Questions and Answers
What is the primary focus of Operations Management?
What is a key characteristic of production activities in service-oriented organizations?
Who is credited with the early popularization of interchangeable parts in manufacturing?
What is the term used to describe the creation of goods and services through the transformation of inputs into outputs?
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What is a common feature of goods and services produced in organizations?
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What is the primary outcome of production activities in service-oriented organizations?
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What is the significance of operations management in organizations?
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What is the term used to describe the activities that create goods and services in organizations?
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Who is known as the father of scientific management?
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What was Henry Ford's contribution to Operations Management?
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What is one of the four reasons to study Operations Management?
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Who contributed to the development of statistical sampling in quality control?
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What is the significance of the assembly line in Operations Management?
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What is the primary function of operations management in an organization?
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What is the relationship between operations management and other business functions?
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What is the significance of understanding operations management in an organization?
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Who believed that management should do more to improve the work environment and processes?
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What percentage of an organization's revenue is typically spent in the operations management function?
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What is the outcome of Operations Management on an organisation?
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What are the basic functions of the management process?
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Which of the following is NOT a function within an organisation?
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What is the result of globalisation of world trade?
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What is the goal of Just-in-Time performance?
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Why do operations managers build long-term partnerships with suppliers?
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What is the result of rapid international communication of news, entertainment, and lifestyles?
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What is the goal of mass customisation?
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What is the outcome of empowered employees?
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Why is Operations Management an exciting discipline?
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What is a key difference between goods and services?
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What is a characteristic of services that makes them difficult to standardize and automate?
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What is an example of a knowledge-based service?
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What is the productivity of land if the harvest tonnage increases from 1 to 1.5 tons per hectare?
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Which group of carpenters has higher material productivity?
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What is the definition of productivity?
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What is the percentage increase in the number of bricks laid per day after the method was improved?
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What is the difference between production and productivity?
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What is the output in the example of Bakers Bread?
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How much can a bricklayer lay per day?
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What happens to the machine productivity if the load and unload time is reduced from 3 minutes to 1 minute?
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Which of the following is NOT a factor that affects productivity?
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How can a typist improve their productivity?
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What is a characteristic of services that makes them frequently dispersed?
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What is a common mistake people make about productivity?
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What is the first step in improving productivity?
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What should be considered when deciding which operations to concentrate on for productivity improvement?
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Why is it essential to measure productivity improvements and publicise them?
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Study Notes
Introduction to Operations Management
- Production is the creation of goods and services, and Operations Management (OM) is the set of activities that creates goods and services through the transformation of inputs into outputs.
- OM activities take place in all organizations, including manufacturing firms and service providers like banks, hospitals, and airlines.
History of Operations Management
- The field of OM is relatively young, but its history is rich and interesting.
- Key contributors to OM include:
- Eli Whitney (1800): popularized interchangeable parts, standardization, and quality control in manufacturing.
- Frederick W. Taylor (1881): father of scientific management, contributed to personnel selection, planning, and scheduling, motion study, and ergonomics.
- Henry Ford and Charles Sorensen (1913): developed the assembly line concept.
- Walter Shewhart (1924): combined statistics with quality control, providing the foundation for statistical sampling.
- W. Edwards Deming (1950): believed management must do more to improve the work environment and processes to improve quality.
Reasons to Study Operations Management
- OM is one of the three major functions of any organization, along with marketing and finance.
- Understanding OM helps us know how goods and services are produced.
- Studying OM prepares students for careers in operations management.
- OM is a costly part of an organization, and improving it can increase profitability and enhance service to society.
Functions and Duties of Operations Managers
- Operations managers perform the basic functions of the management process: planning, staffing, leading, organizing, and controlling.
- Key decisions made by operations managers include:
- Design of goods and services
- Managing quality
- Process and capacity design
- Location strategy
- Layout strategy
- Human resources and job design
- Supply chain management
- Inventory management
- Scheduling
- Maintenance and reliability
Operations and Productivity
- There is a strong inter-relationship between the four major functions within an organization: marketing, production/operations, finance/accounting, and human resource management.
- Productivity is a ratio of output to input, and can be affected by factors such as methods, capital, quality, technology, and management.
Exciting New Trends in Operations Management
- Global focus: rapid decline in communication and transportation costs has made global markets more accessible.
- Just-in-time performance: reducing inventory at every level to improve response to dynamic changes in the marketplace.
- Supply-chain partnering: building long-term partnerships with suppliers to improve supply chain management.
- Rapid product development: using design technology to respond to rapid changes in material and process technology.
- Mass customization: producing individual products to cater to individual customer whims.
- Empowered employees: moving decision making to individual workers to improve competence and motivation.
Operations in the Service Sector
- The service sector is defined as including repair and maintenance, government, food and lodging, transportation, insurance, trade, finance, real estate, education, legal, medical, entertainment, and other professional occupations.
- Differences between goods and services include:
- Intangibility
- Simultaneous production and consumption
- Uniqueness
- High customer interaction
- Knowledge-based products
- Dispersion
- Operations management in the service sector involves transforming resources into products, establishing quality standards, designing and processing products on a schedule, and employing human resources.
Productivity
- Production is the conversion of raw materials into finished goods, while productivity is a ratio of output to input.
- Productivity can be improved by:
- Developing methods for achieving productivity improvements
- Studying how other companies have improved productivity
- Re-examining the way work is done
- Establishing reasonable goals for improvement
- Obtaining support of top management
- Measuring improvements and publicizing them
Factors that Affect Productivity
- Methods
- Capital
- Quality
- Technology
- Management
- Improving productivity can be achieved by:
- Developing productivity measures for all operations
- Finding bottleneck operations and improving them
- Getting ideas from workers
- Improving typing skills, replacing typewriters with computers, or outsourcing typing work.
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Description
Learn about the basics of Operations Management, including the creation of goods and services through the transformation of inputs into outputs.