Discussion Questions - Chapter 1 - Operations and Productivity
1. Operations Management should be studied because it gives us knowledge on how goods and services are produced. It is one of the three major functions of an organization, the others being marketing and accounting. It is imperative to know what the operations management functions are, and how they are used to create the goods that we use. We also study operations managements so we can know and understand what operations management does, because it is where a large percentage of a company’s income is spent.
6. The three major functions of a firm are Marketing, Accounting and Operations.
7. The 10 strategic operations management decisions are: 1) Design of goods and services, 2) Managing quality, 3) Process strategy, 4) Location strategies, 5) Layout strategies, 6) Human resources, 7) Supply-chain management, 8) Inventory management, 9) Scheduling, and 10) Maintenance.
8. Four areas that are significant to improving labor productivity are: 1) educated labor – basic education of the workforce, 2) adequate capital – making sure the correct resources are available (i.e. money, transportation, water, etc.), 3) updated technology – making sure that technology stays modern to keep up with the changing demands of society, and 4) good operations managers to help produce high-quality outputs and superior productivity.
9. Because the U.S. is considered a knowledge society, it is very difficult to make comparisons between the productivity of the US and other countries. This is due to the possibilities of exact units of measure that may be missing, inconsistent quality, and remote variables that may change.
10. Measurement problems with productivity consist of accurate units of measurement that may be lacking, outside elements that may interfere, and changing of quality.
12. Improvement of productivity in the service sector has been difficult because it is many services are labor intensive. In addition,...