Question: Williams Motor Manufacturing assembles small motors

> Explain the tradeoffs involved in the economic order quantity. How do these change when quantity discounts are considered?

> The following firms have long been seen as having strong competitive advantages. Read about one of these companies. Also draw from your experience as a customer to identify that company’s competitive advantage. Discuss how operations management relates t

> Explain the different types of costs related to inventory planning.

> Why do some executives believe that inventory is “bad”? Explain why this thinking is incorrect.

> Provide an example of automation that enhances customer service and one that reduces customer service. Why is this the case?

> Think about three of your favorite fast food restaurants. What type of layout is used in the food preparation area of each? Are these layouts a good fit with the organization? Why or why not? Should the layout be changed and if so, how?

> Some upscale restaurants have their kitchens visible to their customers changing the traditional view of front-office and back-office processes. What are the benefits and drawbacks to this approach?

> Which of the service categories would you put a large state university? Why? Would a small private university be in the same category? Why or why not?

> Are some process structures inherently safer or more environmentally friendly than others?

> Provide an example of how technology has made it possible to use processes that are not on the diagonal of the product/process matrix.

> Consider several members of the supply chain of a company that makes plastic toy cars and trucks. Which of the five processes described in the product-process matrix is likely to be used by the following supply chain members? Why?

> Think of two companies in the same industry that use different process structures. Why is this the case? Is one process structure a better choice than the other? Why or why not?

> Recall the last time you went to a fast-food restaurant such as McDonald’s. Describe all of the goods and services that make up your total product experience.

> One concern with the adoption of process automation such as self-driving vehicles and robots is the impact on society. What are the societal challenges with process automation? How might these be addressed?

> Postal services and logistics companies are experimenting with delivery using drones. What are the benefits and drawbacks with this application of technology?

> Airlines allow customers to purchase tickets, select seats, and check-in using mobile apps. How does this process differ compared to a check-in process at an airline ticket counter?

> You have probably experienced some form of “virtual reality.” Discuss the types of “realities” that might be simulated when evaluating the merits of a given product design.

> In which stages of a new product design and development project are supply chain operations managers most likely to have the greatest impact? Why?

> Discuss the roles that personnel from warranty/field service and the manufacturing shop floor might play when conducting an FMEA.

> Under what circumstances might concurrent engineering (overlapping the stages of design and development) be a bad idea?

> Discuss the pros and cons of open innovation.

> What major differences would you expect to find in the management approaches used for breakthrough innovation projects versus those used for derivative or enhancement projects?

> Why are discipline and flexibility both needed in new product/process innovation? Are these two capabilities in conflict with each other?

> Consider the following processes that you frequently encounter as a college student. Describe each process and its input, activities, and outputs. What is being converted or transformed in each process? Who are the customers, suppliers, and stakeholders

> Operations personnel tend to favor product component standardization while design and marketing personnel tend to resist it. Why is this true? What are the potential disadvantages to standardization?

> Describe a situation where the functional/sequential approach to product development might be more appropriate than the integrated/concurrent engineering approach.

> How would you define the capacity of your school? In what way does capacity influence the value of your college experience?

> Under what conditions would inspections, storages and transports be considered value-adding?

> Which of the five activity categories is represented by each of the following actions?

> Discuss the challenges that an operations manager can expect to encounter when applying the principles of process performance to the upstream (supply-based) section of a supply chain?

> Which would require a larger amount of excess capacity – a hospital emergency room or a doctor’s office? Why?

> How would you define the maximum capacity for the front desk of a hotel? What is meant by the effective capacity? Define the difference in these two terms relative to the number of customers that can be checked into the hotel in a given period.

> How can a university attain economies of scale? What impact might this have on quality and flexibility?

> What are the primary resources that determine the capacity of each of the following?

> What are the primary operations management decisions in each of the following corporations?

> If your goal is to reduce variance within a supply chain (especially if the variance is most evident in your supply), under what conditions does it make sense to focus first on the customer side of the supply chain?

> Juran’s Law in Total Quality Management states that whenever a problem occurs, 15% of the time, it is the individual’s fault, 85% of the time, it is the process’s fault. Interpret this law from a process thinking perspective.

> Why is it important to begin with the metrics rather than to start by looking at the process?

> Sonnie’s Gourmet Sandwich Café, a popular new fast casual restaurant, serves high-quality, made-to-order sandwiches. Located in a local outdoor shopping center, parking in front of Sonnie’s is limited. However, there are many parking spaces available beh

> Once considered a commodity product, many small boutique coffee companies are luring customers with promises of high quality and unique flavors. How do the processes used by the small companies compare with those of the major coffee processors? Coffee pr

> Doog’s Donuts produces five varieties of pastries, which are sold to a national grocery chain: muffins, donuts, cookies, cream puffs, and fritters. Assuming that Doog’s operates a single shift for 1,800 hours per year,

> Noble Bicycles of Glen Arbor, Michigan, is a small batch manufacturer of high-end bicycles. That is, it typically builds bicycles in batches of one to three units. Quality is high, only to be expected when the typical bicycle frame costs $2,500 and up. Y

> As the operations manager for Valley Kayaks (as described in the previous problem), you find yourself faced with an interesting situation. Marketing has informed you that they have lost a number of sales because of a lack of inventory. Kayaks, being seas

> You are the operations manager for a small kayak and canoe manufacturer (Valley Kayaks) located on the Pacific Northwest (Oregon). Lately your company has experienced product quality problems. Simply put, the kayaks that you produce occasionally have def

> For the prior problem, management wants to double the return on assets, without affecting sales, cost of goods sold, variable expenses, fixed expenses, or fixed assets. Rather it wants to focus on either inventory or accounts receivable. a. Can managemen

> Given the following information: Categories………………………………………………………………………Values Sales……………………………………………………………………………….. $32,000,000 Cost of goods sold…………………………………………………………….. $20,000,000 Variable expenses…………………………………………………………….. $ 4,000,000 Fixed expenses……

> Under what conditions would you use a Kaizen Event? Business Process Reengineering?

> The Office Interiors Company has developed a new, modern office chair. Initial sales forecasts are for 50 chairs per day. The assembly operations will run for two 8-hour shifts. The process engineer and operations manager are working together to balance

> A company that assembles high fidelity headphones needs to design an assembly line for one of its new products. The tasks needed and their relationships are shown in the following figure. To meet demand, the company must produce 80 headphones an hour. a

> Golf Carts Inc. must set up an assembly line for golf carts. Forecasts show that 10 units per day should be produced. The plant operates one 8-hour shift each day and runs the line continuously during the shift. The tasks required, task times

> Wild Widget must set up an assembly line for widgets. Forecasts show that 50 units per hour should be produced. The tasks required, task times, and precedence relation-ships are as follows: a. Draw the precedence diagram. b. What is the takt time? c. Wh

> The Carry-on Luggage Company must set up an assembly line for a wheeled carry-on bag. Forecasts show that 60 units per hour should be produced. The tasks required, task times, and precedence relationships are as follows: a. Draw the precedence diagram.

> Swoosh Snowboard Company must set up an assembly line for snowboards. Forecasts show that 600 units per day should be produced. The plant operates two 8-hour shifts each day and runs the line continuously during both shifts. The tasks required, task time

> An insurance company uses the following tasks to process paperwork. Forty claims need to be processed in an eight-hour workday. a. What is the takt time? b. What is the theoretical number of workstations? c. Assign the tasks to the workstations to balan

> An assembly line currently has five workstations, and the time required for each is shown below. a. What is the current cycle time? b. What is the efficiency of the process? c. Customer demand is 80 units per hour. What is the hourly production rate of t

> Patients at an emergency room in a large urban hospital frequently experience long wait times before they actually see a physician. The hospital has decided to use FMEA to determine an action plan for addressing the problem, defining a â€&#156

> Describe the various operations within an amusement park that need to have balanced capacity. Which operations are most likely to become a bottleneck? How might an amusement park utilize yield management to influence demand to better-fit available capaci

> Document the steps that someone using the House of Quality procedure might follow in developing: a. A new mountain bicycle. b. An introductory operations management course. c. A new candy bar.

> Make a list of customer desired traits for a pencil.

> Complete a value analysis for the following products: a. Paper clip b. Textbook

> Conduct an FMEA for a simple service or tangible product with which you are familiar. Identify a few failure modes, estimate the RPNs, and recommend possible improvements.

> Identify three or four important failure modes for a cellular phone.

> Given the FMEA data provided in the table below: a. What is the RPN for each failure cause? b. Which failure cause would be of least concern? c. Which failure cause would be of greatest concern? d. For the failure of greatest concern, would your recommen

> Refer back to the QFD for housekeeping services shown in Figure 4-6. Figure 4-6: a. What seem to be the biggest opportunities for improvement, relative to competitors’ levels of performance? b. Which technical feature is most strongly

> This problem uses American Vinyl Products (the case found in Chapter 3). The management at American Vinyl Products has decided that a rigorous and effective approach has to be applied. Consequently, they have decided to apply service blueprinting. For th

> This problem uses Evergreen Products (the case found in Chapter 3). Management is not happy with the current process that is present at Evergreen Products. You have been called into the office of the CEO and given the following task. Beginning with a bla

> Using Evergreen Products (the case found in Chapter 3), carry out the first step in the process of process mapping and analysis, as presented in this supplement, for the two different key customers: • Florists • Grocery stores 1. What differences did you

> Suppose that you are the owner of pizzeria that is located near to a university or college. How could you use the concepts of Order Winners, Order Qualifiers, and Order Losers to help develop and implement an attractive business model?

> Murphy’s Bagel Shops (MBS) is a chain of bagel eateries supported by a central bakery. Most raw materials are delivered to MBS’s bakery where the ingredients are inspected for quality and then stored in the raw materials warehouse, which is located on th

> Your eyeglass frame-making firm is considering one of two distribution alternatives. The first is to make all shipments from your Chicago plant to one of three regional warehouses located in Philadelphia, Chicago, and Reno. All orders from eyeglass retai

> You are making your weekly trip to your local grocery story. Use a process flow diagram chart to describe your decision-making process about what to buy and where to buy it. What inputs did you use in helping you make these weekly decisions? How could an

> Best Bicycles manufactures three different types of bikes: the Tiny Tike, the Adult Aero, and the Mountain Monger. Given the information in the table, calculate the required capacity for this year’s production. Note that the times are g

> Penny’s Pies is a small specialty supplier to a national coffee-house chain. Penny’s makes three types of pies (apple, cherry, and pecan). Penny’s operates 250 days per year with a single eight-hour s

> Electronics Assembly Inc. is a contract manufacturer that assembles consumer electronics for a number of companies. Currently, the operations manager is assessing the capacity requirements as input into a bid for a job to assemble cell phones for a major

> You are given the following information. Which of the statements below can you sup-port with this information? Maximum capacity (labor hours): 480 hours per week Effective capacity ratio: 85% Actual time worked: 380 hours per week over the last two week

> With the process information provided in the preceding table, when the sequence of flow is A→B (any machine can be used if available) → C → D (any machine can be used if available), calculate the over

> You are the manager of Spartan Care—a local Redi-Care facility. While this facility serves a range of clients, everyone agrees that quick service is very important (defined as the difference from the time that clients arrive and are registered at the fro

> Something seems to be wrong in your department. You have been given the following data: • Design capacity: 1,060 hours • Effective capacity ratio: 85% • Demonstrated (actual) capacity: 839 hours • On-time delivery percentage: 75 percent of the jobs are b

> Fit is critical to the development and maintenance of a successful operations strategy. Suppose that we are faced with a firm in which there is a lack of fit between the outcomes desired by the critical customer, the value proposition, and the firm’s cap

> You have been approached by one of the staff who works testing equipment that passes through your facility. Every day, you receive computers from the university that have been repaired but now need to be tested to ensure that they can work under high str

> You have been asked to determine the average wait time for a process that has caused problems for the management of your company. From data you collected over a two-week period (which you feel are representative), you have determined the following: Avera

> This should be a simple issue. You know that our average weekly sales are $2,000 and the flow time is one day. Surely with this information, you should have no problem maintaining an inventory level of $200 to serve the sales.” With these words, the dire

> Metal Hoses Inc. (MHI) is a major manufacturer of metal braided hoses for industry. These products are used in everything from cars to tanks to motorcycles. MHI’s products can even be found on the Space Shuttle. At first glance, it may seem that MHI’s pr

> Cooper’s Copy Shop is considering two different processes for completing copying jobs brought in by customers. Process A uses one person to set up the job and do the copying. If this approach is used, an experienced person can complete an average of 20 j

> Mike operates a hair-cutting salon that specializes in providing quick walk-in service for just about any type of haircut. He deals with customers as they walk in the door. This includes writing down the customer’s name and what they desire in terms of h

> Pizza Time Restaurants is building a new pizza place and needs to determine how big to make the various parts of its facility. It wants to be able to accommodate a maximum of 500 customers per hour at its peak times. Pizza Time has collected the followin

> New Time Videos (NTV) is a new online video rental service. In the field, it is trying to compete by offering its customers access to all of the major new video releases in one business day. That is, if you order a video from NTV, you can expect it in on

> Spartan Redi-Care is a small urgent care facility located near the university. Because of the high competition for student business, the manager of Spartan has decided that the most effective way of competing is to emphasize short wait times. Spartan Red

> Given the following cost information for Company XYZ, calculate: a. Total appraisal cost b. Total prevention cost c. Total cost of internal failures d. Total cost of external failures e. Total cost of quality Cost item………………………………………………………………………………….. To

> Core competencies are critical issues in operations management. Are there any instances in which a firm’s core capabilities can be a liability rather than an asset?

> Suppose that the Dallas School District wants to achieve Six Sigma quality levels of performance in delivering students to school. It has established a 20-minute window as an acceptable range within which buses carrying students should arrive at school.

> Six Sigma quality (3.4 defects per million units produced) is probably a bit much to ask of Rachel’s old oven (see problem 2). a. What would the standard deviation in the temperature of her oven need to be if she settled for a “Three Sigma” level of qual

> Rachel loves to bake cookies, but she has an old oven that has trouble maintaining a constant temperature. If the acceptable temperature range for making the cookies is 350 plus or minus 5 degrees, what is the allowable standard deviation in the temperat

> I visited my old pal Dinsmore recently. He had called to let me know that he had taken over as general manager of the Flagship hotel about six months ago, and he thought that I might be interested in seeing a real hotel from the inside. He also indicated

> Roberta Brown sat at her desk and looked through the preliminary slide deck she had prepared. This presentation had to be good. In two weeks she would be giving the presentation to the top management team of Aqua-Fun. The goal: to secure their commitment

> Things were not going well at Bully Boy Products (BBP). BBP was a regional producer of organic fertilizer, potting soil, growing loam, and various gardening products for the discriminating gardener. It had been founded in 1976 when two agriculture studen

> Late on the evening of Sunday, April 14, 1912, RMS Titanic, while on her maiden voyage, struck an iceberg about two days from New York City. Within three hours, she was gone (Monday, April 15, 1912). On this voyage, there were 2,201 passengers and crew m

> Pick a product good or service that you are interested in consuming sometime in the near future. Analyze the offerings of two competing firms. How do the products compare on various dimensions of quality? From these differences, what can you infer about

> The chapter noted that digital technologies are giving firms and their consumers increased visibility into the supply chain and its activities. Would this visibility be important to you? Why? Would you be willing to change your shopping habits in respons

> It has been said that quality management is really a “people” system, more than a technical system. If this is true, what conditions must first be in place for a firm to be successful with quality management? What are the possible repercussions for the f