Operations

Management:
Assignment 1
By: RITAM CHAKRABORTY
PRN: 19021141086
Q.NO.1
What are the roles and responsibilities of operation manager?

An operations manager is key part of a management team and

oversees high-level HR duties, such as attracting talent and setting
training standards and hiring procedures. They also analyze and
improve organizational processes, and work to improve quality,
productivity and efficiency. Operations manager ensures that the
company is performing at its best potential. They look over multiple
areas to ensure that everything is productive and efficient in order to
reduce costs. Put simply, operation function deals with producing the
right amount of good or service at minimum cost, at right time and in
the right quality. Operations Manager ensures that happens by
managing the activities that are part of production of goods and
service.
In an automobile assembly factory, a production manager, quality
manager, inventory control manager, and line supervisor can be
considered to be part of operations management. Similarly, in a
Physician’s Clinic or Management consultant firm or an Advertising
agency, all of which are providing some kind of service, the role of
the operations manager would be to ensure that the service provided is
friendly, uninterrupted, and caters to customer needs. As for not for
profit sectors such as disaster relief charities, managers role would be
to ensure speedy distribution of resources to disaster affected areas
and to manage all the volunteer’s efforts.

Q.NO.2
Mr. X and Mr. Y are planning to set up an e-bicycle
manufacturing company. Mr.X wants to locate it in Nagaland.
Mr.Y wants to study other regions of the country before finalizing
Nagaland as a location. Mr. X wants to know the need for
studying the other locations, give your reasons.

A company which operates in a global environment, a lot of factors

have to be considered when it comes to deciding the location of the
manufacturing unit. Cost, available resources, labour availability,
government policies, proximity to customers, suppliers, infrastructure
and environment regulations are very important factors. A right
location provides adequate access to customers, skilled labours,
transportation, profit maximation, satisfactory customer service etc. A
right location ensures success of the organization in current global
competitive environment. Therefore, a lot of thought should be put in
while deciding the right location that provides all available factors
Q.NO.3
What are the objectives of line balancing in an assembly line?
The main objective of line balancing is to distribute the task evenly
over the work station and lime balancing aims at grouping the
facilities or workers in an efficient pattern in order to obtain an
optimum or most efficient balance of the capacities and flows of
the production or assembly processes.. It is used to quickly assemble
large numbers of a uniform products. The objectives are to:
1. To minimize the number of workstations.
2. To minimize the cycle time.
3. To maximize the workload smoothness.
4. To maximize the work relatedness.

Q.NO.4
What are the objectives of facility layout?
A model facility layout should be able to provide an ideal relationship
between raw material, equipment, manpower and final product at
minimal cost under safe and comfortable environment. An efficient
and effective facility layout can cover following objectives:
  To provide optimum space to organize equipment and facilitate
movement of goods and to create safe and comfortable work
environment.
 To promote order in production towards a single objective
 To reduce movement of workers, raw material and equipment
 To promote safety of plant as well as its workers
 To facilitate extension or change in the layout to accommodate
new product line or technology upgradation
 To increase production capacity of the organization

An organization can achieve the above-mentioned objective by

ensuring the following:

 Better training of the workers and supervisors.

 Creating awareness about of health hazard and safety standards
 Optimum utilization of workforce and equipment
 Encouraging empowerment and reducing administrative and
other indirect work

Q.NO.5
What type of layouts do you recommend for the following
manufacturing and service units?
a). Ship building b). Denims c). Laptop assembly d).
Engineering workshop e). Hospital f). Super market

 Ship building – Fixed Position Layout

 Denims – Process/Functional Layout
 Laptop assembly – Product Layout
 Engineering workshop – Flexible Manufacturing Layout
 Hospital – Loop/Spine Layout
 Super market – Grid Layout
 Q.NO.6
What is the difference between product and process layouts
explain with suitable examples?
A process layout is where similar items are grouped
together. Process layouts are ideal for companies that perform
custom work and where the demand for each product is low.
A product layout is where the equipment, tools, and machines are
located according to how a product is made. Product Layout
Example, industries that manufacture standardised products on a high
scale like paper, rubber, oil refineries, cement, chemical, soap, etc.
Process Layout Example, heavy engineering industries and
customised furniture industries.
Q.NO.7

What issues or challenges do you see that operations managers

have to address in the current business scenario?
There are multiple challenges that operations managers face on a
daily basis; this blog highlights the following five: globalization,
sustainability, ethical conduct, ineffective communication, and system
design.
Globalization
“a process of interaction and integration among the people,
companies, and governments of different nations.” It is driven by a
reduction in trade barriers, advancements in information technology,
and transportation technology. Operation managers face competition
from the company across the street, as well as, from across the
country and across the world. This falls on the operations manager as
he or she is the one who “engages in the four functions of planning,
organizing, leading, and controlling to ensure that the product or
service remains competitive in the market.” Batchoo adds that the
operations manager must tap into their creative skills as innovation
will be a key factor of success as will knowledge about international
business and the myriad cultures of the businesses around the globe.

Sustainability
“method of evaluating whether a business can maintain existing
practices without putting future resources at risk.” When discussing
the concept of sustainability, it is often referred to as the Three
Pillars of Sustainability which are social, environmental, and
economic. Operations managers must concern themselves with
the outcomes of each of the pillars including how their work affects
safety, welfare, communities, the environment and economic
sustainability.
Effective operations managers must implement best practices with a
concern for all three pillars of sustainability. They also need to initiate
and verify corrective action when any outcome of one of the three
pillars becomes jeopardized.

Ethical Conduct
“meant to ensure that the production function and/or activities are not
damaging to either the consumer or the society.” In particular
organizations should consider the effects new technologies, defective
services, animal testing and business deals have on people, safety, and
the environment.

Effective Communication
Being consistent and effective when communicating can be difficult
anyone in any position within an organization. The challenge for the
operations manager is to be able to communicate effectively with all
internal and external stakeholders. Whether they are talking to
someone on the factory floor, or in the boardroom, they must be able
to effectively communicate their message as well as process the
messages being directed to them. Mastering oral, written, and non-
verbal communication is integral to making day-to-day operations run
smoothly.
System Design
“producing quality goods and services in demanded quantities in
acceptable time frames.” Designing the system, planning the system,
and managing the system present a wide variety of challenges to even
the most savvy operations managers.
As operations managers work in multidisciplinary environments, they
must be aware of and effectively respond to the challenges presented
by globalization, sustainability, ethical conduct, effective
communication, and system design. Doing this calls for operations
managers to excel in the business, technical, and interpersonal aspects
of their work as they actively support the mission and vision of their
organization.

Q.NO.8
Briefly describe the steps followed in product design.
Product design is when a new product is created to sell to
customers. The stages of the product design process are to create an
idea, determine product feasibility, test the product, and then launch
the product for customers to buy.

1. Concurrent engineering - Designing brings together marketing

analysts, art directors, sales forecasters, engineers, finance experts,
and other members to think and plan strategically.
2. Design specifications - Defines a product’s characteristics,
materials, its dimensions, tolerances, and its performance standards.
3. Product design and process selection - affect product quality,
product cost, and customer satisfaction, product design should be
manufacture-able.
4. Marketability - Must have combined characteristics of good design
& competitive pricing.

Q.N0.9
List the tools that can be used in product design and describe
about any two tools.
A Product Design Tool or Framework helps us to design a product
after considering all available alternatives and also helps us to map its
success. Factors to consider when designing a product are growth,
time, concept creation, concept development, market development,
business optimization, harvesting and re-investing. The tools that can
used in product design are as follows:
1. Product Life Cycle
2. Modular Design
3. Quality Function Development
4. Design Review
5. Design Improvement
Q.No. 10
a) Which process, Alpha or Beta is more productive?
b) What conclusions can you draw from your analysis
Q.No.11.
i). Find the range of output for each alternative that would yield
lowest total cost?
ii). Which alternative would yield lowest total cost for an expected
annual volume of 150 boats?
iii). What other factors might be considered in choosing the
between expansion and sub-contracting?
Q.No.12.
a) Draw and label a precedence diagram for the following
assembly information.
b) Set up an assembly line that will be capable of producing 120
units in a 10-hour day.
c) Calculate the theoretical minimum number of work stations
and.
d) Capacity utilization of the line.
Q.No.13.
Determine the placement of department for a newly designed
facility that will minimize total transportation costs using the data
in the following table. Assume that reverse distances are the same.
The locations are shown in the following grid. Use a cost of $1 per
KM.

Q.No.14.
Arrange the eight departments shown in the accompanying
Muthar grid into 2 x 4 format
Q.No.14.
Arrange the eight departments shown in the accompanying Muthar grid into 2 x 4 format
Q.No.15.
List the tools used in product and service design and describe any
two of them in detail with an example.

Factors to consider when designing a product are growth, time,

concept creation, concept development, market development, business
optimization, harvesting and re-investing. The tools that can used in
product design are as follows:
1. Product Life Cycle
2. Modular Design
3. Quality Function Development
4. Design Review
5. Design Improvement

A product life cycle is a marketing concept which describes the

several different stages that a product goes through from when it is
first introduced to when it is taken off the market. The five stages are:
development, introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. Not all
products go through decline stage and many products take a long time
to reach maturity stage. Products may continuously grow as different
uses may be discovered for them. A product life cycle helps the
manager to strategize and make optimum use of these stages to bring
overall success to the product in the market.

Q. No.16
List various techniques used for design review and discuss any
two techniques in detail.

Design Review refers to a management technique that is used for the

purposes of conducting a thorough evaluation of a proposed design in
order to determining whether or not the current proposed design will
meet the project requirements set forth by the customer or not. It is
also used to determine as to whether the proposed design will be fully
functional and, after functioning successfully, can be adequately
maintained for a minimum and predetermined period of time. The
following techniques can be used for design review:
1. FMEA – Failure mode and effects analysis is a systematic approach
to analyse the cause and effects of a product failures.
2. FTA – Fault tree analysis is a visual method for analysing the
relationship among failures.
3. Value Analysis – It is a procedure for eliminating unnecessary
features and functions in a design.