Year:2012 | Volume:7 | Issue:19|Papers Count:10

This article considers pricing and ordering decisions in the two echelon supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and two rival retailers under stochastic demand. A Stackelberg structure is considered between two echelons of supply chain that manufacturer acts as a leader, and retailers act as followers making decisions about pricing and ordering. Also, in echelon of retailers, optimal pricing policy and profits of chain members are calculated and, in special case that retailers are faced with similar market demand, Stackelberg structure is compared with Cornot structure. This research shows that among two competitive scenarios, Cornot structure causes that retailers set lower sale price as compared with Stackelberg structure and consequently retailers earn less profit in Cornot structure. Also in both competitive structures, manufacturer’s profit is higher than double of total retailers’ profit.

The paper aims at studying the effect of efficient economic factors on operation of investment. Existing communications between managerial factors and economic function have been studied by simultaneous equation model based on the estimated method of Generalized Maximum Entropy. Some comparisons have been also made between estimated methods of Generalized Maximum Entropy, Partial least Squares and Maximum Likelihood Estimation on 40 productive companies of Kermanshah province. Examining the achieved consequences in the following research, the results show more advantages and less errors of the Generalized Maximum Entropy method in comparison with common methods of Partial least Squares and Maximum Likelihood Estimation which are proven with more limits and errors. Consequently, this method can be a reliable and appropriate replacement for estimating factors of regression and errors in the Generalized Maximum Entropy.

There is a question that is important for almost all managers: outsourcing or not outsourcing?” The purpose of this research is to reply to the new challenges of the managers of present manufacturing organizations about outsourcing. While outsourcing has certain advantages for organizations, it also brings some disadvantages. Although, most organizations apply outsourcing as a regular organizational activity, only a few know its actual meaning or at least familiar whit its implementations. Furthermore, most suppliers have recognized the increasing coverage and development of outsourcing market and they are willing to take advantage of outsourcing results, but they are not sure of its mechanisms. So, the present research attempted not only to present different aspects of outsourcing, but also to take into account the extent of the effects of internal and external organizational factors on strategic decision making of outsourcing from high level manager’s point of view in some manufacturing companies in Tehran.

In the competitive world of today, companies seek to maintain and achieve more market share and retain their customers; thereby improving quality and financial position are of the most important factors in survival of companies. Today, high quality products have become one of the greatest tools for organizations looking for customer satisfaction and profit. In this respect, Total Quality Management (TQM) is one of the most popular systems for achieving high level of quality which organizations are taking benefit from. In this research, TQM factors influencing financial performance have been evaluated and prioritized using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) with a case study in food industry. Collecting data by survey based questionnaire of paired comparisons and using Expert Choice software version 11 to analyze viewpoints, it has been found that management commitment, customer focus and continuous improvement as factors of TQM have highest weights influencing company's financial performance, respectively.

Productivity is one of the most important objectives of organizations and institutes in recent world. Increasing the productivity level can guarantee the stage development of organization in the competitive market. Productivity as a prominent index determines accurately the efficiency of labor power, investment and other resources of an organization. It also shows a clear situation of the company in the future. A company can achieve sustainable profits in the future if it does not ignore the productivity issue. The aim of this study is to determine if there is any significant relationship between Change in Productivity indices (labor and capital productivity) as independent variables and change in financial variables (profit of each portfolio, Book value of portfolio, Market portfolio value) as dependent variables. To do so, 102 companies accepted in Tehran Stock Market were selected based on screening (systematic deletion) in a five-year period between 2004-2009. The required data were gathered from basic financial statement, committee reports, and other available documents in Tehran Stock Market. Step by step regression and Pearson correlation were used to analyze the data. The results of the study revealed that there is a significant relationship between the variables.

When there is a serious cause manifested in a process and it makes the process departs to an out-of-control condition, an effective root cause analysis could lead the process management to identify and eliminate the serious cause. When a change takes place in a multivariate process, while several correlated variables exist, the root-cause analysis of the process relatively is more challenging compared to the case of a univariate process. Considering an out-of-control multivariate process, one can experience an effective root-cause analysis if only a comprehensive scheme allows detecting the out-of-control condition, identifying the change point, diagnosing the variable(s) contributing to the unnatural condition and distinguishing the shift direction all simultaneously. Although statistical approach has provided effective solution for the univariate process, the approach has not provided a comprehensive solution in which a p-variate process is considered. The multivariate literature indicates that the solution based on the soft computing is illustrated more effectively in comparison with the statistical approach. This research approached practically shows only one of the scheme among the several schemes proposed in the multivariate literature is able to trigger simultaneously all the required signals leading to an effective root-cause analysis. The extensive literature review on the multivariate environment led the authors to represent the comprehensive scheme. The out-of-control ARL criterion is used to evaluate the performance of the scheme compared to the performance of a traditional scheme when the monitoring of the correlated quality specifications in a real car body manufacturing process has been investigated.

Knowledge is always recognized as an important factor in innovation. However, the needed knowledge for innovation is not always available to organizations readily and it requires that the organization generates a major part of the knowledge. Such knowledge creation can happen through investing on innovation and developing new products. This study aims at investigating the complicated and dynamic nature of relationship between knowledge creation and investment decision on innovation. Therefore, present paper uses a systematic view and system dynamics approach, as well as its tools such as casual diagrams, flow diagram and simulation. The tools are used to study the impacts of different investing policies on organizational knowledge stock. A case study is provided to test the applicability of represented model in real world. The findings show that the most appropriate policy is allocating resource based on the gap between real knowledge stock and goal knowledge stock.

In today's competitive world the organizations can survive in the existing disordered conditions which utilize the best out of their resources. One of the major resources of an organization is human resources. Considered as a crucial process in almost all organizations, organizations need to evaluate their performance and manpower performance measurement to eliminate and compensate defects, increase the productivity and efficiency and to discover the capability of the human resources. So, this research has studied ways to evaluate the performance of national Iranian oil products distribution company staff in Ahwaz region by Analytical Hierarchy Process Method. According to the scientific resources under consideration and also the desired factors in this organization, the principal criteria and sub-criteria have been detected. Then, the pair comparisons of the criteria and sub-criteria were designed and were handed out to 10 evaluation managers. First, the incompatibility of each of the filled pair comparison tables by the evaluators was examined. Then, the weight of each of the main criteria and sub-criteria and the new system of personnel performance evaluation was designed by using the Group AHP and Expert choice software. Some assumptions were presented and a questionnaire was given to 79 personals and managers to analyze the superiority of our novel method over the existing method in the company. Since the questionnaire was prepared by suggestions from experts and also the calculated Cronbach’s Alpha as 0.94, its validation and the robustness were accepted. Also, according to the analysis of the data set and using the statistical methods, the advantage of this method over the former method is deliberated.

An enterprise resource planning system (ERP) is the information backbone of a company that integrates and automates all business operations. Implementation of these systems is expensive and difficult and takes many time and resources. Beside, selection of suitable ERP system to realization of all strategies and goals is a vital issue. This paper presents an approach to select a suitable ERP system using fuzzy AHP with respect to BSC in Behpakhsh Company. Firstly, vision and strategy of company with respect to BSC is surveyed. A request for proposal was prepared according to the company’s vision, strategies and KPIs. Then, pair-wise questionnaires are designed and distributed among experts of Behpakhsh Company based on the criteria and indices related to ERP system selection extracted from ERP literature. Finally, covering the highest weight, package one selected as a most suitable ERP system. The results of this paper show that proposed approach is a useful tool to ERP selection and it can be used in other industries and service sectors.

This study aims at informing about investing companies where share price is considered as the most important and influential factor in investment decision making and the price expectation would play an important role in this kind of investment. So, this research aims at determining the relationship between the net assets value of these companies and the value of their shares in the stock market. This paper is a library study in review of literature and theoretical principles of hypothesis including the study of books, articles and journals. And, field study is used to study the documents and the papers. Also, the statistical society for assessing the concept was studied. Accordingly, results show that there is a strong positive relationship between the average of net assets value and share prices in the financial statements of investing companies during three years period in the studies companies. However, this relationship could not be determined and noticed in the financial crises.