Operations Rules

An expert offers a set of rules that will help managers achieve dramatic improvements in operations performance. In recent years, management gurus have urged businesses to adopt such strategies as just-in-time, lean manufacturing, offshoring, and frequent deliveries to retail outlets. But today, these much-touted strategies may be risky. Global financial turmoil, rising labor costs in developing countries, and huge volatility in the price of oil and other commodities can disrupt a company's entire supply chain and threaten its ability to compete. In Operations Rules, David Simchi-Levi identifies the crucial element in a company's success: the link between the value it provides its customers and its operations strategies. And he offers a set of scientifically and empirically based rules that management can follow to achieve a quantum leap in operations performance. Flexibility, says Simchi-Levi, is the single most important capability that allows firms to innovate in their operations and supply chain strategies. A small investment in flexibility can achieve almost all the benefits of full flexibility. And successful companies do not all pursue the same strategies. Amazon and Wal-Mart, for example, are direct competitors but each focuses on a different market channel and provides a unique customer value proposition—Amazon, large selection and reliable fulfillment; Wal-Mart, low prices—that directly aligns with its operations strategy. Simchi-Levi's rules—regarding such issues as channels, price, product characteristics, value-added service, procurement strategy, and information technolog—-transform operations and supply chain management from an undertaking based on gut feeling and anecdotes to a science.

The book systematically analyses the relationship and interaction between rules of engagement (ROE) and the legal framework regulating armed conflicts, both at the international and national levels. At the international level, the relationship between ROE and human rights law and international humanitarian law is explored. At the national level, the book relates ROE to (comparative) criminal law. A separate chapter analyses the complex relationship between self-defence law and rules of engagement. It is the first monograph to comprehensively examine these issues and to analyse how ROE interact with the various sources of the (international) law of military operations, both in terms of the law as a source for these rules and how the law is reflected and implemented through them. In doing so, and based on the author's own experience, the book provides examples of how complicated, often controversial issues of law can be resolved while keeping the rules understandable at all levels of military operations. Aimed at both scholars and practitioners, the book provides a bridge between the academic world and the operational world. It provides new insights for both of those audiences in terms of understanding how the law applies to - and through - the rules on the use of force for military operations.

This book has all non-clinical chapters, as for all clinical chapters I will be publishing the second book soon. These standards should be used by all healthcare service leaders in hospital commissioning, operations, quality improvement, patient safety and risk management.

Systems of record (SORs) are engines that generates value for your business. Systems of engagement (SOE) are always evolving and generating new customer-centric experiences and new opportunities to capitalize on the value in the systems of record. The highest value is gained when systems of record and systems of engagement are brought together to deliver insight. Systems of insight (SOI) monitor and analyze what is going on with various behaviors in the systems of engagement and information being stored or transacted in the systems of record. SOIs seek new opportunities, risks, and operational behavior that needs to be reported or have action taken to optimize business outcomes. Systems of insight are at the core of the Digital Experience, which tries to derive insights from the enormous amount of data generated by automated processes and customer interactions. Systems of Insight can also provide the ability to apply analytics and rules to real-time data as it flows within, throughout, and beyond the enterprise (applications, databases, mobile, social, Internet of Things) to gain the wanted insight. Deriving this insight is a key step toward being able to make the best decisions and take the most appropriate actions. Examples of such actions are to improve the number of satisfied clients, identify clients at risk of leaving and incentivize them to stay loyal, identify patterns of risk or fraudulent behavior and take action to minimize it as early as possible, and detect patterns of behavior in operational systems and transportation that lead to failures, delays, and maintenance and take early action to minimize risks and costs. IBM® Operational Decision Manager is a decision management platform that provides capabilities that support both event-driven insight patterns, and business-rule-driven scenarios. It also can easily be used in combination with other IBM Analytics solutions, as the detailed examples will show. IBM Operational Decision Manager Advanced, along with complementary IBM software offerings that also provide capability for systems of insight, provides a way to deliver the greatest value to your customers and your business. IBM Operational Decision Manager Advanced brings together data from different sources to recognize meaningful trends and patterns. It empowers business users to define, manage, and automate repeatable operational decisions. As a result, organizations can create and shape customer-centric business moments. This IBM Redbooks® publication explains the key concepts of systems of insight and how to implement a system of insight solution with examples. It is intended for IT architects and professionals who are responsible for implementing a systems of insights solution requiring event-based context pattern detection and deterministic decision services to enhance other analytics solution components with IBM Operational Decision Manager Advanced.

The book systematically analyses the relationship and interaction between rules of engagement (ROE) and the legal framework regulating armed conflicts, both at the international and national levels. At the international level, the relationship between ROE and human rights law and international humanitarian law is explored. At the national level, the book relates ROE to (comparative) criminal law. A separate chapter analyses the complex relationship between self-defence law and rules of engagement. It is the first monograph to comprehensively examine these issues and to analyse how ROE interact with the various sources of the (international) law of military operations, both in terms of the law as a source for these rules and how the law is reflected and implemented through them. In doing so, and based on the author's own experience, the book provides examples of how complicated, often controversial issues of law can be resolved while keeping the rules understandable at all levels of military operations. Aimed at both scholars and practitioners, the book provides a bridge between the academic world and the operational world. It provides new insights for both of those audiences in terms of understanding how the law applies to - and through - the rules on the use of force for military operations.