http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/7797 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41930 MIT FSCI Introduction Datta, Shoumen http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41919 Why Supply Chain Datta, Shoumen Why supply chain explains the importance of supply chains. It includes an introduction to ERP as designed by SAP. Introductory tutorial to supply chain & ERP. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41918 A Portfolio Approach for Purchasing Systems: Impact of Switching Point Hilmola, Olli-Pekka Ma, Hongze Datta, Shoumen In operations management different ordering policies, such as, economic order quantity, lot for lot and periodic ordering, are used in various combinations without deeper considerations for the likely consequences on cash flow and profitability. The success of these techniques is analyzed through inventory levels and/or total cost. In this paper, we present results of simulation which uses three different product groups with varying demand characteristics, changing product margins and also considers product quality failures (due to ordering, engineering change or customer requests). Based on our results, we suggest a portfolio approach where lot for lot policy may be useful in an early phase of the product life-cycle and later it may be an advantage to change over to economic order quantity (EOQ) based ordering. However, demand sustainability and failure rates create instances where orders in larger economical lots may reduce profitability. Therefore, manufacturing may benefit from a portfolio of different purchase order policies and may evaluate the successful balance of policies using cash flow as a parameter. Accuracy of demand forecasting is vital to switching point estimation. Further research on real-world applications of advanced forecasting tools is advocated as well as a framework to develop the portfolio for intelligent purchasing systems. Current tools of operations management do not offer insight for advanced decision making. One potential method for tracking these signals may be the development of the GARCH technique (proven useful in financial risk management and awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Economics). Improving precision in predictive analytics may help in better execution of the switching point decision making (among other things) for much larger and more complex operations with vast number of decision parameters. The incorporation of ambient intelligence or algorithms from artificial intelligence may help purchasing systems learn how to be autonomous and/or help human operators to decide between portfolio of approaches by evaluating decisionable information extracted from data analytics (acquired from a plethora of business processes). Taken together, these represent potentially interesting future steps. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41917 Decision Support and Systems Interoperability in Global Business Management Datta, Shoumen Lyu, JrJung Ping-Shun, Chen Globalization of business and volatility of financial markets has catapulted ‘cycle-time’ as a key indicator of operational efficiency in business processes. Systems automation holds the promise to augment the ability of business and healthcare networks to rapidly adapt to changes or respond, with minimal human intervention, under ideal conditions. Currently, system of systems (SOS) or organization of networks contribute minimally in making decisions because collaboration remains elusive due the challenges of complexity. Convergence and maturity of research offers the potential for a paradigm shift in interoperability. This paper explores some of these trends and related technologies. Irrespective of the characteristics of information systems, the development of various industry-contributed ontologies for knowledge and decision layers, may spur self-organizing SOS to increase the ability to sense and respond. Profitability from pervasive use of ontological frameworks and agent-based modeling may depend on the ability to use them through better enterprise and extraprise exchange. Development of ontologies that represent the knowledge of the problem space may facilitate use of agent systems within the semantic web infrastructure. Supply chain operations involving buyers and sellers separated by geography and political boundaries must waddle through a host of process intermediaries (finance, logistics, compliance, security) yet reduce cycle times to boost efficiency and hence profitability. New approaches, especially the emergence of unified identification, web services and SOA, taken together with agents and the semantic web offers opportunities for interoperability in business, finance, healthcare and security.