1. Identify operations decisions as strategic, tactical, or operational (pages 44-52)
Strategies are plans for achieving organizational goals. There are three basic strategies: low cost, responsiveness, and differentiation from competitors. Other strategies include scale-based strategies, specialization, newness, flexible operations, high quality, service, and sustainability. Tactics are the methods and actions used to accomplish strategies. They are more specific than strategies, and they provide guidance and direction for carrying out the actual operations.
Strategic operations decision comes from senior management, are focused on long-term aspects of the firm, and generally have a broad scope with a low level of detail. These types of decisions include product design, choice of location, choice of technology, and new facilities.
Tactical operations decisions usually occur at middle management positions and are focused on more moderate time frames. The scope of the decision is moderate, as is the level of detail. These types of decisions include employment levels, output levels, equipment selection, and facility layout.
Operational decisions are the most low-level decisions, usually made by low managers with a focus on a short time period. The scope of the decision is narrow and the level of detail is high. These types of decisions include scheduling personnel, adjusting output rates, inventory management decisions, and purchasing decisions.
One of the key differences in these three types of decisions are the time frames in which they are made. Strategic decisions focus on long-term problems and their implications. Tactical decisions have shorter time frames. And finally, operational decisions are often made on a day-to-day basis.
2. Productivity: define, compute (56)
Productivity is an index that measures output (goods and services) relative to the input (labor, materials, energy, other resources) used to produce it.
Productivity = Output / Input
Particularly important for companies with a low cost strategy.
4. House of Quality and Quality Function Deployment (85-86)
Quality Function Deployment is an approach to get the voice of the customer into the design specification of a product. The process begins by listening to customers to determine the characteristics of a superior product. The customers’ needs and preferences are broken down into “customer requirements” and weighted based on relative importance.
The House of Quality is based off of the Quality Function Deployment. Using the House of Quality, customers requirements are translated into concrete operations or engineering goals. The importance of each goal must be agreed upon by the enter “house.” The process flows from cross functional teams identifying customer needs, to designing product specifications, and finally producing the product.
5. The generic product development process (76-78)
Phase 0: Planning – precedes approval of the concept -Answering basic questions such as “does it fit our goals?” -Work on identifying production constraints and think about supply chain strategy -Output: project mission statement
Phase 1: Concept Development – thinking about customer needs -Team think about alternative concepts and their potential specs -Assess production feasibility and estimate manufacturing costs
-Concept = a description of the form, function, and features of a product; usually includes an analysis of competitive products and economic justification as well
Phase 2: System-level Design -decomposing the product into subsystems and components
-Start to design efficient manufacturing layout: the final assembly scheme, the suppliers, and any make/buy decisions
-Output: a geometric layout of the product, the specs of each product’s subsystems, and a preliminary flow chart of assembly process
Phase 3: Design
