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This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.

Theeuwes and Adriaansen (1994), among others, have asserted that activity-based costing (ABC) is inappropriate for operational decision-making. In this article, ABC is modified to reflect separate flexible and committed cost driver rates for an activity. This enables the model to reflect the difference in the behavior of an activity’s flexible and committed costs needed for operational planning decisions. The modified ABC facilitates determining the resources required to produce the product mix developed from the firm’s strategic plan and the excess capacity that will result. The modifications made to ABC aid in determining an optimal product mix when the firm has excess capacity, while the traditional ABC may not. Equally important, it facilitates measuring the financial implications of the resource allocation decisions that comprise the firm’s operational plan. As the operational plan is implemented, operational control is used to ensure that it is performed in an efficient and effective manner. The modified ABC enables the firm’s managers to compute the different types of deviations that arise from using flexible and committed resources at the unit, batch, and product levels of the firm’s operations. This aids in understanding problematic aspects of the firm’s operations and identifying where management resources are needed to improve operational efficiency.

The operational component of a company’s short‐term plan (amounts of products to be delivered and sold to various markets at prices that vary according to markets, sales channels, types of customers and quantities sold, levels of utilization of production capacity, assignment of resources to the manufacturing of different products, amounts of raw materials purchased from different sources, stocks of raw materials and finished products) gives rise to a series of cash inflows and outflows which are not synchronized. The financial component of a company’s short‐term plan has to indicate how to compensate the imbalances, in time, generated by the operational plan, between availabilities and requirements of cash, and indicate the sources of financing to be used and how to temporarily invest cash surpluses. The approach, too often followed in companies, that defines the financial component of a company’s short‐term plan as a consequence of the operational component of the plan, ignores the potential interactions between them and the possibility of defining simultaneously a more economic interfunctionally integrated plan. A model is presented for the decisions in the operational component and a model for the decisions in the financial component. If these models are used separately, they can be integrated resorting to an iterative approach that mutually adapts their separate solutions in order to define the company plan. However, the best approach is to build a model that integrates the two separate models into one structured in a way that can define the optimal integrated short‐term operational and financial plan. The lack of integration between the operational and the financial components of the short‐term company plan is a common weak point in the existing literature and practice.

This paper addresses horizontal supply chain collaboration among autonomous freight carriers in the less-than-truckload industry. The main purpose of the paper is to identify and explain the challenges with joint operational decision-making in this context and investigate the precise role of information technology (IT) therein.

Empirical evidence is gathered by means of exploratory and explanatory case research, with multiple cases at the planning departments of European freight carriers operating in collaborative transportation networks.

Collaborating carriers face fundamental challenges in joint operational planning and control of collaborative transportation, despite the broad availability of state-of-the-art IT. These operational supply chain challenges can be explained by technological differences of the available IT applications, which hinder integration.

Any expectations with regard to state-of-the-art XML or EDI-based IT integration for improved joint operational decision-making in collaborative transportation networks should be considered with care. In particular, the authors' research findings may encourage practitioners to consider new planning and control procedures and develop dedicated IT applications for collaborating freight carriers.

The paper highlights the importance of horizontal supply chain collaboration for small and medium-sized freight carriers in the less-than-truckload industry and conceptualises how collaborative transportation networks are organised. Furthermore, an IT typology is introduced to explain the challenges with joint operational decision-making.

This article analyzes the strategic use of microcomputers and software packages in corporate planning and decision making in SMEs. Data were collected from 44 SMEs from three cities in the Republic of Botswana to study their perceptions about the use of computer‐based technology to solve managerial problems, and analysed using simple descriptive statistics. The findings indicate that SMEs conduct both strategic and operational planning activities. However, microcomputers and software packages were used primarily for operational and administrative tasks rather than for strategic planning. SMEs perceive that strategic planning is costly and time‐consuming, and hence appropriate only for large firms. The study also showed that firm size and strategic orientation are related to the use of computer technology for strategic decision making. The major implication of the findings for future research has been identified and presented.

The purpose of this paper is to explore intra-firm coordination in temporary organizations (TOs). Specifically, it identifies and explains how operational coordination evolves over time in a particular TO: the 2016 Olympic Games Organizing Committee.

This is an immersive case study based on qualitative analysis and longitudinal fieldwork, which allowed the observation of operational coordination in real time. The main sources of data are participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and internal documents of the TO.

The findings suggest that operational coordination in TOs dealing with multiple and decentralized operations takes place through the combination of both formal and informal coordination mechanisms. Further analysis indicates a contingency logic in using these mechanisms, shaped by the presence of specific coordination challenges in different phases of work. Three main aspects influencing coordination are explored. First, it is suggested that TOs are inherently “hybrid.” That is, they comprise enduring as well as temporary and centralized as well as decentralized elements. These elements change over time. Second, a formal transition phase is explored: “venueization” – a phase between planning and operation in which centralized structural elements and processes are translated to operational units. Third, since TOs present emergence and dynamism, and related challenges across various phases of work, coordination is arguably contingent on the phase of the project.

Although the findings are limited to a particular empirical context, this paper offers theoretically new insights concerning the hybrid nature of processes in TOs, the contingent use of complementary coordination mechanisms, and the importance of the venueization phase, and provides a basis for future research into operational coordination in TOs.

The findings can help practitioners understand and identify the challenges embedded in temporary contexts and develop coordination strategies accordingly.

This study explains how operational coordination takes place in TOs enabled by formal and informal mechanisms, which are contingently combined over time through particular coordination strategies.

Preface The functions of business divide into several areas and the general focus of this book is on one of the most important although least understood of these—DISTRIBUTION. The particular focus is on reviewing current practice in distribution costing and on attempting to push the frontiers back a little by suggesting some new approaches to overcome previously defined shortcomings.

This paper investigates the extent to which externally led benchmarking may have facilitated performance management design and use in Malaysian local authorities.

A longitudinal qualitative study of local authorities in Malaysia was undertaken, comprising interviews with key officers during the introduction of process-based key performance indicators (KPIs), and following the imposition of benchmarking (i.e. relative performance evaluation) on local authorities. Complexity theory was used in the analysing and theorising of data.

External benchmarking mechanisms facilitated only operational performance management, with strategic performance management merely ceremonially adopted. As the focus was on mainly operational KPIs, strategic goals were not translated into detailed action plans and outputs at departmental level. In addition, operational and strategic performance management packages were decoupled. Thus, the efforts of external actors resulted in operational controls suppressing rather than facilitating strategic processes.

There is a need to transition from purely externally led benchmarking to internally driven benchmarking in local government, whereby benchmarking forms part of the interactive performance management mechanisms that lead to institutional learning and improvement.

Benchmarking activities should be based on comprehensive analyses of performance management design and use. A reflective approach to continuously identify gaps or weaknesses in performance management systems will enable local government administrators to improve systems and processes in a timely manner to meet stakeholder needs.

This paper explains the impact of central government policy and benchmarking initiatives on other levels of government. We have built on previous literature by examining the connection between external benchmarking and internal performance management design and use in local government. In relation to this, and following calls for research on holistic performance management, the integration between operational and strategic performance management packages was also examined.

This article aims to summarize several studies about how businesses currently practice budgeting in Western and Central Europe. While analyzing these studies in the larger context of the ongoing debate about budgeting's importance, it provides conceptual linkages between them and additional insights into their findings.

The reported studies employ survey research, sometimes with panels of self‐selected interviewees within a single country and sometimes with samples of SMEs across multiple countries.

Recent survey results continue to show managers complaining about the wastefulness of preparing budgets, while steadfastly believing they are indispensable. Among others, Horváth and Partners accordingly advocate “advanced budgeting” concepts to modernize both planning and budgeting processes. CFO‐panel participants generally uphold the advocates' position except in the crucial area of available IT‐support. However, as explained next, connecting operational and strategic planning is primarily a conceptual rather than a hard‐ or software problem. In the European automobile suppliers' industry, controlling services therefore generally still rely on a small set of well‐understood standard tools.

Firms not using these standard tools in their operational controlling risk falling behind the competition. In order to close the gap between the perceived importance of and satisfaction with more complex instruments, however, several tools require improvement or simplification as well as conceptual clarity about how to employ them.

This article presents results from diverse studies on budgeting as currently practiced, reform concepts, and obstacles to their implementation. In doing so, it discusses how they relate to one another and what their significance is for both theory and practice.

This monograph identifies and evaluates the marketing planning practices of British industrial goods companies operating internationally and examines the validity of the widespread belief that formalised marketing planning facilitates success. It defines the theoretical framework for marketing planning and describes a logical sequence of activities leading to the setting of marketing objectives and the formulation of plans for achieving them. It also contains a report of the results of in‐depth interviews with 385 directors and senior managers from 199 companies covering a broad spectrum of size and diversity, the purpose of which was to establish the extent to which the theory is practised and what the consequences are of either conformity or non‐conformity.