Managing Operations

Open University Business School Diploma B752 Managing Resources for the Market

• Session 1 Understanding Operations
• 1.1 The Transformation Model
• Resources
• Processes
• Outputs
• 1.2 The Boundary of the Operating System and Beyond
• Internal and external customers
• The influences of the environment
• Competitors and customers
• Session 2 Operations Managers and Operations Management
• 2.1 Operations
• Operations as an activity: all managers are operations managers
• Operations as a function: all organizations have operations
• 2.2 Operations Management
• Historical developments
• Recent developments
• 2.3 Operations Managers
• The objectives of operations managers
• The role of operations managers
• The role of operations
• Stage 1 — internally neutral
• Stage 2 — externally neutral
• Stage 3 — internally supportive
• Stage 4 — externally supportive
• 2.4 Managing Operations Strategically
• Developing an operations strategy
• Step 1 — Corporate objectives
• Step 2 — Marketing strategy
• Step 3 — How goods/services win orders in the market place
• Step 4 — Process choice
• Step 5 — Operations infrastructure
• The dimensions of operations strategy
• Cost
• Quality
• Innovation
• Service
• Meeting customers needs at the lowest cost
• Session 3 Designing Operations
• 3.1 Forecasting Future Demand
• Forecasting techniques
• Extrapolation techniques
• Causal techniques
• Subjective techniques
• Uses of forecasts
• Flexibility
• 3.2 Designing Goods and Services
• Sources of new goods and services
• The design process
• Idea generation
• Idea selection
• Preliminary design
• Prototype
• Testing
• Final design
• 3.3 Process Design
• Generic process types
• Layout
• Layout types
• Job design
• Scientific management
• Behavioural approaches
• Recent developments
• Choice of technology
• Size of technology
• Degree of automation
• Degree of integration
• Session 4 Planning and Controlling Operations
• 4.1 The Basis of Planning and Control
• The control loop
• Planning time-scales
• Problems with plans
• Planning and controlling inputs
• Planning and controlling the process
• 4.2 Strategies for Planning and Control
• Capacity planning and control
• Basic strategies for operations planning
• Chase demand
• Level capacity
• Supply side management
• Demand management
• Operations control strategies
• Supply-push
• Demand-pull
• 4.3 Scheduling
• Master production scheduling
• Activity scheduling
• Routeing
• Loading
• Sequencing
• Basis of resource allocation
• Resource constraints
• Queuing
• Expediting
• 4.4 Planning and Controlling Projects
• The nature of projects
• Project management
• Planning
• Scheduling
• Controlling
• Project scheduling techniques
• Network analysis
• Gantt charts
• 4.5 Materials Control
• Why hold stock?
• Independent demand inventory
• Reorder level system
• Cyclical review system
• Economic order quantity (EOQ)
• ABC Inventory management
• Materials requirement planning (MRP)
• Benefits of MRP
• Problems with MRP
• Manufacturing resources planning (MRP 2)
• Just In Time (JIT)
• Session 5 Managing Quality
• 5.1 Understanding Quality
• Defining quality
• Gap 1: the gap between customers' expectations and management's perception of customer expectations
• Gap 2: the gap between management's perception of customers' expectations and the product specification
• Gap 3: the gap between the specification and the customers' experience of the product
• Gap 4: the gap between the customers' experience and the external communications to customers
• Gap 5: the gap between customers' expectations and customers' experiences
• Measuring quality
• Operations measures
• Financial measure
• Customer measures
• 5.2 The Evolution of Quality Ideas
• The four stages of quality
• Quality inspection
• Quality control
• Quality assurance
• Total quality management
• The quality gurus
• W. Edwards Deming
• Joseph Juran
• Armand Feigenbaum
• Philip Crosby
• Genichi Taguchi
• Kaomi Ishikawa
• Quality in service operations
• 5.3 Statistical Quality Control Techniques
• Where to measure
• What to measure
• Amount of inspection
• Acceptance sampling
• Control charts
• 5.4 Quality Management Systems
• BS 5750 (BS EN ISO 9000)
• Benefits of BS 5750
• Criticisms of BS 5750
• Total quality management and quality management systems
• 5.5 Quality Improvement Techniques
• The PDCA cycle
• Quality circles
• Pareto analysis
• Cause and effect diagrams
• Improving process capability
• Session 6 Improving Operations
• 6.1 Performance Measures
• The three Es
• Economy
• Efficiency
• Effectiveness
• Performance measures and behaviour
• 6.2 Performance Standards
• Internal standards
• Organization's past performance
• Organization's own targets
• External standards
• Competitors' performance
• Best practice
• Market requirements
• Citizen's charters
• 6.3 Performance Improvement
• The need for change
• Step change
• New technology
• New working methods
• New management techniques
• Continuous performance improvement
• Managing change

MBA material, what do you expect?