Section E Flashcards
What are operations?
Activities concerned with acquisitions of raw materials, conversion into finished products and supply of product to customer
What is operations management?
Activities involved in designing, producing and delivering products and services.
What are processes?
Building blocks of operations, that connect with one another to form a network
Transform input resources into output products/services
What are the 4V’s in operations?
Volume
Variety
Variation
Visibility
What is porters value chain?
Based around activities rather than functional departments
Considers organisations activities that create value and drive costs, organisations should focus on these activities
Activities split into primary and secondary (Support)
What are activities split into in porters value chain?
Primary
Secondary
What are primary activities?
Directly concerned with creation or delivery of a product/service
What are secondary activities?
Help improve efficiency and effectiveness of the primary activities
What is process design?
Method by which individual specialists seek to understand business processes and ensure these processes are designed to be efficient and effective as possible
What is a process map?
Process visual representations of steps and decisions by which a product or transaction is processed
What are the advantages of a process map?
Management Understanding Standardisations Role understanding Highlights inefficiencies Supports corporate initiatives
What are the five stages of a product/service department?
- Considers customer needs
- Concept screening
- Design process
- Time-to-market
- Product testing
What department is purchasing part of and what are the responsible for?
Important part of operations
Responsible for placing orders
How do purchasing co-ordinate with finance?
Establishing credit terms Prices Payments Budgeting Data Capture Inventory
What department is production part of and what do they do?
Core part of operations
Plans and oversees production of goods
What do production liaise with finance for?
Cost measurement, allocation, absorption Budgeting Cost versus quality Production Process Inventory
What are the four main characteristics of services?
Intangibility
Perishability
Inseparability
Variability
What are some things finance assist service with?
Charge out-rates
Estimating costs
Problem Measuring benefits
What is a supply chain?
Consists of a network of organisations
Together they provide raw materials into work in progress and then into finished goods for distribution and sales
What is the order of a supply chain?
- Raw Material Supplier
- Manufacturer
- Wholesaler and Retailer
- Customer
What does transformation of a product include?
Production Planning Purchasing Material Management distribution Customer Service Forecasting
What is supply chain management?
Co-ordination of activities from supplier of raw materials to customer at end.
Good co-ordination can save costs while adding value
Technology can play a key part.
What is the name of the strategic supply wheel?
Cousins
What is cousins?
Emphasises importance of viewing supply as central to organisation and effectiveness
Organisations supply strategy should involve a number of key areas described as ‘spokes in the wheel’
What does MRP stand for?
Material Requirement Planning
What is Material Requirement Planning (MRP)?
Computerised system for planning the requirements for raw materials, work-in-progress and finished goods.
What tech has been developed from Material Requirement Planning (MRP)?
Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRPII)
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
What is Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRPII)?
Goes several steps beyond MRP
What does Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRPII) include?
Production Planning Employee Attendance Machine Capacity Productivity Tracking Scheduling Demand Forecast and Analysis Quality Training Tool
What is Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)?
Next evolution of an MRP
Combines information from aspects of operations and support functions into one single system
What are some definitions of quality?
Is product/service free from errors and does it adhere to design specification?
Is product/service fit for use?
Does product/service meet customer needs?
What are the methods of quality measurement?
Four main types of quality-related costs
Monitoring cost of quality is central to the operation of any quality improvement programme
What two things can quality related costs split into?
Conformance
Non-Conformance
What are some conformance costs?
Prevention costs
Appraisal Costs
What are some non-conformance costs?
Internal Failure Costs
External Failure Costs
What is Total Quality Management (TQM)?
Continuous improvement in quality, productivity and effectiveness obtained by establishing management responsibility for processes as well as output.
Every process has a process owner
Every person in entity operates within a process and contributes to its improvement
What are the features of TQM?
Prevention of errors before they occur
Continual Improvement
Participation by all
Commitment of senior management
What is Kaizen?
Japanese term for philosophy for continuing improvement in performance via small, incremental steps.
What are the characteristics of Kaizen?
Setting standards and continually improving to improve long-term sustainable improvements.
Focus of elimination waste, improving processes/systems and productivity.
All areas of Business.
Employees viewed as a source of ideas on reducing costs rather than source of high costs.
Allows organisation to respond quickly to changes.
What is six sigma?
Quality management programme
Achieve reduction in number of faults that go beyond acceptable tolerance limits.
What does sigma stand for?
Standard deviation
What is the key requirements of six sigma?
Focus on customer and based on level of performance.
Process should be related to main drivers of performance.
Needs to be part of wider performance management programme which is linked to strategy of organisation.
Senior manager have key role.
Training and Education essential for success.
Tight target but accepts some failure.
What are the limitations of six sigma?
Criticised for focus on processes and reliance on data.
Can be time consuming and expensive.
Organisation must be supportive.
Heavily data driven.
What is lean?
Philosophy that aims to systematically eliminate waste through the identification and elimination of all non-value adding activities.
What wastes need to be eliminated?
Inventory Defective Units Transportation Waiting Effort or Motion Over-processing Over-production
What does lean synchronisation aim to do?
Aims to meet demand instantaneously with perfect quality and no waste.
What is just-in-time?
Produce or procure products or components as they are required by customer or for use
What is the requirements of just-in-time?
High quality and reliability Elimination of non-value added activities Speed of throughput Flexibility Lower Costs
What is reverse logistics?
Return of unwanted or surplus goods, materials or equipment back to the organisation for reuse, recycling or disposal.
What is the main reason for reverse logistics?
Customer not satisfied Installation problems Usage problems Warranty claims Return of unsold stock Recall
What are KPI’s?
Measures which indicate whether or not CSF are being acheived.
What are some appropriate KPI’s for operations?
Supply chain costs per unit sold
Time taken to deliver customer needs
Percentage waste rate
Labour utilisation rate
What are the four approaches to selling a product?
Marketing orientation
Production orientation
Product orientation
Sales Orientation
What is marketing orientation?
Understand customer needs, then produces products with benefits and feature to fulfil needs
What is production orientation?
Focus on high volume product to achieve low unit cost
What is product orientation?
Focus on continual improvement of product, assumes customers want best quality for money
What is sales orientation?
Aggressive promotional policies to entice customer
What is the marketing planning process?
- Situation Analysis: SWOT analysis, PESTEL analysis
- Review mission and objectives
- Set marketing objectives: SMART
- Devise marketing strategy: market research, Positioning, Segmentation, Marketing mix, targeting
- Implementation
- Review
What is a macro environment?
Factors that influence organisation that are outside of their control
What does the acronym PESTEL stand for?
Political Environment/Ecological Social Technological Economic Legal
What are some social factors to monitor?
Population demographics Social Mobility Income Distribution Lifestyle changes Consumerism Levels of education
What is a marketing mix?
Set of controllable variable that a firm blends to produce desired results from its chosen target market
What are the 7P’s of the marketing mix?
Traditional 4P’s: Product, Place, Promotion, Price
Additional 3P’s for service industry: People, Processes, Physical Evidence
What are some features of a service organisation?
Services are intangible and more difficult to measure their quality.
They’re consumed immediately and cannot be stored.
Heterogeneity - Maintaining consistent output in difficult
Inseparability
Do not result in transfer of property
What are two main types of product issues?
Product Definition
Product Positioning
What is the product definition issue?
Issue defining what product should be
What three levels can product definition be done?
Core/genetic product
Actual product
Augmented/extended product
How would a car be specified using the three levels of product definition?
Core/genetic product: Personal transportation
Actual product: range of engine sizes, different body shapes offered
Augmented/extended product: manufacturers warranty or dealers discounted service contract
What is product positioning?
How does product compare with competitors?
What are the four key considerations (4C’s) of pricing?
Cost - must be able to make profit
Customers - how much will they pay?
Competition - is our price higher than competitors?
Corporate Objective
What are some types of pricing that can blend some issues?
Cost plus pricing: Cost per unit, then mark-up added
Penetration pricing: Low price is set to gain market share
Going rate pricing: Set to match competitors
Loss Leaders: Product may be sold at a loss, Expectation customer will then go and buy more profitable product
What is promotion?
Encourage customer to buy products by moving them along AIDA sequence
What does AIDA stand for in promotion?
Awareness
Interest
Desire
Action
What are some promotional techniquies?
Advertising
Personal Selling
Sales Promotion Techniques
Public Relations (PR)
What are some new forms of marketing?
Viral Guerrilla Experiential Digital Search Engine Postmodern
What is viral marketing?
Individuals pass on marketing messages
What is Guerrilla marketing?
Relies on well thought out, highly focused and attacks on key targets
What is Experiential marketing?
Interactive experience e.g. Roadshows
What is postmodern marketing?
Giving customer experience customised to them
What does selling direct mean?
Manufacturer sells directly to consumer
What does selling indirect mean
Longer supply chain
What is market research?
Systematic gathering, recording and analysing of information about problems relating to marketing of goods and services.