Ops Planning & Control  Ops Management Techniques & Applications (20 marks)

(a) Explain the structure and scope of a supply network in terms of its configuration, capacity, location, vertical integration and outsourcing characteristics. (5)

(b) Briefly define "capacity" in the context of capacity management in operations. Using real-world examples, discuss how capacity is measured in two (2) different types of organisations. (3)

(c) Discuss the negative impact of inventory in operations with respect to each of the following three (3) types of transformed resources: materials, customers and information. (3)

(d) Early every morning, Thabo, a vendor at OR Tambo Airport, orders newspapers to sell that day. If he orders too many newspapers, the leftover papers go back to the publisher for a small credit/rebate (below the cost price that Thabo pays). If he doesn't order enough newspapers, some customers will be disappointed, and sales and profit will be lost. Thabo hires a Wits Business School (WBS) MBA student to advise him on an optimal inventory strategy for stocking the Business Day, his best-selling newspaper. Suppose Thabo sells an average of 110 copies of the Business Day per day. The WBS MBA student believes that the sales of the newspaper are normally distributed with a standard deviation of 15 papers. Thabo pays R10 for each paper, which sells for R21.50. The Business Day gives Charles a R5.50 credit/rebate for each unsold paper. How many copies of the Business Day should Thabo order each day? (3)

(e) Analyse three (3) key differences between lean and the theory of constraints (TOC) as approaches to planning and controlling operations. (3) (f) Discuss any three (3) of the quality characteristics (functionality, appearance, reliability, durability, recovery, contact) of an online grocery shopping service. (3)