OPM300
Introduction to Operations Management (FEB2017FT-1)
Real-World Flowcharting
To receive full credit for discussion participation,
you should post a message during the first three days of the module. The Week 1
topic requires nothing more than some thought and reflection, while the Week 2
topic requires specific knowledge of the moduleâs contents. For full credit,
you should respond to both topics. We suggest you do the Week 1 topic first,
but please feel free to respond to either topic, at any time.
Week 1 Topic: Describing a complex process
Many complex processes arenât linear; they can take
various twists and turns, depending on the particular situation, and also on
âhow things go.â Flowcharting is a technique for describing such processes
succinctly and accurately, using a prescribed, clearly understood format.
Think of a complex process that youâve had to
perform. What sort of written documentation, if any, did you have to guide you?
Did it help you deal with the âtwists and turns?â Why or why not?
Week 2 Topic: When a flowchart doesnât flow
1. Discuss the problems you encountered (or,
perhaps, are still encountering) while completing the Case exercise. Would you
expect to encounter the same problems if you were drawing a flowchart of a
âreal-worldâ process? Why or why not? Explain in the context of an actual
process with which you are familiar.
2. List some feature of a process that may make it
difficult to depict using a flowchart. Here are two:
a.A flowchart depicts a sequential series of processes.
Thereâs no good way to show simultaneous processes.
b.A flowchart has a start point and an end point.
When describing a real process, those points may be arbitrary.
There are more. What are they?
Discussion General Expectations
1. In your first posting, you should show a basic
understanding of the issues involved in the module. In your second and
subsequent postings, you should demonstrate a clear understanding of the
material covered in the module.
2. Critically apply your understanding to the
examples provided by others. Do those examples clearly illustrate the concepts
being discussed? Why or why not?
3. Provide relevant sources for any information that
isnât common knowledge.
Real-World Decision Trees
To receive full credit for discussion participation,
you should post a message during the first three days of the module. The Week 1
topic requires nothing more than some thought and reflection, while the Week 2
topic requires specific knowledge of the moduleâs contents. For full credit,
you should respond to both topics. We suggest you do the Week 1 topic first,
but please feel free to respond to either topic, at any time.
Week 1 Topic: What to do, what to do???
Metaphorically, the road through life has many
intersections; sometimes a T-intersection (go left or right), sometimes a
crossroads (go left, right, or straight ahead), and sometimes a roundabout with
many alternatives. Each alternative leads to several possible outcomes, with
each outcome having a probability that ranges from highly unlikely to almost
certain. Choosing the right outcome is sometimes complicated, and it would be
nice to have a tool to help us make the choice.
Describe and discuss a situation in which you had to
choose among several alternative courses of action. What were the possible
outcomes of each alternative? How did you choose an alternative?
Week 2 Topic: Sometimes decision trees donât grow.
Decision trees are attractive. They offer a
straightforward way of writing down the various available alternatives and
choosing among them. But here are some questions that always need answering.
1. Can the decision really be reduced to a set of
discrete alternatives? Are there some factors that canât be listed and
quantified, such as beauty and morality?
2. Where do the alternatives come from? Are they
exhaustive? That is, have we discovered and listed all of them? Do they reflect
reality or only the biases and preconceptions of the decision maker?
3. How confident are we in the outcome values, aka
the payoffs? Are they time-sensitive?
4. How confident are we in the probabilities
attached to the outcomes? Where on Earth did they come from?
5. In short: Is a decision tree really useful in
this situation, or is it just a way of camouflaging a wild guess, and making it
look ârational?”
Discussion General Expectations
1. In your first posting, you should show a basic
understanding of the issues involved in the module. In your second and
subsequent postings, you should demonstrate a clear understanding of the
material covered in the module.
2. Critically apply your understanding to the
examples provided by others. Do those examples clearly illustrate the concepts
being discussed? Why or why not?
3. Provide relevant sources for any information that
isnât common knowledge.
Real-World PERT/CPM
To receive full credit for discussion participation,
you should post a message during the first three days of the module. The Week 1
topic requires nothing more than some thought and reflection, while the Week 2
topic requires specific knowledge of the moduleâs contents. For full credit,
you should respond to both topics. We suggest you do the Week 1 topic first,
but please feel free to respond to either topic, at any time.
Week 1 Topic: âHow long will this take?â
Some projects have specific activities that need to
be completed consecutively; that is, or one after another. One example of this
is baking a cake. You canât put the cake tin into the oven until youâve filled
it with cake batter. You canât put the batter into the tin until youâve greased
the tin. The batter isnât ready until youâve sifted flour into a bowl, added
eggs, added baking powder, etc.
Other projects have activities that can be completed
concurrently, or at the same time. One example is detailing a car. One guy can
vacuum the interior while another applies Armor-All to the wheels, and yet
another waxes the exterior. (Even this project has some consecutive activities.
For example, a worker canât apply Armor-All to the interior until somebodyâs
vacuumed the interior, and wiped everything down.)
Most of us are familiar with projects consisting
only of consecutive activities. Such a project may be long and involved, but
conceptually itâs simpleâjust do one thing after another. Other projects
consists only of concurrent activities; all the different parts of the project
can be worked on at the same time, and when theyâre all done, the project is
done. Still other projects consist of a mix of consecutive and concurrent
activities. For your first posting, try to give an example of such a project.
Looking ahead: PERT-CPM gives us a tool for
predicting how long projects consisting of both consecutive and concurrent
tasks are going to take, and how much theyâre going to cost.
Week 2 Topic: When will PERT-CPM work?
PERT-CPM, like the other tools considered thus far,
is not a âSwiss Army knife.â It wonât solve all problems. Its usefulness is
limited by the nature of the project, and the state of the managerâs knowledge
about what the project will involve.
Here are some questions that need to be answered
before deciding whether to use PERT-CPM. The list is far from exhaustive.
â¢To what extent can the project be broken down into
discrete tasks? How should that breakdown happen? Example: When building a
house, is tiling the floors and the shower stalls one job, or two?
â¢To what extent are the tasks sequentially
dependent? Example: Again, when building a house, the kitchen exhaust fan
should be installed before the attic is insulated; but if need be, the
insulation can be swept aside and the fan installed later.
â¢How accurately are the task durations known?
â¢How accurately are the task costs known?
â¢Are the start date and the deadline âset in stone,â
or merely aspirational? (âIt would be nice if we could move in before
Christmas, but⦠well, you know, whatever.â)
Discussion General Expectations
1. In your first posting, you should show a basic
understanding of the issues involved in the module. In your second and
subsequent postings, you should demonstrate a clear understanding of the
material covered in the module.
2. Critically apply your understanding to the
examples provided by others. Do those examples clearly illustrate the concepts
being discussed? Why or why not?
3. Provide relevant sources for any information that
isnât common knowledge.
Real-World LP
To receive full credit for discussion participation,
you should post a message during the first three days of the module. The Week 1
topic requires nothing more than some thought and reflection, while the Week 2
topic requires specific knowledge of the moduleâs contents. For full credit,
you should respond to both topics. We suggest you do the Week 1 topic first,
but please feel free to respond to either topic, at any time.
Week 1 Topic: âItâs whatcha do with whatcha you
gotâ¦â
The Tin Pan Alley classic continues, ââ¦never mind
how much youâve got,/Itâs whatcha do with whatcha you got/That pays off in the
end!â (De Paul & Raye, circa 1948).
Making the best use of limited resources is a
familiar problem. One familiar example is the limited space in a backpack. If
youâre going to be in the wood for two weeks, what should you pack? Some
factors youâd need to consider; bulk, weight, food value, and necessity. (Carbs
and protein are required. Diet soda? Not so much.)
Another example is study time. Do you allocate every
hour to one course, or spread the time out among all your courses? What are the
factors involved in that decision? (Possible factors: how hard the material is,
your current grade, and when the next assignment is due.)
A common business-related problem goes like this. A
factory makes several different products. Thereâs a different demand for each.
Each generates a particular profit. All of them must be made with limited
money, materials, and time. Whatâs the optimum product mixâthat is, how many of
each should the factory make?
For your first posting, please describe an
allocation problem you have faced, either personally, or as part of your job.
What were the desired outcomes? What were the constraints?
Looking ahead; linear programming is a tool that can
be used to make allocation decisions of that type.
Week 2 Topic:
1. Discuss the problems you encountered (or,
perhaps, are still encountering) while completing the Case exercise. Would you
expect to encounter the same problems if you were using LP for a real-world
allocation decision? Why or why not? Explain in the context of an actual
allocation problem with which you are familiar.
2. List some characteristics of an allocation
problem that may make it difficult to optimize using LP. Here are two:
â¢Constraints may not be totally predictable. For
example, the price one can charge for a particular product may vary
unpredictably over time.
â¢All of the constraints may not be known. For
example, a new pollution regulation may limit effluents, thereby limiting a particular
production process.
There are more. What are they?
Discussion General Expectations
1. In your first posting, you should show a basic
understanding of the issues involved in the module. In your second and
subsequent postings, you should demonstrate a clear understanding of the
material covered in the module.
2. Critically apply your understanding to the
examples provided by others. Do those examples clearly illustrate the concepts
being discussed? Why or why not?
3. Provide relevant sources for any information that
isnât common knowledge.
Looking Back
Please review the course as a whole. This is for your benefit, and also for ours; reviewing
the topics covered in this course will help you fix them in your mind, and
integrate them with what you already know.
Reviewing the topics with a critical eye, and sharing your observations
and suggestions, will help Trident improve the course, and provide a better
learning experience for those coming after you.
Address the following points in a short
posting. Review and comment on the
postings of your fellow students.
â¢The extent to which you met your learning
expectations.
â¢The perceived usefulness of the topics covered, and
of the course as a whole.
â¢The relative difficulty of the various topics. Which were the most challenging? The least?
Please explain.
â¢How the topics could have been presented
differently. How could we make this
course better? Please explain, in
detail.
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