2010),"The moderating effect of business strategy on the relationship between operations strategy and firms' results"If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper here is to present an operational model that establishes the necessary relationship between business strategy and operations strategy. Accordingly, managers are enabled to define strategic business elements in the operations unit and align it with the business strategies. Design/methodology/approach -Data were collected from 160 companies using a combination of structured interviews and closed questionnaire. In developing the alignment model, descriptive-survey and correlation methods were used. For selecting the codes and types of alignments, a heuristic data analysis method was developed and applied. Findings -This paper concludes that alignment is significantly different in successful and unsuccessful companies. Considering their performance, 25 alignment types have been identified out of which seven types have been found appropriate for the case. Practical implications -The recommended model here is easy to use and helps managers to improve the performance of their companies by aligning their operation strategy with business strategy. Originality/value -This paper presents a model that includes the content and process of operations strategy, using top-down and resource-based approaches. This model associates alignment with organizations performance, a subject that has been considered as one of the major and challenging issues in the strategic management efforts. Overall, a new and innovative model has been proposed here for building a vertical alignment between the strategies of the firm. The proposed alignment comes in two different levels.

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The problem of selection and the best option are the main subject of operation research science in decision-making theory. Selection is a process that scrutinizes and investigates several quantitative and qualitative, and most often incompatible, factors. One of the most fundamental management issues in multicriteria selection literature is the multicriteria adoption of the projects portfolio. In such decision-making condition, manager is seeking for the best combination to build up a portfolio among the existing projects. In the present paper, KOHONEN algorithm was first employed to build up a portfolio of the projects. Next, each portfolio was evaluated using grey relational analysis (GRA) and then scheduled risk of the project was predicted using Mamdani fuzzy inference method. Finally, the multiobjective biogeography-based optimization algorithm was utilized for drawing risk and rank Pareto analysis. A case study is used concurrently to show the efficiency of the proposed model.

Nowadays, strategy is defined at corporate, business and functional level. The success of the organizations depends not only on developing strategies at these levels but also alignment between them. In this paper, by delineating strategy levels and their differences, a window called organization's strategy window is introduced and then the concept of alignment and the method of alignment in the organization's strategic window are explained. Strategic alignment is divided into the two types: vertical alignment (alignment between business strategy and functional strategy) and horizontal alignment (alignment between functional units) and the vertical alignment of the functional strategy of operations and business strategy is explained in detail. An overview of the proposed approaches and studies in the field of alignment indicates that organizations that have created a suitable alignment between the elements of their strategy have a high performance. Therefore, a direct relationship between strategic alignment and performance can be defined.

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This paper presents two models, a periodic review model and a continuous review inventory model with fuzzy setup cost, holding cost and shortage cost. We use two methods in the name of signed distance and possibilistic mean value to defuzzify. Also we consider the lead time demand and the lead-time plus one period's demand as random variables. To validate the models and the solution procedures we apply them to a transformer manufacturing, 'Iran transfo', company. Furthermore we design a decision support system which can be used for efficient evaluation of the proposed models in fuzzy environment.

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