Production and Operations Management

Summer II 2017
Assignment 1 Strategic Imperatives

The eight management improvement programs are as follows.

1. Market Orientation: A market orientation is the companys approach towards identifying

and meeting the customers needs and wants and then tailoring the product accordingly. In
contrast to that, product orientation is making the product according to the business viability.
Here the focus is what the business is good at making and not according to customer wants
and needs. The companies today are moving towards a market orientated approach because
of increasing competition, awareness among consumers and threat of being substituted
because of a better product. A market oriented approach may be shown compromising of the
above parts: customer orientation, competitor orientation, inter-functional coordination and
focus on the long term.
Reference: http://www.mbaskool.com/business-concepts/marketing-and-strategy-terms/12095-
market-orientation.html
2. Just in Time: Just in Time or JIT, is system in operation management under which the
production is made as per the demand at a particular moment. There is no prior production
for any anticipated demand. This was pioneered by Toyota at their facility. The aim is to
reduce non profitable activities and make the manufacturing system more flexible,
eliminating the associated costs of carrying and maintaining the inventory. There is no scope
for Inventory what so ever.

Following are some of the methods in which JIT can be achieved :

1. Elimination of defects & waste
2. Balancing the flow and scheduling the output
3. Multi-skilled labor force to carry out specific operations
4. Maintenance of equipment and machinery for flawless operations
5. Cellular manufacturing i.e. making in small batch sizes.
6. Streamlined design and process flows & layouts
Reference: http://www.mbaskool.com/business-concepts/operations-logistics-supply-chain-
terms/1657-jit-just-in-time.html

3. Total Quality Management: Total Quality Management or TQM is an approach aimed

towards customer organization and the way organizations do business. It beings all the
quality and customer related processes into quality ideas. TQM in a management approach to
long-term success through customer satisfaction. TQM is based on the participation of all
members of an organization in improving processes, goods services and the culture in which
they work.
Some features of TQM are
i) Committed and involved management
 ii) Focus on customers
iii) Employee involvement
iv) Supplier partnerships
v) Performance measures are aimed at quantity improvement, reduced cost, timely delivery
and improved quality.
Reference: http://www.mbaskool.com/business-concepts/operations-logistics-supply-chain-
terms/2206-total-quality-management-.html
4. Theory of Constraints: Theory of Constraints states when the activities in a production
process are serially related then the production capacity is governed by the capacity of the
slowest process. Theory of Constraints is a theory developed by Eli Goldratt as an approach
to production and constraint management. Constraints can be due to people, equipment or a
combination of more factors. The steps involved in the process for dealing with constraints:
Step 1: Identify the binding constraint
Step2: Optimize use of constraint
Step3: Subordinate everything else to the constraint
Step4: Break the Constraint
Step5: Identify new binding constraint
Reference: http://www.mbaskool.com/business-concepts/operations-logistics-supply-chain-
terms/2192-theory-of-constraints-.html
5. Supply Chain Management (SCM): Supply chain management is the management of the
flow of goods and services in order to deliver value to the end customer effectively along
with optimizing the process of delivering it. Supply chain management covers procurement
of the raw materials, followed by production, inventory management, storage, warehousing
and then transportation, logistics & distribution to the end consumer. The main reason to
have Supply chain management is to create a flow of inventory that ensures greater
availability and removal of surpluses.
Supply chain management not only deals with the physical flow of the products but also and
importantly deals with the delivering of information related to this flow. Keith Oliver of
Booz Allen Hamilton coined the term and focused its integration with operations
management, production management and project management.
Reference: http://www.mbaskool.com/business-concepts/operations-logistics-supply-chain-
terms/15290-supply-chain-management-scm.html
6. Time-based Competition (TBC): Time-based competition is a broad-based competitive
strategy which emphasizes time as the major factor for achieving and maintaining a
sustainable competitive advantage. It seeks to compress the time required to propose,
develop, manufacture, market and deliver its products. In order to do this, the firm must
change its current processes and alter the decision structures used to design, produce and
deliver to the customer.
Time-based competition appears in two different forms: fast to market and fast to produce.
Firms that compete with to-market speed emphasize reductions in design lead-time. In other
words, the firm has the ability to minimize the time it takes to develop new products or make
rapid design changes.
Reference: http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Str-Ti/Time-Based-
Competition.html#ixzz4mP917jMC
7. Agile Manufacturing: Agile Manufacturing System is a system which utilizes computer
controlled equipment to integrate all the functions of a manufacturing system such that any
kind of flexibility desired can be achieved. An agile manufacturer is one who is the fastest in
responding to the market changes, operates with the lowest total cost and has the greatest
ability to provide customer satisfaction.
Some features of the Agile manufacturing system are as follows.
Machine Flexibility
Production Flexibility
Product Flexibility
Mix Flexibility
Routing Flexibility
Volume Flexibility
Expansion Flexibility

Reference: http://www.mbaskool.com/business-articles/operations/315-flexible-manufacturing-
systems.html
8. Green Supply Chain Management Practices (GSCM): In the past few years, the emissions
and the waste generated by the traditional supply chains have reached unendurable levels and
have become one of the major causes of grievous environmental problems, such as acid rains
and global warming. As a result, the need for environmental sustenance has been gaining
intensity among the prevalent business practices.
In view of the above developments, "Green Supply Chain Management" (GSCM) has
managed to seize the raising interest among practitioners and researchers of operations and
supply chain management. GSCM covers all stages of a product's life cycle from the
planning, production, and distribution phases to the use of goods by the end users and its
disposal at the end of product's life cycle. GSCM involves the integration of environmental
thinking into supply chain management (SCM). It is an approach that targets the overall
optimization of information flows and material flows along the value chain.
GSCM = Green purchasing + Green manufacturing/materials management + Green
Distribution / Marketing + Reverse logistics
Reference:
http://www.mbaskool.com/business-articles/operations/14725-green-supply-chain-management-
examples-and-results.html