Inventory Management

Hi all,

Today''s online class had the twin goals of (a) introducing ourselves to inventory management concepts, and (b) getting you to begin thinking about case study part 3.

Your case studies provided great examples of inventory concepts applied to manufacturing, distribution/retail, and service organizations. While the core issues and inventory types are different, all businesses have inventory to manage. See Dan & Ethans's post for good discussions of inventory in manufacturing (both small and large plants). Korey and Quin provide us with windows into distribution and retail inventory management challenges, while Karson and James help us consider inventory management in service organizations. And by the way, excellent follow-up questions to Andrew & Korey's posts!

The videos below support/reinforce our reading and the application you've already made in your posts. See the 3 Types of Inventory video for a helpful review of raw material, WIP and finished goods.

The Modernizing Inventory Management video is a nice mini-case study of inventory management in a small retail business. The clip is 5-years old, so you'll notice shots of some old computers, but the principles are the same. See how many concepts from chapter 12 you can identify at Cole Hardware.

See you on Monday!

Capacity Measurements

Hi all.

Our formulas for process and "shop" capacity in Collier (2013) chapter 10 are important ones. The proper application of these formulas can help to answer important questions about the ability of our process to meet demand.

Today's case applied two of our capacity formulas to a service environment, specifically a orthopedic surgery medical practice. In the video below I walk through the application of the formulas to the specifics of the David Christopher case. Take a few minutes to compare the discussion below to your own analysis and post.

Note: you'll definitely need to expand the view to full screen... sorry for the tiny numbers!

So now, how are these tools applied at your case study company? If they are not used, how could they be applied to improve the firm's operations management?

See you in class on Monday!

Process Design

Hi all,

So kudos to those of you who resourceful and brave enough to find and post a process video! Yes, that would be Quin and Malcolm!

Quin provides us with an opportunity to discuss service process design, particularly service encounter customer contact requirement, and process design in the context of the service positioning matrix (Collier & Evans, 2013, p. 140-143).

In fact, instead of me doing this analysis for you, let's do it together on Monday morning. So for Monday, watch Quin's brief video, read his post, and think about these questions referring to Collier chapters 6 & 7...

• What is the service encounter customer contact requirement for library copier services?
• What degree of customer discretion, freedom and decision-making power is needed?
• How repeatable should the service encounter process be?
• Where does this process fit on the service positioning matrix, and what are the cost and service quality perception implications?

A special shout-out to Shaina for excellent follow-up questions, and Karson for the process flowcharting expertise demonstrated in her post!

See you all on Monday.