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Gad Allon
Gad Allon

MANAGERIAL ECONOMICS & DECISION SCIENCES; OPERATIONS
Associate Professor of Managerial Economics & Decision Sciences

Print Overview
Gad Allon is an associate professor of managerial economics and decision science at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He received his PhD in Management Science from Columbia Business School in New York and holds a Bachelor and a Master degree from the Israeli Institute of Technology. His research interests include operations management in general, and service operations and operations strategy in particular. Recently, Professor Allon has been studying models of information sharing among firms and customers both in service and retail settings. He is also conducting empirical studies to investigate time-based competition in the fast food industry as well as the factors contributing to emergency department overcrowding.

Professor Allon teaches the core operations management, an elective on operations strategy, as well as an executive course on the "science of lean six-sigma operations" at the Kellogg school of management. Professor Gad Allon won the 2009 Outstanding Professor of the Year Award at Kellogg.



Areas of Expertise
Response Time Management
Service Management
Print Vita
Education
PhD, 2005, Decisions, Risk and Operations, Columbia University
MS, 2001, Operations Research and Systems Analysis, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
BS, 1995, Industrial Engineering, Management, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Honors

Academic Positions
Associate Professor, Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2009-present
Assistant Professor of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2006-2009
Donald P. Jacobs Scholar in Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, 2005-2006

Editorial Positions
Associate Editor, Naval Research Logistics, 2009-Present
Section Editor, Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science ("Retail and Service Applications"), 2009-present

 
Print Research
Research Interests
Operations management; service operations; supply chain model of dual sourcing; information sharing among firms and customers; empirical studies of service markets

Articles
Allon, Gad, Awi Federgruen and Margaret Pierson. Forthcoming. How much is a reduction of your customers’ wait worth? An empirical study of the fast-food drive-thru industry based on structural estimation methods. Manufacturing and Service Operations Management.
AbstractLink
Allon, Gad and Eran Hanany. Forthcoming. Cutting in Line: Social Norms in Queues. Management Science.
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Allon, Gad, Achal Bassamboo and Itai Gurvich. Forthcoming. "We Will be Right with You:" Managing Customer Expectations with Vague Promises and Cheap Talk. Operations Research.
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Allon, Gad and Achal Bassamboo. Forthcoming. The Impact of Delaying the Delay Announcement. Operations Research.
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Allon, Gad and Achal Bassamboo. 2011. Buying from the Babbling Retailer? The Impact of Availability Information on Customer Behavior. Management Science. 57(4): 713-726.
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Allon, Gad and Jan A. Van Mieghem. 2010. Global Dual Sourcing: Tailored Base Surge Allocation to Near and Offshore Production. Management Science. 56(1): 110-124.
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Allon, Gad and Itai Gurvich. 2010. Pricing and Dimensioning Competing Large-Scale Service Providers. Manufacturing and Service Operations Management. 12(3): 449-469.
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Allon, Gad and Awi Federgruen. 2009. Competition in Service Industries with Segmented Markets. Management Science. 55(4)
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Allon, Gad and Awi Federgruen. 2008. Service Competition with General Queueing Facilities. Operations Research. 56(4)
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Allon, Gad and Awi Federgruen. 2007. Competition in Service Industries. Operations Research. 55(1): 37-55.
AbstractLink
Allon, Gad, Michael Beenstock, Steven Hackman, Ury Passy and Alex Shapiro. 2007. Nonparametric Estimation of Concave Production Technologies by Entropic Methods. Journal of Applied Econometrics. 22(4): 795-816.
AbstractLink
Allon, Gad, Dirk Kroese, Tal Raviv and Reuven Rubinstein. 2005. Application of the Cross-Entropy Method to the Buffer Allocation Problem in a Simulation-Based Environment. Annals of Operations Research. 134(1): 137-151.
AbstractLink
Working Papers
Allon, Gad, Achal Bassamboo and Martin Lariviere. Would the Social Planner Let Bags Fly Free?.
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Huang, Tingliang, Gad Allon and Achal Bassamboo. Bounded Rationality in Service Systems.
AbstractLink
Allon, Gad, Sarang Deo and Wuqin Lin. 2010. Impact of Size and Occupancy of Hospital on the Extent of Ambulance Diversion: Theory and Evidence.
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Allon, Gad and Awi Federgruen. Outsourcing Service Processes to a Common Service Provider under Price and Time Competition.
AbstractLink
Allon, Gad, Achal Bassamboo and Eren Cil. Large-scale Service Marketplaces: The Role of the Moderating Firm.
AbstractLink
Allon, Gad and Assaf Zeevi. On the Relationship Between Pricing and Capacity Decisions in Inventory Systems with Stochastic Demand.
AbstractLink
Allon, Gad and Achal Bassamboo. 2007. The Role of Services: Pricing, Product Line, and Durability.
Abstract
Book Chapters
Allon, Gad. 2009. "Pricing and Scheduling Decisions." In Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science, Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Allon, Gad and Achal Bassamboo. 2009. "Cheap Talk Applications in Service and Retail." In Consumer-Driven Demand and Operations Management Models, edited by Serguel Netessine and Christopher Tang, New York: Springer.
Cases
Allon, Gad. 2012. Sugar & Spice Desserts: Strategic Position Defensibility. Case 5-411-753 (KEL623).
Abstract
Allon, Gad and Jan A. Van Mieghem. 2010. Lean Transformation at Global Connect. Case 5-310-504.
Abstract
Allon, Gad, Jan A. Van Mieghem and Ilya Kolesov. 2010. HP Product Variety Management. Case 5-310-511 (KEL571).
Abstract

 
Print Teaching
Teaching Interests
Operations management, service operations, operations strategy
Full-Time / Part-Time MBA
Operations Management (OPNS-430-0)

This course counts toward the following majors:Operations.

Operations management is the management of business processes--that is, the management of the recurring activities of a firm. This course aims to familiarize students with the problems and issues confronting operations managers, and to provide the language, concepts, insights and tools to deal with these issues to gain competitive advantage through operations. We examine how different business strategies require different business processes and how different operational capabilities allow and support different strategies to gain competitive advantage. A process view of operations is used to analyze different key operational dimensions such as capacity management, cycle time management, supply chain and logistics management, and quality management. Finally, we connect to recent developments such as lean or world-class manufacturing, just-in-time operations, time-based competition and business re-engineering.

Operations Strategy (OPNS-454-0)

This course counts toward the following majors: Managerial Analytics, Operations.

In this course, students learn how operations strategy can add value by tailoring a set of core principles to a specific business setting. The course provides a framework to formulate an operations strategy and analyze, value, and optimize the key decisions involved in operations strategy. The key evaluation metric is how operations strategy impacts the net present value of the firm. The key decisions studied are choosing competitive operational competencies and benchmarking; capacity expansion, timing, flexibility and location; sourcing and contracting; risk management and operational hedging; revenue management; improvement and learning. This course builds on the core operations class. Students should also be familiar with the basics of finance, economics and strategy, as the strategic decisions studied in this course require a detailed analysis and understanding of the underlying operations. Thus this course has a greater amount of concreteness and detail than a competitive strategy class, and uses a combination of in-depth case analysis, mini-lectures, presentations and qualitative discussions of other examples. The course is intended for students interested in operations and supply chain management, general management, or management consulting.

Executive MBA
Strategic Decisions in Operations (OPNSX-455-0)
This course builds on the core operations management class with an emphasis on strategic level decisions. It emphasizes the long-term, "big" decisions firms face in structuring their operations. Topics covered range from evaluating flexible technologies to designing supply chains.