Global Operations Management — Winter 2023

Differentiate between production management and operations management.

Explain the legal, ethical, and environmental issues associated with product design.

Q .2 (b) “The guiding principle in the search for a location should be for a place where the cost of the raw materials and of fabrication, plus the cost of the marketing of the finished product, will be minimum”. Elaborate.

“Plant layout involves, besides grouping of machinery, an arrangement of other facilities also” Discuss.

What is MMIS? Explain

Define the terms ‘Projects’, ‘Project management’ and ‘ Project life cycle’

Discuss the factors that influence facility layout decisions in a production facility

What is a “Just-in-Time System”? Explain in detail Q-4 (b) Define mass customization and explain its significance in today's market. How does it differ from traditional mass production and customization approaches?

Bring out the similarities and dissimilarities between domestic operations management and international operations management.

Define the nature of International Operations Management (OM) and discuss its challenges and opportunities for organizations. Page 1 of

CASE STUDY: PRODUCTIVITY GAINS AT WHIRLPOOL Workers and management at Whirlpool Appliance’s Benton Harbor plant in Michigan have set an example of how to achieve productivity gains, which has benefited not only the company and its stockholders, but also Whirlpool customers, and the workers themselves. Things weren’t always rosy at the plant. Productivity and quality weren’t good. Neither were labor-management relations. Workers hid defective parts so management wouldn’t find them, and when machines broke down, workers would simply sit down until sooner or later someone came to fix it. All that changed in the late 1980s. Faced with the possibility that the plant would be shut down, management and labor worked together to find a way to keep the plant open. The way was to increase productivity- producing more without using more resources. Interestingly, the improvement in productivity didn’t come by spending money on fancy machines. Rather, it was accomplished by placing more emphasis on quality. That was a shift from the old way, which emphasized volume, often at the expense of quality. To motivate workers, the company agreed to gain sharing, a plan that rewarded workers by increasing their pay for productivity increases. The company overhauled the manufacturing process, and taught its workers how to improve quality. As quality improved, productivity went up because more of the output was good, and costs went down because of fewer defective parts that had to be scrapped or reworked. Costs of inventory also decreased, because fewer spare parts were needed to replace defective output, both at the factory and for warranty repairs. And workers have been able to see the connection between their efforts to improve quality and productivity.

What were the two key things that Whirlpool management did to achieve productivity gains?

Explain how different stakeholders achieve from productivity gain?

How are productivity and quality related?

To pay worker more for productivity gain is right decision or not. Give your views Page 2 of