Operations and Operations Management from HelpWithAssignment.com

Operations and Operations Management

Operations and Operations Management are of strategic importance to an organization. This is because all of the aspirations that modern day organizations have to excel in any of the following – mass customization, lean production, agile manufacturing, customer-centric provision and so on – depend on the ability of the organizations to actually do these things and such capabilities reside within operations.

This is very important because it brings together a number of key issues that need to be in place if we are to understand the profound importance of, and the contribution made by, operations management. The ability to enter and compete in both new and existing markets is very dependent on operation capabilities. Of course, other areas are also vitally important – marketing, finance and other major functions – and we are not seeking to play operations against these other areas.

In Operations Management there has been a need to include a number of important areas that fall under the responsibility of operations management. They are

• Management of value
• Capacity management
• Location decisions
• Process Management
• Managing technology
• Human resources management
• Integration and affiliation

Today, operations management is not only seen as an organizational wide issue, but also includes activities across organizations. Obviously, an important part of the transformation process will include purchasing goods and services from other organizations. In the modern era of operations management, organizations no longer see themselves as a standalone element – the ‘processes’ – but will instead see themselves as part of a wider, extended enterprise. The operations management model for current and future operations is no longer limited to an organization-specific arena. This means that the organization has to be willing to look outside of itself and to form strategic relationships with what were formerly viewed as competitive organizations.

Operations Management has gone through three periods of change from craft, through mass production, to the present era. We know that different sectors of many economies have gone through these periods at different rates. In some, the transition has been incremental, in others spasmodic, in response to some new industries. We know that in some industries there has been almost complete transition from the old approach to the newest, whereas in others there remains a high proportion of craft manufacture or old style service delivery.

There have been three forces to date that have influenced people. They have been economic forces, social forces and technological forces. Putting it simply, wealth, fashion and invention. Wealth influences economic activity and hence operations management in two main ways. The aspiration to become wealthy provides a highly proactive workforce, while attainment of wealth creates a growing market of all kinds of goods and services. When a significant proportion of a population is relatively poor, goods and services have to be provided at the lowest possible cost and consumers are prepared to accept standardization. The wealthy can afford customized products and indeed demonstrate their wealth by doing so.

The operations strategy includes both manufacturing and service activities and that these need to be integrated into a combined, holistic manner. However, we have identified that these sectors may well process different things, which have been categorized as materials, customers and information. This may have implications for the specific implementation of strategy, but not for operations management principles or issues. Comparing manufacturing and service industries can be useful, but in an operations management context, some of the divisions are overstated.

For more details you can visit our website at http://www.helpwithassignment.com/operations-management-assignment-help and http://www.helpwiththesis.com

This article is in continuation with our previous articles on Operations Management such as Control Charts, Demand Chase, Enterprise Resource Planning, ABC Analysis

Lean Manufacturing in Operations Management from HelpWithAssignment.com

The concept of Lean Manufacturing was first seen Japan particularly in Toyota Production System. The concepts, tools and techniques had gone through a lot of testing before they were accepted.

Lean Manufacturing intends to revolutionize the manufacturing process. This was not a fine tuning that had been done on the existing manufacturing system. The manufacturing techniques are conceptually different from the traditional process. For example the traditional manufacturing work is based on inventory. But Lean Manufacturing questions the role of inventory and defines it as a waste and reflects the imperfections that the system has. This example shows the conceptual difference between the traditional manufacturing system and lean manufacturing system.

The principle on which the lean manufacturing system depends and operates is simple. The customer does not pay for the flaws or errors in the production, but only pays for the value that the product or the service offers to them. The impact on this thinking is huge on the manufacturing process. It changed the way people looked at the manufacturing process. It made people define value of the product from customers’ point of view, not from the internal manufacturing point of view.

Lean Manufacturing or Lean Production is a system and culture which aims at maximizing the output of manufacturing process with minimal or optimum inputs with the help of lean techniques and tools. It aims at reducing work in progress, downtime, buildup of excess raw materials, finished goods and all waste.

Under lean manufacturing production line, customer orders determine the production schedule thus it is named as pull system. In order for this system to be successful workers must be multi skilled, quality output shall be produced at each step in the process, standardized tasks and processes and fairly predictable demand with strong relationships with customers and suppliers.

These characteristics are very important and have been present in many Japanese manufacturing companies that excel in lean production systems and value adding production systems. Learning and understanding how the many lean concepts will help the operations/process engineer and lean team implement and structure lean initiatives and production tasks that will deliver increases in output with the same or minimal inputs into their process.

Wastes:

Waste in any organization or process is referred to the misuse of resources, production not fit for sale or resources that tie up cash and inventory while providing little or no benefit to the organization or its consumers. These resources could be better used elsewhere in the organization invested in value creating operations or opportunities.

The aim of lean manufacturing should be about eliminating waste from their systems and operations and extracting as much outputs as they can from minimal inputs.

Lean Manufacturing points out to seven types of wastes which include:

• Waiting: Time in which people or goods are idle and not adding value to the finished good or service. This could be due to bottlenecks or production downtime upstream from a necessary sub process.
• Transport: Unnecessary movement of materials or goods, this includes work in progress from one part of the plant to another.
• Re-work: this is rectifying or re-processing faulty goods and services.
• Over-production: Producing finished goods in excess of customer needs and demands.
• Motion or movement: refers to the unnecessary movement or extra steps in a process due to inefficient plant layouts and other barriers to continuous work flow.
• Inventory: Inventory refers to the build up of raw materials, work in progress goods, finished goods that are not yet required by the downstream process or customer.
• Rejects: refer to the goods and services that not saleable. The ultimate goal is to have a minimal waste within their operations.

SMART Goals:

A goal to be achieved must be

• Specific: Be clearly set out in a specific manner, referring to actual facts and concrete figures.
• Measurable: the results or goals must be able to be measured in units or in any other exact way.
• Attainable: the goal must be attainable and achievable, it must not be something out of reach or too ambitious. If the goal is too ambitious and never achieved, employee morale may suffer.
• Realistic: the goal must be realistic in what it sets out to achieve with the available resources and time frame.
• Time based: the goal must have a due date by which it should be achieved. The time line or due date for the goal must also be realistic and achievable.

For more details you can visit our website at http://www.helpwithassignment.com/operations-management-assignment-help and http://www.helpwiththesis.com

This article is in continuation with our previous articles on Operations Management which include Bills of Materials, Control Charts, Decision Tree, Deterministic Inventory Model and Demand Chase

Manufacturing Innovation in Operations Management at HelpWithAssignment.com

Businesses and retail consumers have an ever-increasing range of products to choose from, so manufacturing businesses face constant competition in order to retain or increase their market share. Manufactures therefore need to be flexible in considering new ways of working as well as new technologies that will allow them to respond rapidly and cost-effectively to customer demand.

Businesses can introduce innovation in manufacturing to a wide range of areas, including new processes, new materials and the use of new equipment. It can improve the quality of your output and the health of your business.

In manufacturing sector, innovation usually refers to:

• Product innovation
• The introduction of innovative processes and equipment, often IT driven
• Green technologies which reduce waste and use consumables more efficiently.

The benefits of innovation include:

• Greater responsiveness to customer demands
• Faster turnaround times
• Reduced waste levels and downtime
• Improved product design and quality
• Greater potential for a wider product range
• Streamlined relationships with suppliers and customers

Introducing innovation in business requires time and money. One can introduce innovation either gradually or in one go – the timeframe will depend upon a range of factors including:

• The specific changes that one wants to introduce
• The availability of resources to complete them speedily
• Whether one might need to stagger disruptions to the production capacity while transition is being made.

Innovation is crucial to the competitive position of manufacturing businesses. The key to innovation in manufacturing is to make sure that it’s driven by business needs and not by the attraction of change for its sake.

• Therefore, one must consider what areas of business would most benefit from a new approach.
• Must consider all the different areas of business where manufacturing innovation could be implemented.
• Innovation in those areas where it is fit to implement innovation, can drive the performance of the business.

Innovation in Production can be introduced in

• Competent sourcing: new components, new suppliers or an improved deal with existing suppliers could improve the products and profits.
• Materials Technology: new materials could improve the products or their packaging and presentation.
• Factory process control: automating process control, including quality control, gives better efficiency and products.
• Machinery Maintenance: Automatic scheduling of machinery will ensure that the machinery is kept smoothly running, avoiding any obstacles in the production.
• Stock control and order processing: this requires constantly looking out for new and improved ways to streamline the order processing and stock control to ensure that right amount of stock is available.
• Logistics and warehousing: Rethinking how the finished products are stored and sent to the customers so that you take advantage of new transport opportunities and keep warehousing costs to a minimum.
• IT Systems: keeping an update of the latest trends and developments in the IT industry and the systems that are being used in the concern. This will help in obtaining new and better systems.
• Accounting procedures: the accounting, invoicing and payments procedures should be streamlined with the stock control and order processing and must be updated regularly.

For more details you can visit our website at http://www.helpwithassignment.com/operations-management-assignment-help and http://www.helpwiththesis.com

This article is in continuation with our previous articles on Operations Management which include Just In Time (JIT), Inventory Management, Economic Order Quantity, ABC Analysis, Fix Position Layout

Inventory Management - Operations Management Assignment Help

Inventory Management - Operations Management Assignment Help

Inventory is a list for goods and materials, or those goods and materials themselves, held available in stock by a business. It is also used for a list of the contents of a household and for a list for testamentary purposes of the possessions of someone who has died. In accounting inventory is considered an asset.

In business management, inventory consists of a list of goods and materials held available in stock. Inventory Management must tie together the following objectives ,to ensure that there is continuity between functions :
• Company’s Strategic Goals
• Sales Forecasting
• Sales & Operations Planning
• Production & Materials Requirement Planning.

Inventory Management must be designed to meet the dictates of market place and support the company’s Strategic Plan . The many changes in the market demand , new opportunities due to worldwide marketing , global sourcing of materials and new manufacturing technology means many companies need to change their Inventory Management approach and change the process for Inventory Control .

Inventory Management system provides information to efficiently manage the flow of materials , effectively utilize people and equipment , coordinate internal activities and communicate with customers . Inventory Management does not make decisions or manage operations, they provide the information to managers who make more accurate and timely decisions to manage their operations.

Inventory is defined as the blocked Working Capital of an organization in the form of materials . As this is the blocked Working Capital of organization, ideally it should be zero. But we are maintaining Inventory . This Inventory is maintained to take care of fluctuations in demand and lead time. In some cases it is maintained to take care of increasing price tendency of commodities or rebate in bulk buying.

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ABC Analysis - Operations Management Assignment Help

ABC Analysis - Operations Management Assignment Help

ABC analysis is a business term used to define an inventory categorization technique often used in materials management. It is also known as Selective Inventory Control.

ABC analysis provides a mechanism for identifying items that will have a significant impact on overall inventory cost, whilst also providing a mechanism for identifying different categories of stock that will require different management and controls.

When carrying out an ABC analysis, inventory items are valued (item cost multiplied by quantity issued/consumed in period) with the results then ranked. The results are then grouped typically into three bands. These bands are called ABC codes.

ABC codes

1."A class" inventory will typically contain items that account for 80% of total value, or 20% of total items.

2."B class" inventory will have around 15% of total value, or 30% of total items.

3."C class" inventory will account for the remaining 5%, or 50% of total items.

ABC Analysis is similar to the Pareto principle in that the "A class" group will typically account for a large proportion of the overall value but a small percentage of the overall volume of inventory.

Another recommended breakdown of ABC classes:

1."A" approximately 10% of items or 66.6% of value

2."B" approximately 20% of items or 23.3% of value

3."C" approximately 70% of items or 10.1% of value


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Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) - Operations Management Assignment Help

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) - Operations Management Assignment Help

An enterprise is a group of people with a common goal, which has certain resources at its disposal to achieve this goal. The enterprise acts as a single entity. This view of a company or organization is drastically different from the traditional approach where the organization is divided into different units based on the functions they perform. So we have a manufacturing or production department, production planning department, finance department, purchasing department, sales and distribution department, R&D department and so on. These departments are compartmentalized and have their own goals and objectives, which from their point of view is in line with the organization’s objectives.

These departments function in isolation and have their systems of data collection and analysis. So the information that is created or generated by the various departments, in most cases are available only to the top management and not to other departments. The result is that instead of taking the organization towards the common goal the various departments tends to pull it in different directions since one department does not know what the order does.
Enterprise Resource Planning An integrated information system that serves all departments within an enterprise. Evolving out of the manufacturing industry, ERP implies the use of packaged software rather than proprietary software written by or for one customer. ERP modules may be able to interface with an organization's own software with varying degrees of effort, and, depending on the software, ERP modules may be alterable via the vendor's proprietary tools as well as proprietary or standard programming languages.

An ERP system can include software for manufacturing, order entry, accounts receivable and payable, general ledger, purchasing, warehousing, transportation and human resources. The major ERP vendors are SAP, Oracle (PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards), SSA Global (Baan) and Microsoft. Lawson Software specializes in back-end processing that integrates with another vendor's manufacturing system. See CRM, SAP, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, Baan, Microsoft Dynamics, sales force automation, supply chain management and NRP.

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Demand Chase - Operations Management Assignment Help

Demand Chase - Operations Management Assignment Help

Demand Chase is a production control plan that attempts to match capacity to the varying levels of forecast demand. Chase demand plans require flexible working practices and place varying demands on equipment requirements. Pure chase demand plans are difficult to achieve and are most commonly found in operations where output cannot be stored or where the organization is seeking to eliminate stores of finished goods.

Business strategy that involves matching supply with demand, as demand varies. The strategy is suitable for the end suppliers of a product or service who can closely match supply and demand. Chase demand strategy would also be suitable for a computer manufacturer and retailer that build computers to order, such as Dell. A problem associated with this strategy is that in periods of low demand the company will be working below its maximum capacity and may have to make staff redundant.

Methods of chasing demand include: employing staff on overtime when necessary; employing flexible and casual labor; buying in components that are usually made in-house; and outsourcing elements of the production process. This strategy is in contrast to a level output strategy, where output is at the rate of the average demand

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Decision Tree - Operations Management Assignment Help

Decision Tree - Operations Management Assignment Help

A decision tree is a decision support tool that uses a tree-like graph or model of decisions and their possible consequences, including chance event outcomes, resource costs, and utility.

Decision trees are commonly used in operations research, specifically in decision analysis, to help identify a strategy most likely to reach a goal. Another use of decision trees is as a descriptive means for calculating conditional probabilities. When the decisions or consequences are modelled by computational verb, then we call the decision tree a computational verb decision tree
In decision analysis, a "decision tree" — and the closely-related influence diagram — is used as a visual and analytical decision support tool, where the expected values (or expected utility) of competing alternatives are calculated.

Decision trees have traditionally been created manually, as the following example shows:
A decision Tree consists of 3 types of nodes:-
1. Decision nodes - commonly represented by squares
2. Chance nodes - represented by circles
3. End nodes - represented by triangles

Control charts - Operations Management Assignment Help

Control charts - Operations Management Assignment Help

Control charts, also known as Shewhart charts or process-behavior charts, in statistical process control are tools used to determine whether or not a manufacturing or business process is in a state of statistical control.

If analysis of the control chart indicates that the process is currently under control (i.e. is stable, with variation only coming from sources common to the process) then data from the process can be used to predict the future performance of the process. If the chart indicates that the process being monitored is not in control, analysis of the chart can help determine the sources of variation, which can then be eliminated to bring the process back into control. A control chart is a specific kind of run chart that allows significant change to be differentiated from the natural variability of the process.

The control chart can be seen as part of an objective and disciplined approach that enables correct decisions regarding control of the process, including whether or not to change process control parameters. Process parameters should never be adjusted for a process that is in control, as this will result in degraded process performance.

The control chart is one of the seven basic tools of quality control.

Chart usage

If the process is in control, all points will plot within the control limits. Any observations outside the limits, or systematic patterns within, suggest the introduction of a new (and likely unanticipated) source of variation, known as a special-cause variation. Since increased variation means increased quality costs, a control chart "signaling" the presence of a special-cause requires immediate investigation.

This makes the control limits very important decision aids. The control limits tell you about process behavior and have no intrinsic relationship to any specification targets or engineering tolerance. In practice, the process mean (and hence the center line) may not coincide with the specified value (or target) of the quality characteristic because the process' design simply can't deliver the process characteristic at the desired level.

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