Global Operations Management — Summer 2024

Discuss the recent trends in production and operations management.

Discuss the importance of long range capacity planning in production and operation management.

What is meant by plant location? Discuss the steps to be taken in choosing a location for a plant.

Explain the concept of facility layout and its importance in a manufacturing or service organization.

Explain the role of Material Management Information System (MMIS) in effective material management.

Describe the various stages involved in project management, including planning, scheduling, monitoring, and controlling.

Explain with examples, the reasons for layout revision.

Discuss the principles and key components of Total Quality Management (TQM). How can TQM be implemented in an organization to achieve continuous improvement? Q-4 (b) Discuss the unique aspects and challenges of managing service operations in a global context.

Discuss the contemporary issues and emerging trends in operation management.

What is a “Just-in-Time System”? and “Lean Production Systems” Explain Page 1 of

Case Study: Escorts Limited Escorts Ltd. is the country's leading manufacturer of tractors. It sells its tractors through its dealers. Dealers are very important to the company's scheme of doing business. Since dealers are closets to customers, the company takes their inputs when it is making forecasts. Each dealer has a demand planner, and he feeds the demands that he expects to realize for each model for the next month/quarter in his demand planner. He sends this information to his regional office; there are 30 regional offices. At the regional office, the regional sales manager consolidates the demand data of all the dealers lying in his purview and sends them to zonal offices. There are four zonal offices: south, east, north and west. At the zonal office, the zonal sales manager consolidates the demand data of all the regional offices lying in his purview and sends the data to the country sales manager. The country sales manager consolidates the demand data of all the four zones. The country sales manager and his team study the demand data that they have received from the four zones, and they apply statistical tool to arrive at the final forecast for the month/quarter. They also keep in mind that the demand for tractors is strongly influenced by monsoon. Demand would be high if monsoon is good and vice versa.

How does the company make its forecast? Examine critically.

What else should it do to make the forecasts more reliable ?

Is technology enough in making forecast for the factor ?

What are the factors that affect the demand of the tractor? Can we forecast them? Page 2 of