If you were the owner of a small local retail shop, what criteria would you use to select suppliers for the goods that you wish to stock in your shop? Visit two or three shops that are local to you and ask the owners how they select their suppliers. In what way were their answers different from what you thought they might be?
> Keaston-Trenton Service (KTS) was a domestic heating boiler maintenance company, based in the East of England. Founded in the 1960s by plumber Christopher Trenton, it had grown substantially and was now run jointly by Christopher’s two
> Well that’s the bad news!’, said Tao, the Managing Director of Kloud BV, a consulting and executive development firm headquartered in Amsterdam, specializing in operations and supply chain improvement. â€
> Slaveless Industrial Services (SIS) had become one of Europe’s most respected suppliers of die-cast zinc, aluminum and magnesium parts to hundreds of companies in many industries, especially automotive and defense. The company cast and engineered precisi
> There is no doubt that it was a disaster for the laboratory. It was the first time that a client had withdrawn from a contract so soon, and it was our fault entirely. It was also a disaster for Vincent. I feel sorry for him. I had known him for years. He
> Mario Romano, the owner and General Manager of Ferndale Sands Conference Centre, had just seen an article in The Conference Centre Journal, and he was furious. The excellent reputation that he had worked so hard to build up over the last ten years was be
> led to an understanding of all the processes that affected quality indicators. It was a shift to seeing the hospital as a whole set of processes that governed a set of flows – flows of patients through their treatment stages, flows of c
> It had been ten years since Dan Audial founded Audial Auto Servicing as an independent vehicle-servicing and repair business. Previously he had been the manager of the servicing department of a ‘premium’ car dealership
> Focus plastics (see the previous question) moved into what it called ‘design house partnerships’ – design collaboration between their internal designers and Italian design houses, creative product designers who rarely manufacture or distribute their own
> Founded more than 20 years ago, supplies4medics.com has become one of Europe’s most successful direct-mail suppliers of medical hardware and consumables to hospitals, doctors’ and dentists’ surgeries,
> Carlos, are you ready to head out then?’, Antonia called across the office. ‘Too right! After the morning I’ve had, I could do with the break!’ Carlos laughed, as he grabbed his wall
> It was a warm afternoon as Stefano Moretto, Commercial Director of Hinkley Point C (HPC), and Eva Glens, Senior Supply Chain Engagement Manager, stood looking out of their office. Stefano, having recently joined EDF, had been tasked with establishing a
> Action Response is a London-based charity dedicated to providing fast responses to critical situations throughout the world. It was founded by Susan Nutini, its Chief Executive, to provide relatively short-term aid for small projects until they could obt
> Revisit the case example that examines legal and general’s modular housing venture. Does their use of a factory to ‘build’ houses invalidate the idea that volume and variety govern the nature of operations processes?
> Visit a supermarket and observe people’s behavior. You may have to exercise some discretion when doing this; people generally don’t like to be stalked around the supermarket too obviously. (a) What layout type is a conventional supermarket and how does i
> The table below shows the planned time and budget for a legal consulting project being developed for a client in Copenhagen, Denmark. Complete an earned value analysis (EVA) for the project based at the end of month 4, given that only activities A, B and
> The table below shows the activities, their durations and predecessors for designing, writing and installing a bespoke computer database for a commercial bank headquartered in Singapore. Draw a network diagram (activity-on-node) for the project and calcu
> Revisit the Vasa project example in this chapter. (a) Who should be held responsible for this disaster? (b) What can be learnt from the Vasa story for the management of different kinds of modern-day projects?
> Four Seasons Hotels is a chain of very ‘upmarket’ hotels famed for its quality of service. From its inception the group has had the same guiding principle, to make the quality of our service our competitive advantage. The company has what it calls its Go
> Focus plastics originally made precision plastic components for the Aerospace sector, together with some basic (cheap) ‘homeware’ items such as buckets and dustpans. However, competition became intense in this market, so they decided to specialize in hom
> Consider a country operating under fixed exchange rates. The IS curve is given by equation (20.1) a. Explain the term (i* - πe). Why does the foreign nominal interest rate appear in the relation? b. Explain why when πe increases, t
> Human error is a significant source of quality problems. Think through the times that you have (with hindsight) made an error and answer the following questions. (a) How do you think that human error causes quality problems? (b) What could one do to mini
> Step 1 – As a group, identify a ‘high visibility’ operation that you all are familiar with. This could be a type of quick service restaurant, record stores, public transport systems, libraries, etc. Step 2 – Once you have identified the broad class of op
> A transport services company provides a whole range of services to railway operators. Its reputation for quality was a valuable asset in its increasingly competitive market. ‘We are continually looking for innovation in the way we deliver our services be
> For over 10 years, a hotel group, had been developing self-managed improvement groups within its hotels. At one hotel reception desk, staff were concerned about the amount of time the reception desk was left unattended. To investigate this, the staff beg
> Develop cause–effect diagrams for the following types of problem: • staff waiting too long for their calls to be answered at their IT helpdesk; • poor food in the company restaurant; • poor lecturing from teaching staff at a university; • customer compla
> Everything we do can be broken down into a process’ said Lucile, COO of an outsourcing business for the ‘back office’ functions of a range of companies. ‘It may be more straightforward in a manufacturing business, but the concept of process improvement i
> Sophie was sick of her daily commute. ‘Why’, she thought ‘should I have to spend so much time in a morning stuck in traffic listening to some babbling halfwit on the radio? We can work flexi- time after all. Perhaps I should leave the apartment at some o
> A production process is required to produce 980 of product X, 560 of product Y and 280 of product Z in a 4-week period. If the process works 7 hours per day and 5 days per week, devise a mixed model schedule per hour that would meet this demand.
> Examine the marking process of an assignment you are currently working on. What is the typical elapsed time between handing the assignment in and receiving it back with comments? How much of this elapsed time do you think is value added time?
> An insurance underwriting process consists of the following separate stages. What is the value-added percentage for the process? (Hint – use Little’s law to work out how long applications have to wait at each stage bef
> The health clinic described in the worked example earlier in the chapter has expanded by hiring one extra employee and now has six employees. It has also leased some new health monitoring equipment which allows patients to be processed faster. This means
> Consider this record of an ordinary flight. ‘Breakfast was a little rushed but left the house at 6.15. Had to return a few minutes later, forgot my passport. Managed to find it and leave (again) by 6.30. Arrived at the airport 7.00, dropped Angela off wi
> The Zucchero mail-order clothing company in Milan receives order forms, types in the customer details, checks the information provided from the customers and that the products are in stock, confirms payment and processes the order. During an average eigh
> What elements of lean are described in the Toyota Production System (TPS)?
> A lunch kiosk serves two meals every day: Veggie Fritters and Mushroom Stroganoff, the recipes for which are as follows. Veggie Fritters (serves 10) – Prepair the ‘veggie mix’ by grating 500 g of carrots, 500 g of courgettes (zucchini), and chopping 300
> Your company has developed a simple, but amazingly effective mango peeler. It is constructed from a blade and a supergrip handle that has a top piece and a bottom piece. The assembled mango peeler is packed in a simple recycled card pack. All the parts s
> Re-read the ‘Operations in practice’ example, ‘‘What a waste!’. Why did things go wrong with the relationship between SAP and Waste Management?
> Re-read the ‘Operations in practice’ example, ‘The life and times of a chicken salad sandwich Part 2’. Why do you think that integrating an ERP system with those of suppliers and customers is so difficult?
> Re-read the ‘Operations in practice’ example, ‘SAP and its partners’. If you were managing SAP’s strategic partner programme, how would you ensure their long-term collaboration?
> Rolls-Royce is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of gas turbines. They are exceptionally complex products, typically with around 25,000 parts, and hundreds of sub-assemblies, and their production is equally complex with over 600 external suppliers
> Re-read the ‘Operations in practice’ example on ‘An inventory of energy’. It mentions the potential of battery storage of energy, but stresses the cost of this method. What do you think would be the implications for energy distribution if batteries becom
> Xexon7 is a specialist artificial intelligence (AI) development firm that develops algorithms for various on-line services. As part of its client service it has a small (10-person) help-desk call centre to answer client queries. Clients could contact the
> Revisit the ‘Operations in practice’ example on the Blood and Transplant service at the beginning of the chapter. (a) What are the factors which constitute inventory holding costs, order costs, and stock-out costs in a National Blood Service? (b) What ma
> Our suppliers often offer better prices if we are willing to buy in larger quantities. This creates a pressure on us to hold higher levels of stock. Therefore, to find the best quantity to order we must compare the advantages of lower prices for purchase
> A fruit canning plant has a single line for three different fruit types. Demand for each type of tin is reasonably constant at 50,000 per month (a month has 160 production hours). The tinning process rate is 1,200 per hour, but it takes 2 hours to clean
> A local shop has a relatively stable demand for tins of sweetcorn throughout the year, with an annual total of 1400 tins. The cost of placing an order is estimated at £15 and the annual cost of holding inventory is estimated at 25 per cent of the product
> A supplier makes monthly shipments to ‘House & Garden Stores, in average lot sizes of 200 coffee tables. The average demand for these items is 50 tables per week, and the lead time from the supplier 3 weeks. ‘House & Garden Stores’ must pay for inventory
> Airline catering is a tough business. Meals must be of a quality that is appropriate for the class and type of flight, yet the Airlines who are their customers are always looking to keep costs as low as possible, menus must change frequently and respond
> Many companies devise a policy on ethical sourcing covering such things as workplace standards and business practices, Health and Safety conditions, human rights, legal systems, child labour, disciplinary practices, wages and benefits, etc. (a) What do y
> The example of the bull-whip effect shown in Table 12.2 shows how a simple 5 per cent reduction in demand at the end of supply chain causes fluctuations that increase in severity the further back an operations is placed in the chain. a) Using the same lo
> A chain of women’s apparel retailers had all their products made by Lopez Industries, a small but high-quality garment manufacturer. They worked on the basis of two seasons; Spring/Summer season and Autumn/Winter. ‘Sometimes we are left with surplus item
> The environmental services department of a city has two recycling services – newspaper collection (NC) and general recycling (GR). The NC service is a door-to-door collection service that, at a fixed time every week, collects old newspapers that househol
> Re-read the ‘Operations in practice’ example, ‘Extracts from Levi Strauss’ global sourcing policy’. (a) What do you think motivates a company like Levi Strauss to draw up a policy of this type? (b) What other issues would you include in such a supplier s
> A Pizza Company has a demand forecast for the next 12 months that is shown in the table below. The current workforce of 100 staff can produce 1,500 cases of pizzas per month. (a) Prepare a production plan that keeps the output level. How much warehouse s
> Seasonal demand is particularly important to the greetings card industry. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day Halloween, Valentine’s Day and other occasions have all been promoted as times to send (and buy) appropriately designed cards. Now, some card manufacture
> Revisit the example, ‘United breaks passengers’ operations. (a) How should the airline have handled the situation? (b) After the incident attracted so much negative publicity, United announced a new upper limit of $10,000 in compensation for passengers w
> In a typical 7-day period, the planning department of the pizza company programs its ‘Pizzamatic’ machine for 148 hours. It knows that changeovers and set-ups take 8 hours and breakdowns average 4 hours each week. Waiting for ingredients to be delivered
> A German car manufacturer defines ‘utilization’ as the ratio of actual output for a process to its design capacity, where design capacity is the capacity of a process as it is designed to operate. However, it knows tha
> In March, a law firm predicted April demand for 360 client consultations. Actual April demand was 410. Using a smoothing constant chosen by management of .20, what is forecast the May demand using the exponential smoothing model?
> The Games Delivery Authority (GDA) was a public body responsible for developing and building the new venues and infrastructure for the ‘International Games’ and their use after the event. The GDA appointed a consortium responsible for the overall program
> Read the following descriptions of two cinemas. Kinepolis in Brussels is one the largest cinema complexes in the world, with 28 screens, a total of 8000 seats, and four showings of each film every day. It is equipped with the latest projection technology
> It takes six hours for a contract laundry to wash, dry and press (in that order) a batch of overalls. It takes 3 hours to wash the batch, 2 hours to dry it, and 1 hour to press it. Usually each day’s batch is collected and ready for processing at 8.00 am
> Write down five services that you have ‘consumed’ in the last week. Try and make these as varied as possible. Examples could include public transport, a bank, any shop or supermarket, attendance at an education course, a cinema, a restaurant, etc. Try an
> It is week 35 of a busy year at Ashby Architect’s and Jo Ashby is facing a big problem. Both her two junior partners have been diagnosed with a serious illness contracted on a trip to scope out a prospective job in Lichtenstein. So Jo has to step in and
> Mark Key is an events coordinator for a small company. Returning from his annual holiday in France, he is given six events to plan. He gives them the codes A–F. He needs to decide upon the sequence in which to plan the events and wants
> Re-read the ‘Operations in practice’ examples, ‘Joanne manages the schedule’, and ‘Operations control at Air France’. How do the planning and control tasks in these two operations compare?
> Among the first large organization to take flexible working seriously in Europe was Lloyds TSB Banking Group. It adopted flexible working because it was sensitive to the social and economic changes that were affecting, both customers and staff. There wer
> Re-read the ‘Operations in practice’ example on ‘W. L. Gore & Associates Inc.’ (a) How is W.L. Gore different from most international corporations? (b) Why is Gore’s way of working particularly appropriate for how it competes in its markets?
> Service Adhesives Ltd. produces specialist adhesives. It has always been profitable, but there had been a slowdown in the company’s profits. Several improvement initiatives had attempted to reverse their declining position but none had fully taken hold.
> In the example above, one of the maids in the west wing wants to job share with his partner, each working 3 hours per day. His colleagues have agreed to support him and will guarantee to service all the rooms in the west wing to the same standard each da
> A hotel has two wings, an east wing and a west wing. Each wing has four ‘room service maids’ working 7-hour shifts to service the rooms each day. The east wing has 40 standard rooms, 12 deluxe rooms, and 5 suites. The west wing has 50 standard rooms and
> Operations managers can have a profound influence on how organizations’ implement their human resource strategy (the overall long-term approach to ensuring that an organization’s human resources provide a strategic advantage). One authority on human reso
> Using technology for staff surveillance is clearly a controversial issue. Re-read the ‘Operations in practice’ example that discusses using technology for surveillance and (a) draw up a list of possible positives and negatives that could result from staf
> Not all surgery conforms to our preconceptions of the individual ‘super-craftsperson’, aided by her back-up team, performing the whole operation from first incision to final stitch. Many surgical procedures are fairly routine. An example is the process t
> There have been a number of changes in medical process technology that have had a huge impact on the way healthcare operations manage themselves. In particular, telemedicine has challenged one of the most fundamental assumptions of medical treatment – th
> Process technology can impact all of the operations performance objectives (quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost). Think through, and identify, how process technology could affect these performance objectives in the airline industry.
> The international Frozen Pizza Company (IFPC) operates in three markets globally. Market 1 is its largest market where it sells 25,000 tons of pizza per year. In this market, it trades under the name ‘Aunt Bridget’s Pizza’ and positions itself as making
> The ‘robot milkmaid’ can milk between 60 and 100 cows a day. Computer-controlled gates activated by transmitters around the cows’ necks allow the cows to enter. The machine then checks their health, connects them to the milking machine and feeds them whi
> Modern aircraft fly on automatic pilot for most of their time. Most people are blissfully unaware that when an aircraft lands in mist or fog, it is a computer that is landing it. When auto pilots can do something better than a human pilot, it makes sense
> It is a new job, as yet without a formal title, but one commentator has called it being a ‘robot wrangler’. They even proposed a possible job advert: ‘Wranglers wanted for growing fleets of robots. Your responsibilities will include evaluating robot perf
> The operations manager of a specialist company assembling seabed monitors that recorded pollution levels had a dilemma. ‘At the moment, we are producing around 40 seabed monitoring stations per year using what is basically a fixed position layout. Howeve
> A computer games developer is moving into new offices. The new office has a floor space of approximately 300 square metres in the form 20 metres by 15 metres. The company has six departments, each as identified in Figure 7.21. This also shows the approxi
> A company that produces a wide range of specialist educational kits for 5–10-year-olds is based in an industrial unit arranged in a simple layout of with six departments, each performing a separate task. The layout is shown in Figure 7.
> The assembler of customized laboratory equipment negotiates a long-term arrangement to supply a simplified standard product to be sold to forensic laboratories worldwide. This product requires an assembly sequence that takes it, in order, from Department
> My flight to Stockholm would be late landing. We were in a “stack” of planes circling above Brussels. Air traffic control had closed the runways for a short period at dawn, because of snow. Flights from all over the World were now being allocated new lan
> In an assembly operation for customized laboratory equipment the flow of materials through eight departments is shown in Table 7.2. Assuming that the direction of the flow of materials is not important, construct a relationship chart, a schematic layout
> Revisit the ‘Operations in practice’ example ‘Technology tracks customer flow in retail operations’. Then visit a supermarket and observe people’s behaviours. You may wish to try and observe which areas they move slowly past and which areas they seem to
> A gourmet burger shop has a daily demand for 250 burgers and operates for 10 hours. (a) What is the required cycle time in minutes? (b) Assuming that each burger has 7.2 minutes of work required, how many servers are required? (c) If the burger shop has
> At the theatre, the interval during a performance of ‘King Lear’ lasts for 20 minutes and in that time 86 people need to use the toilet cubicles. On average, a person spends 3 minutes in the cubicle. There are 10 cubicles available. (a) Does the theatre
> The headquarters of a major creative agency offered a service to all its global subsidiaries that included the preparation of a budget estimate that was submitted to potential clients when making a ‘pitch’ for new work
> It is a real problem for us’, said Angnyeta Larson, ‘We now have only ten working days between all the expense claims coming from the departmental coordinators and authorizing payments on the next month’s payroll. This really is not long enough and we ar
> One of the examples at the beginning of the chapter described ‘drive-through’ fast food processes. Think about (or better still, visit) a drive-through service and try mapping what you can see of the process (plus what you can infer from what may be happ
> Revisit the ‘Operations in practice’ example that examines some of the principles behind supermarket process design. Then visit a supermarket and observe peoples’ behaviour. You may wish to try and observe which areas they move slowly past and which area
> Visit a branch of a retail bank and consider the following questions: (a) What categories of service does the bank seem to offer? (b) To what extent does the bank design separate processes for each of its types of service? (c) What are the different proc
> Globalization is very much a “mixed blessing”. There is little doubt that it has lifted millions out of poverty, but it has also led to the destruction of traditional cultures in developing countries and many jobs in the developed world.’ Draw up lists o
> Here are two examples of how operations try to reduce the negative effects of having to cope with high levels of variety. Research each of them (there is plenty of information on the web) and answer the following questions. (a) What are the common featur
> How could universities adopt the practice of outsourcing more?
> The Fast and Efficient (FAC) transport Group is reviewing its fleet maintenance operations. ‘Our lease on our current maintenance and repair facilities site will expire in a year, and we need to decide how to operate in the future. Curr
> A company that produces concrete paving slabs is introducing a new range of ‘textured’ non- slip products. To do this it must invest in a new machine. Demand is forecast to be around 10,000 units per month for the first year and approximately 24,000 unit
> A data centre is ‘a facility composed of networked computers and storage that businesses or other organizations use to organize, process, store and disseminate large amounts of data. A business typically relies heavily upon the applications, services and
