2021- Working Papers: Operations Strategy and Sustainability Management
Stable matching of student-groups to dormitories, 40 pp.
N. Perach and S. Anily
(Working Paper no. 1/2021)
This paper generalizes results of former papers on the assignment of students to dormitories, under an entrance criterion, by allowing students to apply in groups. A group-application means that its applicants ask to be assigned at the same dormitory, and otherwise they prefer living off-campus. The underlying assumption in our model is that the dormitories share a common preference over the student-groups, which is given by a strictly increasing ranking of their credit scores. The definition of a quasi-stable outcome is adjusted in order to incorporate student-group applications, and we prove that such an outcome always exists. Furthermore, a polynomial-time algorithm that finds all the quasi-stable outcomes, is proposed. Apparently, not all properties of the single students’ model continue to hold under group-applications. Finally, we consider the incentive compatibility property of the proposed algorithm, and describe a specific quasi-stable outcome for which no subset of student-groups can gain by misrepresenting their preferences over the dormitories.
Partial vertical ownership, capacity investment and information exchange in a supply chain, 71 pp.
T. Avinadav and N. Shamir
(Working Paper no. 12/2021)
Research no.: 05920100
Partial vertical ownership describes a situation in which a firm holds financial shares in either its supplier (referred to as partial backward integration) or its customer (partial forward integration). We study the effect of such financial interconnectedness on two operational decisions: capacity investment and information exchange. In our model, a retailer, who has superior information about the future market demand, possesses some level of passive financial holdings in the supplier. Although this passive financial investment does not enable the retailer to directly influence the supplier’s operational decisions, it does affect the market equilibrium. Specifically, financial interconnectedness between the firms can result in the retailer financing the entire capacity in the market. In addition, we characterize the conditions that ensure that information between the retailer and the supplier can be exchanged via cheap-talk communication. Interestingly, high level of information asymmetry facilitates the exchange of information via cheap-talk in the presence of these financial links. When cheap talk is not possible, we study the separating equilibrium that is achieved through the retailer’s commitment to order in advance. In this case, the separating quantity can either increase or decrease with the level of partial vertical ownership, and this trend does not depend on the actual level of the financial holdings. We further analyze the incentive of the retailer to conceal demand information by choosing a pooling equilibrium, and conclude with discussing the effect of the financial interconnectedness on the parties’ operational payoffs, as well as on the service level provided to consumers.
Justice in time: A theory of constraints approach, 45 pp.
S. Azaria, B. Ronen and N. Shamir
(Working Paper no. 13/2021)
Research no.: 05921100
If there is some truth to the adage that justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done, then surely it must be seen to be done in a timely manner. Nevertheless, court congestion and delays – which threaten to undermine the justice system – have become a global phenomenon with significant adverse implications for social welfare, economic development, and civil rights. In this work, we report on an application of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) to the judicial system – an application designed to alleviate court congestion and reduce case processing time. In cooperation with the Jerusalem District Court in Israel, a set of changes were implemented based on the TOC methodology and are reported here. In addition, the efficacy of these operational changes was examined using a before-after econometric analysis. The results demonstrate a 46.1% reduction in the duration of the treated part of the judicial process, indicating the potential of adopting these operational tools in such environments.
