Trident OPM300 all discussions

OPM300 Introduction to Operations Management (FEB2017FT-1)

Real-World Flowcharting

To receive full credit for discussion participation, you should post a message during the first three days of the module. The Week 1 topic requires nothing more than some thought and reflection, while the Week 2 topic requires specific knowledge of the module’s contents. For full credit, you should respond to both topics. We suggest you do the Week 1 topic first, but please feel free to respond to either topic, at any time.

Week 1 Topic: Describing a complex process

Many complex processes aren’t linear; they can take various twists and turns, depending on the particular situation, and also on “how things go.” Flowcharting is a technique for describing such processes succinctly and accurately, using a prescribed, clearly understood format.

Think of a complex process that you’ve had to perform. What sort of written documentation, if any, did you have to guide you? Did it help you deal with the “twists and turns?” Why or why not?

Week 2 Topic: When a flowchart doesn’t flow

1. Discuss the problems you encountered (or, perhaps, are still encountering) while completing the Case exercise. Would you expect to encounter the same problems if you were drawing a flowchart of a “real-world” process? Why or why not? Explain in the context of an actual process with which you are familiar.

2. List some feature of a process that may make it difficult to depict using a flowchart. Here are two:

a.A flowchart depicts a sequential series of processes. There’s no good way to show simultaneous processes.

b.A flowchart has a start point and an end point. When describing a real process, those points may be arbitrary.

There are more. What are they?

Discussion General Expectations

1. In your first posting, you should show a basic understanding of the issues involved in the module. In your second and subsequent postings, you should demonstrate a clear understanding of the material covered in the module.

2. Critically apply your understanding to the examples provided by others. Do those examples clearly illustrate the concepts being discussed? Why or why not?

3. Provide relevant sources for any information that isn’t common knowledge.

Real-World Decision Trees

To receive full credit for discussion participation, you should post a message during the first three days of the module. The Week 1 topic requires nothing more than some thought and reflection, while the Week 2 topic requires specific knowledge of the module’s contents. For full credit, you should respond to both topics. We suggest you do the Week 1 topic first, but please feel free to respond to either topic, at any time.

Week 1 Topic: What to do, what to do???

Metaphorically, the road through life has many intersections; sometimes a T-intersection (go left or right), sometimes a crossroads (go left, right, or straight ahead), and sometimes a roundabout with many alternatives. Each alternative leads to several possible outcomes, with each outcome having a probability that ranges from highly unlikely to almost certain. Choosing the right outcome is sometimes complicated, and it would be nice to have a tool to help us make the choice.

Describe and discuss a situation in which you had to choose among several alternative courses of action. What were the possible outcomes of each alternative? How did you choose an alternative?

Week 2 Topic: Sometimes decision trees don’t grow.

Decision trees are attractive. They offer a straightforward way of writing down the various available alternatives and choosing among them. But here are some questions that always need answering.

1. Can the decision really be reduced to a set of discrete alternatives? Are there some factors that can’t be listed and quantified, such as beauty and morality?

2. Where do the alternatives come from? Are they exhaustive? That is, have we discovered and listed all of them? Do they reflect reality or only the biases and preconceptions of the decision maker?

3. How confident are we in the outcome values, aka the payoffs? Are they time-sensitive?

4. How confident are we in the probabilities attached to the outcomes? Where on Earth did they come from?

5. In short: Is a decision tree really useful in this situation, or is it just a way of camouflaging a wild guess, and making it look “rational?"

Discussion General Expectations

1. In your first posting, you should show a basic understanding of the issues involved in the module. In your second and subsequent postings, you should demonstrate a clear understanding of the material covered in the module.

2. Critically apply your understanding to the examples provided by others. Do those examples clearly illustrate the concepts being discussed? Why or why not?

3. Provide relevant sources for any information that isn’t common knowledge.

Real-World PERT/CPM

To receive full credit for discussion participation, you should post a message during the first three days of the module. The Week 1 topic requires nothing more than some thought and reflection, while the Week 2 topic requires specific knowledge of the module’s contents. For full credit, you should respond to both topics. We suggest you do the Week 1 topic first, but please feel free to respond to either topic, at any time.

Week 1 Topic: “How long will this take?”

Some projects have specific activities that need to be completed consecutively; that is, or one after another. One example of this is baking a cake. You can’t put the cake tin into the oven until you’ve filled it with cake batter. You can’t put the batter into the tin until you’ve greased the tin. The batter isn’t ready until you’ve sifted flour into a bowl, added eggs, added baking powder, etc.

Other projects have activities that can be completed concurrently, or at the same time. One example is detailing a car. One guy can vacuum the interior while another applies Armor-All to the wheels, and yet another waxes the exterior. (Even this project has some consecutive activities. For example, a worker can’t apply Armor-All to the interior until somebody’s vacuumed the interior, and wiped everything down.)

Most of us are familiar with projects consisting only of consecutive activities. Such a project may be long and involved, but conceptually it’s simple—just do one thing after another. Other projects consists only of concurrent activities; all the different parts of the project can be worked on at the same time, and when they’re all done, the project is done. Still other projects consist of a mix of consecutive and concurrent activities. For your first posting, try to give an example of such a project.

Looking ahead: PERT-CPM gives us a tool for predicting how long projects consisting of both consecutive and concurrent tasks are going to take, and how much they’re going to cost.

Week 2 Topic: When will PERT-CPM work?

PERT-CPM, like the other tools considered thus far, is not a “Swiss Army knife.” It won’t solve all problems. Its usefulness is limited by the nature of the project, and the state of the manager’s knowledge about what the project will involve.

Here are some questions that need to be answered before deciding whether to use PERT-CPM. The list is far from exhaustive.

•To what extent can the project be broken down into discrete tasks? How should that breakdown happen? Example: When building a house, is tiling the floors and the shower stalls one job, or two?

•To what extent are the tasks sequentially dependent? Example: Again, when building a house, the kitchen exhaust fan should be installed before the attic is insulated; but if need be, the insulation can be swept aside and the fan installed later.

•How accurately are the task durations known?

•How accurately are the task costs known?

•Are the start date and the deadline “set in stone,” or merely aspirational? (“It would be nice if we could move in before Christmas, but… well, you know, whatever.”)

Discussion General Expectations

1. In your first posting, you should show a basic understanding of the issues involved in the module. In your second and subsequent postings, you should demonstrate a clear understanding of the material covered in the module.

2. Critically apply your understanding to the examples provided by others. Do those examples clearly illustrate the concepts being discussed? Why or why not?

3. Provide relevant sources for any information that isn’t common knowledge.

Real-World LP

To receive full credit for discussion participation, you should post a message during the first three days of the module. The Week 1 topic requires nothing more than some thought and reflection, while the Week 2 topic requires specific knowledge of the module’s contents. For full credit, you should respond to both topics. We suggest you do the Week 1 topic first, but please feel free to respond to either topic, at any time.

Week 1 Topic: “It’s whatcha do with whatcha you got…”

The Tin Pan Alley classic continues, “…never mind how much you’ve got,/It’s whatcha do with whatcha you got/That pays off in the end!” (De Paul & Raye, circa 1948).

Making the best use of limited resources is a familiar problem. One familiar example is the limited space in a backpack. If you’re going to be in the wood for two weeks, what should you pack? Some factors you’d need to consider; bulk, weight, food value, and necessity. (Carbs and protein are required. Diet soda? Not so much.)

Another example is study time. Do you allocate every hour to one course, or spread the time out among all your courses? What are the factors involved in that decision? (Possible factors: how hard the material is, your current grade, and when the next assignment is due.)

A common business-related problem goes like this. A factory makes several different products. There’s a different demand for each. Each generates a particular profit. All of them must be made with limited money, materials, and time. What’s the optimum product mix—that is, how many of each should the factory make?

For your first posting, please describe an allocation problem you have faced, either personally, or as part of your job. What were the desired outcomes? What were the constraints?

Looking ahead; linear programming is a tool that can be used to make allocation decisions of that type.

Week 2 Topic:

1. Discuss the problems you encountered (or, perhaps, are still encountering) while completing the Case exercise. Would you expect to encounter the same problems if you were using LP for a real-world allocation decision? Why or why not? Explain in the context of an actual allocation problem with which you are familiar.

2. List some characteristics of an allocation problem that may make it difficult to optimize using LP. Here are two:

•Constraints may not be totally predictable. For example, the price one can charge for a particular product may vary unpredictably over time.

•All of the constraints may not be known. For example, a new pollution regulation may limit effluents, thereby limiting a particular production process.

There are more. What are they?

Discussion General Expectations

1. In your first posting, you should show a basic understanding of the issues involved in the module. In your second and subsequent postings, you should demonstrate a clear understanding of the material covered in the module.

2. Critically apply your understanding to the examples provided by others. Do those examples clearly illustrate the concepts being discussed? Why or why not?

3. Provide relevant sources for any information that isn’t common knowledge.

Looking Back

Please review the course as a whole. This is for your benefit, and also for ours; reviewing the topics covered in this course will help you fix them in your mind, and integrate them with what you already know. Reviewing the topics with a critical eye, and sharing your observations and suggestions, will help Trident improve the course, and provide a better learning experience for those coming after you.

Address the following points in a short posting. Review and comment on the postings of your fellow students.

•The extent to which you met your learning expectations.

•The perceived usefulness of the topics covered, and of the course as a whole.

•The relative difficulty of the various topics. Which were the most challenging? The least? Please explain.

•How the topics could have been presented differently. How could we make this course better? Please explain, in detail.