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New research on business logistics from Harvard Business School faculty on issues including understanding your order cycle, digital supply chains, and Toyota's Production System.
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How SHEIN and Temu Conquered Fast Fashion—and Forged a New Business Model

by John Deighton

The platforms SHEIN and Temu match consumer demand and factory output, bringing Chinese production to the rest of the world. The companies have remade fast fashion, but their pioneering approach has the potential to go far beyond retail, says John Deighton.

Chewy.com’s Make-or-Break Logistics Dilemma

Re: Jeffrey F. Rayport

In late 2013, Ryan Cohen, cofounder and then-CEO of online pet products retailer Chewy.com, was facing a decision that could determine his company’s future. Should he stay with a third-party logistics provider (3PL) for all of Chewy.com’s e-commerce fulfillment or take that function in house? Cohen was convinced that achieving scale would be essential to making the business work and he worried that the company’s current 3PL may not be able to scale with Chewy.com’s projected growth or maintain the company’s performance standards for service quality and fulfillment. But neither he nor his cofounders had any experience managing logistics, and the company’s board members were pressuring him to leave order fulfillment to the 3PL. They worried that any changes could destabilize the existing 3PL relationship and endanger the viability of the fast-growing business. What should Cohen do? Senior Lecturer Jeffrey Rayport discusses the options in his case, “Chewy.com (A).”

Can the Foodservice Distribution Industry Recover from the Pandemic?

Re: David E. Bell

At the height of the pandemic in 2020, US Foods struggled, as restaurant and school closures reduced demand for foodservice distribution. The situation improved after the return of indoor dining and in-person learning, but an industry-wide shortage of truck drivers and warehouse staff hampered the foodservice distributor’s post-pandemic recovery. That left CEO Pietro Satriano to determine the best strategy to attract and retain essential workers, even as he was tasked with expanding the wholesale grocery store chain (CHEF’STORE) that US Foods launched during the pandemic lockdown. Harvard Business School Professor David E. Bell explores how post-pandemic supply chain challenges continue to affect the foodservice distribution industry in his case, “US Foods: Driving Post-Pandemic Success?”

Have We Seen the Peak of Just-in-Time Inventory Management?

by James Heskett

Toyota and other companies have harnessed just-in-time inventory management to cut logistics costs and boost service. That is, until COVID-19 roiled global supply chains. Will we ever get back to the days of tighter inventory control? asks James Heskett. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Fed Up Workers and Supply Woes: What's Next for Dollar Stores?

by Christine Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette

Willy Shih discusses how higher costs, shipping delays, and worker shortages are putting the dollar store business model to the test ahead of the critical holiday shopping season. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

How Electronic Patient Records Can Slow Doctor Productivity

by Dina Gerdeman

Electronic health records are sweeping through the medical field, but some doctors report a disturbing side effect. Instead of becoming more efficient, some practices are becoming less so. Robert Huckman's research explains why. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

Increased Speed Equals Increased Wait: The Impact of a Reduction in Emergency Department Ultrasound Order Processing Time

by Jillian Berry Jaeker, Anita L. Tucker & Michael H. Lee

This study of ultrasound test orders in hospital emergency departments (EDs) shows that, paradoxically, increasing capacity in a service setting may not alleviate congestion, and can actually increase it due to increased resource use. Specifically, the study finds that reducing the time it takes to order an ultrasound counter intuitively increases patient throughput time as a result of increased ultrasound use without a corresponding increase in quality of care. Furthermore, the authors show that in the complex, interconnected system or hospitals, changes in resource capacity affects not only the patients who receive the additional resources, but also other patients who share the resource, in this case, radiology. These results highlight how demand can be influenced by capacity due to behavioral responses to changes in resource availability, and that this change in demand has far reaching effects on multiple types of patients. Interestingly, the increased ultrasound ordering capacity was achieved by removing what appeared to be a "wasteful" step in the process. However, the results suggest that the step may not have been wasteful as it reduced inefficient ultrasound orders. In healthcare, these results are very important as they provide an explanation for some of the ever-increasing costs: reducing congestion through increased capacity results in even more congestion due to higher resource use. Overall, the study suggests an operations-based solution of increasing the cost/difficulty of ordering discretionary but sometimes low-efficacy treatments to address the rise in healthcare spending. Therefore, to improve hospital performance it could be optimal to put into place "inefficiencies" to become more efficient. Key concepts include: A process improvement can inadvertently cause an increase in demand for a service as well as associated shared resources, which results in congestion, counter intuitively decreasing overall system performance. While individual patients and physicians may benefit from the reduced processing time, there can be unintended consequences for overall system performance. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Why a Harvard Finance Instructor Went to the Kumbh Mela

by John D. Macomber

Every 12 years, millions of Hindu pilgrims travel to the Indian city of Allahabad for the Kumbh Mela, the largest public gathering in the world. In this first-person account, Senior Lecturer John Macomber shares his first impressions and explains what he's doing there. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Off and Running: Professors Comment on Olympics

Re: Multiple Faculty

The most difficult challenge at The Olympics is the behind-the-scenes efforts to actually get them up and running. Is it worth it? HBS professors Stephen A. Greyser, John D. Macomber, and John T. Gourville offer insights into the business behind the games. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

The Impact of Supply Learning on Customer Demand: Model and Estimation Methodology

by Nathan Craig, Nicole DeHoratius & Ananth Raman

"Supply learning" is the process by which customers predict a company's ability to fulfill product orders in the future using information about how well the company fulfilled orders in the past. A new paper investigates how and whether a customer's assumptions about future supplier performance will affect the likelihood that the customer will order from that supplier in the future. Research, based on data from apparel manufacturer Hugo Boss, was conducted by Nathan Craig and Ananth Raman of Harvard Business School, and Nicole DeHoratius of the University of Portland. Key concepts include: Two key measures of supplier performance include "consistency", which is the likelihood that a company will continue to keep items in stock and meet demand, and "recovery", which is the likelihood that a company will deliver on time in spite of past stock-outs. Improvements in consistency and recovery are associated with increases in orders from retail customers. Increasing the level of service may lead to an increase in orders, even when the service level is already nearly perfect. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

How Mercadona Fixes Retail’s ’Last 10 Yards’ Problem

by Julia Hanna

Spanish supermarket chain Mercadona offers aggressive pricing, yet high-touch customer service and above-average employee wages. What's its secret? The operations between loading dock and the customer's hands, says HBS professor Zeynep Ton. Key concepts include: The last 10 yards of the supply chain lies between the store's loading dock and the customer's hands. Poor operational decisions create unnecessary complications that lead to quality problems and lower labor productivity and, in general, make life hard for retail employees. Adopting Mercadona's approach requires a long-term view and a leader with a strong backbone. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Rocket Science Retailing: A Practical Guide

by Martha Lagace

How can retailers make the most of cutting-edge developments and emerging technologies? Book excerpt plus Q&A with HBS professor Ananth Raman, coauthor with Wharton professor Marshall Fisher of The New Science of Retailing: How Analytics Are Transforming the Supply Chain and Improving Performance. Key concepts include: Retailers can better identify and exploit hidden opportunities in the data they generate. Integrating new analytics within retail organizations is not easy. Raman outlines the typical barriers and a path to overcome them. Incentives must be aligned within organizations and in the supply chain. The first step is to identify the behavior you want to induce. To attract and retain the best employees, successful retailers empower them in specific ways. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

The Motion Picture Industry: Critical Issues in Practice, Current Research & New Research Directions

by Jehoshua Eliashberg, Anita Elberse & Mark A. A. M. Leenders

This paper reviews research and trends in three key areas of movie making: production, distribution, and exhibition. In the production process, the authors recommend risk management and portfolio management for studios, and explore talent compensation issues. Distribution trends show that box-office performance will increasingly depend on a small number of blockbusters, advertising spending will rise (but will cross different types of media), and the timing of releases (and DVDs) will become a bigger issue. As for exhibiting movies, trends show that more sophisticated exhibitors will emerge, contractual changes between distributor and exhibitors will change, and strategies for tickets prices may be reevaluated. Key concepts include: Business tools such as quantitative and qualitative research and market research should be applied to the decision-making process at earlier stages of development. Technological developments will continue to have unknown effects on every stage of the movie-making value chain (production, distribution, exhibition, consumption). Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

How an Order Views Your Company

by Sarah Jane Johnston

HBS Professors Benson Shapiro and Kash Rangan bring us up to date on their pioneering research that helped ignite today’s intense focus on the customer. The key? Know your order cycle management. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

In the Virtual Dressing Room Returns Are A Real Problem

by Jan Hammond & Kristin Kohler

That little red number looked smashing onscreen, but the puce caftan the delivery guy brought is just one more casualty of the online shopping battle. HBS professor Jan Hammond researches what the textile and apparel industries can do to curtail returns. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

How Toyota Turns Workers Into Problem Solvers

by Sarah Jane Johnston

Toyota's reputation for sustaining high product quality is legendary. But the company's methods are not secret. So why can't other carmakers match Toyota's track record? HBS professor Steven Spear says it's all about problem solving. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Wrapping Your Alliances In a World Wide Web

by Andrew McAfee

HBS professor Andrew McAfee researches how the Internet affects manufacturing and productivity and how business can team up to get the most out of technology. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Control Your Inventory in a World of Lean Retailing

by Frederick H. Abernathy, John T. Dunlop, Janice H. Hammond & David Weil

"Manufacturers of consumer goods are in the hot seat these days," the authors of this Harvard Business Review article remind readers. But there is no need to surrender to escalating costs of inventories. In this excerpt, they describe one new way to help lower inventory costs. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System

by H. Kent Bowen & Steven Spear

How can one production operation be both rigidly scripted and enormously flexible? In this summary of an article from the Harvard Business Review, HBS Professors H. Kent Bowen and Steven Spear disclose the secret to Toyota's production success. The company's operations can be seen as a continuous series of controlled experiments: whenever Toyota defines a specification, it is establishing a hypothesis that is then tested through action. The workers, who have internalized this scientific-method approach, are stimulated to respond to problems as they appear; using data from the strictly defined experiment, they are able to adapt fluidly to changing circumstances. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

Rapid Response: Inside the Retailing Revolution

by James E. Aisner

A simple bar code scan at your local department store today launches a whirlwind of action: data is transmitted about the color, the size, and the style of the item to forecasters and production planners; distributors and suppliers are informed of the demand and the possible need to restock. All in the blink of an electronic eye. It wasn’t always this way, though. HBS Professor Janice Hammond has focused her recent research on the transformation of the apparel and textile industries from the classic, limited model to the new lean inventories and flexible manufacturing capabilities. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.