Friday, October 10, 2014

Operations Management Techniques

Assignment 2. Individual Assignment: Employing Important

Techniques Used in Operations Management - due in Week 5

Overview

Working individually, students will demonstrate competency in operations

management by analyzing three operations management techniques and

applying them to improve Acme Mexico City\'s operations.

Two of the techniques are mandatory. They are:

? Data-driven decision-making aka data analytics

? Linear programming

The student will select the third technique from the following list:

? Decision support systems

? Outsourcing to include offshoring, reshoring, and nextshoring

? Sustainable supply chain management

The student will submit a report in pdf format that integrates their three analyses

and the applications to Acme Mexico City.

Follow the format provided for text assignments in this course.

Specifically, include an executive summary.

Critical thinking, information literacy, problem solving, systems thinking, and

technology fluency are required.

Assignment

Within your analyses on the first - Data-driven decision-making aka data

analytics -and third - your choice of one from among

? Decision support systems

? Outsourcing to include offshoring, reshoring, and nextshoring

? Sustainable supply chain management

- techniques, address the following:

? What is the general purpose of the technique?

? How does or should this help operations in general?

? What are the limitations of the technique?

? What are the costs involved? What training is needed to use the

technique? What else is needed?

? At Acme Mexico City, what is the problem, opportunity, or challenge that

this technique can address?

? How will the technique help Acme Mexico City\'s operations? Why?

? What would be the areas that present challenges in the approach

(e.g., cost, personnel, training, culture, technology, management

commitment, etc.?)

Within your analysis on linear programming applied at Acme Mexico City,

address the following:

? What is the recommended low-cost (not necessarily the minimum cost)

customer service employee daily assignment schedule?

? What are your underlying assumptions and any qualitative factors that you

believe are involved?

? How might non-typical days affect the schedule?

Optionally, and for extra points to be determined by your section professor,

provide a sensitivity analysis that shows how relaxation of the 50% constraint

on the hours worked by part-time customer service employees might affect the

daily personnel costs.

The following information is provided for your use in this linear programming

analysis:

To the extent permitted by local law, each Acme Home Improvements store,

including Acme Mexico City, is open from 7 am - 11 pm every day.Acme Mexico City advance planners in North Carolina have provided the

following table, which identifies the minimum number of customer service

employees estimated to be needed on the floor of the store each hour of a typical

work day:

Customer Service Employees

Time Period Minimum number needed on the floor

7 am - 8 am 10

8 am - 9 am 12

9 am - 10 am 18

10 am - 11 am 22

11 am - 12 pm 22

12 pm - 1 pm 26

1 pm - 2 pm 26

2 pm - 3 pm 26

3 pm - 4 pm 26

4 pm - 5 pm 26

5 pm - 6 pm 28

6 pm - 7 pm 28

7 pm - 8 pm 24

8 pm - 9 pm 22

9 pm - 10 pm 14

10 pm - 11 pm 12

In the interest of cost control, the planners have also imposed a not-to-exceed

maximum of 30 customer service employees on the floor at any time.

Full-time customer service employees at AMC work a 9 hour shift (8 hours of

work plus a 1 hour meal break) either from 7 am to 4 pm or from 2 pm to 11 pm.

Workers on the 7-4 shift are assigned an hour-long lunch break at either 11 am

or 12 noon. Workers on the 2-11 shift are assigned an hour-long dinner break at

either 5 pm or 6 pm.

Part-time customer service employees work four consecutive hours per day and

their shifts can start any hour between 7 am and 7 pm. They receive no meal

breaks.

By corporate policy, which is consistent with Mexican labor law, the company

limits the hours worked by part-time customer service employees to 50% of the

day\'s total scheduled hours.

Part-time customer service employees earn $500 per day, and full-time customer

service employees earn $1100 per day in salary and benefits (here, $ = Moneda

Nacional, i.e., the Mexican peso).Acme operations analysts working in North Carolina, working with the AMC

advance planners, have used linear programming to propose in accordance with

the foregoing factors, an employee assignment schedule for a typical day. Their

proposed schedule is the following item in Course Content. You may elect

to recommend this schedule or to recommend one that is diff

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