Ops Management

1. Who are some of the people that have contributed to the philosophies and methods of operations management? Briefly describe a major contribution of each and how that method or approach is used.

There are many that have contributed to the philosophies and methods of operations management. Eli Whitney was the first to enable the concept of selling in large quantities through standardization and quality control. Frederick Taylor's major contribution was his belief that management should be continually improving its work methods with additional responsibility in personnel matching, training, methodology, providing the right tools, and rewarding with incentives. Henry Ford took these concepts and threw in the concept of the assembly line to improve efficiency while building cars. Walter Stewart also introduced his statistical background to implement statistical sampling and quality control.

2. How do services differ from goods? List five ways.

Services differ from goods by:

a. Services are produced and consumed simultaneously with no stored inventory.

b. Services are unique per person (medical, portfolios, etc.)

c. Services have high customer interactions.

d. Services have inconsistent product definitions.

e. Services are knowledge based (education, medical, etc.)

3. Name four areas that are significant to improving labor productivity.

a. Education - Japan's 17 year olds for example know more than ours and are more productive.

b. Diet - The labor force needs to eat right to be productive.

c. Sanitation - The labor force needs to have clean drinking water and medical care to be productive.

d. Transportation - The labor force needs to be able to get where they need to be productive.

4. What are the three conceptual ways to competitive advantage proposed by the authors?

a. Competing on Differentiation (provide uniqueness)

b. Competing on Cost (sell it cheaper)

c. Competing on Response (timely, flexible, and reliable)

5. How do goods and services differ with regard to handling the quality decision?

Goods are a tangible product that can be judged indefinitely on quality. A HDTV built today is obviously better than a black and white TV from 50 years ago but services are harder to judge. Take a law office for example where each