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Rationale Learning Outcomes Teaching and Learning Resources Operations and Productivity Operations Strategy in a Global Environment Project Management. Forecasting Design of Goods and Services. Managing Quality Process Strategy. Location Strategies Layout Strategies Human Resources and Job Design Supply-Chain Management Inventory Management Aggregate Planning. Material Requirements Planning (MRP) and ERP Short-Term Scheduling Just-in-Time and Lean Production Systems Maintenance and Reliability   Case Studies Related Workshops Cost Management - Accounting and Control Linear Programming Decision Making Tools Strategios Transportation Models   Learner Support Career Direction Graduate Services International Student Services Study Abroad Management of Learning Online Libraries Study Skills   Recommended Texts Resources Assignments, Assessments Assessment Regulations   Learning Centres Economics Centre Education, Staff Development and Teacher Training Centre Entrepreneur Centre Financial Centre Foundation Study Centre Higher Qualifications Centre HR Centre IT Centre Language Centre Management and Leadership Development Centre Management Centre Marketing Centre MBA Centre Postgraduate Centre Research Centre Undergraduate Centre

 

Operations and Productivity

 

Rationale

 

 

Business Operations are those activities involved in the running of a business for the purpose of producing value for the stakeholders. Compare business processes.

 

The outcome of business operations is the harvesting of value from assets owned by a business. Assets can be either physical or intangible. An example of value derived from a physical asset like a building is rent. An example of value derived from an intangible asset like an idea is a royalty. The effort involved in "harvesting" this value is what constitutes business operations.

Business operations encompasses three fundamental management imperatives that collectively aim to maximize value harvested from business assets (this has often been referred to as "sweating the assets"):

1. Generate recurring income.
2. Increase the value of the business.
3. Secure the income and value of the business.

All three imperatives are mutually dependent. The following basic tenets illustrate this interdependency:

1. The more recurring income an asset generates, the more valuable it becomes. For example, the products that sell at the highest volumes and prices are usually considered to be the most valuable products in a business's product portfolio.

2. The more valuable a product becomes the more recurring income it generates. For example, a Mercedes Benz can be leased out at a higher rate than a Toyota Corolla.

3. The intrinsic value and income-generating potential of an asset cannot be realized without a way to secure it. For example, petroleum deposits are worthless unless processes and equipment are developed and employed to extract, refine, and distribute it profitably.

 

The business model of a business describes the means by which the three management imperatives are achieved. In this sense, business operations is the execution of the business model. Generating recurring income Increasing the value of the business Securing the income and value of the business   See also Operational risk Operational risk management   External Links Business Credit How to Build Your Business Credit Profile

 

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge

After completing the course, students will have

1. Gained an appreciation for the role of Operations Management in the overall process of management

2. Learned to recognize many types of problems that are amenable to solution by operations management techniques.

3. Realized that the contributions from marketing and finance are important and interactive with those of operations managements

 

Skills

After completing the course, students will

1. Be able to apply several of operations management techniques in their workplace environments.

2. Be able to use various information sources and recent research outcomes to help refine his/her understanding of operations management and to further develop the skills of business and management rhetoric.

 

 

Today's Videos

• Connect with us on http://www.youtube.com/finntrack
• Google's Playlists

 

Teaching and Learning Resources

• Learning Environment
• Learning Contents
• Teaching Strategies

 

Click on titles

Operations and Productivity. Operations Strategy in a Global Environment

Tutorials

• Operations and Productivity
• Operations Strategy in a Global Environment

 

Readings

 

Operations Management is an area of business that is concerned with the production of goods and services, and involves the responsibility of ensuring that business operations are efficient and effective. It also is the management of resources and the distribution of goods and services to customers. Operations also refers to the production of goods and services, the set of value-added activities that transform inputs into many outputs. Fundamentally, these value-adding creative activities should be aligned with market opportunity (see Marketing) for optimal enterprise performance. APICS The Association for Operations Management defines operations management as "the field of study that focuses on the effective planning, scheduling, use and control of a manufacturing or service organization through the study of concepts from design engineering, industrial engineering, management information systems, quality management, production management, inventory management, accounting, and other functions as they affect the organization" (APICS Dictionary, 11th edition). Historically, the body of knowledge stemming from industrial engineering formed the basis of the first MBA programs, and is central to operations management as used across diverse business sectors, industry, consulting and non-profit organizations.

 

• Supply Chain Management
• APICS
• Systems Thinking

 

In economics, Productivity is the amount of output created (in terms of goods produced or services rendered) per unit input used. For instance, labour productivity is typically measured as output per worker or output per labour-hour. With respect to land, the "yield" is equivalent to "land productivity". Measures of factor productivity Productivity studies Increases in productivity Labour productivity Mar on productivity   See also Production, costs, and pricing Production theory basics Production possibility frontier Production function Computer-aided manufacturing Productive and unproductive labour Productive forces   External links Productivity and Costs – Bureau of Labour Statistics United States Department of Labour: contains international comparisons of productivity rates, historical and present

 

Activity

• Operations and Productivity

 

 

1. Boeing is discussed in the Case Study below. Does Boeing practice a multinational operations strategy, a global operations strategy, or a transnational operations strategy? Support your choice with specific references to Boeing’s operations and the profiled characteristics of each type of organization.

2. Operations Strategy in a Global Environment

 

• What are the components of Motorola’s international strategy?
• Describe how Motorola might have arrived at its current strategy as a result of a SWOT analysis.
• Discuss Motorola’s primary business strategy.

 

 

Project Management. Forecasting

Tutorials

• Project Management 
• Forecasting  

 

Readings

Project Management is the discipline of defining and achieving finite objectives. The challenge of project management is the epitomized integration and allocation of the inputs needed to meet those pre-defined objectives. The project, therefore, is a carefully selected set of activities chosen to use resources (time, money, people, materials, energy, space, provisions, communication, quality, risk, etc.) to meet the pre-defined objectives. Project Management is quite often the province and responsibility of an individual project manager. This individual seldom participates directly in the activities that produce the end result, but rather strives to maintain the progress and productive mutual interaction of various parties in such a way that overall risk of failure is reduced. Projects, which are a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or service, contrast with processes, which are permanent or semi-permanent functional work to create the same product or service over-and-over again. The management of these two systems is often very different. Projects, typically, are various types of public or consumer products, including buildings, vehicles, electronic devices, computer software, etc.

• Project Management activities
• Project control variables
• History of Project Management
• Approaches
  • The traditional approach
  • Critical chain
  • Process-based (agile) management
• Project systems
  • Project control systems
  • Project development stages
    • Initiation
    • Planning and design
    • Production or execution
    • Closing and Maintenance
• Project management and professional certification
• Case Studies

 

See also

• Building engineering
• Building construction
• Capability Maturity Model
• Commonware
• Critical chain
• Critical path method
  • List of project management topics
  • PERT
  • Project
  • Project management
  • Project planning
  • Work breakdown structure
  • List of project management software
• Dependency Structure Matrix
• Earned value management
• Estimation
• Flexible project management
• Functionality, mission and scope creep
• Gantt chart
• Governance
• Human Interaction Management
• List of project management topics
• Management
• Metrics
• Project accounting
• Program management
• Project management software (List of project management software)
• RACI diagram
• Software project management
• The Mythical Man-Month
• Timesheet
• Work Breakdown Structure
• Literature

 

External links

• Troubled Project Specific Interest Group
• American Academy of Project Management
• Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering, International
• International Research Network on Organizing by Projects
• International Project Management Association
• Association for Project Management
• The Project Management Institute
• The Australian Institute of Project Management
• The Institute of Project Management of Ireland
• Interactive Project Management Wiki

 

Network Diagrams depict network elements and connections among the elements. They typically make use of visual stereotypes. The abstract nature of the diagrammatic model makes it easier to capture and convey information that resists expression in purely textual form. Article explaining how to document IT architectures from IBM's Developer works site AON (activity on node) depict network elements and connections among the elements. Activities are represented by Nodes and their relationship by arrow.

 

• Explains about AON diagrams and pert charts

 

In statistics and signal processing, a Time Series is a sequence of data points, measured typically at successive times, spaced apart at uniform time intervals. Time series analysis comprises methods that attempt to understand such time series, often either to understand the underlying theory of the data points (where did they come from? what generated them?), or to make forecasts (predictions). Time series prediction is the use of a model to predict future events based on known past events: to predict future data points before they are measured. The standard example is the opening price of a share of stock based on its past performance. Models for time series data can have many forms. Two broad classes of practical importance are the moving average (MA) models, and the autoregressive (AR) models. These two classes depend linearly on previous data points and are treated in more detail in the article on autoregressive moving average models (ARMA). Non-linear dependence on previous data points is of interest because of the possibility of producing a chaotic time series. A number of different notations are in use for time-series analysis is a common notation which specifies a time series X which is indexed by the natural numbers.

 

Tools for investigating time-series data include:

• Consideration of the autocorrelation function and the spectral density function
• Performing a Fourier transform to investigate the series in the frequency domain.
• Use of a filter to remove unwanted noise.
• Principal components analysis (or empirical orthogonal function analysis)
• Artificial neural networks
• time-frequency analysis techniques:
  • Continuous wavelet transform
  • Short-time Fourier transform
  • Chirplet transform
  • Fractional Fourier transform
• Chaotic analysis
  • Correlation dimension
  • Recurrence plots
  • Recurrence quantification analysis
  • Lyapunov exponents

 

See also

• Anomaly time series
• Linear prediction
• Longitudinal study
• Moving average (finance)
• Pooled time series
• Prediction interval
• Time series database
• Trend estimation

 

Activities Project Management Forecasting   Web Cases The Family Planning Research Centre of Nigeria Haygood Brothers Construction

In statistics, Regression Analysis is used to model relationships between random variables, determine the magnitude of the relationships between variables, and can be used to make predictions based on the models. Introduction Types of regression Simple and multiple linear regression Nonlinear regression models Other models Linear models Regression and Bayesian statistics Examples Prediction of future observations   See also Confidence interval Extrapolation Kriging Prediction Prediction interval Statistics Trend estimation Robust regression Multivariate normal distribution Important publications in regression analysis. References   External links SixSigmaFirst - Intro to regression analysis, and linear regression example Curvefit - Online ten-point demo Curvefit: A complete guide to nonlinear regression - Online textbook Exegeses on Linear Models - Some comments on linear regression models by Bill Venables. Mazoo's Learning Blog - Example of linear regression. Shows how to find the linear regression equation, variances, standard errors, coefficients of correlation and determination, and confidence interval. Regression of Weakly Correlated Data - How linear regression mistakes can appear when Y-range is much smaller than X-range

 

 

Design of Goods and Services. Managing Quality

Tutorials

• Design of Goods and Services
• Managing Quality
  • Statistical Process Control

 

Readings

 

Product Management is a function within a company dealing with the day-to-day management and welfare of a product or family of products at all stages of the product lifecycle. The product management function is responsible for defining the products in the marketing mix. Product management typically deals with: 1. Defining new products and gathering product requirements (New Product Development) 2. Defining product business criteria including managing costs 3.Securing internal resources for product team 4. Translating feature requirements into engineering specifications 5. Working across all functions to bring a product to launch 6. Leading teams to ensure execution towards product objectives 7. Defining supportability requirements 8. Evangelizing the product internally across all functions 9. Evangelizing the product externally with press, customers, and partners 10. Bringing new products to market 11. Product differentiation 12. Product positioning and outbound messaging 13. Product Life Cycle considerations 14. Product portfolio management

 

Product management may also represent an organization's approach to the process of managing and marketing its products and services as smaller businesses inside the larger enterprise, supported by multi- function product teams (led by product managers) and a standard product development process.

Product management typically deals with all of the end-to-end aspects of a product or product line including product profitability, the role may be split with closely related functions Product marketing, program management, and project management.

• Alternative approach
• See also
  • Product
  • Product Manager
  • Product marketing
  • Product planning

 

A bill of materials or bill of material (abbreviated "BOM") describes a product in terms of its assemblies, sub-assemblies, and basic parts. Basically consisting of a list of parts, a BOM is an essential part of the design and manufacture of any product.

Often, BOMs contain hierarchical information with the master, or top level, BOM describing a list of components and sub-assemblies. Take a PC, for example: the top level BOM might list the shipping box, manual, packaging, packaging labels and the actual PC. The BOM for the PC itself is referenced in the top level BOM and would contain its own list of sub-assemblies like power supply, motherboard, case, etc.

This increasing level of detail continues for all sub-assemblies until it reaches its constituent parts (like resistors or processors), or modules that are out of the scope of the BOM (like the parts that make up a fan that is bought in as a module from another manufacturer).

BOMs are important, since without a basic knowledge of how many parts a product needs, there is no way of knowing how many units of that part you need to buy.

A bill of material can define products as they are designed, as they are manufactured, as they are ordered, as they are built, or as they are maintained. There are different types of bills of materials dependent upon the discipline that generates them and the purpose for which they are intended. It is important to ensure the type of bill of material that you have and its intended use prior to working with a bill of material.

 

• Manufacturing Bill of Material (MBOM)

 



 

• Marketing management
• Brand management
• Software product management
• Association of International Product Marketing & Management
• Toolkits for User Innovation
• Configuration System
• Articles
  • Product Management & Product Marketing - A Definition
  • Your NPD Portfolio may be Harmful to your Business' Health
  • Portfolio Management for New Products: Picking the Winners
• Commercial resources

 

Quality Management is a method for ensuring that all the activities necessary to design, develop and implement a product or service are effective and efficient with respect to the system and its performance. Quality Improvement W. Edwards Deming is best known for his management philosophy establishing quality, productivity, and competitive position. He has formulated 14 points of attention for managers, some of these points are more appropriate for service management: Break down barriers between departments; Management should learn their responsibilities, and take on leadership; Improve constantly; Institute a programme of education and self-improvement.   The following diagram is the Shewhart cycle (PDCA) for quality improvement, made popular by Deming.

Quality Standards

 

The International Organization for Standardization created the Quality Management System (QMS) standards in 1987. These were the ISO 9000:1987 series of standards comprising ISO 9001:1987, ISO 9002:1987 and ISO 9003:1987; which were applicable in different types of industries, based on the type of activity: designing, production or service delivery. The standards have been regularly reviewed every few years by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The version of these standards was revised in 1994 and was called the ISO 9000:1994 series; comprising of the ISO 9001:1994, 9002:1994 and 9003:1994 versions. The last revision was in the year 2000 and the series was called ISO 9000:2000 series.

 

However the ISO 9002 and 9003 standards were integrated and one single certifiable standard was created under ISO 9001:2000. Since December 2003, ISO 9002 and 9003 standards are not valid, and the organizations previously holding these standards need to do a transition from the old to the new standards. The ISO 9004:2000 document gives guidelines for performance improvement over and above the basic standard (i.e. ISO 9001:2000).

The Quality Management System standards created by ISO are meant to certify the processes and the system of an organization and not the product or service itself. ISO 9000 standards do not certify the quality of the product or service.

Recently the International Organization released a new standard, ISO 22000, meant for the food industry. This standard covers the values and principles of ISO 9000 and the HACCP standards. It gives one single integrated standard for the food industry and is expected to become more popular in the coming years in such industry.

The most elaborated and accepted concept of quality management is the model of the EFQM Excellence Model.

In engineering and manufacturing, Quality Control and Quality Engineering are involved in developing systems which ensure that products or services are designed and produced to meet or exceed customer requirements and expectations. These systems are often developed in conjunction with other business and engineering disciplines using a cross-functional approach.

• History
  • Craft and trades persons
  • Wartime production
  • Postwar
  • Late twentieth century

 

See also

• Go/no go
• Six Sigma
• Software quality and software testing
• Playtest
• Validation
• Manufacturing
• List of production topics
• Total Quality Management (TQM)
• Kenneth G. Swift
• List of software engineering topics
• Computerized system validation
• Good Manufacturing Practice

 

External links

• References

 

A Flowchart (also spelled flow-chart and flow chart) is a schematic representation of a process. They are commonly used in business/economic presentations to help the audience visualize the content better, or to find flaws in the process. The flowchart is one of the seven basic tools of quality control, which include the histogram, Pareto chart, check sheet, control chart, cause-and-effect diagram, flowchart, and scatter diagram. See Quality Management Glossary. Examples include instructions for a bicycle's assembly, an attorney outlining a case's timeline, diagram of an automobile plant's work flow, the decisions to be taken on a tax form, et cetera. Generally the start point, end points, inputs, outputs, possible paths and the decisions that lead to these possible paths are included. Flow-charts can be created by hand or manually in most office software, but lately specialized diagram drawing software has emerged that can also be used for the purpose, such as Visio, OpenOffice.org Draw, ConceptDraw, Dia, SmartDraw, and OmniGraffle. Programs have been written to create flowcharts directly from computer program source. History of use Symbols used in flowcharts Creating flowcharts on a computer   See also External links Flowchart Tutorial

 

 

A Pareto Chart is a special type of bar chart where the values being plotted are arranged in descending order. It is named for Vilfredo Paretoand its use in quality assurance was popularized by Joseph M. Juran and Kaoru Ishikawa. The Pareto chart is one of the seven basic tools of quality control, which include the histogram, Pareto chart, check sheet, control chart, cause-and-effect diagram, flowchart, and scatter diagram. See Quality Management Glossary. Typically the left vertical axis is frequency of occurrence, but it can alternatively represent cost or other important unit of measure. The right vertical axis is the cumulative percentage of the total number of occurrences, total cost, or total of the particular unit of measure. The purpose is to highlight the most important among a (typically large) set of factors. In quality control, the Pareto chart often represents the most common sources of defects, the highest occurring type of defect, or the most frequent reasons for customer complaints, etc.

 

The Ishikawa Diagram is a graphical method for finding the most likely causes for an undesired effect. The method was first used by Kaoru Ishikawa in the 1960s. Because of its shape, it is also known as the Fishbone Diagram. Another name for this technique is: the cause-and-effect diagram. The fishbone diagram is a method/tool used in a root cause analysis. The Ishikawa diagram is one of the seven basic tools of quality control, which include the histogram, Pareto chart, check sheet, control chart, cause-and-effect diagram, flowchart, and scatter diagram. See Quality Management Glossary. An alternative use of the fishbone diagram is in product design, to identify desirable factors leading to an overall effect. Mazda Motors famously used a fishbone diagram in the development of the Miata car, where the required result was "Jinba Ittai" or "Horse And Rider As One". The "main bones" included such aspects as "touch" and "braking" with the smaller bones including highly granular factors such as "50/50 weight distribution" and "able to rest elbow on top of driver's door". Every factor identified in the diagram was included in the final vehicle.

 

Activities

• Design of Goods and Services
• Managing Quality

 

 

Process Strategy. Location Strategies

Tutorials

• Process Strategy
  • Capacity Planning
• Location Strategies
• Facility Location

 

Readings

Factors influencing Facility Location:

• Transportation Availability
• Proximity to Customers
• Proximity to Labour
• Proximity to Raw Materials
• Customer Requirements
• Local Building and Tax Codes
• Availability of Subsidies

 

Process Management is the ensemble of activities of planning and monitoring the performance of a process, especially in the sense of business process, often confused with reengineering. Process Management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, techniques and systems to define, visualize, measure, control, report and improve processes with the goal to meet customer requirements profitably. ISO 9000 mandates the process approach to managing an organization.

 

• List of process management topics
• Management
• Business Process Management
• Human interaction management
• TQM
• Business process improvement
• Project management
• Process improvement
• Human Resource Management Systems

 

A Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) is a manufacturing system in which there is some amount of flexibility which allows the system to react in the case of changes, whether predicted or unpredicted. This flexibility is generally considered to fall into two categories, within which are numerous other subcategories. The first category, machine flexibility, covers the system's ability to be changed to produce new product types, and ability to change the order of operations executed on a part. The second category of flexibility within an FMS is called routing flexibility, which consists of the ability to use multiple machines to perform the same operation on a part, as well as the system's ability to absorb large-scale changes, such as in volume, capacity, or capability. Activity-Based Costing Approach to Equipment Selection Problem For Flexible Manufacturing Systems

 

 

 

 

Capacity Planning enables the determination of sufficient resources so that user satisfaction can be maximised through timely, efficient and accurate responses.

 

 

Capacity planning is important when starting a new organization, extending the operations of an existing business, considering additions or modifications to product lines, and introducing new techniques, equipment and materials.

In business, capacity is the optimum rate of output for a process. This means that capacity is the work that the system is capable of doing in a given period of time. Capacity can be expressed in the formula (number of machines and/or workers) x (number of shifts) x (utilization) x (efficiency) = capacity.

The goal of capacity planning is to meet current and future demand with a minimal amount of waste. The three main types of capacity planning are lead strategy, lag strategy, and match strategy.

The lead capacity strategy is adding capacity in anticipation of an increase in demand. Lead strategy is an aggressive strategy with the goal of luring customers away from the company’s competitors. The possible disadvantage to this strategy is that it often results in excess inventory, which is costly and often wasteful.

Lag strategy refers to adding capacity only after the company is running at full capacity or beyond due to increase in demand (North Carolina State University, 2006). This is a more conservative strategy that decreases the risk of waste but may result in the loss of possible customers.

The match strategy (also known as the tracking strategy) is adding capacity in small amounts in response to changing demand in the market. This is a more moderate strategy.

References: North Carolina State University. (2006). Definitions: Capacity Planning and Capacity Strategy. Retrieved January 10, 2006

Hill, Joyce. (2006). Capacity Requirements Planning. Retrieved January 10, 2006

Krajewski, Lee J., & Ritzman, Larry P. (2005.) Operations Management; Processes and Value Chains. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

• Capacity Requirements Planning

 

In business, Facility Management is the management of buildings and services. The services are sometimes considered to be divided into "hard services" and "soft services"; hard services includes such things as ensuring that a building's air conditioning is operating efficiently, reliably, safely and legally; soft services includes such things as ensuring that the building is cleaned properly and regularly or monitoring the performance of contractors (e.g. builders, electricians). The term "facility management" is similar to "property management" but often applied only to larger and/or commercial properties where the management and operation is more complex. It is the role of facility management to ensure that everything is available and operating properly for building occupants to do their work. Facility management may range from the small scale (e.g. single small building custodial services) to the large scale (such as Johnson Controls' operation of Chrysler manufacturing) or even on an international scale (e.g. global service provision to a multinational corporation). Some facility management companies (e.g. Regus, evoma) have grown to simply provide environments which other organisations may rent on demand in order to do business in a 'hotel' environment. In the UK and other European countries facilities management has a wider definition than simply the management of buildings and services. For example the BIFM's definition is: 'Facilities management is the integration of multi-disciplinary activities within the built environment and the management of their impact upon people and the workplace'. In Australia, the term Commercial Services has replaced Facilities management in some organisations. Since commercial services defines services other than just looking after facilities, such as security, parking, waste disposal, facility services and strategic planning. Computerized Maintenance Management System Facility Management System InterFOM - Interactive Facilities International Facility Management Association British Institute of Facilities Management ARCHIBUS, Inc. ROI Calculator for Justifying Facilities Management Software Automation Cost Facilities Resources on Internet

 

Transnational (or transnationalism) focuses on the heightened interconnectivity between people all around the world and the loosening of boundaries between countries. Transnationalism has social, political and economic impacts that affect people all around the globe.

Very careful distinctions are now being made between international or multinational -- relationships between and among nation-states -- and transnational -- relationships between and among individuals and other entities, regardless of nation-state boundaries.

The concept has been greatly fostered by developments in telecommunications (particularly the Internet), immigration and most importantly globalization. The growth of the transnational concept encourages re-examination and change in areas such as citizenship, nationalism and the concept of the communitarian.

Proponents of transnationalism seek to facilitate the flow of people, ideas and goods between regions. They believe that it has increasing relevance with the rapid growth of globalization. They contend that it does not make sense to link specific nation-state boundaries with migratory workforces, globalized corporations, global money flow, global information flow and global scientific cooperation (among other examples).

See also

• Citizenship
• Communitarian
• Cosmopolitanism
• Diaspora
• Globalization
• Internationalism
• Multinational corporations
• Nation-states
• Nationalism

 

The famous American multinational corporation, Apple has debuted its new iPhone 2.1 software update, which the company claims contains many bug fixes and improvements, aiming to enhance your multimedia experience.

A Multinational Corporation (MNC) or multinational enterprise (MNE) or transnational corporation (TNC) or multinational organization (MNO) is a corporation/enterprise that manages production establishments or delivers services in at least two countries. Multinational corporations (MNC) are often divided into three broad groups: Horizontally integrated multinational corporations manage production establishments located in different countries to produce the same or similar products. Vertically integrated multinational corporations manage production establishment in certain country/countries to produce products that serve as input to its production establishments in other country/countries. Diversified multinational corporations manage production establishments located in different countries that are neither horizontally or vertically integrated. Very large multinationals have budgets that exceed those of many countries. Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are multinational corporations. They can have a powerful influence in international relations, given their large economic influence in politicians' representative districts, as well as their extensive financial resources available for public relations and political lobbying. Multinationals have played an important role in globalization. Given their international reach and mobility, prospective countries, and sometimes regions within countries, must compete with each other to have MNCs locate their facilities (and subsequent tax revenue, employment, and economic activity) within.

To compete, countries and regional political districts offer incentives to MNCs such as tax breaks, pledges of governmental assistance or improved infrastructure, or lax environmental and labour standards. This process of becoming more attractive to foreign investment can be characterized as a race to the bottom.

There is a dispute as to which was the first MNC. Some have argued that the Knights Templar, founded in 1118, became a multinational when it stumbled into banking in 1135. However, others claim that the Dutch East India Company (Dutch:Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie) was, which first appeared in 1602.

• Critiques
• Examples

 

See also

• Globalization
• Corporation

 

External links

• References

 

Globalization (or Globalisation[1]), is an umbrella term for a complex series of economic, social, technological, and political changes seen as increasing interdependence and interaction between people and companies in disparate locations. The phenomenon has been noted since the 1980s in the context of sociological study on a worldwide scale. The term "globalization" is used to refer to these collective changes as a process, or else as the cause of (typically) negative and turbulent change. The distinct uses include: Economically and socially positive: As an engine of commerce; one which brings an increased standard of living — prosperity to developing countries and further wealth to First World and Third World countries. This view claims that economic prosperity brings about social prosperity. Economically and socially negative: As an engine of "corporate imperialism"; one which tramples over the human rights of developing societies, claims to bring prosperity, yet often simply amounts to plundering and profiteering. Negative effects include cultural assimilation via cultural imperialism, the export of artificial wants, and the destruction of local society and culture.   Economic globalization Definitions History Nature and existence of globalization Characteristics Anti-globalization (Global Justice) Pro-globalization (globalism) Other uses Measurement of globalization References

 

See also

• Marketization
• Mundialization
• Westernization
• Walmarting
• Saskia Sassen
• Global Empire
• The Global Economy
• World Economy
• The World Is Flat
• Social innovation

 

External links

• Douglas Roche's proposal for UN Parliamentary Reform, in PDF
• Index of Globalization
• Latin American Globalization Index
• The Global Small Business Blog
• Globalsation guide
• Globalism/Antiglobalism A survey and a critical analysis
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Globalization Essays, Documents, etc. University of Iowa Centre for International Finance and Development
• Scientific American Magazine (April 2006 Issue) Does Globalization Help or Hurt the World's Poor?
• Globalization, Revue Sens Public

 

Activities

• Process Strategy
• Location Strategies

 

Web Cases

• The Ambrose Distribution Centre
• Matthew Yachts, Inc

 

 

Layout Strategies

Tutorials

• Layout Strategies
• Facility Layout

 

Readings

Factory Layout Planning and Analysis

OR-Notes are a series of introductory notes on topics that fall under the broad heading of the field of operations research (OR). They were originally used by me in an introductory OR course I give at Imperial College. They are now available for use by any students and teachers interested in OR subject to the following conditions.

A full list of the topics available in OR-Notes can be found here.

Facility Layout Characteristics:

	Product/Sequence Layout	Process Layout
Utilization of Equipment	Low	High
Utilization of Labour	Low	High
Cost of Facility Services	Higher	Lower
Utilization of Inventory	High	Low
Satisfy Tooling Requirements	Low	High
Sensitivity to Demand Change	High	Low

 

Plant Layout Analysis Methods:

• Queuing Theory
• Simulation
• Linear Process Flow Diagram
• Bussed Process Flow Diagram

 

Activities

• Layout Strategy

 

 

 Human Resources and Job Design

Tutorials

• Human Resources and Job Design
  • Work Measurement

 

Readings

Human resources is a term used to describe the individuals who comprise the workforce of an organization, although it is also applied in labour economics to, for example, business sectors or even whole nations. Human resources is also the name of the function within an organization charged with the overall responsibility for implementing strategies and policies relating to the management of individuals (i.e. the human resources). This function title is often abbreviated to the initials 'HR'.

Human resources is a relatively modern management term, coined in the 1960s. The origins of the function arose in organizations that introduced 'welfare management' practices and also in those that adopted the principles of 'scientific management'. From these terms emerged a largely administrative management activity, co-ordinating a range of worker related processes and becoming known, in time as the 'personnel function'. Human resources progressively became the more usual name for this function, in the first instance in the United States as well as multinational corporations, reflecting the adoption of a more quantitative as well as strategic approach to workforce management, demanded by corporate management and the greater competitiveness for limited and highly skilled workers.

• Background
• History
• Human resources purpose and role
  • Key functions
• Human resources management trends and influences
  • Major trends
  • Individual responses
  • Framework
  • Structure
  • Training
  • Recruitment
• Other considerations
  • Trans-national labour mobility
  • Ethical management

 

See also

• References

 

External links

• Work Measurement
  • Tools, Tips and Techniques

 

In classical economics and all micro-economics Labour (or Labour) is a measure of the work done by human beings and is one of three factors of production, the others being land and capital. There are macro-economic system theories which have created a concept called human capital (referring to the skills that workers possess, not necessarily their actual work), although there are also counterposing macro-economic system theories that think human capital is a contradiction in terms. Compensation and measurement Marxian economics Types of labour Manual labour   See also Economic rent Compensation of employees Employment Human resources Human Resource Management Systems Labour economics Offshore outsourcing Profession Retirement   External Links Job Design and Work Organization

 

 

Activities

• Human Resources and Job Design
• Work Measurement

 

Web Cases

• Chicago Southern Hospital

 
Supply-Chain Management

Tutorials

• Supply-Chain Management
  • E-Commerce and Operations Management

 

Readings

Supply chain management (SCM) is the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the operations of the supply chain with the purpose to satisfy customer requirements as efficiently as possible. Supply chain management spans all movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from point-of-origin to point-of-consumption.

According to the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), a professional association that developed a definition in 2004, Supply Chain Management "encompasses the planning and management of all activities involved in sourcing and procurement, conversion, and all logistics management activities. Importantly, it also includes coordination and collaboration with channel partners, which can be suppliers, intermediaries, third-party service providers, and customers. In essence, Supply Chain Management integrates supply and demand management within and across companies."^[1]

Supply chain event management (abbreviated as SCEM) is a consideration of all possible occurring events and factors that can cause a disruption in a supply chain. With SCEM possible scenarios can be created and solutions can be planned.

Some experts distinguish supply chain management and logistics management, while others consider the terms to be interchangeable. From the point of view of an enterprise, the scope of supply chain management is usually bounded on the supply side by your supplier's suppliers and on the customer side by your customer's customers.

Supply chain management is also a category of software products.

Opportunities enabled by Supply Chain Management Supply chain management problems Activities/Functions Strategic Tactical Operational The Bullwhip Effect   See also APICS Beer Distribution Game Customer Driven Supply Chain Demand chain management distribution Information technology management Logistic engineering Logistics Management information systems Marketing Strategic information system Supply Chain Security Supply chain Vendor Managed Inventory Supply Chain Management Supply Chain Business Process Integration Supply Chain Management Components Integration   See also External links The latest news and information about Supply Chain Supply chain management training DRP Training - Distribution Requirements Planning A case study Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals Supply Chain Council APICS

 

Electronic commerce, EC, e-commerce or ecommerce consists primarily of the distributing, buying, selling, marketing, and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. The information technology industry might see it as an electronic business application aimed at commercial transactions. It can involve electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, e-marketing, online marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), automated inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. It typically uses electronic communications technology such as the Internet, extranets, e-mail, e-books, databases, and mobile phones. According to Forrester Research (as cited in Kessler, 2003), electronic commerce generated sales worth US $12.2 billion in 2003.

 

• Historical development
• Success factors in e-commerce
  • Technical and organisational aspects
  • Customer-Oriented
• Problems
• Product suitability
• Acceptance
• Getting your business on the Web
• Literature
• Suppliers offering services to electronic commerce practitioners
  • Financial
  • Software
• Entities using electronic commerce

 

See also

• Bricks and clicks business model
• Business-to-business electronic commerce
• Business-to-consumer electronic commerce
• Credit card fraud
• Disintermediation
• ETrading
• Electronic business
• E-marketing
• Internet fraud
• Management
• Marketing
• Online auction business model
• PaySafe
• Product feeds
• Reintermediation
• Secure electronic transaction - a credit card security protocol
• Web traffic
• References

 

External links

General Information

• CIO's Ebusiness Research Centre
• NetAcademy on Electronic Markets

 

Ecommerce News

• Ecommerce Guide
• Ecommerce Best Practices (B2B)
• Ecommerce Times
• North American Consumer Project on Electronic Commerce (NACPEC)
• Institute of Certified E-Commerce Consultants (ICECC)

 

Activities

• Supply-Chain Management

 

Case Studies

• Fruit of the Loom Tries E-Commerce

 

 

What strategic advantages does e-commerce bring to Fruit of the Loom?

Given the increasing specialization that takes place in industrial societies (out sourcing, virtual companies, etc.), does it make sense for Fruit of the Loom to be doing Internet development work inhouse?

Why is Fruit of the Loom using distributors for T-shirts and not for underwear?

Source: Adapted from E. Turban et al., Electronic Commerce (Upper Saddle River; NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2000): 238.

• Cisco’s E-commerce Connection

 

 

• Describe how Cisco succeeded in selling its products and providing services to its customers on-line.
• What kinds of inquiry are supported when customers check order status?
• What are the benefits of Cisco Connection Online to Cisco and its customers?
• What steps are involved in ordering a Cisco networking product on-line?

 

Inventory Management

Tutorials

• Inventory Management

 

Readings

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.

Labels: Inventory Management, Procurement, Supply Chain, Supply Chain Management

• Inventory Management
• Business inventory
  • The reasons for keeping stock
  • Special terms used in dealing with inventory
  • Typology
  • Inventory examples
    • Manufacturing
• Principle of inventory proportionality
  • Purpose
  • Applications
  • Roots
• High-level inventory management
• Accounting for inventory
  • Financial accounting
  • Role of inventory accounting
  • FIFO vs. LIFO accounting
  • Standard cost accounting
  • Theory of constraints cost accounting
• National accounts
• Distressed inventory
• Inventory credit

 

See also

• References
• Further reading

 

In business management, Inventory consists of a list of goods and materials held available in stock. An inventory can also mean a self-examination, a moral inventory. In computing, inventories can comprise physical and non-physical components. Business inventory Inventory examples Manufacturing Logistics or distribution Accounting perspectives Financial accounting FIFO vs. LIFO accounting Standard cost accounting Theory of constraints cost accounting   See also Manufacturing Distribution Logistics, Transportation Wholesaling Retailing Accounting Cost accounting Throughput accounting Eliyahu M. Goldratt List of theory of constraints topics Just in time Vendor-managed inventory Economic order quantity Operations research   External links Inventory Operations Tuppas Inventory Software Business Aviator Inventory Software Academic Papers on RFID & inventory problems

 

Activities

• Inventory Management

 

Web Cases

• LaPlace Power and Light Co.
• Professional Video Management

 

 

Aggregate Planning. Material Requirements Planning (MRP) and ERP

Tutorials

• Aggregate Planning
• Material Requirements Planning (MRP) and ERP

 

Readings

Aggregate Planning is an operational activity which does an aggregate plan for the production process, in advance of 2 to 18 months, to give an idea to management as to what quantity of materials and other resources are to be procured and when, so that the total cost of operations of the organisation is kept to the minimum, over that period.

The quantity of outsourcing, subcontracting of items, overtime of labour, numbers to be hired and fired in each period and the amount of inventory to be held in stock and to be backlogged for each period are decided. All of these activities are done within the framework of the company ethics, policies, and long term commitment to the society, community and the country of operation.

Aggregate planning has certain prerequired inputs which are inevitable. They include:

 

1. Information about the resources and the facilities available. 2. Demand forecast for the period for which the planning has to be done. 3. Cost of various alternatives and resources. This includes cost of holding inventory, ordering cost, cost of production through various production alternatives like subcontracting, backordering and overtime. 4. Organisational policies regarding the usage of above alternatives.

 

 

Material Requirements Planning (MRP) is a software based production planning and inventory control system used to manage manufacturing processes. An MRP system is intended to simultaneously meet 3 objectives: 1. Ensure materials and products are available for production and delivery to customers. 2. Maintain the lowest possible level of inventory. 3. Plan manufacturing activities, delivery schedules and purchasing activities. The scope of MRP in manufacturing Inputs and outputs Problems with MRP systems   See also MRP Training Manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) MRPII Consultant & Training

A Manufacturing Bill of Material (MBOM) is a type of bill of material reflecting the product as planned by manufacturing engineering, also referred to as the “as manufactured" bill of material or the "as-planned" bill of material. It is a list of the parts, materials, and tools required in the manufacture of a product. This BOM includes material that is contained in drawing notes and typically also includes an indicator of whether manufacturing intends on buying or making the indicated material. The MBOM includes any synthetic part numbers and is the driver for all manufacturing requirements in MRP and ERP Systems. Bill of material Manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) Enterprise resource planning

 

Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs) integrate (or attempt to integrate) all data and processes of an organization into a single unified system. A typical ERP system will use multiple components of computer software and hardware to achieve the integration. A key ingredient of most ERP systems is the use of a single, unified database to store data for the various system modules. The term ERP originally implied systems designed to plan the utilization of enterprise-wide resources. Although the acronym ERP originated in the manufacturing environment, today's use of the term ERP systems has much broader scope. ERP systems typically attempt to cover all basic functions of an organization, regardless of the organization's business or charter. Business, not-for-profit organizations, governments, and other large entities utilize ERP systems. Additionally, it may be noted that to be considered an ERP system, a software package generally would only need to provide functionality in a single package that would normally be covered by two or more systems. Technically, a software package that provides both Payroll and Accounting functions (such as QuickBooks) would be considered an ERP software package.

 

However; the term is typically reserved for larger, more broadbased applications. The introduction of an ERP system to replace two or more independent applications eliminates the need for interfaces previously required between systems, and provides additional benefits that range from standardization and lower maintenance (one system instead of two or more) to easier and/or greater reporting capabilities (as all data is typically kept in one database).

Examples of packages commonly referred to as ERP systems include: SAP, Oracle (with the companies it took over),
The Sage Group, and the Microsoft Dynamics suite of ERP products.

Examples of modules in an ERP which formerly would have been stand-alone applications include: Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Financials, CRM, Human Resources, and Warehouse Management.

• Overview
  • Before
  • After
• Best Practices
• Implementation
• Advantages
• Disadvantages

 

See also

• List of ERP vendors
• List of ERP software packages
• Accounting software
• Advanced Planning & Scheduling
• APICS
• E-procurement
• ERP modelling
• Information technology management
• Management information system
• Supply chain management
• Material requirements planning (material resource planning)
• Human resource management system
• Software as a Service
• Vendor-independent solutions provider

 

External links

• ABC's of ERP from CIO
• Enterprise Resource Planning Training
• ERP Vendor Survey from CAmagazine
• ERP Customer Survey from 180 Systems

 

Activities

• Aggregate Planning
• Material Requirements Planning (MRP) and ERP

 

Web Cases

• Cornwell Glass
• Ruch Manufacturing

 

Manufacturing Process Management (MPM) is a collection of technology and methods used in the manufacture of products. It incorporates such technologies as computer-aided production engineering (CAPE), CAPP – (production planning), computer-aided quality assurance (CAQ), the utilization of CAD and AEC tools for factory layout and digital mockup (DMU) and simulation for assembly analysis. As the digital manufacturing part of the PLM process it is the bridge from product design to production planning and on to resource and inventory scheduling. As CAD defines what is to be made; and ERP/MRP defines when it is to be made; MPM defines how it will be made.

 

A cornerstone of MPM is the central repository for manufacturing data management (MDM) similar to PDM for design data. MPM takes the product data eBOM (engineering Bill of Material) to create the process oriented mBOM (manufacturing) along with a bill of process (BOP). This together with the management of resources such as tools, machines and work centres forms the so called 3PR data (product process plant resources). The integration of all these tools and activities aids in the exploration of alternative production line scenarios; making assembly lines more efficient with the aim of reduced lead time to product launch, shorter product times and reduced work in progress (WIP) inventories as well as allowing rapid response to product or product changes. Topics and Technology Production Scheduling and Production Process planning Manufacturing concept planning Factory layout planning and analysis work flow simulation. walk-path assembly planning plant design optimization Mixed model line balancing. Workloads on multiple stations. Process simulation tools e.g. die press lines, manufacturing lines Ergonomic simulation and assessment of production assembly tasks Resource planning Computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) Numerical control CNC Direct numerical control (DNC) Tooling/equipment/fixtures development Tooling and Robot work-cell setup and offline programming (OLP) Generation of shop floor work instructions Time and cost estimates ABC - Manufacturing activity-based costing Production, costs, and pricing Quality Computer-aided quality assurance (CAQ) FMEA Failure mode and effects analysis SPC Statistical process control Computer aided inspection with coordinate-measuring machine (CMM) Tolerance stack-up analysis using PMI models. Communication with other systems Product Data Management (PDM) Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) Human-machine interface (HMI) Distributed control system (DCS) Enterprise resource planning (ERP)

 

 

Short-Term Scheduling Tutorials Short-Term Scheduling   Readings Scheduling is a key concept in computer multitasking, multiprocessing operating system and real-time operating system designs. Scheduling refers to the way processes are assigned to run on the available CPUs, since there are typically many more processes running than there are available CPUs. This assignment is carried out by softwares known as a scheduler and dispatcher. The scheduler is concerned mainly with: CPU utilization - to keep the CPU as busy as possible. Throughput - number of processes that complete their execution per time unit. Turnaround - total time between submission of a process and its completion. Waiting time - amount of time a process has been waiting in the ready queue. Response time - amount of time it takes from when a request was submitted until the first response is produced. Fairness - Equal CPU time to each thread.     In real-time environments, such as mobile devices for automatic control in industry (for example robotics), the scheduler also must ensure that processes can meet deadlines; this is crucial for keeping the system stable. Scheduled tasks are sent to mobile devices and managed through an administrative back end. Types of operating system schedulers Long-term scheduler Mid-term scheduler Short-term scheduler Dispatcher Scheduling criteria Scheduling disciplines First in first out Shortest remaining time Fixed priority pre-emptive scheduling Round-robin scheduling Multilevel queue scheduling Overview How to choose a scheduling algorithm Operating system scheduler implementations Windows Mac OS Linux FreeBSD NetBSD Solaris Summary Further reading   See also References   Scheduling is an important tool for manufacturing and service industries, where it can have a major impact on the productivity of a process. In manufacturing, the purpose of scheduling is to minimize the production time and costs, by telling a production facility what to make, when, with which staff, and on which equipment. Similarily, scheduling in service industries, such as airlines and public transport, aim to maximize the efficiency of the operation and reduce costs. Modern computerised scheduling tools greatly outperform older manual scheduling methods. This provides the production scheduler with powerful graphical interfaces which can be used to visually optimize real-time work loads in various stages of the production, and pattern recognition allows the software to automatically create scheduling opportunities which might not be apparent without this view into the data. For example, an airline might wish to minimize the number of airport gates required for its aircraft, in order to reduce costs, and scheduling software can allow the planners to see how this can be done, by analysing time tables, aircraft usage, or the flow of passengers. Companies use backward and forward scheduling to plan their human and material resources. Backward scheduling is planning the tasks from the due date to detemine the start date and/or any changes in capacity required, whereas forward scheduling is planning the tasks from the start date to determine the shipping date or the due date. Integrating Planning into Scheduling

 

The Benefits of Production Scheduling include:

• Process change-over reduction
• Inventory reduction, levelling
• Reduced scheduling effort
• Increased production efficiency
• Labour load levelling
• Accurate delivery date quotes
• Real time information

 

External links

• What is production scheduling?
• Kanban Scheduling
• Open source solutions
• Commercial solutions

 

Web Cases

• Old Oregon Wood Store

 

 

Just-in-Time and Lean Production Systems

Tutorials

• Just-in-Time and Lean Production Systems

 

Readings

Just In Time (JIT) is an inventory strategy implemented to improve the return on investment of a business by reducing in-process inventory and its associated costs. The process is driven by a series of signals, or Kanban (Jp. カンバン also 看板), that tell production processes to make the next part. Kanban are usually simple visual signals, such as the presence or absence of a part on a shelf. JIT can lead to dramatic improvements in a manufacturing organization's return on investment, quality, and efficiency when implemented correctly.

New stock is ordered when stock reaches the re-order level. This saves warehouse space and costs. However, one drawback of the JIT system is that the re-order level is determined by historical demand. If demand rises above the historical average planning duration demand, the firm could deplete inventory and cause customer service issues. To meet a 95% service rate a firm must carry about 2 standard deviations of demand in safety stock. Forecasted shifts in demand should be planned for around the Kanban until trends can be established to reset the appropriate Kanban level. In recent years manufacturers have touted a trailing 13 week average is a better predictor than most forecasters could provide.

 

History Philosophy Effects Benefits Problems Within a JIT System Within a raw material stream Oil   Theory See also Business Lean manufacturing Logistics Management Manufacturing Statistical process control Total Quality Management Vendor Managed Inventory

References External links "NWLEAN: http://www.nwlean.net/” - The Northwest Lean Networks - A free knowledge-sharing website, with over 10,000 professionals discussing the various aspects of lean implementation. "Lean Blog” A blog focused on lean manufacturing, Toyota Production System, and lean health care news. Strengths & Weaknesses of Just In Time “Just In Time drives on” - The Manufacturer Magazine US - An article discussing the continued impact of Just In Time in the automotive sector.

 

Lean Manufacturing is a management philosophy focusing on reduction of the seven wastes (Over-production, Waiting time, Transportation, Processing, Inventory, Motion and Scrap) in manufactured products or any type of business. By eliminating waste (muda), quality is improved, production time is reduced and cost is reduced. Lean "tools" include constant process analysis (kaizen), "pull" production (by means of kanban) and mistake-proofing (poka yoke). Lean, as a management philosophy, is also very focused on creating a better workplace through the Toyota principle of "respect for humanity."

The key lean manufacturing principles:

1. Perfect first-time quality - quest for zero defects, revealing & solving problems at the source

2. Waste minimization – eliminating all activities that do not add value & safety nets, maximize use of scarce resources (capital, people and land)

3. Continuous improvement – reducing costs, improving quality, increasing productivity and information sharing

4. Pull processing: products are pulled from the consumer end, not pushed from the production end

5. Flexibility – producing different mixes or greater diversity of products quickly, without sacrificing efficiency at lower volumes of production

6. Building and maintaining a long term relationship with suppliers through collaborative risk sharing, cost sharing and information sharing arrangements.

Lean is basically all about getting the right things, to the right place, at the right time, in the right quantity while minimizing waste and being flexible and open to change.

 

 

Lean thinking got its name from a 1990’s best seller called "The Machine That Changed the World : The Story of Lean Production". The book chronicles the transitions of automobile manufacturing from craft production to mass production to lean production.

The seminal book "Lean Thinking" by Womack and Jones, introduced five core concepts:

1. Specify value in the eyes of the customer
2. Identify the value stream and eliminate waste
3. Make value flow at the pull of the customer
4. Involve and empower employees
5. Continuously improve in the pursuit of perfection.

• History
• Types of waste
• System engineering
• Mechanical engineering
• Software engineering
• Lean health care

 

External links

See also

• Kaizen
• Manufacturing
• Process Reengineering
• Just In Time
• Theory of constraints
• Toyota Production System
• Six Sigma
• Books on lean production

 

External links

• Lean Manufacturing Training Lean Manufacturing Training Onsite And Online Programs
• "Lean Manufacturing Training" Online Lean Manufacturing Classes.
• “Lean Enterprise Institute” James Womack and the LEI, a leading source on lean.
• “Lean Blog” A blog focused on lean manufacturing, Toyota Production System, and lean health care news.
• “Lean concepts Blog”A Blog By Aza Badurdeen to explain the basics and concepts of lean manufacturing
• “Formula for Success in New Product Development” A white paper on the benefits of Lean Manufacturing in New Product Development
• “The Lean Library” The Lean Library - find books and other information on lean
• “Maintaining the spirit of innovation” - The Manufacturer Magazine
• Curious Cat - Deming and lean website Lean manufacturing articles by Womack, Bodek, Jones, Convis and many more
• “Is WIP Investment Hurting You?” - Technical paper by Tim Archer
• "Lean Manufacturing Pollution Prevention Topic Hub"
• "Forklift Free Plants...Considerations for Success" by John Neumann, Larry Tyler, Mike Urban

 

Activities

• Just-in-Time Systems

 

 

Maintenance and Reliability

Tutorials

• Maintenance and Reliability

 

Readings

Reliability-centered maintenance, often known as RCM, is a process to ensure that assets continue to do what their users require in their present operating context.[1]

It is generally used to achieve improvements in fields such as the establishment of safe minimum levels of maintenance, changes to operating procedures and strategies and the establishment of capital maintenance regimes and plans. Successful implementation of RCM will lead to increase in cost effectiveness, machine uptime, and a greater understanding of the level of risk that the organization is presently managing.

The late John Moubray, in his industry leading book RCM2 [2], characterized Reliability-centered Maintenance as a process to establish the safe minimum levels of maintenance. This description echoed statements in the Nowlan and Heap report from United Airlines.

It is defined by the technical standard SAE JA1011 [3], Evaluation Criteria for RCM Processes, which sets out the minimum criteria that any process should meet before it can be called RCM. This starts with the 7 questions below, worked through in the order that they are listed:

 

1.What is the item supposed to do and its associated performance standards? 2.In what ways can it fail to provide the required functions? 3.What are the events that cause each failure? 4.What happens when each failure occurs? 5.In what way does each failure matter? 6.What systematic task can be performed proactively to prevent, or to diminish to a satisfactory degree, the consequences of the failure? 7.What must be done if a suitable preventive task cannot be found?

 

Reliability centred maintenance is an engineering framework that enables the definition of a complete maintenance regime. It regards maintenance as the means to maintain the functions a user may require of machinery in a defined operating context. As a discipline it enables machinery stakeholders to monitor, assess, predict and generally understand the working of their physical assets. This is embodied in the initial part of the RCM process which is to identify the operating context of the machinery, and write a Failure Mode Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA). The second part of the analysis is to apply the "RCM logic", which helps determine the appropriate maintenance tasks for the identified failure modes in the FMECA. Once the logic is complete for all elements in the FMECA, the resulting list of maintenance is "packaged", so that the periodicities of the tasks are rationalised to be called up in work packages; it is important not to destroy the applicability of maintenance in this phase. Lastly, RCM is kept live throughout the "in-service" life of machinery, where the effectiveness of the maintenance is kept under constant review and adjusted in light of the experience gained.

Reliability Centred Maintenance can be used to create a cost-effective maintenance strategy to address dominant causes of equipment failure. It is a systematic approach to defining a routine maintenance program composed of cost-effective tasks that preserve important functions.

The important functions (of a piece of equipment) to preserve with routine maintenance are identified, their dominant failure modes and causes determined and the consequences of failure ascertained. Levels of criticality are assigned to the consequences of failure. Some functions are not critical and are left to "run to failure" while other functions must be preserved at all cost. Maintenance tasks are selected that address the dominant failure causes. This process directly addresses maintenance preventable failures. Failures caused by unlikely events, non-predictable acts of nature, etc. will usually receive no action provided their risk (combination of severity and frequency) is trivial (or at least tolerable). When the risk of such failures is very high, RCM encourages (and sometimes mandates) the user to consider changing something which will reduce the risk to a tolerable level.

The result is a maintenance program that focuses scarce economic resources on those items that would cause the most disruption if they were to fail.

RCM emphasizes the use of Predictive maintenance (PdM) techniques in addition to traditional preventive measures.

• Historical background
• Basic Features
• In use
• Further reading

 

See also

• Value driven maintenance
• Maintenance, repair and operations
• References

 

External links

• Article:RCM Policy: New Method of Residual Lifetime Prediction According to Item's Actual Operating State
• Article:A Cost-Effective RCM Policy for Periodically Inspected Equipment Items
• Web Page: Description of RCM and its benefits.
• A Framework for Achieving Best Practice in Maintenance
  • The Six Levers of Change

   

  In developing ideas for solutions to address Maintenance issues, often promising new solutions are rejected out of hand or not seriously studied because the change team imagines that the solutions are "out of bounds", or because the scope that the team has established for itself is not wide enough. Similarly, the team may choose not to look in directions that its members consider "out of bounds". Large scale change in Maintenance can only be successfully implemented by focussing on all the key "pressure points" in your organisation that will repay your efforts. These can be conceptualised as lying along several dimensions. We have found it useful to formalise these dimensions through the concept of the levers of change, as outlined below.

   

  

 

In general, Reliability (systemic def.) is an ability of a system to perform/maintain its functions in routine and also in different hostile or/and unexpected circumstances.

In natural language it may also denotes persons which acts efficiently in proper moments/circumstances (infallibile).

Reliability may refer to:

• Reliability (statistics), of a set of data
• Experimental reliability of an experiment.
• Reliabilism in philosophy and epistemology
• Data reliability, a property of some disk arrays in computer storage.
• Reliability engineering ensures a system will be reliable when operated in a specified manner
• Reliability theory, as a theoretical concept, to explain biological aging and species longevity
• For telecommunications, see unreliable.
• Reliability (computer networking) is a category used to describe protocols.

 

In statistics, Reliability is the consistency of a set of measurements or measuring instrument. Reliability does not imply validity. That is, a reliable measure is measuring something consistently, but not necessarily what it is supposed to be measuring. For example, while there are many reliable tests, not all of them would validly predict job performance. In experimental sciences, reliability is the extent to which the measurements of a test remain consistent over repeated tests of the same subject under identical conditions. An experiment is reliable if it yields consistent results of the same measure. It is unreliable if repeated measurements give different results. Estimation Classical test theory Item response theory

See also

• Accuracy
• Homogeneity
• Levels of measurement
• Precision
• Reliability theory
• Scientific method
• Statistics
• Validity (statistics)
• Variation

 

External links

• Reliability
• Uncertainty models, uncertainty quantification, and uncertainty processing in engineering
• The relationships between correlational and internal consistency concepts of test reliability
• The problem of negative reliabilities
• WWW Sites of Reliability Interest

 

 

Statistical Methods for Reliability Data William Q. Meeker, Luis A. Escobar ISBN: 0-471-14328-6 Hardcover 712 pages Table of Contents Chapter 1 pdf , Chapter 2 pdf , Chapter 3 pdf , Chapter 4 pdf , Chapter 5 pdf , Chapter 6 pdf , Chapter 7 pdf , Chapter 8 pdf , Chapter 9 pdf , Chapter 10 pdf , Chapter 11 pdf , Chapter 12 pdf , Chapter 13 pdf , Chapter 14 pdf , Chapter 15 pdf , Chapter 16 pdf , Chapter 17 pdf , Chapter 18 pdf , Chapter 19 pdf , Chapter 20 pdf , Chapter 21 pdf   Check the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop.

 

 

Failure rate is the frequency with an engineered system or component fails, expressed for example in failures per hour. It is often denoted by the Greek letter λ (lambda) and is important in reliability theory. Failure rate is usually time dependent. For example, as an automobile grows older, the failure rate in its fifth year of service may be greater than its failure rate during its first year of service. However, in the special case when the likelihood of failure remains constant as time passes, failure rate is simply the inverse of the mean time to failure, expressed for example in hours per failure. Failure rate in the discrete sense Failure rate in the continuous sense Failure rate data Units Additivity Example

See also

• Failure
• Failure mode
• Reliability
• Reliability theory
• Reliability theory of aging and longevity
• Reliability engineering
• Survival analysis
• Weibull distribution
• MTBF
• Annualized failure rate
• Burn in
• References
  • Print
  • Online

 

External links

 

Activity

• Maintenance and Reliability

 

Web Case

• Cartak's Department Store

 

Workshops

Decision-Making Tools

•  Time-Critical Decision Making for Business Administration

 

In decision theory, a Decision Tree is a graph of decisions and their possible consequences, (including resource costs and risks) used to create a plan to reach a goal. Decision trees are constructed in order to help with making decisions. A decision tree is a special form of tree structure. General Types Practical example Formulas Gini impurity Information gain Misclassification measure Decision tree advantages Extending decision trees with decision graphs   See also Pruning (Algorithm) External sources Decision Tree Analysis mindtools.com   J.W. Comley and D.L. Dowe, "Minimum Message Length, MDL and Generalised Bayesian Networks with Asymmetric Languages", chapter 11 (pp265-294) in P. Grunwald, M.A. Pitt and I.J. Myung (eds)., Advances in Minimum Description Length: Theory and Applications, M.I.T. Press, April 2005, ISBN 0262072629. (This paper puts decision trees in internal nodes of Bayesian networks using Minimum Message Length (MML). An earlier version is Comley and Dowe (2003), .pdf.) P.J. Tan and D.L. Dowe (2004), MML Inference of Oblique Decision Trees, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI) 3339, Springer-Verlag, pp1082-1088. (This paper uses Minimum Message Length and actually incorporates probabilistic support vector machines in the leaves of the decision trees.) Eruditionhome Great directory site for data mining resources Decision Tree Basics vanguardsw.com General Morphological Analysis: A General Method for Non-Quantified Modelling From the Swedish Morphological Society decisiontrees.net Interactive Tutorial Decision Tree tutorials and software visionarytools.com Building Decision Trees in Python From O'Reilly. Decision Trees page at aaai.org, a page with commented links.

 

Decision Tables are a precise yet compact way to model complicated logic. Decision tables, like if-then-else and switch-case statements, associate conditions with actions to perform. But, unlike the control structures found in traditional programming languages, decision tables can associate many independent conditions with several actions in an elegant way.

• Structure
• Example
• Software engineering benefits

 

See also

• Decision trees
• Case based reasoning

 

External links

• More decision table examples
• Statestep decision table
• Overview and history of decision tables
• Rule engines utilising decision tables
• Decision Table Based Methodology

 

See also Expected Value of Perfect Information   Activities Decision Making   Web Cases Arctic, Inc. Toledo Leather Company

In decision theory, the Expected Value of Perfect Information (abbreviated EVPI) is the price that one would be willing to pay in order to gain access to perfect information. The expected value of perfect information is defined to be the difference between the expected value given perfect information and the expected monetary value: Here, the expected value given perfect information is where pj is the probability that the system is in state j, and Rij is the pay-off if one follows action i while the system is in state j. Furthermore, the expected monetary value is EVPI provides a criterion by which to judge ordinary mortal forecasters. EVPI can be used to reject costly proposals but not to accept any forecasting offers because one needs to know the quality of the information one is acquiring.

 

 
Linear Programming

• Linear Programming

 

In mathematics, linear programming (LP) problems are optimization problems in which the objective function and the constraints
are all linear.

Linear programming is an important field of optimization for several reasons. Many practical problems in operations research can be expressed as linear programming problems. Certain special cases of linear programming, such as network flow problems and multicommodity flow problems are considered important enough to have generated much research on specialized algorithms for their solution. A number of algorithms for other types of optimization problems work by solving LP problems as sub-problems. Historically, ideas from linear programming have inspired many of the central concepts of optimization theory, such as duality, decomposition, and the importance of convexity and its generalizations. Likewise, linear programming is heavily used in microeconomics and bussiness management, either to maximize the income or minimize the costs of a production scheme. Standard form Example Augmented form (slack form) Example Duality Theory Algorithms Open problems Integer unknowns

A series of linear constraints on two variables produces a region of possible values for those variables. Solvable problems will have a feasible region in the shape of a simple polygon.

 

See also

• Optimization, or mathematical programming
• The Simplex Method I
  • Simplex algorithm
  • Towards the Simplex Method for Efficient Solution for Linear Programs
  • Shadow price
• MPS file format
• LP example, Job Shop problem
• References

 

External links

• Introduction
• LP Problem Formulation Process and Its Applications
  • The Carpenter's Problem: Allocating scarce resources among competitive means
  • A Product-Replacement Problem
  • A Diet Problem
  • A Blending Problem
  • Other Common Applications of LP
• Graphical Solution Method (two-dimensional decisions)
• Links Between LP and Systems of Equations: Algebraic Method
• Extension to Higher Dimensions
• Numerical Example: The Transportation Problem
• How to Solve a Linear System of Equations by LP Solvers?

 

Activity

• Linear Programming

 

Case Study

• Chase Manhattan Bank

 

 

What is the minimum-cost schedule for the bank?

What are the limitations of the model used to answer the above question?

Costs might be reduced by relaxing the constraint that no more than 40 percent of the day's requirement by met by part-timers. Would changing the 40 percent to a higher value significantly reduce costs?

 

Transportation Models

Route assignment, route choice, or traffic assignment concerns the selection of routes (alternative called paths) between origins and destinations in transportation networks. It is the fourth step in the conventional transportation planning model, following trip generation, trip distribution, and mode choice. The zonal interchange analysis of trip distribution provides origin-destination trip tables. Mode choice analysis tells which travelers will use which mode. To determine facility needs and costs and benefits, we need to know the number of travelers on each route and link of the network (a route is simply a chain of links between an origin and destination). We need to undertake traffic (or trip) assignment. Suppose there is a network of highways and transit systems and a proposed addition. We first want to know the present pattern of traffic delay and then what would happen if the addition were made. Auto assignment Long-standing techniques Heuristic procedures Frank-Wolfe algorithm Equilibrium assignment Example Transit assignment Integrating travel choices Integrating travel demand with route assignment Discussion

 

See also

• The Transportation Problem
• References

 

 

In graph theory, a network flow is an assignment of flow to the edges of a directed graph (called a flow network in this case) where each edge has a capacity, such that the amount of flow along an edge does not exceed its capacity. In addition you have the restriction that the amount of flow into a node equals the amount of flow out of it, except if it is a source, which only has outgoing flow, or sink, which has only incoming flow. A flow network can be used to simulate traffic in a road system, fluids in pipes, currents in an electrical circuit, or anything similar in which something travels through a network of nodes.

• Definition
• Example
• Applications
• Generalisations and specialisations
  • Relationship between network flow problems

 

External links

• Maximum Flow Problem
• Maximum Flow
• Ford-Fulkerson Max Flow Labeling Algorithm
• References

 

See also

• Network Flow Programming
  • The Northwest Corner Rule

 

Facility location analysis

 

Activity

• Transportation Models

 

Web Cases

• Consolidated Bottling
• Northwest General Hospital

 

Recommended Text

 

Principles of Operations Management, 8/e Jay Heizer Barry Render Check the availability and buy your books from our Bookshop.

 

Resources

• Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences

• Operations Management - BizEd
• Productivity

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Case Studies

The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA, TYO: 7661 ) is the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer by revenue. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Boeing is the second-largest defence contractor in the world.^[1] In 2005, the company was the world’s largest civil aircraft manufacturer in terms of value (with 49% of orders and 45% of deliveries), overtaking Airbus for the first time since 2000. The largest exporter in the United States, Boeing’s stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

• History
  • Before 1950s
  • 1950s
  • 1 1960s
  • 1970s
  • 1980s
  • 1990s
  • 2000s
• Digital film and Hollywood
• Recent history
  • Unethical conduct
  • Industrial espionage
  • Airbus subsidy dispute
  • Product developments
  • Future Concepts
• Divisions
• Employment Numbers
  • Employment By Location
  • Employment by Group (Division)
• Corporate governance
  • Current Board of Directors
  • Chief executive officer
  • Chairman of the board
  • President

 

See also

• Airbus
  • Arianespace
  • Boeing Aircraft Holding Company
  • Lockheed Martin
  • Northrop Grumman
  • Phillip G. Johnson
• References

 

External links

• Boeing order sheet, year-to-date
• Boeing’s Triumph: The American Jetliner
• Yahoo! - The Boeing Company Company Profile
• Transcripts of The Boeing Company's Quarterly Conference Calls
• Boeing and WTO
• BBC
• Complete productionlist starting with Model 1

 

 

Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is an American international communications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. Divisions History Diversity Products Competitors   External links Motorola’s Global Strategy

 

 

 

Fruit of the Loom is a American company which manufactures clothing, particularly underwear. The company's world headquarters are based in Bowling Green, Kentucky. One manufacturing facility still remains in Jamestown, Kentucky and several other facilities are located across the Southeastern United States, from Louisiana to the Carolinas. Other facilities exist in Canada, El Salvador, Honduras, Europe and North Africa. Until the late 1990s, much of the manufacturing was done in the United States. Fruit of the Loom is unique with the unconditional guarantee on all the products it sells. The brand has significant market share for basic apparel. The familiar logo with the apple, grapes, currants and leaves is ranked one of the most recognizeable trademarks world wide. The company is a vertically integrated manufacturer. The company also controls another long-known underwear brand, B.V.D. (Bradley, Voorhees, and Day). Other brands also manufactured and sold by the company are Funpals, Screen Stars and Underoos. Brands once owned or marketed by Fruit of the Loom include Gitano, Munsingwear, Pro Player, and Salem Sportswear. History Trivia Sources   External links Fruit of the Loom Tries E-Commerce Video Featuring the Fruit of the Loom Guys. Company site.

 

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO, SEHK: 4333) is an American manufacturer of telecommunications equipment based in California. The company originally manufactured only enterprise routing equipment, but it now sells a variety of devices for both enterprises and telecommunications carriers. These include, but are not limited to: Ethernet switches Branch office routers and CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) IP Telephony products such as IP PBXes (CallManager), VoIP gateways and IP phones Network security devices such as Firewalls, VPN concentrators, Network and Host Intrusion Prevention and Software Metro optical switching platforms Large carrier grade core and edge routers / MPLS switches Carrier and enterprise ATM switches Cable Modem Termination Systems (CMTSes) DSL subscriber aggregation / concentration equipment Remote access and universal gateways Storage Area Network (SAN) switches and appliances Network management software and appliances Wireless [1] Home networking products (via the Linksys division) Cable television products (via the Scientific Atlanta division) Cisco's tag line is "The Worldwide Leader in Networking for the Internet" [2]. Corporate history Executives Origin of the Cisco name Corporate acquisitions A partial list of products Criticism   See also External links Cisco’s E-commerce Connection Yahoo! - Cisco Systems, Inc. Company Profile Google Finance - Cisco Systems, Inc. Cisco video on the history of the company Video and audio of speech by CEO John Chambers at Duke University Information on Cisco Certifications Interactive Overview - 20 Years of Cisco

 

 

The Chase Manhattan Bank was formed by the merger of the Chase National Bank and the Bank of the Manhattan Company in 1955.

The Bank of the Manhattan Company had been founded in 1799 by Aaron Burr, and Chase National Bank was named for former United States Treasury Secretary and Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, although Chase never had any connection with the latter entity.

At the time of the merger in the 1950s, Chase National, which the Rockefeller family had exercised strong influence over since its merger in 1930 with the Equitable Trust bank that had been owned by John D. Rockefeller Jr., was led by John J. McCloy. As Chase was much the larger of the two banks, it was first intended that Chase acquire the "Bank of Manhattan", as it was nicknamed, but it transpired that Burr's original charter for the Manhattan Company had not only included the clause allowing it (originally a water company) to start a bank with surplus funds, but another requiring unanimous consent of shareholders for the bank to be taken over. Therefore, the deal was structured as an acquisition of Chase National by the Bank of the Manhattan Company, with McCloy becoming chairman of the merged entity.

Under his successor George Champion, the antiquated 1799 state charter was relinquished for a modern one, and under his successor, David Rockefeller, the bank became part of a bank holding company, the Chase Manhattan Corporation. The merger of The Chase Manhattan Corporation and J.P. Morgan & Co. Incorporated was completed in December 2000. The merged company is named J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (also referred to as JPMorgan Chase). Chase bank also merged with Bank One in the year 2005 and is America's 2nd largest Credit card issuer only after Bank of America.

• Linear Programming

 

 

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