Manufacturing & Service Operations Management

Are we contributing positively to the society at large by research that we conduct in the field of Operations Management? Currently, the answer is probably closer to “no” than to “yes.” We often do not realize it, but there is very real cost of conducting ...

Problem definition: Translate data from electronic health records (EHR) into accurate predictions on patient flows and inform daily decision making at a major hospital. Academic/practical relevance: In a constrained hospital environment, forecasts on ...

Problem definition: Machine learning is often employed in appointment scheduling to identify the patients with the greatest no-show risk, so as to schedule them into or right after overbooked slots. That scheduling decision maximizes the clinic ...

Problem definition: We study the management of social responsibility in a three-tier supply chain with a tier 2 supplier selling to a tier 1 supplier, in turn selling to a tier 0 buyer. The tier 2 supplier may violate social and environmental standards, ...

Problem definition: This paper investigates and compares two types of food safety auditing structures: decentralized and centralized audits. Academic/practical relevance: Decentralized food safety auditing systems are common among developing economies, ...

Problem definition: This study addresses three important questions concerning the effectiveness of stay-at-home orders and sociodemographic disparities. (1) What is the average effect of the orders on the percentage of residents staying at home? (2) Is ...

Problem definition: Cash transfer programs (CTPs) have spread in the last decade to help fight extreme poverty in different parts of the world. A key issue here is to ensure that the cash is distributed to the targeted beneficiaries in an appropriate ...

Problem definition: Lack of patient adherence to treatment protocols is a main barrier to reducing the global disease burden of tuberculosis (TB). We study the operational design of a treatment adherence support (TAS) platform that requires patients to ...

Problem definition: Achieving broad access to health services (a target within the sustainable development goals) requires reaching rural populations. Mobile healthcare units (MHUs) visit remote sites to offer health services to these populations. However,...

Problem definition: Faced with the challenge of serving beneficiaries with heterogeneous needs and under budget constraints, some nonprofit organizations (NPOs) have adopted an innovative solution: providing partially complete products or services to ...

Problem definition: In high-product-variety businesses like fashion, mass production (MP) systems create environmental waste in the form of overproduction on a colossal scale. Mass customization (MC) has been proposed—without solid evidence—as a solution. ...

Problem definition: Six million refugees have been living in camps in 2021 due to multiple armed conflicts worldwide. Regulations often impede refugees’ integration into host countries; thus, refugees have to seek help from humanitarian organizations (HOs)...

Problem definition: Treating many blood-related diseases requires transplantation of genetically compatible hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) extracted from the bone marrow (BM) of live donors or the umbilical cord blood (CB) of babies. To facilitate the ...

Problem definition: We use a realistically large, publicly available data set from a global fintech lender to simulate the impact of different antidiscrimination laws and their corresponding data management and model-building regimes on gender-based ...

Problem definition: We study how algorithmic (versus human-based) task assignment processes change task recipients’ fairness perceptions and productivity. Academic/practical relevance: Since algorithms are widely adopted by businesses and often require ...

Problem definition: We study the effects of emergency department (ED) physician workload on healthcare system utilization after the patient leaves the ED. Further, we explore the mediating effects of care intensity in the ED on post-ED care use. Academic/...

Problem definition: We investigate how the degree of standardization (DoS) across service chain-belonging units impacts units’ performance outcomes. We study this question in the nursing home industry, focusing on the DoS in three operational dimensions—...

Problem definition: This paper analyzes a market design problem in Medicare Advantage (MA), the largest risk-adjusted capitation payment program in the U.S. healthcare market. Evidence exists that the current MA capitation payment program unintentionally ...

Problem definition: We develop a framework to plan capacity in each of three sequential stages for ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs). The interdependence of activities, their stochastic durations, and the uncertainties in patient-mix pose significant ...

Problem definition: Rapid innovations in technology have created opportunities for different modes of healthcare delivery including digital services provided via mobile applications (mHealth). mHealth technology has the potential to provide efficient, ...

Problem definition: We focus on modeling and evaluating an emergency service system in which cross-trained fire-medics are pooled and respond to both fire calls and medical emergencies. Academic/practical relevance: Fire demand in the United States has ...

Problem definition: Airports and airlines have been challenged to improve decision making by producing accurate forecasts in real time. We develop a two-phased predictive system that produces forecasts of transfer passenger flows at an airport. In the ...

Problem definition: Electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) vehicles enable urban aerial mobility (UAM). This paper optimizes the number, locations, and capacities of vertiports in UAM systems while capturing interdependencies between strategic ...

Problem definition: In the U.S. auto market, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) implements a stricter fuel economy standard in California than the federal standard implemented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Trump ...

Problem definition: Although physical (or “social”) distancing is an important public health intervention during airborne pandemics, physical distancing dramatically reduces the effective capacity of classrooms. Academic/practical relevance: During the ...

Problem Definition: With increasing concerns about the quality and safety of agricultural products, many agricultural cooperatives (co-ops) have begun to specify quality provisions in contracts with farmers. Correspondingly, they are pooling products to ...

Problem definition: Onion is an indispensable ingredient of the Indian diet, and plays a vital role in Indian economy, society, and politics. The ever-lasting volatility in its prices leads to significant social unrest. In this paper, we are interested in ...