Assigned Readings

• Operations Management involves the design, planning, control, and improvement of processes to create and deliver quality products and services.
• Operations Strategy and Competitiveness is a crucial aspect of Operations Management.
• Forecasting is a crucial aspect of Operations Management.
• Supply Chain is a crucial aspect of Operations Management.
• Managing Quality is a crucial aspect of Operations Management.
• Process Design is a crucial aspect of Operations Management.
• Strategic Capacity Planning is a crucial aspect of Operations Management.
• Facility Location is a crucial aspect of Operations Management.
• Prevention costs include all funds spent to prevent the occurrence of defects, such as quality improvement initiatives, employee training, upgrading of equipment, implementing quality procedures, and making proactive design changes.
• The various costs of quality can be broken down into prevention costs, appraisal costs, and failure costs, which are further classified as internal failure costs and external failure costs.
• Companies who provide excellent quality goods and services are able to excel and differentiate themselves from competitors, are more profitable, and have negligible extra costs due to poor productivity, rework, inspection, and scrap.
• Total quality management (TQM), or quality assurance, includes all steps a company takes to ensure that its goods or services meet or exceed the customers defined specifications and are of sufficiently high quality to meet customers’ needs.
• Successful TQM requires that everyone in the organization, not simply upper-level management, commits to satisfying the customer.
• Internal failure costs are those incurred once a defect has been produced, such as rework and scrap.
• Three common quality systems used by organizations to manage their quality are total quality management (TQM), ISO9001, and Six Sigma.
• When customers wait too long at a drive-through window, it’s the responsibility of a number of employees, not the manager alone.
• Appraisal costs include all money spent in checking and testing of product during the production process, including wages of inspectors, testing labs and equipment, gauging, and process control.
• A defective DVD isn’t solely the responsibility of the manufacturer’s quality control department; it’s the responsibility of every employee involved in its design, production, and even shipping.
• Companies that are committed to TQM encourage customers to tell them how to make the right products, both goods and services, that work the right way.
• Companies adhere to TQM principles by focusing on three tasks: customer satisfaction, employee involvement, and continuous improvement.
• External failure costs are those incurred once a defective product has been shipped to the customer, including replacement product, expedited shipping, potential law suits, product recalls, and loss of future business.
• Companies that are committed to TQM understand that the purpose of a business is to generate a profit by satisfying customer needs.
• Dr. W. Edwards Deming is known for his concept of a “hidden plant,” which he felt wasted a large portion of a plant’s capacity due to the large amount of failures and defects.
• Edwards Deming’s “14 points” also include driving out fear, breaking down barriers between departments, and instituting a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
• Edwards Deming’s “14 points” also include instituting a program of education and self-improvement for everyone in the company.
• Edwards Deming’s “14 points” include creating constancy of purpose towards improvement of product and service, adopting the new philosophy, awakening to the challenge of a new economic age, and ending the practice of awarding business on the basis of a price tag.
• Edwards Deming’s “14 points” also include improving constantly and forever the system of production and service, instituting training on the job, and instituting leadership.
• Edwards Deming’s “14 points” also include instituting a single supplier for any one item, on a long-term relationship of loyalty and trust.
• Edwards Deming’s “14 points”
• The standards help businesses increase productivity while minimizing errors and waste.
• An audit must take place.
• A firm must initially begin by documenting and implementing their systems for quality management.
• Founded on 23 February 1947, the organization promotes worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial standards.
• Think of HACCP principles as the steps you need to take to manage and control food safety risks in your business.
• Continuous improvement is an integral part of TQM and involves the commitment to making constant improvements in the design, production, and delivery of goods and services.
• By enabling products from different markets to be directly compared, they facilitate companies in entering new markets and assist in the development of global trade on a fair basis.
• Employees must be properly trained not only to do their jobs but also to detect and correct quality problems.
• The cost for the above steps will clearly depend largely on the size and complexity of the organization.
• Quality assurance in organizations is achieved by communicating the importance of quality to subordinates and motivating them to focus on customer satisfaction.
• The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various standards organizations.