Never the twain shall meet? Simulating sales & operations planning ramp-up dynamics in IT-enabled service supply chains

Henk Akkermans, C. Voss, Roeland van Oers, Quan Zhu

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionScientificpeer-review

Abstract

In IT-enabled service supply chains offering services through a mix of manual and automated activities, volume ramp-ups are notoriously difficult. Especially difficult is the attempt to effectively balance the inherently conflicting objectives of the functions Sales, who want to increase output as fast as possible to capture the market, and Operations, where the emphasis is on effective utilization of scarce resources. This paper presents findings from a system dynamics model that simulates the dynamics of IT-enabled service supply chains during ramp-ups. The model is based on three real-world cases of service ramp-ups in the telecom industry and calibrated against real-world behavior in these empirical settings. Simulation analysis suggests (1) a typical " service ramp-up syndrome " in IT-enabled service supply chains, (2) root causes for this syndrome, and (3) policy options to prevent this syndrome from occurring. We put forward six propositions concerning these findings and the corresponding managerial policy to improve ramp-up performance.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 34th International Conference of the System Dynamics Society (ICSDS 2016)
Place of PublicationDelft
Publication statusPublished - 2016
Event34th International Conference of the System Dynamics Society - Delft, Netherlands
Duration: 14 Jul 201621 Jul 2016

Conference

Conference34th International Conference of the System Dynamics Society
Country/TerritoryNetherlands
CityDelft
Period14/07/1621/07/16

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