MAN. SCIENCE

• Frederick Winslow Taylor - known as the Father of Scientific Management. He is known for his systematic development of management techniques which he started at the Midvale Steel Company in Philadelphia around 1880.
• Management Science is an interdisciplinary branch of applied science including mathematical model, engineering and statistics.
• Management Science focused on the development of quantitative techniques to solve operations problems.
• Management Science was in the time between 1940 to 1960.
• Management Science aimed to improve an organization's ability to enact rational and meaningful management decisions.
• The discipline is typically concerned with maximizing profit, assembly line performance, crop yield, bandwidth, etc. or minimizing expenses, loss, risk, etc.
• Applications of management science - are abundant in industry such as airlines, manufacturing companies, service organizations, military branches, and in government. The range of problems and issues to which management science has contributed insights and solutions are vast.
• Examine Functional Relationships from a Systems - a systems overview examines the entire area under the manager's control. This approach provides a basis for initiating inquiries into problems that seem to be affecting performance at all levels.
• Use the Interdisciplinary Approach - management makes good use of a simple principle, it looks at the problem from different angles and approaches. Therefore, management science emphasizes over the interdisciplinary approach because each of the individual aspects of a problem can be best understood and solved by those, experts in different fields such as accounting, biological, economic, engineering, mathematics, physical, psychological, sociological, statistical etc.
• Uncover new problems for study - the third characteristic of management science, which is often overlooked, is that the solution of an MS problem brings new problem to light, All interrelated problems uncovered by the MS approach do not have to be solved at the same time. However, each must be solved with consideration for other problems if maximum benefits are to be obtained.
• Use a modelling-process approach to problem solving - management science takes a systematic approach to problem solving. It may use a modeling process approach taking the help of mathematical models.
• Learning - is the process by which an individual acquire skill, knowledge and ability.
• learning effect - "As the experience is gained, the performance of worker improves, time taken per unit reduces and thus his productivity goes up."
• learning curve - is a geometrical progression, which reveals that there is steadily decreasing cost for the accomplishment of a given repetitive operation, as the identical operation is increasingly repeated.
• percentage - the slope of the decision curve is expressed as. The amount of decrease will be less and less with each successive unit produced.
• The other names given to learning curve, Experience curve, Improvement curve, and Progress curve.
• internal - labor forecasting, scheduling, establishing costs and budgets.
• external - supply chain negotiations
• strategic - evaluation of company and industry performance, including costs and pricing.
• learning effect - the rate at which learning occurs is influenced by many factors including the relative unfamiliarity of workers with the task, the relative novelty and uniqueness of the job, the complexity of the process, the impact of incentive plans, supervision, etc.
• learning effect - exists during a worker's start up or familiarization period on a particular job. After the limits of experimental learning are reached, productivity tends to stabilize and no further improvement is possible.
• The theory of learning curve was first introduced by Theodore Paul Wright. Engaged in production of airframes. As the production quantity of a given item doubled, the cost of that item decrease at a fixed rate. This phenomenon is the basic premise on which the theory of learning curve has been formulated.
• learning curve states that "there is less and less learning as more repetitive steps are taken."
• Labor Efficiency - workers become more mentally more confident and spend less time hesitating, learning, experimenting, or making mistakes. Over time, they learn shortcuts and improvements. This applies to all employees and managers, not just those directly involved in production.
• standardization, specification, and methods of improvements - as processes, parts, and products become more standardized, efficiency tends to increase. When employees specialize in a limited set of tasks, they gain more experience with these tasks and operate at a faster rate.
• technology driven learning - Automated production technology and information technology can introduce efficiencies as they are implemented and people learn how to use them efficiently and effectively.
• better use of equipment - As total production increases, manufacturing equipment will be fully exploited, lowering fully accounted unit costs. In addition, purchase of more productive equipment can be justifiable.
• product redesign - As the manufacturers and consumers have more experience with the product, they can usually find improvements. This filters through to the manufacturing process.
• experience curve effects - are reinforced when two or more products share a common activity or resource. Any efficiency learned from one product can be applied to the other products.
• experience curve - It is a concept that states that there is a consistent relationship between the cumulative production quantity of a company and the cost of production. The concept implies that the more experienced a company is in manufacturing a specific product, the lower its cost of production.
• cost curve - It is a graph of the costs of production as a function of total quantity produced. It composes the Total Cost (TC), Total Variable Cost (TVC) and Total Fixed Cost (TFC)
• productivity or efficiency curve - It is a graph that shows Real GDP/Labor Hour and Capital Per Hour of Labor. When physical capital (factories, equipment, etc.) increases, it moves upward along the productivity curve.Technology advances shifts the productivity curve upward.
• arithmetic approach - The simplest approach. Labor cost declines at a constant rate, the learning rate, as the production doubles.
• The logarithmic approach allows us to determine labor for any unit.
• Linear Programming - a mathematical technique for maximizing or minimizing a linear function of several variables, such as output or cost. It is a method of solving practical problems (allocation of resources) by means of linear functions where the variables involved are subject to constraints.
• decision variables - Related quantifiable decisions to be made whose respective values are to be determined.
• objective function - the appropriate measure of performance that is expressed as a mathematical function of the decision variables.
• constraints - Any restrictions on the values that can be assigned to the decision variables expressed mathematically, typically by means of inequalities or equations.
• parameter - Constraints (coefficient or RHS) in the constraints and objective functions.