THIRD NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE OPERATIONAL ADVANTAGE GROUP (OAG)

1. Operational Advantage Group THIRD NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE OPERATIONAL ADVANTAGE GROUP (OAG) POMS Conference Boston, April 29, 2006 Rafael Menda Director, POMS - Operational Advantage Group

2. AGENDA • Introduction • Practitioner Survey Results • Practitioner Panel • Break • Academic Panel • Action Plans Going Forward • Lunch • COO Workshop R. Menda

3. Operational Advantage Group: An Interest Group of POMS Our Main Goal: To make POMS more relevant and useful to practitioners by improving the way the POM academic community engages with industry R. Menda

4. An Academic Society Reaching Out To Practitioners • Better understand the problems operations & supply chain management professionals are facing today • Increase practitioners’ involvement in POMS activities • Influence the POM research agenda in business schools… • Help create a “research stream” for emerging scholars • Make outcomes more relevant and useful R. Menda

5. What The Day Will Look Like Morning Panel:What Is Keeping POM Executives Up At Night, And What Can POMS Do To Help? (R. Menda) • First survey of POM practitioners -- summary of results • Practitioner panel -- elaborate on the key concerns and opportunities • Open discussion • Academic panel -- industry-academia collaboration experiences • Success factors and barriers • Open discussion and call for action R. Menda

6. What The Day Will Look Like Afternoon Panel:The 'Disappearing' COO - Missing Link in Business Success - The 3rd Annual COO Workshop(J. Goldhar) • The disappearing COO -- first panel • What is an effective COO? -- second panel • Open discussion with audience participation • Summary and close-out (W. Skinner and M. Starr) R. Menda

7. OAG Survey Of Practitioners • “Issues that are most critical to you as a POM executive” • “Primary areas of concern to you and your company today and in the next 1-2 years” • “Identify those few that, if not resolved in the near- to mid-term, will greatly impact your function’s, and likely your company’s, competitiveness” R. Menda

8. OAG Survey Of Practitioners • Pre-compiled list of 33 “issues,” grouped under 7 categories: • Customers/Markets, Links to Business Strategy • Organizational Structure/Systems/Decision Making • Planning/Supply-Demand Synchronization • Supply Chain Management, Logistics, Procurement • Workforce/Human Resource Management • Operational Efficiency, Cost Competitiveness • Performance Measurement, Metrics • Other … • Respondents added 36 specific issues of their own R. Menda

9. Survey Stats • E-mailed to ~400 industry practitioners in U.S., Brazil, Sweden, Canada • Translated to Portuguese by A. Graeml & J. Csillag in Brazil • 62 usable responses: • 43 - U.S., Sweden & Canada • 19 - Brazil (14 from the Portuguese version) • Conducted January through March, 2006 R. Menda

10. Example of a Portion of Survey Response R. Menda

11. Three Categories Stand Out R. Menda

12. Top-10 Problems That Keep POM Professionals Up At Night R. Menda

13. Some Issues Differ In Importance Between U.S. & Brazil *25 pts. difference or higher R. Menda

14. Whom They Will Use To Work On These Issues Br. U.S. R. Menda

15. Respondents’ Previous Experience With Industry-Academia Collaboration R. Menda

16. Future Intent R. Menda

17. Most Stated Contributors To Success in Previous Collaboration Work • Having a well-structured project plan, goals, deliverables, timing and teamwork • Expertise and reputation of the resource; close working relationship • Academic’s pattern recognition ability; knowledge of other industries with the same problem • Focused analytics; ability to test the solutions before implementation • Academia and company support; “newness” of the topic • Interaction with staff and floor personnel to make it happen R. Menda

18. Most Stated Barriers • Academia being labeled as “theoretical;” skeptical about ability to solve “real” problems • Lack of company resources; conflicting priorities by others [in the company] • Company’s focus on return-on-investment and their unwillingness to pay • Significant effort to bring academic up-to-speed with business model and operating environment of company • Academic’s lack of business/practical experience • Fear of complexity; naïve view of value of academics • Reluctance of company to share information R. Menda

19. Questions to Explore • What can OAG do to make POM research more attractive (and readable) to practitioners? • How can we create “a product” in POMS that the practitioners would want to “buy”? • Is it practical to create a repository of potential “hot” research topics in POMS to serve as a guide for young academics looking for meaningful research streams? • What else can OAG/POMS do to increase practitioners’ degree of involvement in society’s activities? R. Menda

20. Panel Participants • Peiling Wu -- Senior Research Scientist, Manufacturing Systems Research Laboratory of General Motors R&D Center • Tony Lynch -- Senior Consultant, A.T. Kearney, Inc. • Anand Raman -- Senior Editor, Harvard Business Review • Steve Brown -- Professor, School of Business and Economics, Exeter University (U.K.) • K.K. Sinha -- Curtis L. Carlson Family Foundation Professor of Management Science and the Academic Director of the Medical Industry Leadership Institute at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota • Harm-Jan Steenhuis -- Assistant Professor of Operations Management at Eastern Washington University. R. Menda