Operations Management Exam 1 Review Notes

Basic info for Exam 1 Types of questions you can expect * Ones similar to assigned discussion questions, homework * How topics in assigned articles relate to key concepts below: test questions similar to these are fair game. * You will have the formula sheet handed out during forecasting section. The most important things to know from part 1 of this class 1) Chapter 1 a) How to measure performance of a process: financial measures, external measures, internal measures and why you would choose one over another. ) 4 product attributes and their corresponding process attributes i) This is something to memorize. c) Job shops vs flow shops: attributes of each and which products is each suited for? d) Will not cover product-process matrix. 2) Chapter 2 e) How process competencies support a firm’s strategic position. ii) Market-driven strategies (identify market needs and develop processes to support them) vs. rocess-driven strategies (Amazon hosting websites, cloud computing for other companies, G&H with financial aid call center branching out to other services) iii) Operational effectiveness vs. operational efficiency: low cost of operations does not necessarily support the business strategy iv) Focused strategies allow for competitive advantage (1) Plant-within-a-plant: why would companies do this and what makes this succeed or fail? ) Question about hypothetical company or companies we’ve analyzed in book, articles, class discussion—what are their business strategies/product competencies and how do their process competencies support them? g) Competitive product space 2-D graph: may ask you to interpret one but not to draw one v) Idea of operations frontier, that it represents the highest level of operational effectiveness (2) Effect of technology and improved management practices on the operations frontier. h) Order-qualifiers vs. rder winners (in slides, G&H discussion) i) Will not be tested on section 2. 7 j) Last 3 slides not covered: Disney and McDonalds 3) Forecasting k) Anything covered in book is fair game: Expect questions very similar to those in class, on HW. l) General categories: subjective, time-series, associative/causal m) What are key features of each forecasting method, why would you choose one over another? n) Trends, seasonality: know what these are, which methods account for these, and how they do it. ) Forecasting error and bias: why are these important to measure, what they mean, what are differences between methods for assessing them (MAD vs. MSE, for example) p) Use of control charts: how to make one and what are they used for. 4) Chapter 3 q) Takt time not covered but everything else is fair game. 5) Chapter 4: Flowcharting and network design r) Interpret or make a simple flow chart s) Using a flow chart to start to improve operations (esp. in conjunction with chap 3 and Little’s Law)