Operations Management Process Design

• Process Design


  To 'design' is to conceive the looks, arrangement and workings of something before it is created. It is a conceptual exercise, yet it must deliver a solution that will work in practice.
• Process Design


  1. Identify the objectives

  2. Analyze the details of the process
• Effective design process

  • Matches product or service characteristics with customer requirements
  • Ensures that customer requirements are met in the simplest and least costly manner
  • Reduces the time required to design a new product or service
  • Minimizes the revisions necessary to make a design workable
• Product Selection


  To maximize the potential for success, many companies focus on only a few products and then concentrate on those products. However, because most products have a limited and even predictable life cycle, companies must constantly be looking for new products to design, develop, and take to market.
• Product Decision


  The selection, definition, and design of products.
• Product Life Cycle


  Products are born. They live and they die. They are cast aside by a changing society. It may be helpful to think of a product's life as divided into four phases: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline.
• Product Life Cycle - Introductory Phase


  Because products in the introductory phase are still being "finetuned" for the market, as are their production techniques, they may warrant unusual expenditures for (1) research, (2) product development, (3) process modification and enhancement, and (4) supplier development.
• Product Life Cycle - Growth Phase


  In the growth phase, product design has begun to stabilize, and effective forecasting of capacity requirements is necessary. Adding capacity or enhancing existing capacity to accommodate the increase in product demand may be necessary.
• Product Life Cycle - Maturity Phase


  By the time a product is mature, competitors are established. So high volume, innovative production may be appropriate. Improved cost control, reduction in options, and a paring down of the product line may be effective or necessary for profitability and market share.
• Product Life Cycle - Decline Phase


  Management may need to be ruthless with those products whose life cycle is at an end. Dying products are typically poor products in which to invest resources and managerial talent. Unless dying products make some unique contribution to the firm's reputation or its product line or can be sold with an unusually high contribution, their production should be terminated.
• Opportunities in product development

  • Understanding the customer
  • Economic change
  • Sociological and demographic change
  • Technological change
  • Political and legal change
  • Other changes such as market practice, professional standards, suppliers, and distributors
• Techniques on Product Design

  • Robust Design
  • Modular Design
  • CAD and CAM
  • Virtual Reality Technology
  • Value Analysis
  • Sustainability and Life Cycle Assessment
• Robust Design


  It means that the product is designed so that small variations in production or assembly do not adversely affect the product.
• Modular Design


  Offers flexibility to both production and marketing.
• CAD and CAM


  It is the use of computers to interactively design products and prepare engineering documentation.
• Virtual Reality Technology


  Virtual reality is a visual form of communication in which images substitute for the real thing but still allow the user to respond interactively.
• Value Analysis


  It seeks improvements that lead to either a better product, or a product made more economically, or a product with less environmental impact. A review of successful products that takes place during the production process.
• Sustainability


  Means meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)


  A formal evaluation of the environmental impact of a product.
• objective of the product design

  to develop and implement a product strategy that meets the demands of the marketplace with a competitive advantage.
• Introductory Phase


  For example, when the iPhone was first introduced, the features desired by the public were still being determined. At the same time, operations managers were still groping for the best manufacturing techniques.
• Product Development


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• Process Types


  The position of a process on the volume–variety continuum shapes its overall design and the general approach to managing its activities. These 'general approaches' to designing and managing processes are called process types.
• Project processes


  Deal with discrete, usually highly customized products, often with a relatively long timescale between the completion of each item, where each job has a well-defined start and finish.
• Jobbing processes


  Each product has to share the operation's resources with many others unlike in the project processes, resources are devoted exclusively to the project.
• Batch Processes


  Each time batch processes produce more than one item at a time.
• Mass processes


  Produce items in high volume and relatively narrow variety, in terms of its fundamentals.
• Continuous processes


  Operate for longer periods of time. Sometimes they are literally continuous in that their products are inseparable, being produced in an endless flow.
• Professional Services


  High-contact processes where customers spend a considerable time in the service process. These services can provide high levels of customization (the process being highly adaptable in order to meet individual customer needs).
• Service shops


  Have levels of volume and variety (and customer contact, customization and staff discretion) between the extremes of professional and mass services. Service is provided via mixes of front- and back-office activities.
• Mass services


  Have many customer transactions, involving limited contact time and little customization. Staff are likely to have a relatively defined division of labour and have to follow set procedures.
• Direct interaction


  Includes process steps that involve interaction between participants.
• Surrogate (substitute) interaction


  Includes process steps in which one participant is acting on another participant's resources, such as their information, materials, or technologies.
• Independent Processing


  Includes steps in which the supplier and/or customer is acting on resources where each has maximum control.
• Limit the options


  An early resolution of the product's definition can aid efficiency as well as aid in meeting customer expectations.
• Delay Customization


  Design the product so that customization is delayed as late in the process as possible.
• Modularization


  Modularize the service so that customization takes the form of changing modules.
• Automation


  Divide the service into small parts, and identify those parts that lend themselves to automation.
• Moment of Truth


  High customer interaction means that in the service industry there is a moment of truth when the relationship between the provider and the customer is crucial.
• Network


  set of participants