' problems on brand deletion (BD) outcomes. The authors also analyze how the level of consensus achieved during BD adoption and implementation influences the impact of brand workers' problems on BD outcomes.

A questionnaire was designed to obtain data from a representative sample of 155 real cases of BD.

Findings indicate that in contexts where workers feel their jobs are threatened or challenged, BD success may be undermined. However, the company does possess one important mechanism that can alleviate the negative impact of brand workers' problems: empowering them to pave the way toward consensus-building. Results do not support a negative effect of brand workers' problems on BD time efficiency or any effect of BD time efficiency on BD's contribution to a firm's economic performance.

Managers must be aware that problems derived from brand workers' actions are especially harmful for the company when there is no consensus, such that managers must prevent deletion from occurring under these circumstances.

This pioneering study proposes and empirically validates the relationship between brand workers' problems and BD success and BD time efficiency, moderated by consensus.

The aim is to identify those areas of marketing in the financial services sector that deserve to be given priority attention. A number of marketing areas are identified and assessed on their scope for improvement, the ease with which they can be changed and also on the sensitivity of the performance of the organisation to an improvement in the area. The perspective is that of senior financial services marketing managers. The managers picked out pricing policy as one factor deserving to be given the highest priority. Improvements here are possible and, in addition, will show up in better company performance. Two other factors considered to be worth priority attention are the customer interface and marketing influence, although both are thought to be more difficult to change than pricing policy. Improvements in the new product development strategy area, whilst likely to produce significant improvements in company performance, were the hardest of all to achieve.

Many analysts claim that global systems of information management have become singularly important in explaining market transformation. In contrast, an entrepreneurial tradition in marketing thought suggests an alternative to the contemporary exaltation of information and information management. In this tradition, information intensity becomes an endogenous and increasingly manageable consequence of the process of transformation. Suggests that, by attracting global technological homogeneity, industry‐wide information intensity can plant the seeds of its own destruction as a revolutionary force.

To identify the key determinants of successful vendor managed inventory (VMI) and strategic supply chain relationships in the New Zealand (NZ) food industry.

The research primarily used action research, supported by a literature review, triangulation and case studies from other industries and countries.

Eight key factors impacting the success of organisation‐level VMI and strategic supply chain relationships were identified. These were integrated into a framework that provides a model for practitioners to follow when establishing VMI and strategic supply chain relationships in the NZ food industry.

This research was conducted using action research in the NZ food industry. As a result, these research findings may need to be modified and further adapted before applying to less concentrated food industries in other countries.

Practical guidelines are provided for practitioners who wish to improve their organisation's supply chain activities through VMI and strategic supply chain relationships.

The key outcome was a working model that identifies the key determinants of successful VMI and strategic supply chain relationships in the NZ food industry, at an organisation‐level. A secondary outcome was the contribution to knowledge from an action research perspective.

The purpose of the paper is to exemplify the product management of seasonal products.

Comment on existing literature.

The comment synthesizes literature on an uncommon product strategy issue.

As in all case studies, the specific conditions found in one organization may not be found more generally in others. Readers are cautioned that the conclusions drawn in the case may have limited applicability.

The comment depicts the process that one firm uses to link product introductions to seasonal events.

The comment describes an approach to product strategy that maintains customer interest and involvement with a complex product line.