Curriculum Information

Introduction to Operations Management

' The position of operations in an organisation. The input-transformation-output model.
' The relationship between corporate strategy and operations management
' The concept of strategic drift and its impact upon OM
' Types of operations - producers of goods and producers of services.
' The strategic role of operations in the organisation. The meaning of the operations function.
' Performance objectives in OM.
' The importance of design product development in SOM
'Determining the 'Operational Positioning Strategy'
'Method study and work measurement, ergonomics. Scientific OM
'Materials handling - broad costs, equipment, principle of unit load.

Management of People
' Classical, scientific and human resource management approaches to SOM
' Communication and perception in SOM
' Approaches to motivation, management culture, Japanese approaches.
' Teams in SOM
' Leadership in SOM
' Strategic Operations as a Complex Evolving System (CES) - People as agents in SOM
'Strategic Management of change and OM

Service Operations Management
' The nature of the service concept and its role in an economy
' Defining a service strategy
' The need for new service development as a company-wide activity.
' Operations considerations in service features and service design.
' Forecasting demand for services
' Managing capacity and demand in services and queuing models
' Managing waiting lines
' Computer simulation – systems simulation

Management of Facilities
' Facility location considerations and layout – product & services
' Facility design - functional involvement.
' Factors affecting equipment selection.
' Preventive and repair maintenance.
' Asset replacement considerations.

Management of Processes (I) “ Quality Management in product and service environments
' Quality - pre-requisites, design and performance /conformance, costs affected by quality.
' Sampling in quality control (QC). Use of warning and action limits in statistical process control (SPC).
' Quality assurance
' Tools of quality management
' TQM & Six Sigma Methodologies
' Business Process Re-engineering
' Value engineering /value analysis; variety reduction in products and services.. Management of Processes (II)

' Objectives of Production Planning and Control (PPC). Activities of PPC and relationships with other departments.
' Forecasting, capacity planning.
' Scheduling and loading, scheduling rules.
' Project Management & network analysis - CPA, drawing, calculation, resource aggregation, crash costing.
' Data capture and reporting, information required, accuracy, new technology.
' Inventory and yield - effects on company performance. Relationship of inventory and manufacturing throughput time. Material control. Uses of ABC analysis (Pareto) in inventory control.
' Inventory control systems.

Evolving Technologies and Approaches
' Materials requirements planning (MRPI), Manufacture Resource Planning (MRPII), Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) & Distribution Resource Planning (DRP).
' Beyond Just in Time (JIT) – Lean, Agility, 'Leagility' & Flexible Specialisation.
' Optimised Production Technology (OPT).
' Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS).
' World class organisations & world class performance.
' Benchmarking

This module will facilitate the development of Personal development Planning (PDP) through the delivery of the key skills identified in the module descriptor