Operations Management Excellence - Make the Team Feel It

JWI 550 Operations Management - Course Wrap Up,  3/24/13

Jack Welch rocks my world once again. This is a superbly designed course that provides a solid framework to inspire and install effective operations within any product or service organization.

I can feel my mind and spirit lit brighter with unique OM insights gained from this course.
Dr DP

1. Operations Management (OM) is the guts of an organization.
When aligned to strategy, OM can guide employees with clear goals, drive competitive advantage and differentiate an organization within an industry.

2. Tactical procedures of operations management in a competitive industry include:
Design of goods and services
Manage quality
Process and capacity design
Location planning
Layout design
HR and Job Design
Supply chain management
Inventory, materials planning
Scheduling & Forecast of Demand and Supply
Maintenance & Reliability
   
3. Operational strategy when running a manufacturing plant
   - Ensure everyone understands that the purpose of the firm is to make money
   - Increase throughput, reduce inventory and operating cost
   - Use Drum, Buffer, Rope model from the Theory of Constraint to manage bottlenecks strategically, increase throughput, develop strong organizational operations.

5. Operational processes and strategies between a service & manufacturing industries share commonalities.

6. Turn on LEAN manufacturing principles for superior products and customer service

7. Manage capacity and quality of operations while preparing to meet demand.
   Five inventory categories are: pipeline (on the move), cycle lot size (order size based on usage forecast), buffer (due to variability in demand),
anticipation (seasonal), speculation (guess demand and take risk)

8. Outsourcing and its OM implications
Outsourcing is unethical when it:
- violates religious holidays
- moves pollution from one country to another
- stresses cheap labor that leads to employee abuse
- violates basic human rights
- is used primarily for short term  cost-reduction instead of building good long term partnerships
- results in loss of technology

9. Bullwhip effect can influence supply chain functions.
Distorted information from one end of a supply chain to other end can lead to tremendous inefficiencies:
excessive inventory, poor customer service, lost revenues, misguided capacity plans, ineffective transportation and missed production schedules.
Mitigation strategies: integrate new information systems, define org relationships, implement new measurement and incentive systems, manage inventory

10. Understand Internet's influence on operations processes:
Capture the transparency of OM in supply chain, capture the soul of the customer
take hidden agendas out of the supply chain

11. OM during difficult economics times
Particularly important to have a clear strategy and a strong vision for guiding operational decisions
The job of you as a leader during tough times is to make it clear to your people
- why we are doing it
- competitive rationale for doing it
- what is it going to look like when it's over
- what it's going to look like when we get through the tough times
- most of all, what is in it for the people? to go through the pain you are driving them to go through
MAKE THEM FEEL just exactly what life will be like when you get through this tough time

12. What makes operations work is Culture
- an open culture where they are rewarded for finding a better way every day
- reward and promote boundaryless behavior (both in terms of Wallet and Soul)
- You get the behaviors you reward