This study seeks to analyse the price determination of low cost airlines in Europe and the effect that Internet has on this strategy. The outcomes obtained reveal that both users and companies benefit from the use of ICTs in the purchase and sale of airline tickets: the Internet allows consumers to increase their bargaining power comparing different airlines and choosing the most competitive fl...

In today’s competitive business environment, quick service with minimal waiting time is an important factor for customers when choosing a service. Many service organizations guarantee a uniform lead-time to all customers in order to gain competitive advantages in the market. In selecting a lead-time to quote, the firm has to take into consideration not only how customers will react to the deliv...

This paper investigates the effect of information updating on the members of a two-stage supply chain in the presence of spot market. The supplier decides the contract price. New information becomes available as time progresses. The manufacturer updates his belief on demand and/or spot price and subsequently decides the contract quantity. The demand and spot price are correlated. Thus, the new ...

A Manufacturing Execution System (MES) consists of high-cost, large-scale, multi-task software systems. Companies and factories apply these complex applications for the purposes of production management to monitor and track all aspects of factory-based manufacturing processes. Nevertheless, companies seek to control the production process with even greater rigour. Improvements associated with a...

This chapter will briefly introduce the principles of General Systems Thinking (GST) as defined by classic literature on the subject (Ackoff, 1971; Battista, 1977; Bertalanffy, 1968; Boulding, 1956; Churchman, 1968; Waelchi, 1992; Weinburg, 1975). In particular, this chapter will contrast two opposing operational research (OR) views about systems thinking; the ‘reductionistic’ (‘hard’) approach...