Operations Management and Strategy

What the page covers

The resources here follow the usual path of an operations course. Early material deals with definitions and competitiveness. The mind map Chapter 1 Operations and productivity covers operations management, the supply chain, the value chain, goods versus services, and single and multifactor productivity. The mind map Chapter 2 Operations Strategy in a Global Environment looks at reasons for global operations and at competing on differentiation, cost and response.

Planning, capacity and quality

Further in, the page moves to planning decisions. Aggregate Planning Today sets out medium-range capacity planning, with a time horizon of 3 to 18 months. L6: Capacity Management uses cases such as unused airports. Other maps and flashcard decks deal with forecasting, inventory control, material resource planning, process design, line balancing and quality management. Lean ideas appear in Just In Time Manufacture, which describes JIT as based on the elimination of waste and links it to Toyota.

Where to start

1. Open the two chapter maps above to get the vocabulary and the big picture.
2. Take the Competitiveness, Strategy and Productivity Quiz to see what you already know.
3. Move on to a planning topic, such as capacity or aggregate planning, and read its map.
4. Test yourself with Operations Management Past Papers or a midterm-style quiz.

Using quizzes and maps together

Read a map first, then take a quiz on the same topic. Note the questions you miss and go back to the matching branch of the map. Flashcard decks such as Operations: Forecasting suit short, repeated sessions. Teachers can pick a map or quiz and use it as ready-made material for a class.

Where this fits

This unit sits in the Foundations of Industrial Engineering strand of the Industrial engineering and quality subject. Choose one topic that matches your course and begin there.