Cluster Events
NEXT SEMINAR 2024/2025
In this section, you will find the information (Speaker/Guest, abstract, date & time slot , location, online registration link..) about the upcoming seminar during the year. Everyone is welcome, from within ESSEC as well as from outside.
Ahmadreza MARANDI - Eindhoven Univ. of Technology
Tuesday, April 15th from 12pm to 1pm
Room : N230
Zoom link : https://essec.zoom.us/j/99474033441
Title: Robust Spare Parts Inventory Management
Abstract: We focus on the spare parts inventory control under demand uncertainty, particularly during the New Product Introduction (NPI) phase when historical data is limited. Most conventional spare parts inventory control models assume demand follows a Poisson process with a known rate. However, the rate may not be known when limited data is available. We propose an adaptive robust optimization (ARO) approach to multi-item spare parts inventory control. We show how the ARO problem can be reformulated as a deterministic integer programming problem. We develop an efficient algorithm to obtain near-optimal solutions for thousands of items. We demonstrate the practical value of our model through a case study at ASML, a leading semiconductor equipment supplier. The case study reveals that our model consistently achieves higher service levels at lower costs than the conventional stochastic optimization approach employed at ASML.
If you need more information, please contact matta@essec.edu
Best regards,
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Fabian STING - University of Cologne
Tuesday, April 16th from 12pm to 1pm
Room : N230
Zoom link : https://essec.zoom.us/j/94706942444
Title: Quality circles within and across units of knowledge workers:
Field experiments among kitchen planning employees
Abstract: In today’s knowledge economy, manufacturers must cultivate continuous knowledge creation and sharing among employees. Peer communication is crucial for knowledge acquisition, yet the local and “sticky” nature of knowledge often hinders its effective transfer. We use field experiments to study knowledge sharing at a large kitchen manufacturer. This manufacturer organizes 280 workers into 29 units for the purpose of planning kitchens, a complex and error-prone task that requires extensive and in-depth knowledge. The firm implemented across-unit and within-unit quality circles as a managerial remedy for costly planning-related quality complaints by kitchen customers. We document that across-unit quality circles enhanced quality performance by 21%, whereas within-unit quality circles did not yield significant improvements. Process and survey evidence (concerning quality circles’ discussion content and duration as well as the type of knowledge acquired by workers) consistently and coherently indicate that knowledge sharing operates as the overarching mechanism linking across-unit quality circles to higher individual quality performance. Before our intervention, familiarity was high within units but low across units; this fact suggests that the benefits of knowledge sharing had already been reaped under the within-unit condition – whereas the across-unit treatment could benefit from increased familiarity, which in turn promoted knowledge sharing among members. After our intervention, the manufacturer decided to roll out the across-unit quality circles as a standard practice. We estimate that this rollout will increase firm profits by some half a million euros annually.
If you need more information, please contact matta@essec.edu
Best regards,