ASSIGNMENT-1

MB0028

Production and Operations Management

Answer the following questions:

Q1. Elaborate on Integrated Production Management

Production Management was and even now very much misunderstood as restricted to
technically competent supervisory management of various production process starting
with production engineering, followed by industrial engineering and ending with fire
fighting.

Production Management translates and transforms it self in to productivity management

in the contest of compete ting manufacturing. The modern concepts “Productivity Every
Where”

Productivity is not restricted to just capital and labor but extended to in directed staff or
personnel, optimum quality and more importantly, even to systems which bind the entire
organization.

The following are the key aspects of productivity every where

i) System Productivity is strength of IT solutions.
ii) Capital productivity is development of productivity aids out sourcing.
iii) Quality circle is development of team work and accountability.
iv) Labor Productivity is balancing of facilities and outsourcing.
v) Personal productivity mandatory towards changes of mind set.

In Integrated Production Management in process inventories can be reduced by doing a

better job of integrating the manufacturing systems and control is the key of Integrated
Production management.

The importance of in process inventories in the Production management systems are as

under
i) Just in time

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ii) Autonomation
iii) Kanban
iv) Andon
v) Yo-i-don

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Q2. Write a note on Pragmatic Benchmarking Practices

Pragmatic Benchmarking Practices is an industries best practice. The few statement of

benchmarking are given as

Owen says- It is difficult to adequately define bench marking or to quantify its value.

Robetr Camp’s says that an “On going management process that requires constant
updating not a panacea or program”.

Lincoln and price says that “Benchmarking is either a power full tool or an incredible
waste to money. To be a powerful toll, it must be done correctly”,

Lincol and Price give five simple tips to ensure the success of benchmarking efforts are
as
i) Do it quickly or do not do it
ii) Choose a broad and shallow or narrow and deep scope.
iii) Integrated critical success factors (CSFs)
iv) Do not fall for the best in the class fallacy.
v) Manage the change from the start.

i) Do it quickly or do not do it - Initial bench marking efforts often last from 9 months
to 12 months but this is too long, lengthy start up periods can be reduced by applying
sufficient resources using experts, laying appropriate ground work and choosing an
appropriate for benchmarking efforts

ii) Choose a broad and shallow or narrow and deep scope - Brood and shallow scope
ask high level strategic questions such as “What is a company’s business strategy”

Narrow and deep studies ask more operational questions such as “How does an
organization exceed customer expectations in providing on time delivery”

iii) Integrated critical success factors (CSFs) - Critical success factors are the few key
areas where the “things must go right” for a business flourish CSFs should be used
when choosing the bench marking scope, selecting key measures, identifying
benchmarking partners, developing benchmarking questions and preparing the final
analysis and recommendations.

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iv) Do not fall for the best in the class fallacy – Lincoln and Price state that best in
class companies are not necessarily the best companies to emulate even if they have
won prestigious quality awards in the past

The Lincoln and Price claims. That a more pragmatic and use full strategy is to be
formulated, criteria that define a “Class of companies of interest, define measure to
compare these companies and final companies that met these criteria and that appear
to be the best performers relative to define measures.

v) Manage the change from the start: Companies should avoid the trap of
benchmarking to produce recommendation as opposed to bench marking to produce
results. Efforts should not be diluted when time for implementation comes.

Eltringham gives the following steps to change and requirements for sustaining
change
i) Benchmarking in the logistics chain
ii) Benchmarking in quality important
iii) Benchmarking in flexibility
iv) Benchmarking in other application area

i. Benchmarking in the logistics chain: The benchmarking process includes all steps
from conceptual modeling of service logistics through the selection and collection of
necessary data to final analysis. Benchmarking outputs includes the following
performance matrix, best performance, best practices, industry trends, casual relation
ship, policy guidelines, and trade of analysis these outputs leads to industry learning
and structural change.

Industry learning interns affects the competitive environment through changes in key
competitive requirements such as product life cycle cost reduction, increase to
product variety, or improvement to product quality.

Structural change affects the service environment by affecting products or part cost,
increasing standardization or commonality, or improving supplier performance.
These improvements must be reflected in future benchmarking efforts to ensure that
benchmarking strategies are wholly compatible with goals for continuous

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 improvement

ii. Benchmarking in quality important - Quality consideration with in a company

can be considered hierarchical, the authors recommendation benchmarking tools at
the strategic level, the tactical level, and the operational levels

At the strategic level Taylor and English suggest that the Malcolm Baldrige National
Quality Award (MBNQA) criteria provide an excellent basis for bench marking at
strategic level.

At the tactical level Taylor and English advocate to use the “Magnificent Seven”
Statistical quality control tools and quality function development to provide a
functional benchmarking frame work for quality systems .Quality function
development provides a means of translating the voice of the customer in to effective
design and process control improvements.

The Magnificent Seven are

a) Histograms
b) Check sheets
c) Pareto chart
d) Cause-and–effect diagrams
e) Defects concentration diagrams
f) Scatter diagrams
g) Control Chart

The Magnificent Seven provide an excellent means of bench marking

At the operational level Taylor and English discuss the use of “Six Sigma”
methodology for bench marking efforts. Six sigma gained world wide attention in
1988 when it was used by Motorola as a part of a quality strategy in a success full
bid for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

iii. Benchmarking in flexibility

Volatility of modern production and manufacturing production systems in terms of

required product mix, response time etc, and flexibility is becoming extremely
important as an enabling strategy. Even so it is difficult to define and even more

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 difficult to measure. There fore the process of determining how a company ranks in
compression to best industry practices current company practice is extremely
difficult. Groves and Taylor suggest that metrics such as average product flow times,
average work in progress (WIP) levels, and average product throughout per time
period all reflect the ability of a process to respond to change.

iv. Benchmarking in other application area

The document prepared by college industry council on material handling Education

(CIC-MHE) each principle is described by a brief narrative and followed by a series
of key points related to the various principles , collectively, they provide an
excellent check for bench marking maerial handling readiness for example in life
cycle cost principle world class manufacturers would have in place “ a plan for
preventive and predictive maintenance for the equipment and the estimate cost of
maintenance and spare part should be included in the economic analysis”

Making use of the systems principle, one key check point would ensure that
“Information flow and physical material flow should be integrated and treated as
concurrent activities.”

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Q3. Elucidate Facility Planning Process

The Facility Planning is one of the most misused terms in our day today life. Consider
one of the leading manufacturers in the Midwest that decide to sift much of its packing
activities from its manufacturing plants to its parts distribution ware house. Due to an
associate requirement for “more efficient storage space”, Management approved
expenditure for double deep racks and associated handling equipment .Unfortunately;
even though the double deep racks provide sufficient storage capacity the associated
impact on throughout capacity was devastating. In this instance, product could not be
stored and retrieved at the required rate using double deep racks.

The 6-P principle (Prior Planning Prevents Pretty Poor Performance) is one which is
frequently neglected. Yet the other philosophy is “We never have time to do it right, but
be always have time to do it again!” runs rampant throughout many organizations. How
can it be that all would agree that long range planning is not only desirable, but
necessary, in designing manufacturing systems; yet few firms appear to have formalized
facilities planning processes operating successfully?

The planning process need not be painful! In fact, it can become enjoyable-if performed
correctly! In particular, if a formalized planning process is established then result would
be achieved and action plan required to achieve the result will be defined in advances.
Rather than a crisis management and seat of the pants management began the rule, it will
become the exception. Further more top management will be involved very early in the
process; thus minimizing the change of rejection after design process is complete.

Recall the advice of Thoreau, “if you have built castles in the air, your work need not be
lost: there is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.” Long-range goals
or objective must be defined, strategies for achieving the objectives must be developed,
and tactics must be formulated for translating the strategies into operational realities.

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Q4. Interpret using material flow and information flow to evaluate Work Center
Locations

Material flow refers to the movement of all elements, from all sources of supply within
and around work center. According to Tompkins and White, it is concerned with using
the right method to provide the right amount of the right material at the right place, at the
right time, in the right sequence, in the right position, in the right condition, and at the
right cost.

Information flow is the movement of usable content of data which must be stored, acted
upon, and /or monitored in order to operate the work center effectively.

A work center is a specific production entity consisting of one or more people and/or
machine considered as one unit for purpose of capacity requirements planning and
detailed scheduling and the location as the position, in two or three space, space of a
work center with respect to all other work center with which it interacts.

Evaluation of the work center location as the measurement by appropriate criteria of the
“goodness” or “badness” of the location of the work center.

Material and information flows are necessary for a work center to achieve its purpose
constituted fundamental data for the decision process, or the evaluation, how good or bad
the location of work center is. So, in the process of determining the best location for the
work centers, material and information flow data must be collected and evaluated for the
various feasible locations of the work center with in a facility. The evaluation is
performed by using the flow data in some appropriate defined measurement, criteria,
and/or calculation.

The following are the measurement, criteria or calculations applicable to the work center
location problems as
a) Maximize through out put
b) Minimize distance traveled
c) Minimize congestion
d) Minimize part-tracking ability
e) Minimize queuing bottlenecks

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f) Streamline over all material flow patterns
g) Minimize cost

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Q5. Write a note on Total Quality Management

Total quality management (TQM) was initially started in “United State of America” is a
short label for the list of prerequisites for achieving world class quality. TQM is a
conceptual and a philosophical contest which requires management and human resources
commitment to adopt a perpetual improvement philosophy, through succinct management
of all process, practices and systems throughout the organization to achieve effectiveness
in the organizational performance and fulfilling or exceeding the community
expectations.

TQM of an organization can be improved with the use of Six Sigma technique. The goal
of six sigma is to increase profits by eliminating variability, defects and waste that
undermine customer loyalty. Six sigma can be understood/perceived at three levels:

1. Metrics :DPMO allows us to take complexity of product/process in to account

.Rule of thumb is to consider at least three opportunities for a physical
part/component-one for form, one for fit and one for function, in the absence of
better considerations

2. Methodology: six sigma is a methodology it self that provides business with the
tools to improve the capability of their business process. This increases the
performance and decrease in process variation leads to defect reduction and vast
improvement in profits, employees moral and quality of product.

3. Philosophy: reduce variation in business and take customer focused, data driven
decisions. Six sigma is a rigorous and a systematic methodology that utilizes
information (management by facts )and statistical analysis to measure and
improve a company’s operational performance, practices and systems by
identifying and preventing ‘defects’ in manufacturing and service related
process in order to anticipate and exceed expectations of all stake holder to
accomplish effectiveness.

4. Six Sigma Strategy: Strategy of improvement through six sigma is described as

under in the form of 3 S

SHIFT: If the central tendency of the process is out side the specification limits

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 and spread is well with in these limits, we need to shift the process with in these
limits.

SHRINK: If the central tendency of the process is with in the limits but the
spread of the process is beyond the limits, we need to shift the process with in
these limits.

STABILISE: If both central tendency and spread are as desired, stabilize the
process by monitoring, standardizing and documenting the process.

Total quality management (TQM)-The “home-court advantage” In business an

organization should try to get the home court advantage using TQM. The activity for
each employ, including top management should be geared towards the same purpose,
which is often referred to as the vision, if people in a company do not have the same
purpose the organization will be weak. If the organization is to achieve its goal, all people
related to the organization must have activities for achieving their purposes.

Many TQM expert use the following term to explain TOM, such as the voice of the
customer table, QFD implementation, cross functional Management, Hoshin Planning.
The initial simplest step of implementing TQM is to determine the organization goal or
obstacles according to the dream oriented or problem oriented approach, In Japan, almost
every company uses the problem oriented approach during the initial phase of TQM
.Everyone, from top management to line workers in an organization, determines and
defines the problems.

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Q6. What is a Business Process? Explain Logical Process Modeling

Business process is a coordinated set of activity designed to produce a specific out come.
There are processes for saving a file, constructing a building, and cooking a meal. A
business process is a type of process designed to achieve a particular objective. Process
can be manual or automated, fully documented or simply knowledge in the minds of one
or more people, they can be simple or complex, they can be formal, requiring exact
adherence to all details, or flexible, provided the desired out come is achieved.

Business process consist of following component

a) The data needed to accomplish the desired business objective

b) Individual work task that manipulate, review, or act upon the data in some way

c) Decision that affect the data in the process or the manner in which the process is
conducted

d) The movement of data between tasks in the process

e) Individuals and groups which perform tasks

Business process modeling (BPM) refers to techniques and activities used as part of
large Business Process Management discipline. Business process modeling (BPM) is an
activity performed by business analysts with in a company. Analysts use Business
process modeling (BPM) tools to model both the current state of an enterprise and the
intended future state. Business process modeling (BPM) can be grouped in to Logical
Process Modeling and Physical Process Modeling

Logical Process Modeling is the one of the primary technique for analyzing and
managing the information needed to achieve business goal or the representation of
business process, detailing all the activity in the process from gathering the initial data to
reaching the desired out come. The following are the activities described in a logical
process model:
a) Gathering the data to be acted upon
b) Controlling access to the data during the process execution
c) Determining which work task in the process should be accomplished next.

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 d) Delivering the appropriate subset of the data to the corresponding work task.
e) Assuming that all necessary data exists and all required action have been
performed in each task.
f) Providing a mechanism to indicate acceptance of the results of the process, such
as electronic “signature”.

The process model is a representation of the business view of the set of activities under
analysis. And if no modeling is being used in the business i.e. in un modeled business the
following problem will occur
a) Not knowing who in possession of the data at any point of time.
b) Lack of control over access to the data at any point in the process.
c) In ability to determine quickly where in the process the data resides and how long
it has been there.
d) Difficulties in making adjustments to a specific execution of a business process.
e) Inconsistent process execution.

Logical Process Modeling method provides a description of the logical flow of data
through a business process. They do not necessarily provide details about how decisions
are made or how task are chosen during the process execution. Some of the logical
modeling formats are as:
a) Written process descriptions
b) Flow chart
c) Data flow diagrams
d) Function hierarchies
e) Real-time models or state machines
f) Functional dependency diagrams.

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