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This section covers new product development, production and operations strategy and its interfaces, the production function and the organisation, the relationship between operations and financial management, operations in manufacturing and service environments, lean manufacturing and six sigma, principles of quality management, statistical quality control and process control, and ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certification.
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New Product Development (NPD) • Stages: idea generation (customers, R&D, competitors, employees, suppliers) → idea screening → concept development and testing → business analysis (demand, cost, profitability, break-even) → product and process development and prototyping → test marketing → commercialisation and launch → review. • Tools and approaches: concurrent (simultaneous) engineering with cross-functional teams (shortens development time and reduces changes later), QFD (house of quality) to translate the voice of the customer into design characteristics, DFM/DFA (design for manufacture and assembly — fewer parts, standard parts, easy assembly), value engineering, modular design and standardisation, rapid prototyping/3-D printing, FMEA for reliability, and life-cycle/eco-design. • About 70–80% of the product's cost is committed at the design stage, so early manufacturing input is the cheapest way to reduce cost.
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The product life cycle (introduction, growth, maturity, decline) also drives process choice and capacity decisions.
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Production/Operations Strategy • Strategy flows from corporate → business → functional (operations) strategy, which must support the competitive priorities: cost, quality, delivery (speed and reliability), flexibility (volume and variety), innovation and service/sustainability.
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Order qualifiers are the minimum requirements to be considered; order winners decide the sale. • Structural decisions: capacity (lead, lag or match strategy), facilities and location, process technology, vertical integration and outsourcing (make or buy).
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Infrastructural decisions: workforce, quality system, production planning and control, organisation, performance measurement. • Process choice and the product-process matrix: project (unique, one-off) → job shop (high variety, low volume, functional layout, general-purpose machines, skilled labour) → batch → mass/assembly line (low variety, high volume, product layout, special-purpose machines) → continuous (cement, chemicals, power); as volume rises, unit cost and flexibility fall. • Interfaces: with marketing (forecasts, delivery promises, product range), with finance (capital investment appraisal, working capital tied in inventory, cost of quality, budgets, ROI and cash flow), with HR (skills, incentives, safety) and with engineering (design and maintenance).
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Operations typically controls most of an industrial firm's assets and costs, so its decisions dominate profitability. • Production planning and control (PPC) functions: forecasting and aggregate planning → routing (sequence of operations) → loading (assigning work to machines) → scheduling (when) → dispatching (authorising work) → expediting/follow-up and corrective control (Chapter 7 covers scheduling and line balancing techniques).
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Manufacturing vs Service Operations Aspect Manufacturing Service Output Tangible, storable Intangible, perishable — cannot be inventoried Customer contact Low — customer not in the system High — customer often participates (co-production) Quality measurement Objective, measurable dimensions Subjective, perception-based (SERVQUAL: reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy, responsiveness) Capacity and demand Buffered by finished-goods inventory Must match demand in real time (queues, appointments, yield management) Location Near materials, labour or transport Near customers Productivity measurement Straightforward Difficult; heterogeneous output Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma • Lean (from the Toyota Production System) maximises customer value while eliminating waste (muda).
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The classic wastes are transport, inventory, motion, waiting, overproduction (the worst), over-processing and defects — with unused talent as the eighth; also mura (unevenness) and muri (overburden). • Five lean principles: specify value → map the value stream → create flow → let the customer pull → pursue perfection.
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5S, value stream mapping, kanban/pull, takt time = available time ÷ customer demand, cellular manufacturing and one-piece flow, SMED, poka-yoke, jidoka and andon, standard work, TPM and OEE (availability × performance × quality), kaizen events, visual management. • Six Sigma reduces variation so that defects fall to 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO) — a process mean within ±6σ of the specification limits (allowing a 1.5σ shift).
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DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control) for existing processes and DMADV/DFSS for new ones; organisation of champions, master black belts, black belts and green belts; tools:
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SIPOC, CTQ trees, measurement-system analysis, capability studies, hypothesis testing, DOE, control charts. • Lean Six Sigma combines lean's speed and waste removal with six sigma's variation reduction; both need management commitment, data and trained teams.
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Quality Management Principles • Quality = fitness for use (Juran), conformance to requirements (Crosby), meeting or exceeding customer expectations; dimensions (Garvin): performance, features, reliability, conformance, durability, serviceability, aesthetics, perceived quality. • Gurus:
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Deming (14 points, PDCA cycle, 85–94% of problems are due to the system not the worker, chain reaction);
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Juran (quality trilogy — planning, control, improvement;
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Crosby (zero defects, quality is free, cost of non-conformance);
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Ishikawa (cause-and-effect diagram, quality circles, 7 QC tools);
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Taguchi (robust design, loss function);
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Feigenbaum (total quality control). • TQM: customer focus, total employee involvement, process approach, continuous improvement (kaizen), fact-based decisions, supplier partnership and leadership.
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The seven quality management principles of ISO 9000:2015 are customer focus, leadership, engagement of people, process approach, improvement, evidence-based decision making and relationship management. • Cost of quality: prevention (training, planning, design), appraisal (inspection, testing, calibration) and failure — internal (scrap, rework, downtime) and external (warranty, returns, complaints, loss of reputation — the most expensive).
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Statistical Quality Control (SQC) and SPC • Variation comes from common (chance/random) causes — inherent in the process, requiring management action on the system — and special (assignable) causes — identifiable and removable by local action.
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A process with only common causes is in statistical control (stable); being in control is not the same as being capable. • Control charts (Shewhart): centre line and 3σ control limits.
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X̄ chart (UCL/LCL = X̄̄ ± A2R̄) with R chart (UCL = D4R̄, LCL = D3R̄) or s chart.
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Attribute charts: p (fraction defective, variable sample size), np (number defective, constant sample), c (defects per unit/constant area) and u (defects per unit, variable area).
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Out-of-control signals: a point beyond the limits, runs of 7, trends, cycles or hugging the centre line. • Process capability:
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Cp = (USL − LSL)/6σ (potential) and Cpk = min[(USL − μ), (μ − LSL)]/3σ (actual, accounts for centring);
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Cp ≥ 1.33 is commonly required, Cp = 2 corresponds to six sigma.
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Control limits come from the process; specification limits come from the customer — they must never be drawn on a control chart. • Acceptance sampling: single/double/multiple sampling plans defined by sample size n and acceptance number c; the OC curve shows the probability of acceptance against incoming quality;
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AQL with producer's risk (α) and LTPD with consumer's risk (β);
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AOQ and AOQL. • Seven basic QC tools: check sheet, histogram, Pareto chart (80/20 — the vital few), cause-and-effect (Ishikawa/fishbone) diagram, scatter diagram, control chart, stratification (or flow chart).
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ISO Certification — ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 • ISO 9001:2015 (Quality Management System): requirements built on the high-level structure — context of the organisation, leadership, planning (including risk-based thinking), support, operation, performance evaluation and improvement — operating on the PDCA cycle with a process approach.
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It certifies the management system, not the product. • ISO 14001:2015 (Environmental Management System): identification of environmental aspects and impacts, compliance obligations, objectives and programmes, operational control and emergency preparedness, monitoring, internal audit, management review and continual improvement, with a life-cycle perspective (Chapter 9). • Certification process: management commitment and gap analysis → documentation (policy, objectives, procedures, work instructions, records) → implementation and training → internal audit and management review → certification body Stage 1 (documentation) and Stage 2 (implementation) audits → correction of non-conformities → certificate (normally valid 3 years) with annual surveillance audits and recertification. • Benefits: systematic processes, fewer defects and complaints, market access and customer confidence (often a contractual requirement for exports), better documentation and training.
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Criticisms: paperwork, cost, and the risk of becoming a certificate-collecting exercise if not driven by genuine improvement.
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ISO 45001 (occupational health and safety), ISO 50001 (energy management), ISO 22000 (food safety), ISO/IEC 17025 (testing and calibration laboratories).