Application Exercises
Interview a minimum of three of these customers/stakeholders using the following questions: What are your expectations for the product/service that you receive from this process? How do you define quality for this product/ service? What are one or more things that we can do to improve the quality of this process? Summarize the findings from these interviews. Waiting Line Analysis Describe a waiting line that occurs around a service your organization provides. Describe the service system Describe the arrival system How would you characterize the waiting line model
Provide data on the service rate and arrival rate -? or how you go about collecting this data. Identify actions that could be taken to improve performance and manage the customers experience. Problem Prevention (Fail Saving and Pokka-Yokes) Use flow charting to describe a process (this can be the creation of a service or a product) in which you are familiar. Identify a potential failure in the process and what impact it may have on performance. Design a Pokka-yoke to prevent or reduce the chances of failure. Discuss how this would improve reference.
Reducing Waste Describe an operation or process that you have access to. Observe the operation/process and identify five or more types of waste. Discuss how the waste negatively impacts organizational performance. Design on or more actions to eliminate/reduce waste in this operation/ process. Constraint Management Describe a production system in which a product or service is produced. List the steps in this system in sequential order. Identify the constraint (pacemaker) in this system. Identify how throughput is measured.
Propose one or more things that could be done to improve the system’s throughput and productivity. Reducing Variation Describe a repeatable operation/activity (business or personal) in which you are familiar. Identify a measure of performance. Collect data for this measure (20 or more occurrences) Display the data using a Process Behavior Chart. Calculate the limits for this chart and make recommendations for improvement (i. E. , remove cause of an exceptional variation or improve the system to reduce routine variation).
Value Stream Map Create a value stream map for a product that is produced by your organization. List all of the major process steps from the Suppliers to the Customers. Estimate the time it takes for each step in the process. You may need to interview people in your organization to obtain this information. Show, as appropriate, inventory in this process Provide measures of value-added time. Best Practices in Operations Obtain three or more articles that describe best practices in an area of operations management.
