Application Exercises
MBA 503 Operations Management
Application Exercises
You may choose to do up to three application exercises of your choice to demonstrate the application of a concept or tool presented in this course. You may turn these in at any time during the course. You are encouraged to turn in a draft to me for any feedback to improve the application. You will earn up to 50 points for each of your successful applications.
Voice of the Customer
Identify customers/stakeholders of a process that you/your team manage
Interview a minimum of three of these customers/stakeholders using the following questions:
What are your expectations for the product/service that you receive from this process?
How do you define quality for this product/service?
What are one or more things that we can do to improve the quality of this process?
Summarize the findings from these interviews.
Waiting Line Analysis
Describe a waiting line that occurs around a service your organization provides.
Describe the service system
Describe the arrival system
How would you characterize the waiting line model
Provide data on the service rate and arrival rate – or how you go about collecting this data.
Identify actions that could be taken to improve performance and manage the customer’s experience.
Problem Prevention (Fail Safing and Poka-Yokes)
Use flow charting to describe a process (this can be the creation of a service or a product) in which you are familiar.
Identify a potential failure in the process and what impact it may have on performance.
Design a poka-yoke to prevent or reduce the chances of failure.
Discuss how this would improve performance.
Reducing Waste
Describe an operation or process that you have access to.
Observe the operation/process and identify five or more types of waste.
Discuss how the waste negatively impacts organizational performance.
Design on or more actions to eliminate/reduce waste in this operation/process.
Constraint Management
Describe a production system in which a
Application Exercises
You may choose to do up to three application exercises of your choice to demonstrate the application of a concept or tool presented in this course. You may turn these in at any time during the course. You are encouraged to turn in a draft to me for any feedback to improve the application. You will earn up to 50 points for each of your successful applications.
Voice of the Customer
Identify customers/stakeholders of a process that you/your team manage
Interview a minimum of three of these customers/stakeholders using the following questions:
What are your expectations for the product/service that you receive from this process?
How do you define quality for this product/service?
What are one or more things that we can do to improve the quality of this process?
Summarize the findings from these interviews.
Waiting Line Analysis
Describe a waiting line that occurs around a service your organization provides.
Describe the service system
Describe the arrival system
How would you characterize the waiting line model
Provide data on the service rate and arrival rate – or how you go about collecting this data.
Identify actions that could be taken to improve performance and manage the customer’s experience.
Problem Prevention (Fail Safing and Poka-Yokes)
Use flow charting to describe a process (this can be the creation of a service or a product) in which you are familiar.
Identify a potential failure in the process and what impact it may have on performance.
Design a poka-yoke to prevent or reduce the chances of failure.
Discuss how this would improve performance.
Reducing Waste
Describe an operation or process that you have access to.
Observe the operation/process and identify five or more types of waste.
Discuss how the waste negatively impacts organizational performance.
Design on or more actions to eliminate/reduce waste in this operation/process.
Constraint Management
Describe a production system in which a