Improving home care: Knowledge creation through engagement and design

Abstract

In this paper, we apply a design science approach to help a Northern European city improve the efficiency of its home care delivery system. Our proposed solution emerges as a synthesis of applying Goldratt's Theory of Constraints and the principles of variable-demand inventory replenishment. The improved system exhibits both more level resource utilization and higher productivity due to more efficient capacity utilization. In addition to improving system efficiency, we gain insights into how authentic operations management problems can be addressed through design research. A crucial aspect of empirically-rooted practical problems is that they always involve multiple stakeholders with only partially overlapping preferences. Consequently, one must not assume or ascribe an a priori system objective, instead, it must arise from explicit empirical analysis of the relevant stakeholders. Another characteristic of authentic problems is that they are always embedded in an institutional context that sets significant boundary conditions to the feasibility of solutions. These boundary conditions are an important reminder of the complexity of empirically-rooted managerial problems.

Fleet sizing for UNHCR country offices

“…The objective of this last phase is to develop formal theory, which is the theory that is not limited by the empirical context under study and can be generalized across contexts (Holmström et al, ). Although developing formal theory is desirable in a design science approach, it is not always possible (Holmström et al, ), because it requires implementation in very different settings (Groop et al, ). In our paper, this would, for example, be to generalize the findings of our study to fleet management in a commercial context.…”

“…Discuss through a particular Mechanism (Denyer et al, 2008). The CIMO-logic has been applied in a number of design science papers (Groop et al, 2017;Pascal, Thomas, & Romme, 2013;van Aken et al, 2016;van Aken & Romme, 2012).…”

Using Country Sustainability Risk to Inform Sustainable Supply Chain Management: A Design Science Study

“…(2017c) studied how buying firms with a poor supply chain visibility can use their stakeholders to detect SCSR, and Groop et al. () enhanced the efficiency of the home care delivery system of a Northern European city.…”

“…Moreover, a growing number of supply chain management studies have adopted the design science methodology in recent years. For example, Finne and Holmstroem (2013) investigated a triadic collaboration for service delivery, Schleper and Busse (2013) developed a standardized supplier code of ethics, Holmstroem and Partanen (2014) explored digital manufacturing-driven transformations of service supply chains for complex products, Tanskanen et al (2015) analyzed the adoption of on-site shops in construction supply chains, Busse et al (2017c) studied how buying firms with a poor supply chain visibility can use their stakeholders to detect SCSR, and Groop et al (2017) enhanced the efficiency of the home care delivery system of a Northern European city.…”

It worked there, so it should work here: Sustaining change while improving product development processes

“…Transferability, while appealing in principle, has proven to be challenging in practice. The OM literature reports many successful implementations of PIP principles in various contexts, but also reasons why different contexts challenge some of the basic assumptions of those PIP principles in ways that compromise effective implementation (Danese et al, 2017;Groop, Ketokivi, Gupta, & Holmstrom, 2017;Lillrank, 2003;Szulanski, 1996Szulanski, , 2000Yin, Stecke, Swink, & Kaku, 2017). For example, Lean gained a foothold in American manufacturing companies only after data emerged to demonstrate that American companies could implement practices previously considered unique to Japanese culture (Holweg, 2007).…”