Managing Production & Service Operations

Operations

Operations

Any process that accepts inputs and uses resources to change those inputs in useful ways.

Inputs

Include land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship.

Transformation Process

Converts the inputs into final goods or services.

Operations Management (Aldag & Stearns)

The process of planning, organizing, and controlling operations to reach objectives efficiently and effectively.

Efficiency

Related to the cost of doing something or the resource utilization involved.

Effectiveness

Refers to goal accomplishment.

Manufacturing Engineer

his function is "to determine and define the equipment, tools, and processes required to convert the design of the desired product into reality in an efficient manner.

Job Shop

is one whose production is "based on sales orders for a variety of small lots." These are very useful components of the entire production effort, since they manufacture products in small lots that are needed by, but cannot be produced economically by many companies.

Batch Flow Process

is where lots of generally own designed products are manufactured.

Worker-Paced Assembly Line

An assembly line refers to a production layout arranged in a sequence to accommodate processing of large volumes of standardized products or services. The quality and quantity of output in a worker-paced assembly line depends to a great extent to the skill of the labor utilized.

Machine-Paced Assembly Line

This type of production process produces mostly standard products with machines playing a significant role.

Continuous Flow

is characterized by "the rapid rate at which items move through the system." This processing method is very appropriate for producing highly standardized products like calculators, typewriters, automobiles, televisions, cellular phones, etc.

Batch/Continuous Flow Hybrid

This method of processing is a combination of the batch and the continuous flow.The typical size of operation is also very large giving opportunities for economies of scale. Examples of companies using the batch/continuous flow hybrid are breweries, gelatin producers, and tobacco manufacturers.

Service Factory

offers a limited mix of services which results to some economies of scale in operations.

Service Shop

Provides a diverse mix of services, adaptable layouts, and examples include car maintenance shops like Servitek and Megashell.

Mass Service

Provides services to a large number of people simultaneously, using a fixed position layout for customer movement.

Professional Services

Companies offering specialized services like consulting, design, advertising, accounting, legal, data processing, and health services.

Productive Systems

Consist of activities like product design, production planning, purchasing, inventory control, work flow layout, and quality control to ensure efficient operations.

Product design

refers to "the process of creating a set of product specifications appropriate to the demands of the situation." Companies wanting to maintain or improve its market share keeps a __________ team composed of engineers, manufacturing, and marketing specialists.

Production planning

may be defined as "forecasting the future sales of a given product, translating this forecast into the demand it generates for various production facilities, and arranging for the procurement of these facilities." This is a very important activity because it helps management to make decisions regarding capacity. When the right decisions are made, there will be less opportunities for wastages.

Scheduling

- is the "phase of production control involved in developing timetables that specify how long each operation in the production process takes."

Manufacturing processes

are those that refer to the making of products by hand or with machinery.

Typical operations manager

is one with several years of experience in the operations division and possesses an academic background in engineering.

Engineer, as operations manager

must find ways to contribute to the production of quality goods or services and the reduction of costs in his department.

Engineer in charge of operations in a construction firm

is responsible for the actual construction of whatever bridge or road his company has agreed to put up. He is required to do it using the least-expensive and the easiest methods.

Engineer Manager

is expected to produce some output at whatever management level he is.

Efficient scheduling

assures the optimization of the use of human and nonhuman resources.

Purchasing and Materials Management

Firms need to purchase supplies and materials required in the various production activities. The ________ must be undertaken with a high degree of efficiency and effectiveness specially in firms engaged in high volume production. The wider variety of supplies and materials needed adds to the necessity of proper managing and purchasing of materials.

Materials management

refers to "the approach that seeks efficiency of operation through integration of al material acquisition, movement, and storage activities in the firm "

Inventory control

is the process of establishing and maintaining appropriate levels of reserve stocks of goods. As supplies and materials are required by firms in the production process, these must be kept available when they are needed. Too much reserves of stocks will penalize the firm in terms of high storage costs and other related risks like obsolescence and theft. Too little reserves, on the other hand, may mean lost income opportunities if production activities are hampered. A balance between the two extremes must be determined.

Work-flow layout

is the process of determining the physical arrangement of the production system. In the transformation process, this may be done either haphazardly or orderly. The job of the operations manager is to assure that a cost-effective_______is installed.

Quality control

refers to the measurement of products or services against standards set by the company. Certain standard requirements are maintained by the management to facilitate production and to keep customers satisfied. Poor quality control breeds customer complaints, returned merchandise, expensive lawsuits, and huge promotional expenditures.