Midterm Hints

You're allowed 50 pages of cheat sheets, front and back. You may base your answer on more than one source.   The midterm covers all the assignments and assigned readings. Please feel free to integrate a project group cheat sheet.  If you did not take the Summer course, then go ahead and ask your teammates about this format.

Alan Leong

Specify Alan's model for strategic operations management.  What are the 5 elements and mediators?  Can you apply them to a case? (e.g. Think of WebVan. Why did it fail?)

Assignment 1 and the in-class Reading Rehabilitation

What is the relationship of the coefficient of variance with this case?  How about risk pooling? Hint.

Contrast the Pros and Cons of a Functional versus a Product focused organization.  How do cells fit in? How does this apply to service organizations?  Define and compare process vs. product based operational set-ups. Before implementing a product focused organization, what considerations need to be made in a service setting?

What does it mean to have robust operations?  How does it contrast with optimal?

Why does Alan argue for encontextualization?  What is it? (Alan will come back to this in a later lecture)

Dell  and Ford

How can you argue that operational efficiency is a function of product design?  How do the guest speakers (and Alan) argue that Design for Manufacturing helps to increase the product reliability and to reduce defects on the line?

What are common trade-offs done in design for operational efficiency?

2.  What do you see as some key advantages of Dell's supply chain integration?  What are the hazards? It's been stated that any business that operates a build-to-order strategy eventually will need to embrace supply chain-integration concepts.  Do you agree with this? (feel free to disagree) 

3.  Michael Dell has said that if his company were vertically rather than virtually integrated, it would need five times as many employees and would suffer from a "drag effect."  What do you think he means by this?  Randy Mott is the senior vice president and chief information officer. He was formerly CIO of Wal-mart for many years.  Mott and Michael Dell have been quipped on more than one occasion: "Inventory stifles innovation".  What do you suppose they mean?

What are the advantages of increasing smooth continuous flow? (also Jeff Morrow's lectures)

What is a cycle time at each workstation?  Why is this such an important stat to capture for balancing a production line? (You can also argue this from a lean or common sense perspective)

What's cell production?  What are pros and cons? Some of these preceding questions are redundant with the Reading Rehab questions. 

Possible test questions: If I run MacAlan's Hamburger Shop, how might I organize cells? What's the layout?  What's are the advantages?  What might different types of customers prefer?

What are the benefits of supply chain integration?  Define and compare horizontal versus vertical supply chain integration.  What does each of these two strategies require for success? (e.g. nature of their supply chain tiers)

Joe's Garage & Related Matters

1. Ralph and Joe have different concepts on how the shelf building operation should be laid out? Ralph introduces us to the cellular concept.  What is that and how does it differ from Ralph’s approach? How does the cellular approach relate to Kaizen?

2. Joe states that “Planning and Control are the lifeblood of manufacturing”.  Do you agree with this?  How does Joe define planning and control? Ralph brings up a third concept related to planning and control, what is it? (process).  Why is Process so important?  Can you have a good plan and maintain control without a good process in place? Why or why not?

 

3. Now that you've completed some readings, is it reasonable to expect anyone to be a master in every aspect of operations?  What does your answer mean for anyone working in operations management?  What then is operations management?  What is reasonably expected out of a competent operations manager?

 

4.  Can you provide me a definition of JIT?  What's the difference between a pull system versus a push system?  Can you tell me why JIT is a philosophy and not just a tool like "line balancing"?  What is JIT intended to accomplish?

5.  Recall the Lucy Video simulation from the beginning class.  How do the concepts relate to operations production?

6. Why do some folks quote the goofy phrase: "Quality is free" with respect to improving operations? (hint: how can a company achieve lower costs by improving the quality of its services or production)  Why do some folks like me quote the mantra: "Quality is established at the source"?

Toyota, Supply Chain & Inventory Management

1. American companies are accused of a heavy reliance on increasing automation rather than making sure that the right relationships and processes (e.g. exchange of the right information).  They sometimes hope that automation will magically force processes to change.  Do you agree with this? Why is it so crucial to implement process redesign before the introduction of new fangled machinery or software solutions?  Feel free to quote from the Dell and Toyota.

2.  What can you do to help insure peopleware to be adequately prepared as good operations staff?

3.  Consider this conundrum: Japanese companies employ practices that seem to defy math and conventional logic. For example, Toyota: breaks its lots far below “minimum economic order size; uses each worker, rather than professional inspectors, to inspect the previous worker’s results; allows any worker to stop the line and has automatic line stops; and encourages workers to redesign their own work rather than using industrial engineers to break the work." (almost verbatim from “The Second Toyota Paradox”, HBR, Spring 1995).  Observers look at individual parts of the Toyota production system and find it "rough" and crude.  Toyota, nevertheless, has higher than average efficiencies.  What do you suppose is going on to create these efficiencies? How do these things really fit into the overall "Toyota Way"

4.  Toyota is often accused of being "non-lean".  For example, Toyota itself does not pool the buffer stock inventory into one pool (thus reducing the total inventory).  Instead, the Toyota operations folks prefer to place buffer stock at each station as required.  Why would they do this?  Present your explanation within the context of the "Toyota Way".

5.  What is the bullwhip effect?  What causes it? How do you mitigate it? 

6. What's a kanban?  What's does it really represent? 

7.  Can you imagine trying to talk with your supplier in terms of set-based solutions?  How does that change the role of your supplier? How is Toyota like Dell?  Recall the statements that I once made in class, that Toyota America has rarely disqualified a supplier.  What's going on?  This seems hardly rational, or does it?

8.  What's the role of an operations manager? hint: tactics versus managerial strategy. Now that you've completed some readings, is it reasonable to expect anyone to be a master in every aspect of operations?  What does your answer mean for anyone working in operations management?  What then is operations management?  What is reasonably expected out of a competent operations manager?  How does TPS also reflect the split between tactics vs. management strategy?  How would you then characterize TPS?

9. Why is standardization so emphasized at TPS?  Haven't we abandoned scientific management?  Or have we? How can a hierarchical organization learn? How has Toyota managed to overcome the paradox between continuous improvement and standardization? What is the scientific method?  What is the role of the scientific method at Toyota?  Which rule or practice appear to make the most sense for your workplace?  You may modify it if you wish. 

10. Can I randomly apply Toyota tools like Kaizen all by itself into my company?  Why or why not?  Argue both sides.

11. Suppose we’re designing for a service (or even software) operation.  Remember, we can throw this away or refine it.  The Toyota folks sometimes say that we should insert the simplest process that will work, instead of using a complex but optimal process.  Why is that?   Remember the operative term: will work. (If you are interested in software, you can think of the simplest algorithm that will work within a module).  Simplest does not equal most efficient.  Simplest may mean what is easiest to implement.  Why might this be a valid way to design an operation?  Argue this in view of the readings and class discussions.

12. Can you imagine trying to talk with your supplier in terms of set-based solutions?  How does that change the role of your supplier? How is Toyota like Dell?  Recall the statements that I once made in class, that Toyota America has rarely disqualified a supplier.  What's going on?  This seems hardly rational, or does it?

13. What role did/does the union play at NUMMI?  What is the role of management at NUMMI?  What recommendations would you make to UAW Local 2244 to assure the future well-being of its members?

14.  What is EOQ? What are the parts that go behind it?  What are its assumptions?

15.  What is the relation between SMED, flow, and small lots?  Discuss the philosophy behind it. (see if we get to this)

16. How is the Boeing 737 Production system like the Toyota Production system?

Core Concepts

1.  Why does uncertainty and variation create such a problem for operations?  (hint: among other things it interrupts flow, magnifies bullwhip)

2.  Why are cycle time and inventory control often seen as central measures for the overall health of a company's operations?  Why does Toyota place such an emphasis on cycle time?  How does cycle time relate to takt time?

Process Maps  & ValueStream Mapping

1.  Be able to read or construct a simple valuestream map.  What’s the purpose for creating a portfolio of valuestream maps (i.e. present, future, ideal)?

2.  What's Alan's attitude towards graphic representations?

Six Sigma (short lecture)

1.  What's the central idea(s) behind six sigma?  In other words, why are Six Sigma devotees so oriented on statistical process control?  What do they hope to achieve?

2.  What’s the big deal with trying to achieve six sigma with respect to defect reduction?  Isn’t 3 or 4 sigma good enough? 

3.  How do we explain the difference between lean versus six sigma?  Why might they be complimentary strategies?

Jeff Morrow

2.  Why is information flow so important to Jeff?  Why does Jeff rail against traditionally implemented stage gates?  Is Jeff against the use of extensive supply chain software (actually he makes the case for I2, the leading supply chain software)?  What’s his reasoning?

Jeff's questions:

1. Using a concrete example, describe the effects on overall mean cycle time and cycle time variance for serial processes having servers of constrained capacity when both the sizes of tasks vary (i.e., initial task effort varies and also varies contingently and stochastically along the serial work flow) and task inter-arrival times vary initially and along the work flow.  Propose countermeasures and discuss their strengths and weaknesses.

 

2. Explain and critique the following analogy:  mass production is to lean production as United Airlines is to Southwest Airlines.  Propose, defend, and critique one other analogy having the same fundamentals.

 

3. Jeff critiques point-based projects as being susceptible to falling behind schedule towards the project end. Why is that? Can you related this to muri, muri, and muda? In other words, what's the relation between server utilization, slack resources, and project completion dynamics? If you're managing a large team devoted to software or product development, how might you build for project completion?

 

4. Variation and surprise are sometimes inevitable with certain projects. Why might this even be desirable? This increasing variation forces project lateness. How do you build robustness on your team with respect to schedule deadlines? Do you immediately add bodies onto your team?

 

5. Using concrete examples, make a case for why the Toyota Way does or does not represent a higher form of industrial organization i.e.,  one that will generally dominate mass production and craft production.

 

6. What is meant by Gemba? Why is this so valuable?

 

7. In project / product mgt, can information be overly batched? What can happen? What does Jeff advocate?
Why does Jeff ask us to discover "leading indicators" or process health (rather than lagging or standard indicators?).