Operations and Supply Chain Management Study Guide

A set of flashcards covering key concepts from Chapters 5 to 9 in Operations and Supply Chain Management.

Lean Principles

Elimination of waste, respect for people, and continuous improvement.

Types of Waste (Muda)

Overproduction, waiting, transportation, overprocessing, inventory, motion, defects, underutilized talent.

Pull vs Push Systems

Pull systems respond to actual demand while push systems forecast demand.

Just-in-Time (JIT) Logic

A strategy that aligns production schedules with customer demand to minimize inventory.

Kanban System

A signaling system for controlling the logistical chain from a production point of view.

5S

A workplace organization method that uses five Japanese words: Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu, and Shitsuke.

Capacity

The maximum output that an organization can produce in a given period.

Capacity Cushion

The amount of reserve capacity a company maintains to handle sudden increases in demand.

Utilization

The percentage of capacity that is actually used.

Economies of Scale

Cost advantages gained by an increased level of production.

Bottleneck

A stage in a process that reduces the overall speed of the process.

Theory of Constraints (TOC)

A methodology for managing organizations to achieve their goals by identifying and addressing constraints.

Little’s Law

A formula that relates the average number of items in a queuing system to the average waiting time.

Critical Path Method (CPM)

A project management technique to determine the longest stretch of dependent activities.

Forecast Error

The difference between the forecasted demand and the actual demand.

Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD)

A measure of the accuracy of a forecasting method.

Tracking Signal

A measure of how well the forecast predicts actual demand.