Several industries—including those that produce furniture, houses, sailboats, and fashion clothing—have never progressed down the diagonal of the product- process matrix to become highly standardized and efficient. Why do you think this is so?
Category: Management
Process selection decisions
The rate of productivity improvement in the service industries has been much lower than in manufacturing. Can this be attributed to process selection decisions? What problems would be involved in using more efficient processes in service industries?
Assembly-line processes and batch processes
Why are assembly-line processes usually so much more efficient but less flexible than batch processes? Give three reasons.
Types of processes as continuous
Classify the following types of processes as continuous, assembly line, batch, job shop, or project:
a. Doctor’s office
b. Automatic car wash
c. College curriculum
d. Studying for an exam
e. Registration for classes
f. Electric utility
The view of operations as a process
Describe how the view of operations as a process can be applied to the following types of work:
a) Acquisition of another company.
b) Closing the books at the end of the year.
c) Marketing research for a new product.
d) Design of an information system.
e) Hiring a new employee.
Job postings
Review job postings from various sources for management positions that are available for operations management graduates. Summarize the responsibilities of these positions.
Challenges facing operations management in the future
Write a short paper on some of the challenges facing operations management in the future. Use newspapers, business magazines, or the Internet as your sources.
Operations management in the supply chain
1. Why study operations management in the supply chain?
2. What is the difference between the terms “production management” and “operations management”?
3. What is the difference between operations management and supply chain management?
4. What are the key decisions made by sourcing and logistics managers?
5. How does the work of an operations manager differ from the work of a marketing manager or a finance manager? How are these functions similar?
6. How is the operations management function related to activities in human resources, information systems, and accounting?
Types of scheduling decisions
What types of scheduling decisions are management likely to encounter in the following operations? Describe the scheduling decisions in terms of the types of resources to be scheduled and the associated customers or jobs scheduled.
a. Hospital
b. University
c. Moviemaking
d. Make-to-order factory
Aggregate planning
1. It has been said that aggregate planning is related to personnel planning, budgeting, and market planning. Describe the nature of the relationship among these types of planning.
2. Every firm has multiple objectives such as good labor relations, low operating costs, high inventory turnover, and good customer service. What are the pros and cons of treating these objectives separately in an aggregate planning problem versus combining them all into a single measure of cost?
3. What factors are important in choosing the length of the planning horizon for aggregate planning?
4. A barbershop has been using a level workforce of barbers five days per week, Tuesday through Saturday. The barbers have considerable idle time on Tuesday through Friday, with certain peak periods during the lunch hours and after 4 p.m. each day. On Friday afternoon and all-day Saturday, all the barbers are very busy, with customers waiting a substantial amount of time and some customers being turned away. What options should this barbershop consider for aggregate planning? How would you analyze these options? What data should be collected, and how should the options be compared?