OM

Homework

1) The 10 operation management strategies are

• Goods and services:

  • S: Consistency in costs, quality, and resources across all business divisions

  • W: How to evaluate, might be hard

  • O: Understanding that there are new opportunities around

  • T: Competition might doing the same thing you are

• Quality Management:

  • S: clear on the customer’s demands and then meet those expectations. Use market research to determine customer needs and batch quality assurance testing on products and services in production.

  • W: Hard to measure

  • O: Measuring the right things, lead to new ideas

  • T: Inferior quality management process compared with your competition.

• Process and Capacity Design:

  • S: support all production goals including technology and resources. A value stream map can help determine what processes are necessary and how to keep them running efficiently.

  • W: Are we capturing all the processes

  • O: Opportunity to streamline

  • T: Might be missing an opportunity to make the company more competitive

• Location:

  • S: the movement of goods and services internally and to customers, and the role of marketing and public relations in the location choice.

  • W: No understanding of the process

  • O: Better location process in place

  • T: No understanding of the process

• Layout Design and Strategy:

  • S: Understand the materials are delivered and used.

  • W: Could be a flawed design

  • O: Could lead to new better layouts

  • T: Cant only think within the box when it comes to design

• Human Resources and Job Design:

  • S: continuous improvement programs with regular reviews, provide continuous training for employees, and institute employee satisfaction programs to achieve success in this area.

  • W: Is it generic

  • O: Create a new more specific HR dept.

  • T: Outdated and people not feeling connected to the company

• Supply Chain Management:

  • S: streamline, be cost effective, and to develop trusted partners.

  • W: have to determine who all the suppliers are and make sure they work together

  • O: Better opportunity to streamline the process

  • T: Outdated Supply chain

• Inventory:

  • S: strategize and plan their inventory control. Weather, supply shortages, and labor all influence how an organization maintains its inventory.

  • W: might be supply shortages

  • O: Might be opportunities to improve the inventory process

  • T: Outdated process

• Scheduling:

  • S: Consider both production and people. Ask questions such as how much product is required to be produced for the customer in the required time? How many people and how many machines are required to do the job effectively and efficiently?

  • W: Are we scheduling everything?

  • O: Might find things that have not been scheduled

  • T: is the competitions scheduling process superior

• Maintenance:

  • S: Maintaining people and machines, as well as, process.

  • W: Shortage of people

  • O: Opportunity to bring in new people and new machines

  • T: Outdated

2) To Improve an OM strategy you would need to do the following:

• Use technology to improve your operations. Web-based technologies enable you to dramatically improve how you run your business

• Review your existing setup. Look at your processes from the point of view of a potential investor. Keep in mind the overall objective and vision of the business, and ensure the processes meet those goals and add value. Draw an accurate map of each process in your material and information flow.

• Implement a continuous improvement approach. Improving productivity is an ongoing activity.

3) A list of 10 questions about change to ask management

• What is the employees’ perspective?

• Did you “set the stage” for change?

• Are you tracking employee perceptions throughout the change?

• Are you giving honest answers to tough questions?

• Can you explain “what’s in it for them”?

• Is your communication “behavior-based”?

• Can you paint the big/little picture?

• Is it your vision or our vision?

• Are you emotionally literate?

• Do you know what shouldn’t change?

4) 4 different models

• Lewin’s Change Management Model. Psychologist Kurt Lewin created this change management model in the 1950s. Lewin noted that the majority of people tend to prefer and operate within certain zones of safety. He recognized three stages of change:

  • Unfreeze – Most people make an active effort to resist change. In order to overcome this tendency, a period of thawing or unfreezing must be initiated through motivation.

  • Transition – Once change is initiated, the company moves into a transition period, which may last for some time. Adequate leadership and reassurance is necessary for the process to be successful.

  • Refreeze – After change has been accepted and successfully implemented, the company becomes stable again, and staff refreezes as they operate under the new guidelines.

• The McKinsey 7-S model offers a holistic approach to organization. This model, created by Robert Waterman, Tom Peters, Richard Pascale, and Anthony Athos during a meeting in 1978, has 7 factors that operate as collective agent of change:

  • 1. Shared values

  • 2. Strategy

  • 3. Structure

  • 4. Systems

  • 5. Style

  • 6. Staff

  • 7. Skills

• Basic Strategic Management Model

  • The includes outlining the concept of the strategic plan, forecasting the desired results, reviewing the business’s current state, creating the action plan, implementing the plan and monitoring the results.