Topic 1- Operations Flashcards
What does the term operations refer to?
The business processes that involve transformation or, more generally, ‘production’. It applies to manufacturing and the services sector.
What are the overarching goals of a business?
- Increasing revenue
- Decreasing costs.
Distinguish between profit centres and cost centres.
Profit centres are aspects that directly derive from revenue and profits, whereas cost centres are sections of a business which costs can be directly attributed.
What is cost leadership?
Aiming to have the lowest costs or to be the most price competitive in the market.
What does economies of scale refer to?
Refers to cost advantages that can be created because of an increase in business operations.
What do the cost savings arise from in regards to economies of scale?
Lower cost per unit.
What is good/service differentiation?
Trying to distinguish your products from competitors to catch consumer attention.
Name one way a good can be differentiated?
- Varying product features
Name one way a service can be differentiated?
- Varying level of expertise
What is cross branding?
A strategic alliance of multiple brand names jointly used on a single product or service.
What’s the difference between standardised and customised goods?
Standardised goods are those that are mass produced and meet a predetermined level of quality. Customised goods are those that are varied depending on customer needs.
Give an example of a standardised and customised good and service.
- Standardised good- water
- Customised good- design your own shoes Nike
- Standardised service- self checkout
- Customised service- check out chick
How do perishable goods effect the operations process? Name an example of a perishable good.
- Very short lead and distribution times
- Appropriate packaging and short term storage
- Fruit and vegetables.
How do non-perishable goods effect the operations process? Name an example of a non-perishable good.
- Effective inventory management
- Highly responsive to market demand
- Car
What are intermediate goods?
Name an example.
Goods which are finished, but can be utilised to complete an unfinished product.
An example is a screw.
Why are standardised products associated with cost leadership?
Mass production without variation, so economies of scale can be achieved.
What is interdependence?
Mutual dependence that the key business functions have on one another.
What are the key business functions?
Operations, marketing, finance, human resources
How does finance, human resources and marketing all rely on operations?
Finance- to produce products to sell
Human resources- to provide employees jobs
Marketing- to produce products to promote
What does globalisation refer to?
The removal of barriers of trade between nations.
What are the two main impacts of globalisation on business operations?
- Outsource
- Reach a global market
What is a global web strategy?
A web strategy is a long-term strategic business plan indicating how to create and develop a company’s online presence adhering to the business development strategy.
Name one advantage and disadvantage of Globalisation?
- Advantage- lower costs
- Disadvantage- lack of control
Name and provide an example of three categories of technology?
- Administrative purposes- computer
- Planning purposes- gantt charts
- Operational purposes- robotics
Name two ways in which a business may achieve cost- based competition?
- Find cheaper products
- Decrease product range
Give one example of a government policy
Australian New Zealand Food Standards Code
Give three examples of a Legal regulation
- Work Health and Safety Act
- Equal Employment Opportunity Act
- Anti-discrimination Act- ensures no minority will be discriminated agaisnt
Define environmental sustainability
Engaging in environmentally friendly business operations
Name three ways a business may engage in environmentally sustainable practices
- Renewable sources
- Install LED lights
- Invest in high end- low power using equipment
What is the consequence of not adopting environmentally conscious practices?
Loss of customers, bad publicity, decline in profits
What is Corporate Social Responsibility? Name three ways in which a business may achieve it
Refers to open and accountable business actions based on respect for people and the environment.
- Mental health day for workers
- Make donations
- Use ethically made inputs
What’s the difference between legal compliance and ethical responsibility?f
Legal compliance is the bare minimum- what you have to do. Whereas ethical responsibility is doing what is right- by choice.
What is the difference between onshore and offshore outsourcing?
Onshore occurs in domestic territory, whereas, offshore is international.
What ethical issues can arise from offshore sourcing?
- Cheap labour
- Unfair working conditions
What is the ILO
International Labour Organisation and it sets labour standards.
What are inputs?
Resources that go into the transformation process.
Into what two categories can inputs be put into?
- Transforming
- Transformed.
Transformed resources are those inputs that are changed or converted in the operations process. What are three examples of this?
- Materials
- Information
- Customers.
What is a source of internal information?
KPIs- Key performance indicators. These are specific criteria used to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of the businesses performance.
What is an example of a KPI?
Lead times.
Transforming resources refers to those inputs that carry out the transformation process. What are two examples of this?
- Human resources
- Facilities.
What are the four V’s?
- Volume
- Variety
- Variation in demand
- Visibility.
What is Volume and the influence of it?
Volume flexibility refers to how quickly the transformation process can adjust to demand.
This influences lead times.
What is Variety and the influence of it?
Variety refers to the range of products made or services delivered.
The greater the variety there is, the more the operations process needs to allow for variation.
What is Variation in demand and the influence of it?
Variation in demand refers to how quickly a business can create a range of products.
This can impact transformation resources.
What is Visibility, how can it be attained and what is the influence of it?
Visibility is customer feedback. It can be attained either be direct (surveys) or indirect (sales data).
It affects the transformation process.
Distinguish between sequencing and scheduling?
Sequencing refers to completing tasks in a specific order, whereas scheduling refers to the time it will take to achieve these tasks.
What is the purpose of a Gantt chart?
They outline the activities that need to be performed, the order they should be performed and how long each activity is expected to take.
What are two advantages of a Gantt chart?
They make is easy to monitor progress
Enable planning for future business activities
What is the purpose of a critical path analysis?
It is to schedule a range of ways a task can be achieved, and figure out which path will take the least amount of time to achieve.
Name one manufacturing technological device?
Robotics.
What is task design?
Task design involves classifying job activities in ways that make it easy for employees to complete them.
What are the three different types of plant layouts?
- Process layout
- Product layout
- Fixed position layout.
What is the process layout? Name an example.
The grouping together of machines by the function they perform.
Different wards in hospitals.
What is the product layout? Name an example.
The sequence of tasks performed, like an assembly line.
Car assembly line.
What is the fixed position layout? Name an example.
Product remaining in one location due to bulk or weight.
Construction of a bridge.
What is monitoring?
Monitoring is the process of measuring actual performance against planned performance.
What process is utilised when monitoring?
KPIs
Give three examples of KPIs.
- Lead and wait times
- Inventory turnover rates
- IT and maintenance costs
What is control?
Control occurs when KPIs are assessed against predetermined targets and corrective action is taken if required.
What is improvement?
Improvement refers to the reduction of inefficiencies and wastage, poor work processes and the elimination of any bottlenecks.
What is a bottleneck?
An aspect in the transformation process that slows down the processing speed.
What are the three types of outputs a business will produce?
- Customer service
- Warranties
What is a warranty and how is it beneficial for a business?
A warranty is a promise made a business that they will correct any defects in a product. It allows a business to improve their operations process by correcting any faults.
What are the performance objectives?
- Quality
- Speed
- Dependability
- Flexibility
- Customisation
- Cost.
What are two approaches to product design and development?
- Preferences and desires of customers
- Innovation of technology.
What are four important factors of product design and development.
- Quality
- Supply chain management
- Capacity management
- Cost
Why is service design and development different to a new product?
Services are intangible and tend to be customised.
Define supply chain management.
Involves managing the flow of supplies throughout the inputs, transformation processes and outputs, in order to best meet the needs of customers.
What are four factors that influence a businesses choice of suppliers?
- Ethical production
- Quality of inputs required
- Flexibility and timeliness of supply
- Cost of supplier
Name three advantages and disadvantages to global sourcing.
- Reduces costs
- Allows access to ideas and technology
- Accessed to skilled labour
- Natural disasters
- Unethical
- Time delays.
Define e-commerce.
Buying and selling goods over the internet.
Name three risks considered with e-commerce.
- Cyber security
- Technology faults and malfunctions
- Postage tracking errors.
What are logistics? What do they include?
Refers to distribution. Includes, transportation, use of storage, warehousing, distribution, handling and packaging.
Name an example of a distribution channel
- Producer> wholesaler> retailer> consumer
What are four factors to consider when outsourcing?
- Cost and efficiency
- Location
- Vendors
- Contract.
Name, define and provide an example of leading edge and established technologies
Leading edge- innovative top of market- DOM pizza camera
Established- developed and widely used- robotics
Name the three ways a business can manage their inventory
- FIFO (first-in-first-out)
- LIFO (last-in-first-out)
- JIT (just in time)
What are the three quality management strategies?
- Quality control
- Quality assurance
- Quality improvement.
Define quality control. What are the three topics associated with it?
Involves use of inspections at various points in the production process.
- Inspection
- Measurement
- Intervention.
Define quality assurance. What is the topic associated with it?
Involves the use of a system to ensure that set standards are achieved in production.
- Application of international quality standards
What are the two topics associated with quality improvement?
- Continuous improvement- ongoing commitment to improving goods and services
- Total quality management- managing total business to deliver quality to customers.
What are the four Financial reasons for resistance to change?
- Purchasing new equipment
- Redundancy payments
- Retraining
- Reorganising plant layout.
What is one Psychological reason for resistance to change?
- Inertia
Name two advantages and two disadvantages of holding stock
- Customer demand can be met
- Lead times are reduced
- Large costs for holding stock
- Stock may need to be insured for theft
Name the three aspects of quality management and define each
- Quality control- inspections at various points of the production process
- Quality assurance- system which ensures standards are met
- Quality improvement- improvement on quality of products
List the six aspects of resistance to change
- Financial costs
- Purchasing new equipment
- Redundancy payments
- Retraining
- Reorganising plant layout
- Inertia
What are the four global factors?
- Global sourcing
- Economies of scale
- Scanning and learning
- Research and development.
