BU385 Study Guide - Final Guide: Anti-Lock Braking System, Total Quality Management
Document Summary
Responsibilities of operations managers: planning - capacity, location, layout, organizing, directing - scheduling, job assignments, purchasing, controlling. Decision making: models an abstraction of reality; a simplified representation of something. Models ignore the unimportant details so that attention can be concentrated on the most important aspects of a situation, thus increasing the opportunity to understand a problem and its solution: quantitative approaches. An attempt to obtain optimum solutions to the mathematical models of managerial problems, sometimes done by solving a set of equations (linear programming, queuing techniques etc. : analysis of trade-offs. In scheduling overtime, the manager may weigh the value of the increased output against the higher costs of overtime (higher labour costs, lower productivity, lower quality: systems approach. System a set of interrelated parts that must work together. The output and objectives of the organization as a whole take precedence over those of any one part. This is essential whenever something is being designed, redesigned, improved or changed.
