In the highly fragmented truckload transportation industry a substantial fraction of truck movements involves empty trucks, i.e., involves moves that reposition trucks. However, reducing the amount of truck repositioning is difficult because the need for a carrier to reposition its trucks depends on the interactions between the shippers the carrier is serving. Through collaboration, shippers ma...

Services spend is often considered a secondary target for cost reduction, yet studies suggest that services spend can account for 30 percent to 70 percent of an organization's total purchase dollars. Fearon and Bales (1995) state that " the opportunity to increase profits through more effective purchasing probably is greater in the buying of services than in the purchase of goods. " A logical s...

The challenges of the marketplace are met by product developers in two ways: development of innovative products and reducing product costs. Cost reduction alone is not a substitute for innovation. Cost-oriented product development is systematical engineering work, which requires an interdisciplinary approach, and needs to be efficient and effective. The costs that are of interest here are those...