Modern Production Operations Management 8th Edition Buffa, Elwood S., Sarin, Rakesh K. - Solutions

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The TURBO Corporation, a consumer electronics company, is engaged in strategic planning for the 1990s for the major functions ofthe company, includ¬ing manufacturing, marketing, engineering and R&D, accounting and control, personnel and industrial relations, and finance. TURBO has had considerable
What is the meaning of the term strategic operations management?
What is the role of operations strategy in a corporation in which there are a number of individual business units (SBUs)?
What is meant by the term strategic fit in characterizing a strategy?
Outline a step by step process for conducting an operations audit.29- How can the goals generated for a future operations strategy be related to the results of an operations audit?
What is an operations audit, and what is its function in developing an operations strategy?
Outline the process for developing SBU strategic plans for the operations function.
Discuss “top down” versus “bottom up” approaches to strategy planning.
How can a firm go about deciding on the relative importance of cost, quality, dependability as a supplier, and flexibility as competitive priorities? How can differences be reconciled?
What kinds of events that trigger the reevaluation of enterprise strategy are operations oriented?
How important is the supply system and vertical integration to the success of a service firm such as McDonald’s? Benihana?
How do the operating decisions, work force, and job design at Benihana restau¬rants contribute to its low-cost operation?
How does the process flow and technology employed by Benihana contribute to its low-cost operation?
How do you account for the low costs achieved by Benihana as compared with the typical restaurant?
Using your answer to question 14 as a background, discuss the premise that Benihana is a fast-food operation.
Thinking just in terms ofthe impact on the process flow and technology, what is the effect of the customization offered by Burger King as compared with McDonald’s?
Thinking just in terms of the impact on those who serve the customer directly, what effect does the customization offered by Burger King have on the activi¬ties of servers as compared with McDonald’s?
Thinking just in terms of the impact on the customer, what effect does the customization offered by Burger King have on the customer as compared with McDonald’s?
McDonald’s, Burger King, and Benihana can be compared to manufacturing operations in that they produce a product along with their services. Using the six missions that we used to classify manufacturers, how would you classify the three food outlets?
Which offers the greater degree of customization, Burger King or Benihana?
Describe the corporate strategies or missions of McDonald’s, Burger King, and Benihana. How are they similar? How are they different?
Why does capacity/location appear on the list of elements of manufacturing strategy emphasized for cost minimizers but not for the previous five missions?
Cost minimizers are the producers of the high-volume, standardized, commod¬ity-type products. Why is it that availability and quality appear in the list of manufacturing priorities for the example companies, P&G, Kodak, and Norton Abrasives? Why is cost not the only priority?
How are the elements of manufacturing strategy modified between customizers and cost-minimizing customizers?
In the list of corporate missions, the customizer is described as a job shop manufacturer, building to custom design in low volume, with flexibility and quality being the prime competitive priorities. Why would the example com¬panies, Hughes Satellite Division and Rockwell Space Vehicle Division,
What is the difference between the technological serviceman and the techno¬logical frontiersman, since both rely on technological leadership and both em¬phasize low-volume markets? Why is Boeing a good example of a technological serviceman?
For which of the six missions listed in question 3 is “system positioning” an important element of operations strategy? Why?
In implementing the missions of HP and TI, which of the elements of opera¬tions strategy are most significant? Are they the same? If not, why not?
In which portions of the product life cycle does the technology exploiter partici¬pate? The technology frontiersman? Which would have the more difficult mana¬gerial problems, the frontiersman or the exploiter? Does the answer to the last question agree with what you know about HP and TI?
Discuss the nature of the following six corporate missions as frameworks for manufacturing strategy implementation:a. Technology frontiersmanb. Technology exploitersc. Technological servicemand. Customizerse. Cost-minimizing customizersf. Cost minimizers
Referring to question 1, how are the competitive priorities of cost, quality, ontime delivery, and flexibility affected by the differences in HP’s and TI’s mis¬sions?
How are the enterprise strategies or missions of Hewlett Packard (HP) and Texas Instruments (TI) for accessing markets similar? How are they different?
This situation uses the data in Table 22-4 regarding productivity in four steel producing countries. In 1970, the U.S. industry still had the highest productiv¬ity of the four countries; that is, 83.3 tons per worker-hour. But between I960 and 1970 the U.S. industry increased productivity by only
Two firms are competing in the same market with products that are considered to be substitutes for each other. Firm A is an old established firm with a great deal of experience; cumulative production to date has been 100,000 units.Some years ago, it produced its first unit at a cost of C\ = $100,
Assume a product costs $5000 to produce in the United States and 5000 MU to produce in a foreign country. The exchange rate at that time was 1:1. Over a period of 10 years, the U.S. producer increased productivity 30 percent while the productivity of the U.S. economy improved by 20 percent.
In 1965, the exchange rate between the United States and another country was 150 MU per dollar. By 1985, productivity in the United States had increased 40 percent while inflation had, increased 60 percent. In the foreign country, pro¬ductivity had increased 80 percent, but inflation was 100
Another way of looking at the experience curve is in terms of the effects on productivity. If unit cost is decreasing, then productivity is increasing. The productivity of the «th unit, p„, could be expressed as Pn = Pd where p„ = The productivity of the nth unit pi — The productivity of the
A manufacturer ofrobots produced its first unit at a cost of Ci = $50,000, and it feels that an 80 percent learning curve is appropriate. The marketing manager estimates that the company can sell 5000 units in the first five years. What will the 5000th unit cost? Use Table 22-1.
What is the cost of the 1000th unit in the previous problem? Use either Equa¬tion 1 or Equation 2.
Assume a 92 percent experience curve, and the following data:cx = $10 n = 1000 cumulative units What is the value of the parameter 3?
If the first unit of an item costs $10, and the system follows a 90 percent experience curve, what is the equation for the cost of the nth. unit, c„? What is the cost of the 100th unit produced?
Examine Figure 22-6. Why is it not sufficient to specify each of the six basic components independently in formulating operations strategy?
Why should vertical integration be regarded as a part of operations strategy?Why isn’t it simply a top management function to decide whether or not to integrate forward or backward?
Purchasing is often regarded as a separate function from operations. Why should it be regarded as being a part of operations strategy?29- Contrast the Japanese concept of just-in-time purchasing with the more com¬mon U.S. practice.
Since by their nature, operating decisions have effect over the short term, how can they be regarded as having strategic significance?
What roles do job design and the work force play in operations strategy? To what other basic components in operations strategy are they most closely re¬lated?
Which should have primacy in formulating operations strategy, the positioning decision or the selection of process technology?
What is meant by the term capacity gaming?
Why is overcapacity a problem of strategic importance in operations strategy?
Why are capacity/location decisions of strategic importance?
What are the risks of emphasizing focus in a managerial strategy?
What is meant by the term focus in productive systems?
Does the concept of “positioning” apply to service operations? Give examples.
How would you describe the productive system/product joint strategies of each of the following:a. Post Officeb. United Parcel Service (UPS)c. Federal Express Company (FEC)
What is a productive system/product joint strategy?
What is meant by the positioning decision in operations strategy?
What are the six basic components of operations strategy? Are they indepen¬dent of each other?
Given the concepts of the experience curve and the exchange rate effects on productivity improvements, what role do you feel productivity improvement should play in operations strategy? How would you implement that role in an organization?
The following statement is quoted from the chapter: “To compete effectively in a particular international market, we must be at least as productive in that field relative to our own economy as our international competitor is relative to its economy.” How does the effect of this concept affect a
Describe the connection between productivity improvement differences be¬tween two international competitors and the productivity improvement differ¬ences between the two economies in which the two companies operate.
Explain the concept of purchasing power parity. To what range of price move¬ments does it apply?
Experience curves seem most applicable to high-volume, standardized products where product-focused systems would be appropriate. Are they also applicable to process-focused systems?
Are there limitations to the benefits of the experience curve? Are there any dangers in its use?
How could a firm use the experience curve as a part ofits competitive strategy?
If the cumulative volume doubles from its previous level, what happens to unit cost if there is an 80 percent experience curve?
Why is the experience curve usually plotted on log—log graph paper?
What is meant by the characterization of an experience curve as being a 90 percent curve?
What is the experience curve phenomenon?
How would you rank the importance of the operations function to the success of each of the generic enterprise strategies? Why?
What are the competitive priorities of each of the generic enterprise strategies in terms of their impact on the operations strategy? Do you think that the connection between enterprise strategy and operations strategy is a strong one, or is it relatively unimportant? Does the connection differ
What are the three generic enterprise strategies with which operations strategy must be consonant? How do they differ?
Nelson, Sarin, and Daniels (1986) present a procedure for constructing an efficient frontier for a scheduling problem in which the three criteria of interest are F — Average flow time nr — Number of jobs tardy Tmax = Maximum tardiness The efficient points for the scheduling problem described in
Fine and Hax (1985) propose a methodology for designing manufacturing strat¬egy. To illustrate their process, they describe an application for Packard Elec¬tric, a component division of General Motors. They further focus on Packard’s wire and cable strategic business unit (SBU), which has four
A manufacturer of color TVs was considering several options for capacity ex¬pansion and location in the mid 1970s. These options were evaluated on the following criteria:/i = Differential capital cost f2 — Direct production cost/set/3 = Ease of control (five-point subjective scale)A =
A manager has to choose one of the available sets of equipment. The equipment sets differ in purchase cost, operating cost, reject rate for the parts produced by the equipment, and length of operating life. The levels for these four criteria and the ratings assigned to these levels are summarized
In planning production in aggregate terms, the production manager of a com¬pany considers two criteria:
The precedence diagram and the task times for an assembly line shop are as follows:a. Plot a trade-off curve between the daily production rate and the number of work stations.b. If the desired production rate is 40 units per day (cycle time =10 minutes), what is the optimal number of work stations?
A manufacturer purchases transformers at a cost of $100 per unit. The annual requirements are 2450 units. Plot a trade-off curve between average investment in inventory and work load measured in terms of number of orders placed per year. Assume that the order size Q varies from 15 days’
What is the procedure for obtaining importance weights for the criteria of interest?
When can we use Equation 1 to rank order multicriteria decision alternatives such as sites?
Suppose, the total cost of a schedule is determined by F + Knr, K > 0 where F is the average flow time and «T is the number of jobs tardy, and K is the constant that reflects the trade-off between F and nr- Can we interpret the cost function as a preference function? How?
Briefly discuss the essential steps in the interactive mathematical programming approach for multicriteria decisions.
Can any arbitrary solution from the efficient frontier be chosen for implemen¬tation?
What are the methods for constructing an efficient frontier?
What is an efficient frontier?
Choose a decision problem in a production area and define the criteria that you consider to be relevant for your decision problem. Clearly specify the units of measurement for each criterion.
What are the desirable properties in defining a set of criteria?
How can you identify the criteria in a given decision problem?
What are the three classes of multiple criteria decision methods discussed in the chapter?
Give one example each of a decision problem in production management from the manufacturing sector and the service sector that involves multiple criteria.
Using the solution for a 10-minute cycle time using the Ranked Positional Weight Technique in the preceding problem, can improvements be made using the MALB assignment rules?
Using the Ranked Positional Weight Technique and the data from Table 20-12,a. Balance the line for a 10-minute cycle time. How many stations are re¬quired, and what balance delay results?b. Balance the line for a 9-minute cycle time. How many stations are required, and what balance delay
Table 20-12 shows a list of assembly tasks with sequence restrictions and per¬formance times. Construct a precedence diagram for the assembly. Balance the line for an output rate of 10 units per hour.
A layout study was made in the engineering office of a large aerospace manufac¬turer. Initially, the study focused on the flow ofwork through the system, but it was difficult to generate meaningful cost data on this basis.
An organization does job machining and assembly and wishes to relayout its production facilities so that the relative location of departments reflects the average flow of parts through the plant somewhat better. In Table 20-9 we show an operation sequence summary for a sample of seven parts with
A manufacturing concern has four departments, and the flow between depart¬ments is as follows:
Consider the schematic diagram shown in Figure 20-4. Can you improve it?
Differentiate among the GT flow line, the GT cell, and the GT center.
Under what conditions is GT layout appropriate?
What is the significance of the Q/P ratio in choosing layout patterns?

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Modern Production Operations Management 8th Edition Buffa, Elwood S., Sarin, Rakesh K. - Solutions

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