Lesson 1: Introduction to Operation Management Flashcards
3 major functions of an organization
- Finance
- Marketing
- Operations
What is finance?
Capital is required for running and creating the organization. Finance is all about arranging and managing the capital.
What is marketing?
Accessing customer’s need, competition, demand, pricing, etc.
What is operations?
Transforming various inputs to products/services.
What is value added?
The term used to describe the difference between the cost of inputs and the value or price of outputs.
What are examples of inputs and outputs for value added?
Inputs: buildings, labour, machines, information and materials
Outputs: products (goods) and services
What is the value of outputs for non-profit organizations?
Their value to society; the greater the value added, the greater the efficiency of these operations.
Ex: highway construction, police and fire protection.
What is the value of outputs for for-profit organizations?
Measured by the prices that customers are willing to pay for those goods and services.
What are the operations interfaces?
- Logistics (handling and transportation of goods)
- Accounting (summary of capital assets, work in process, debt, etc.)
- MIS (Management Information System)
- IT (system that handles various organizational functions such as payrolls, ordering/purchasing, etc.
- Human Resources
- Manufacturing Engineering
- Maintenance
- Product Design
In what manners do manufacturing and services differ in?
- Customer contact, use of inventories, and demand variability
- Uniformity of inputs
- Labour content of jobs
- Uniformity of outputs
- Measurement of productivity
- Quality assurance
The 3 primary functions that exist in most business organizations are:
Operations, marketing and finance
Which of the following is not a type of service operation?
- Fabrication of metals
- Banking
- Transportation and warehousing
- Retail trade
- Hotels and restaurants
Fabrication of metals
What does value-added refer to?
The difference between cost of inputs and the value or price of outputs.
Planning decisions are usually ________ and ________ term.
- Forecasting; short
- Tactical; long
- Strategic; short
- Strategic; long
- Tactical; medium
Tactical; medium
What is the marketing function’s main concern?
Assessing customers wants and needs.
Which is not a significant difference between manufacturing and service operations?
- Amount of customer contact
- Measurement of productivity
- Uniformity of output
- Cost per unit
- Labour content of jobs
Cost per unit
What is referred to as “operating at minimum cost and time”?
Efficiency
Which of the following functions is mostly service based, as identified in the “goods-service” continuum?
- Automotive repair
- Restaurant meal
- Teaching
- Automotive assembly
- Software development
Teaching
What is referred to as “a balance achieved between two incompatible features”?
Trade-off
True or False:
Operations managers are responsible for managing activities and resources that produce goods and/or provide services.
True
True or False:
Effectiveness refers to achieving intended goals whereas efficiency refers to minimizing cost and time.
True
True or False:
The operations function exists only in firms that are goods-oriented.
False
True or False:
Value-added refers to the cost of the inputs required to produce goods and services.
False
True or False:
Operations management involves both system design and planning/control decisions.
True
True or False:
Design decisions are usually strategic and long term, while planning decisions are tactical and medium term.
True
True or False:
A basic difference between manufacturing and service organizations is that services are action-oriented and manufacturing is goods-oriented.
True
True or False:
Managing inventory levels is considered a planning/control operations decision area.
True
Service often requires a higher labour content, whereas the production of goods is more capital intensive.
True
True or False:
Many operations management decisions can be described as trade-offs.
True
What is competitiveness?
The ability and performance of an organization in the marketplace compared to other organizations that offer similar goods or services.
(The firm’s ability to stay in the market)
What is strategic planning?
A set of policies, objectives and action plans aimed at securing the organization’s long term goal.
Ex: big expansion plans, investments, new or sets of products, etc.
What is productivity?
A measure of the effective use of all the resources.
Ex: workforce, money, machines, material, etc.
What is the key purchasing criteria?
- Cost
- Price
- Quality
- Flexibility
- Variety
- Delivery flexibility and speed
What is cost (in competitiveness)?
The unit of production of a good or performance of a service to an organization.
(Organizations that compete based on cost (from a customers perspective) emphasize lowering their operating costs)