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Monday, February 20, 2017

Organizational Theory Reviewer

Business Planning, Management Theories, Change, Power, Leadership, Conflict.

ORGANIZATIONAL THEORY REVIEWER

UNIT 1 Evolution of Management
Management is the process of directing people, machines, materials and money to attain common goals. Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing and Controlling.

MANAGEMENT THEORIES

Classical School
Scientific Management – In the US, Robert Owens in the 1800’s believed that the vital machines are the workers, Charles Babbage developed scientific principles to work processes to increase efficiency and lower expenses, an early advocate of division of labor or specialization. Frederick Winslow Taylor, father of scientific management address to the question, “how would society develop the skills of workers and make them more productive?” and published a book in 1911 called “The Principles of Scientific Management” which merged Owen’s and Babbage’s approach to produce a remarkable management theory. He argued that the objective of management is “to secure maximum prosperity for employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for the employee.” He rested on four basic principles, best method, scientific selection of workers, scientific training and development, friendly cooperation between management and labor. He used time and motion study to set standards and encouraged employers to pay more productive employees with higher rate called differential rate system, which lead to higher productivity and higher earnings, however, lead to massive strikes and opposition. Henry Gannt, Taylor’s associate, improvised Taylor’s Differential rate system, not only were the workers being rewarded but also the supervisor to encourage the supervisor to better train his subordinate. Frank Gilberth, concentrated on time and motion study, and instructed managers to teach workers the best way. His wife, Lillian, also added her expertise in psychology and pushed the standard workdays, rest breaks and normal lunch periods. Child labor laws and safe working conditions were established partly because of her efforts. Major Contribution: Efficiency Techniques and Scientific selection and development of workers. Major Limitation: workers are believed to be motivated only for money, overlooked social needs, and specialization lead to routine tasks.

Administrative Management – European management thinkers focused on the administration of the enterprise. Henri Fayol, in the early 1900’s, a French contemporary of Taylor, viewed management as a series of interrelated functions and developed 14 principles of management; Division of Labor, Authority, Discipline, Unity of command, Unity of command, Unity of direction, subordination of the individual interest to the common good, remuneration, centralization, scalar chain, order, equity, stability and tenure of staff, initiative, esprit de corps. Major Contribution: Clarified the Job of manager and still valid effective management principles. Major Limitation: Too general for today’s complex organizations.

Bureaucratic ManagementMax Weber, a German Sociologist, considered this type of Management as the ideal one. It is based on a formal set of rules, impersonal supervision, division of labor, hierarchical structure, authority structure, lifelong commitment and rationality. Major Contribution: Efficiency and consistency. Major Limitation: Stifles Initiative and Creativity, Slow decision making, incompatible with rapid changing work environment.

Behavioral School (Human Relations Approach)
Mary Parker Follett (Early 1900’s) agreed with Taylor about the establishing a good relation between the management and employees by involving subordinates in decision making process if it affects them. Chester Barnard, President of New Jersey Bell, believes that an organization can only survive if the Organization’s goals and that of the employees are kept balance. Elton Mayo, and the Hawthorne’s Experiments conducted a study in Western Electric Company by experimenting lighting level and its effect on the productivity of the employee. The level of lighting, however, wasn’t the triggering factor that improved their productivity, it was concluded that workers become more productive if the management was concerned about their welfare and the supervisor paid special attention to them, if they felt that good interpersonal relations prevail among workers and between workers and their supervisors and if they were allowed some participation in decision-making processes. This phenomenon was labelled the Hawthorne Effect. It was also found out that Informal work groups, the social environment of employees, positively affects productivity. The concept of Social Man – motivated by social needs, had to replace the concept of “rational man” - motivated by personal economic needs.
Major Contribution: Emphasis on Social Needs and improvement in the Classical School’s view of productivity, stressed the importance of leadership styles, awakened interest in dynamics of groups. Major Limitation: Satisfaction of social needs of workers is just one of many factors that affect productivity.
Behavioral Science Approach – Concept of “Self-Actualizing Man,” Abraham Maslow said that there is a hierarchy of needs and that the lower needs (Physiological Needs and Safety Needs) must be first met, before the social, esteem and self-actualizing needs.



Major Contribution: Helped in understanding individual motivations, group behaviour, interpersonal relationship at work, and the importance of work to people. Insights on participatory leadership, decentralization, sources and uses of power in organizations, conflict resolution, organizational change and communication. Major Limitation: Believed to have not yet reached its full potential, too complicated and abstract, tend to differ in treating problems.


The Systems and Contingency Approaches and the Quality Viewpoint
The Systems Approach – looks at organization as a unified system composed of interrelated parts. A system has flows of information, human resources, materials and energy as inputs and undergo into transformation process and leave as outputs (goods and services). Development of Quantitative models to aid managerial-decision making. Major Contribution: Systems Analysis, anticipate immediate and long term consequences. Major Limitation: Can’t be used to handle the human side of management.

Contingency Approach – situational approach, uses any kind or combination of classical, behavioural and systems approaches depending on the circumstances. Major Contribution: Emphasis on Flexibility. Major Limitation: Nothing new with this theory or is not even a theory because management principles must be applied with flexibility.

Quality Viewpoint – emphasizes in providing high quality standards. W. Edwards Deming established Total Quality Management that build quality from product planning to design, to preproduction, to purchasing of needed materials, to production, to sales and to service. Quality is the top priority (rather than short term profit). Poor Quality is not acceptable, statistics evidence of quality should be monitored, raw supplies should be quality, employees should be trained and retrained to use statistical methods. Major Contribution: Suppler management, retooling of workers, empowered workers to report conditions that detract quality, clear customer focus. Major Limitation: not all have the capability to make TQM an economic feasibility.

UNIT 2 Individual Behavior and Processes
Bases of managing individuals in organizations: Individual Attributes, personal conceptions and work-related aspects, Values and Attitudes and how they predict behaviour; perception and attribution; learning and reinforcement; and motivation theories.

Individual Attributes and Personality Variables – Performance is a function of personal attribute, willingness or work effort individuals give and the opportunity they get from organizational support. Individual Attributes are categorized into Demographic, Competency and Personality.

Personality traits are very important in organizational behavior. In particular, five personality traits especially related to job performance have recently emerged from research. Characteristics of these traits can be summarized as follows: 1. Extroversion: Sociable, talkative and assertive. 2. Agreeableness: Good-natured, cooperative and trusting. 3. Conscientiousness: Responsible, dependable, persistent and achievement-oriented. 4. Emotional Stability: Viewed from a negative standpoint such as tense, insecure and nervous. 5. Openness to Experience: Imaginative, artistically sensitive and intellectual. Identifying the above "big five" traits related to performance reveals that personality plays an important role in organizational behavior.

Personal Attributes: Demographic Characteristics are background variables (age, gender, race, religion, disability, etc.). Personal conceptions are how people tend to think about their physical and social milieu as well as their core belief system and views on a broad range of issues and are categorized into;

Locus of Control – the degree to which people feel capable of influencing their lives (internal orientation – master of their destiny and external orientation - environmental factors are responsible for what happens to them).

Introversion/Extroversion

Tolerance to Ambiguity

Risk Propensity

Authoritarianism/Dogmatism – Rigidity of beliefs. Authoritarianism – clings rigidly to conventional values and obey recognized authority while Dogmatism – looks at legitimate authority as absolute and accepts/rejects other people on the basis of how much he agrees with legitimate authority. People with high rigidity of these beliefs have the tendency to follow even unethical orders of superiors.

Machiavellianism – willingness to do whatever it takes to get what he wants. Low-Mach personality has tendencies to be strongly guided by ethical considerations.

Self-Monitoring – Ability of a person to adjust his behaviour to the situation. High Self-Monitors have the desire to elicit positive reaction and readily adjust their behaviour to do so, low-self monitors are unwilling to make adjustments (what you see is what you get).

Work-related Aspects Positive and Negative Affectivity (Work Ethic Orientation); People with High Positive affectivity have the tendency to feel an overall sense of well-being, see people, things and events positively and experience positive emotions and are found to decide more accurately, give significant contributions to group effectiveness and are rated by experts as possessively greater managerial potential. Type A and Type B orientation, Type A are very aggressive, competitive, irritable, and always in a hurry while Type B are calm, laid-back and patient with other people. Job Performance: Type A work harder and faster and seek more challenging work but due to too much hurry to finish things, may often miss to be careful in their judgment. Interpersonal Relationship: As type As have a lot to do, they tend to lose focus and experience more on-the-job conflict, they do not sit well with other people. Health: Type As have higher health risks.
Johari Window – A model for asking and giving feedback about yourself and about others.

Known to Self
Not known to Self
Known to others
ARENA
BLIND SPOT
Not known to others
FACADE
UNKNOWN

Values, Attitudes, Perceptions and Attributions
Values – universal concept that guide thinking, judgments, and actions in varied circumstances. Have been classified by Milton Rokeach as Terminal and Instrumental. Terminal values are those that reflect a person’s preferences concerning “ends” to be achieved, important goals people like to attain in their lifetime (freedom, happiness, pleasure, sense of accomplishment). Instrumental values – are the means for achieving lifetime goals (honesty, helpfulness, courage, responsibility and capability) In 1990, Bruce Maglino came up with a value system relevant for understanding values in organizational behaviour: Achievement, Helping and concern for others, Honesty, and Fairness to all. Value Congruence – happens when workers feel and act positively when they work with people who share their values. Top nine values organizational specialists deem important for the workforce are: Recognition, Respect and Dignity, Personal Choice and Freedom, Involvement at work, pride in one’s work, lifestyle quality, financial security, self-development, and health and wellness.

Attitude - are relatively permanent feelings, beliefs, and behavioral tendencies toward someone or something. Components of Attitude; Cognitive Component – Composing of beliefs, opinion, or knowledge. Affective Component – refers to our feeling (like or dislike) toward the person. Behavioral Component – is the predisposition to act in a certain way.



Perception – the process of making sense of a variety of sensory input from the environment is called perception. Perception are determined by the Subject Characteristics (Sound, Appearance, Smell) and by the Perceiver Variable (Characteristic of people perceiving them). Common perception errors: Hallo Effect – An attribute of person is used to make an overall impression. Similar-to-me Effect – is a favourable perception of others who are like them. Stereotypes – assumptions that members of certain groups share common traits. Selective perception – is the tendency to focus on specific aspects of a person, object or situation that are consistent with one’s value, needs or attributes. Projection – is the tendency to believe that one’s value, beliefs and difficulties are the same to the others. Expectancy – is hoping to create or find in an individual or situation what you hoped to find in the first place.

Attribution Theory – investigates how people try to understand the causes of an event, determine who or what is responsible for what happened and evaluate the characteristics of the actors in the event. Kelley’s theory of causal attribution suggests that three factors help us judge internal causality (within a person’s control) and external causality; Distinctiveness – is the extent to which a person behave in the same manner in different situations, Consensus – the extent to which other people behave in the same manner as the particular person we are judging, Consistency – is the extent to which the person acts in the same manner across time. Two attribution errors: Fundamental Attribution Error – our tendency to explain other’s failure in terms of internal factors and downplay the effects of external causes. Self-serving bias – our tendency to attribute our personal qualities and abilities our successes, and blame external factors for our failures.

Learning and Reinforcement
Learning – a relatively change in behavior occurring as a result of experience. Four approaches to learning: Classical conditioning – learning through stimulus, it involves the manipulation of stimulus to influence behaviour. When the manager gives us challenging assignments when he or she calls us to her or his office, we become conditioned to feel excited whenever called to the office. Operant Conditioning – influencing behaviour by manipulating its consequences (law of effect). If our actions have pleasant effects we tend to repeat them in the future. Operant Conditioning and Reinforcements – Positive reinforcement or rewards, negative reinforcements or avoidance, punishments and extinction. Cognitive Learning – is achieved by thinking about the perceived relationship between events and individual goals and expectations. when an employee submits reports on time in order to earn the boss’s compliments. The employee perceives that punctual submission of reports pleases the boss and decides to always do it. Social Learning - learning that is achieved through the reciprocal interaction between people and their environment.
Organizational Behavior Management refers to the systematic application of positive reinforcements in the organizational settings to increase the incidence of desirable organizational behaviors. It is also known as organizational behaviour modification or OB mod. OB mod is done by these steps: 1. Identifying the desired behavior 2. Performing a baseline 3. Setting a standard 4. Providing a reinforcer 5. Shaping 6. Periodic re-evaluation.
Discipline – weeding out undesirable behavior.

Motivation Theories
Motivation - refers to the processes that arouse; direct; and maintain behavior toward a goal. Two Important considerations: Basis of Performance (but good performance doesn’t always mean a person is highly motivated, he may be highly capable of doing the job) and Motivation is multi-faceted.
Theories of Motivation. Two Categories: content theories - focus on what is within a person or in his or her environment and process theories of motivation - provide an understanding of the thoughts or cognitive processes that act to influence the behavior of people.

CONTENT THEORIES
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – Abraham Maslow theorized that people have five types of needs that tend to be activated in a hierarchical manner. These are the physiological needs; safety needs; social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs.
Alderfer’s ERG Theory - Alderfer presents only three types of needs and any of these needs may be activated at any time. Alderfer also asserts that more than one need may be activated at the same time. These needs are the needs for existence, relatedness and growth.
McClelland’s Acquired Needs Theory – Thematic Apperception Test (TAT). Need for affiliation or nAff — this refers to the desire to establish and maintain warm and harmonious relations with others. Need for achievement or nAch — this revolves around the desire to do things better, to find solutions to problems, or to master complex task. Need for power or nPow — this pertains to the desire to lead, influence and/or control others.
Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory. Frederick Herzberg and his associates came up with the two-factor theory. The two factors are the satisfiers or motivation factors and the dissatisfiers or hygiene factors. Motivational factors are those that are associated with the jolt content. These are achievement, recognition, work itself responsibility, advancement, and growth. Hygiene factors, meanwhile, are related with the job context or the environment in which people work. These are company policy and administration, supervision, interpersonal relationships, working conditions, salary, and status.

PROCESS THEORIES
Equity Theory - was introduced mainly through the work of Stacy Adams in 1965. The theory views motivation from the perspective of the social comparisons people make, or what they perceive when they compare themselves to others. It holds that people are motivated to maintain fair or equitable, relationships with each other and turn away from relationships that are unfair, or inequitable.
Expectancy Theory - states that people are motivated to work when they expect that they can achieve the things that they want from their jobs. The motivation to work is due to three factors: 1. Expectancy, or the belief that work effort results in performance 2. Instrumentality, or the belief that performance leads to rewards, and 3. Valence, or the value attached to the rewards. Expectancy theory holds that motivation (M) is the product of expectancy (E), instrumentality (I), and valence (V).

GROUP BEHAVIOR AND PROCESSES
Social scientists have defined a group as a collection of two or more people with a stable pattern of relationships who work with each other regularly to achieve common goals and who perceive themselves as being a group. Stages: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning. Types: Formal (Command Group, Rask Force, standing committees, ad hoc committees). Informal Group (friendship, interest groups)

GROUP EFFECTIVENESS. An effective group is one that achieves both high levels of task performance and good human resource maintenance. Group effectiveness means successfully transforming inputs into outputs. Constraints: Culturally Diverse Groups and Social Loafing.


TEAMS - a group of people with complementary skills who work together to achieve specific goals for which they hold themselves collectively accountable.

Sunday, February 19, 2017

POM COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION POINTERS



  1. Factors that Affect Productivity
a.      Money and Resources
                                                              i.      Capital
                                                            ii.      Raw Materials
                                                          iii.      Scrap rates
b.      Quality
                                                              i.      Raw Materials
                                                            ii.      Finish Product
c.       Processes
                                                              i.      Standardization
                                                            ii.      Safety
                                                          iii.      Technology
                                                           iv.      Use of internet
d.      Leadership
                                                              i.      Management
                                                            ii.      Incentive plans that reward productivity
e.      Time and Management
                                                              i.      Computer viruses
                                                            ii.      5S, Searching for lost or misplaced items
                                                          iii.      Design of the workspace
f.        Human Resource
                                                              i.      New workers
                                                            ii.      Shortage of IT workers
                                                          iii.      Layoffs
                                                           iv.      Labor turnover

  1. Objectives of Product/Service Design

Manufacturing
Service
Output
Tangible
Intangible
Uniformity in input and output
High
Low
Opportunity to correct quality problems before delivery to customers
High
Low
Customer contact
Low
High
Labor content
Low
High
Measurement of productivity
Easy
Difficult

  1. Difference Between Service Design and Product Design or
Manufacturing Operation vis-à-vis Service Operation
a.      Types of Processing System
b.      Continuous – very high volume of non-discrete goods
c.       Repetitive/ assembly line (semi-continuous) – high volume of standardized good or services
d.      Batch (intermittent) – moderate volume
e.      Job shop (intermittent) – small scale
f.        Projects – complex jobs consisting of unique, non-repetitive sets of activities with limited life spans

  1. Definition/Dimensions of Quality
Quality is the ability of a product or service to consistently meet or exceed customer expectations. It can refer to a grade of a product, materials, workmanship or special features
Quality management – to manage all aspects of the organization in order to excel in all dimensions that are important to customers
2 aspects: features that meet customer needs and fewer defects

Determinants of quality
1)      Design
2)      How well it conforms to the design
3)      Ease of use
4)      Service after delivery

Costs of quality
1)      Prevention cost – prevent defects from occuring
2)      Appraisal cost – inspection, testing
3)      Internal failure cost – during production
4)      External failure cost – after delivery to customer
5)      Opportunity cost – to identify poor quality products after they occur but before shipment to customers

Dimensions:
a)      Performance – main characteristics of a product
b)      Special features – extra characteristics
c)      Conformance –how well a product or service corresponds to the customer’s expectations
d)      Reliability – consistency of performance
e)      Durability – useful life of the product
f)       Perceived quality – indirect evaluation of quality
g)      Service after sale – handing of complaints or checking on customer satisfaction

  1. Importance of Capacity Planning
a.      Impacts ability to meet future demands
b.      Affects operating costs
c.       Major determinant of initial costs
d.      Involves long-term commitment

  1. Ways to Define and Measures of Capacity
a)      Design capacity – maximum output rate or service capacity an operation, process or facility is designed for
b)      Effective capacity – design capacity minus allowances such as personal time, maintenance and scrap
c)      Actual output – rate of output actually achieved (cannot exceed effective capacity)

Efficiency = actual output/ effective capacity
Utilization = Actual output / Design capacity
  1.  Types of Facility Layout /  Objectives of Facility layout
Importance:
a.      Require substantial investments of money and effort
b.      Involve long-term commitments
c.       Has a significant impact on the cost and efficiency of short-term operations
Lay-out types:
a)      Product Layouts – used to achieve smooth and rapid flow of large volume of products or customers through a system, highly standardized products or services that require highly standardized processing operations, advantages: high rate of output, low unit cost due to high volume, labor specialization, low material handling cost per unit, high utilization of labor and equipment, disadvantages: creates dull repetitive job, little opportunity for advancement, system is fairly inflexible, highly susceptible to shutdowns, etc.
b)      Process Layouts – designed to facilitate processing items or providing services that represent a variety of processing requirements, features departments or other functional groupings in which similar kinds of activities are performed. Advantages: systems can handle a variety of processing requirements, the system is not particularly vulnerable to equipment failures, general-purpose equipment is often less costly and is easier and less costly to maintain, it is possible to use individual incentive systems Disadvantages: In-process inventory costs can be high if batch processing is used in manufacturing systems, routing and scheduling pose continual challenges, equipment utilization rates are low, material handling is more costly per unit, result in higher supervisory costs, higher unit costs due to special attention necessary for each product or customer & low volumes produced, accounting, inventory control, & purchasing are much more involved
c)      Fixed position Layouts - The item being worked on remains stationary, and workers, materials, and equipment are moved about as needed, attention is focused on timing of material and equipment deliveries so as not to clog up the work site and to avoid having to relocate materials and equipment around the work site; Advantages: Very high mix and product flexibility, product or customer is not moved, high variety of tasks for staff; Disadvantages: Very high unit costs, scheduling space and activities can be difficult
d)      Hybrid layouts

  1.  Understanding Line Balancing
The process of assigning tasks to workstations in such a way that the workstations have approximately equal time requirements.; This minimizes the idle time along the line and results in a high utilization of labor and equipment.

9.            Behavioral Approaches to Job Design
Deal with improving the worker’s attitude towards their jobs.  Over the last few years advancement has been made to empower employees by giving the worker more responsibility by giving the worker more responsibility for their work
Theory X – worker who do not like to work and have to be controlled and punished
Theory Y – workers who enjoy their work and is committed in doing a good job
Theory Z – workers who are empowered to control their work will develop an ownership attitude
Job enlargement – giving a worker a larger portion of the total task by increasing the variety of skills
Job rotation – worker periodically exchange jobs
Job enrichment – increasing responsibility for planning and coordination tasks along with other responsibilities

         10.  Differentiating Features in the Design of Production System
·         Degree of Standardization (Highly Standardized vs highly customized)
·         Type of Operation (project, job shop, batch, repetitive, continuous)
·         Manufacturing vs Service

  12.  Factors/measures to enhance Success of Business
         Organization
  • People – those who make up the organization
  • Purpose – a reason for organizing and working together
  • Processes – activities which the people undertake to fulfill their purpose
  • Physical Resources – a place to work, the right equipment, money to pay the bills and the people who work there
  • Customers – people outside the organization who are willing to pay money in return for the products and services the organization provides; for government organizations taxpayers are the customers; many nonprofits depend on contributions from donors who believe in the value of what the organization is doing.

  13.  Understanding POM Concept.
Introduction
The very essence of any business is to cater needs of customer by providing services and goods, and in process create value for customers and solve their problems. Production and operations management talks about applying business organization and management concepts in creation of goods and services.
Production
Production is a scientific process which involves transformation of raw material (input) into desired product or service (output) by adding economic value. Production can broadly categorize into following based on technique:
Production through separation: It involves desired output is achieved through separation or extraction from raw materials. A classic example of separation or extraction is Oil into various fuel products.
Production by modification or improvement: It involves change in chemical and mechanical parameters of the raw material without altering physical attributes of the raw material. Annealing process (heating at high temperatures and then cooling), is example of production by modification or improvement.
Production by assembly: Car production and computer are example of production by assembly.


Importance of Production Function and Production Management
Successful organizations have well defined and efficient line function and support function. Production comes under the category of line function which directly affects customer experience and there by future of organization itself.
Aim of production function is to add value to product or service which will create a strong and long lasting customer relationship or association. And this can be achieved by healthy and productive association between Marketing and Production people. Marketing function people are frontline representative of the company and provide insights to real product needs of customers.
An effective planning and control on production parameters to achieve or create value for customers is called production management.
Operations Management
As to deliver value for customers in products and services, it is essential for the company to do the following:
  1. Identify the customer needs and convert that into a specific product or service (numbers of products required for specific period of time)
  2. Based on product requirement do back-ward working to identify raw material requirements
  3. Engage internal and external vendors to create supply chain for raw material and finished goods between vendor → production facility → customers.
Operations management captures above identified 3 points.
Production Management v/s Operations Management
A high level comparison which distinct production and operations management can be done on following characteristics:
  • Output: Production management deals with manufacturing of products like (computer, car, etc) while operations management cover both products and services.
  • Usage of Output: Products like computer/car are utilized over a period of time whereas services need to be consumed immediately
  • Classification of work: To produce products like computer/car more of capital equipment and less labour are required while services require more labour and lesser capital equipment.
  • Customer Contact: There is no participation of customer during production whereas for services a constant contact with customer is required.
Production management and operations management both are very essential in meeting objective of an organization.

 

  15.  Quality Evolution from Less Progressive to Highly
         Progressive or from Past Practices to Present Practices


  16.  Factors Affecting Location Decision
a)      Regional factors – location of raw materials, markets, labor factors and climate and taxes
b)      Community considerations – quality of life, services, attitudes, taxes, environmental regulations, utilities, developer support
c)      Multiple Plant Strategy – product plant strategy, market are plant strategy. Process plant strategy
d)      Site-related factors – land, transportation, environmental, legal

  17.  EOQ and ROP concepts
Economic order quantity (EOQ) answers the question of how much to order. It is used to determine what the optimal order size is or how much to order that minimizes the total cost (carrying and ordering costs). The assumptions of the basic EOQ model are (1) only one product is involved, (2) annual demand requirements are known, (3) demand is spread evenly throughout the year so that demand rate is reasonably constant, (4) lead time does not vary, (5) each order is received in a single delivery, and (6) there are no quantity discounts.

Reorder Point (ROP) answers the question of when to order. This occurs when the quantity on hand drops to a pre-determined amount. The determinants of ROP are:
   (a) Rate of demand
   (b) Lead-time*
   (c) Extent of demand and/or lead-time variability*
  (d) Degree of stockout risk acceptable to management

  18.  Aggregate Planning concept, procedure and techniques
Aggregate planning establishes general levels of employment, output and inventories for periods of 2 to 12 months. It begins with an overall forecast for the planning horizon and ends with preparations for applying the plans to specific products and services. The essence of aggregate planning is the aggregation of products or services into one “product” or service. This permits planners to consider overall levels of employment and inventories without having to become involved with specific details that are better left to short-range planning. The purpose of aggregate planning is to develop a feasible production plan on an aggregate level that achieves a balance of expected demand and supply. Moreover, planners are usually concerned with minimizing the cost of the production plan.

Procedures and techniques in aggregate planning
1) Determine demand for each period
2) Determine capacities for each period
3) Identify policies that are pertinent
4) Determine units costs
5) Develop alternative plans and costs
6) Select the best plan that satisfies objectives. (Otherwise, return to step 5)

Planning Techniques:
Informational Techniques
a) Spreadsheet – its approach is heuristic or thru trial and error; intuitively appealing, easy to understand; solution not necessarily optimal
Mathematical Techniques
b) Linear Programming – its approach is optimizing resources; Computerized; linear assumptions not always valid
c) Linear decision rules – optimizing technique that seeks to minimize combined cost, using a set of cost-approximating functions to obtain a single quadratic equation
d) Simulation – its solution approach is heuristic or thru trial and error; computerized models can be examined under a variety of conditions

  19.  Understanding JIT and its goals
Is used to refer to a production system in which both the movement of goods during production and deliveries are carefully timed so that at each step of the process the next batch arrives for process just as the preceding batch is completed. Making “only what is needed, when it is needed, and in the amount needed.”
JIT approach was developed at the Toyota Motors company by Taiichi Ohno and several of his colleagues. They regard scrap and rework as WASTE and inventory as an evil because it takes up space and ties up resources.

The ultimate goal of JIT is a balanced system; that is, one that achieves a smooth, rapid flow of materials through the system. The idea is to make the process time as short as possible by using resources in the best possible way. The degree to which the overall goal is achieved depends on how well certain supporting goals are achieved. The supporting goals are: (a) Eliminate disruptions, (b) Make the system flexible, (c) Reduce setup times and lead times, (d) Minimize inventory, and (e) Eliminate waste.

Just in time building blocks
a) Product Design - Three elements of product design are key to JIT systems:
   (1) Standard parts,
   (2) Modular Design, and
   (3) Quality. The first two elements refers to simplicity and speed. Standard parts means that workers have fewer parts to deal with, and training times and costs are reduced. Modular design is an extension of standard parts. Modules are cluster of parts treated as a single unit. Quality is crucial to JIT systems because poor quality can create major disruptions

b) Process Design – Seven aspects of process design are particularly important for JIT systems:
   (1) Small lot sizes
   (2) Setup time reduction
   (3) Manufacturing cells
   (4) Limited work in process 
   (5) Quality improvement
   (6) Production flexibility
   (7) Little inventory storage

c) Personnel Organizational Elements – There are five elements of personnel and organization that are particularly important for JIT systems:
   (1) Workers as assets
   (2) Cross-trained workers
   (3) Cost accounting
   (4) Leadership/ project management

d) Manufacturing Planning and Control – There are five elements of manufacturing planning and control that are particularly important for JIT systems:
   (1) Level loading
   (2) Pull systems
   (3) Visual systems
   (4) Close vendor relationships
   (5) Reduced transaction processing

  20.  PERT and CPM
Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and Critical Path Method (CPM) help managers to plan the timing of projects involving sequential activities. PERT/CPM charts identify the time required to complete the activities in a project, and the order of the steps. Each activity is assigned an earliest and latest start time and end time. Activities with no slack time are said to lie along the critical path–the path that must stay on time for the project to remain on schedule.

Expected Completion Time
A strength of PERT/CPM charts is their ability to calculate exactly how long a project will take. PERT/CPM provides managers with a range of time in which the project should be completed, based on the total of all minimum and maximum time limits for all activities. This gives companies a number of advantages, such as the ability to tell customers exactly when their orders will be filled, or to know exactly when to order new supplies. The expected completion time of the project is based on ideal situations, however, and does not take into account the possibility of unforeseen events. The expected completion time of all subsequent activities and the project as a whole can become skewed when things go wrong, which can cause problems if the company has made plans that rely on the timely completion of the project. Another weakness of PERT/CPM is that the technique relies on past data and experience to formulate completion time predictions. New companies may not have any past experience to lean on, putting them at a disadvantage.
Efficiency
Businesses can share PERT/CPM charts among all key employees, letting employees at each station know exactly when they will be required to begin work processes, where the required inputs will come from, where the outputs must go, and when their task must be completed. This can help dispersed employees to operate efficiently by having a common understanding of the expected work flow. When things go wrong, however, the very thing that encouraged efficiency might suddenly cause confusion. When a project is held up due to an unforeseen circumstance, workers at all subsequent stations must delay their own progress while explaining to subsequent stations' employees why outputs are not flowing.
Critical Path
The critical path identified in a PERT/CPM chart shows managers which activities are the most time-critical. This allows managers to focus process improvements on the tasks that are most vital to the timely completion of the project. More slack time can be created by reducing the processing time at critical points in the project, or the project schedule can be tightened up for a quicker turnaround. Managers may place too much emphasis on activities along the critical path, however. A weakness of CPM is that it focuses primarily on the time aspect of activities, neglecting other concerns, such as quality and cost control. Focusing too much attention on the critical path can cause managers not to notice possible production improvements in other activities.

  21.  Six Sigma concept and methodology
Six sigma is 3.4 defects per 1,000,000 opportunities. That means a process efficiency of 99.99966%. DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) is one of the methodologies of six sigma. This applies to an existing process that needs an improvement. It’s best applicable to continuous defect reduction in cross-functional /uni-functional environment. So under define, we establish CTQ and define a project. For measure, we establish performance parameters. For analyze, we establish process baseline, define performance goals and identify variation sources. For improve, we Explore Potential Causes, Establish Variable Relationship, and Design Operating Limits. And lastly, control, which is to Verify Process Improvement and Institutionalize New Capability.
The focus of six sigma is all critical characteristics (Y) are driven by factors (x) which are “upstream” from the results, attempting to manage results (Y) only causes increased costs due to rework, test and inspection. Thus, understanding and controlling the causative factors (x) is the real key to high quality at low cost..
Six Sigma is
A performance goal, representing 3.4 defects for every million opportunities to make one, that means a process efficiency of 99.99966%. A series of tools and methods used to improve or design products, processes, and/or services. A means to promote greater awareness of customer needs, performance measurement, and business improvement.

5 Phases of Six Sigma:
DMAIC (is used for projects aimed at improving an existing business process.)
D - Define the problem/Opportunity
M - Measure current performance
A - Analyze the root cause of the problem
I - Improve the process to eliminate root causes
C - Control the process to sustain the gains

DMADV (is used for projects aimed at creating new product or process designs.)
D - Define design goals that are consistent with customer demands and the enterprise strategy.
M - Measure and identify CTQs (characteristics that are Critical To Quality)
A - Analyze to develop and design alternatives
D - Design an improved alternative, best suited per analysis in the previous step
V - Verify the design, set up pilot runs, implement the production process and hand it over to the process owner(s).


  22.  TPM Pillars and paradigm change
TPM IS PRODUCTIVE MAINTENANCE CARRIED OUT BY ALL EMPLOYEES THROUGH SMALL GROUP ACTIVITIES. It is a combination of breakdown maintenance, preventive maintenance and predictive maintenance. AS A MANUFACTURING PHILOSOPHY, IT FOCUSES ON THE EFFECTIVE RELATIONSHIP OF WORKERS TO THE EQUIPMENT AND THE MEANING OF WASTE AND ITS ELIMINATION. TPM EFFECTIVELY IMPROVES THE COMPANY BY IMPROVING ITS PERSONNEL AND ITS EQUIPMENT

Eight pillars:
a) Autonomous Maintenance - operator not only operates the equipment but also takes care of the equipment’s health by proper maintenance
b) Focused Improvement (Kobetsu Kaizen) - try to thoroughly eliminate 16 major losses. 
c) Planned maintenance
d) Quality maintenance
e) Initial Flow control - equipment designing should be reflected with problems or experiences on the same or similar equipment installed in the plant  to have an initial control.
f) Safety, Health and Environment
g) Education and training

h) office TPM