MODULE TITLE Managing Operations

MODULE CODE BMG 799

EFFECTIVE FROM January 2022
MODULE LEVEL 7
CREDIT POINTS 20
PREREQUISITE(S) None
CO REQUISITE(S) None
MODULE Location Semester Module Co- Teaching
INSTANCE(S) ordinator Staff
Jordanstown 1 Dr Alan Dr Alan
McKittrick McKittrick
HOURS
Classroom Delivery 24 hrs
(inc. Live Interactive Sessions)
Live Online Assessment 3 hr
Coursework Seminar 1 hr
Independent study (including 172 hrs
assessment)
TOTAL EFFORT 200 hrs
HOURS
ACADEMIC SUBJECT BMG

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RATIONALE

Excellent organisations achieve and sustain outstanding levels of performance that

meet or exceed the expectations of all their stakeholders. Delivering excellent
service requires the implementation of professional operations management
practice. The central problem for operations management is matching supply with
demand; excess demand means lost revenue and dissatisfied customers or service
users, largely through long waiting lists, whilst excess supply means wasted
resources. By focusing on productivity and better matching supply with demand, an
organisation gains significant performance and competitive advantages over its
rivals. The rationale for this module is that organisations should take the design of
their operations seriously and aggressively implement the tools of operations
management.

AIMS
This module aims to provide students with a solid foundation in operations
management capability and to enable students to acquire knowledge of rigorous
operations models that help excellent performance to be achieved. The aim is to
draw from a wide range of settings; healthcare, public services, retail, contact
centres and manufacturing to name a few.

This module aims to help students develop valuable operations management skills;
the analysis and interpretation of quantitative data; and the application of
quantitative models that will enhance management decision-making and provide
relevant performance measures.

This module aims to hone several attributes that are important for a management
professional: notably; making connections and sense of complex systems; and
questioning assumptions.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Successful students will be able to:

1 Critically evaluate theory of operations management and its contribution to

service delivery and productivity.

2 Critically evaluate real world business cases from the perspective of a key
decision maker to analyse the situation and decide what to do to address the
challenges.

3 Apply quantitative models that will enhance management decision-making or

inform management about relevant performance measures.

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4 Wrestle with business problems in a group of very accomplished peers from
diverse functions and industries to debate the issues, present new viewpoints,
counter positions, and build on one another's ideas.

CONTENT

* The Laws of Operations Management

* The Concept of Managing from a Process Orientation
* The Impact of Demand on Processes
* How Performance Objectives Intersect with Operations Decisions
* Little’s Law: An Essential Formula for Understanding Processes
* The Concept of Time-Based Performance and Competition
* How to Design a Process and Use Process Diagramming
* Capacity Measurement, Utilisation and Productivity
* Variability and its Impact on Productivity
* Managing Quality
* Understanding the Costs of Quality
* Statistical Process Control
* Lean Working to Identify and Remove Process Waste

LEARNING AND TEACHING METHODS

The module will be delivered using three classroom sessions which will incorporate
lectures and various activities. Lectures are interpreted in the widest sense with an
emphasis on encouraging active, two-way communication and a high degree of
interactivity across the module. Handouts, worked examples, case studies, DVDs
and other audio-visual as well as illustrative material are used. Lectures are
structured to stimulate and question students, to guide further reading and other
student activity and to relate to the in-class activities. As each student progresses,
they will be encouraged and indeed challenged, to reflect on and take progressively
more responsibility for their own learning and to actively participate and/or lead, as
appropriate. A fourth day using live online delivery will be used for the group
assessment part of the module.

ASSESSMENT AND FEEDBACK

The module will be 100% coursework.

This will comprise a groupwork presentation plus an individual portfolio.

Groupwork Presentation (25%)

This is a piece of Group Case Study Work. It contributes 25% to the overall
assessment mark for this module. Students will work in groups of four students. This
part of the assessment requires students to critically analyse a very short case study
about a service organisation who have been trying to implement SPC to better
understand their process quality but have been experiencing some problems.

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Students will present their answer as a 10-minute PowerPoint presentation
during our online follow-up day on Monday 14 March 2022. 
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The case will be issued on Thursday 24 February 2022. 

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 Presentation delivery will be marked jointly by the Lecturer and the class. 

 The Content of each group presentation will be assessed by the Lecturer.

 Each presentation will be assessed on the four judging criteria listed below.

Judging Criteria - Presentation Delivery

Please note that each criterion (1-3) is equally weighted and has an emphasis on the
audience.

1. Communication (5%)
 Did the presenters use language and terminology that was clear and
understandable?
 Was the pace of the talk effective?
 Did the presenters use non-verbal communication (i.e. eye contact, voice
modulation, body language, etc.) effectively?
 Did the slides enhance, rather than detract from, the talk – were they clear,
legible, and concise?

2. Comprehension (5%)
 Did the talk help you to understand the problems that the case study company
was experiencing and why?
 Did the presenters clearly explain how each specific problem identified could be
solved?
 Did the talk follow a logical sequence?

3. Engagement (5%)
 Was the talk engaging?
 Did the presenters convey enthusiasm for their work?
 Did the presenters capture and maintain your attention?

Judging Criteria - Presentation Content

4. Content (10%)
 Knowledge of operations management concepts
 Practical application of theoretical concepts
 Quality of recommendations

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Individual Portfolio (75%)

Students will compile a portfolio comprising of the following three elements.

(a) Individual Project Management Case Study Task (15%)

This case describes the 2016 market entry in California of an innovative construction
system for housing developed by a Canadian company. The case provides a project
management schedule for the company’s first house build in the USA.

Using the supplementary data sheet provided, you are tasked with using the critical
path method to assess the impact of the company’s structural system on the project
schedule compared with that of a traditional wood-framed house.

(a) 1. Draw the Activity-on-Node Diagram for the traditional wood-framed house to
calculate the total project completion time, highlight the critical path and calculate the
slack time. (7%)
(a) 2. Draw the Activity-on-Node Diagram for the Canadian company’s house to
calculate the total project completion time, highlight the new critical path and
calculate the slack time. By how many days does this reduce the total project
completion time? (8%)
The case will be issued on Thursday 24 February 2022. 
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(b) Individual Flow, Process Capacity & Utilization Calculations (30%)

b1) A process requires 6 tasks, A, B, C, D, E and F, that must be performed in

that order. Currently there are 3 employees that are equally skilled at each
task. Employee 1 is assigned tasks A and B, employee 2 is assigned tasks C
and D and employee 3 is assigned tasks E and F. The task times (all in
seconds) are given in the process diagram below. For example, task A
requires 90 seconds.

(a) Suppose the system started without any work in process inventory (i.e., an empty
system). How long would this process take to produce 10 units (in seconds)?
(5%)

(b) Suppose now the 3 employees can be assigned to any task, but employees must
be assigned to consecutive tasks (e.g., an employee cannot be assigned tasks B
and D). What would be the processes’ maximum capacity (units per hour)?
(5%)

(10%)

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b2) Black Rose is a very popular hair salon. It offers high-quality hair-styling and
physical relaxation services at reasonable prices, so it always has unlimited
demand. The service process includes five activities that are conducted in the
sequence described below.

(The time required for each activity is shown in parenthesis):

Activity 1: Welcome a guest and offer homemade herbal tea. (10 minutes)
Activity 2: Wash and condition hair. (10 minutes)
Activity 3: Neck, shoulder and back stress release massage. (10 minutes)
Activity 4: Design the hair style and do the hair. (25 minutes)
Activity 5: Check out the guest. (5 minutes)

Three servers (S1, S2, and S3) offer the services in a worker-paced line. The
assignment of tasks to servers is the following:

S1 does Activity 1.
S2 does Activities 2 and Activity 3.
S3 does Activities 4 and Activity 5.

(a) Which server is the bottleneck of the process? (3%)

(b) What is the utilization of server 2? (4%)

(c) What is the average labor utilization of the servers? Assume the process
operates at its capacity. (3%)

(10%)

B3) Bolton Group Consulting is a global consulting firm that connects with leaders
in business to address their most important challenges many of which are
operational. Management consultancy roles exist at associate, manager and partner
grades with increasing responsibilities and remuneration. The organisation operates
with a stable number of these consultancy grades on fixed-term contracts and
upgrades the personnel at regular intervals so as avoid complacency and a lack of
new ideas. The organisation is large and employs 240 associates, 72 managers and
24 partners.

The company recruits associates as MBA graduates. After four years working as an
associate, consultants at BGC participate in a performance review and are either
promoted to manager grade or their contract is terminated. Management grade
consultants are given six-year contracts with a performance review at the end of the
contract; following the review these consultants either become partners or leave the
company. Partners are awarded with 10-year fixed term contracts with no review at
the end. Successful consultants can therefore remain at BGC for a maximum of
twenty years.

(a) Using Little’s Law, how many new MBA graduates does the Bolton Group
Consulting need to recruit each year? (5%)

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(b) Using Little’s Law, how many manager-grade consultants will be promoted to
partners and how many will leave BGC? (5%)

B3) Water Tech is a manufacturer of high-end electric toothbrushes. For each

toothbrush, there is a sequence of assembly steps performed by five workers.
Each worker does two tasks. Inventory buffers are allowed between workers.
(10%)

Worker Task Time

(seconds)
A T1 40
A T2 25
B T3 20
B T4 15
C T5 10
C T6 15
D T7 10
D T8 20
E T9 25
E T10 35

(a) What is the capacity of this process (toothbrushes per minute)? (3%)

(b) Suppose two workers could be hired, F and G, and they take the same time to
complete tasks as the current five workers. F and G can be assigned to work on
the same pair of tasks as one of the current workers. For example, F could be
assigned tasks T1 and T2 (just like worker A) while G is assigned T5 and T6 (just
like worker C). They cannot be assigned tasks that are currently assigned to two
workers. For example, F cannot be assigned to tasks T2 and T3 (because they
are currently being done by workers A and B). What is the capacity of this
process with workers F and G included (toothbrushes per minute)?
(3%)

(c) Return to the case of 5 workers. Suppose the assignment of tasks to workers can
change but the sequence of tasks must remain the same, workers must be
assigned to consecutive tasks and each task can be assigned to only one worker.
For example, worker A could do tasks T1-T3 (because they are consecutive) but
cannot be assign T1, T2 and T4. If worker A is assigned to tasks T1-T3, then
worker B’s first task must be T4 (worker B cannot also be assigned to task T3).
Because a U-shaped line is used, tasks T1 and T10 can actually be considered
consecutive tasks – worker A could be assigned tasks T10, T1 and T2. What
would the maximum capacity be after possibly reassigning tasks (toothbrushes
per minute)?
(4%)

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(c) Individual Essay on Theory of Swift Even Flow (30%)

Students should read appropriate material regarding the importance of managing

flow and productivity. The key theory to investigate is TSEF (Theory of Swift Even
Flow). A list of books and articles* have been suggested to get you started. The
objective of this scholarship is to help students to critically evaluate operations
management relative to traditional management.
(1,500 words)

* Schmenner, R. W. (2012) Getting and Staying Productive, Applying Swift Even Flow
to Practice, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press

* Schmenner, R.W., 2004. Service businesses and productivity. Decision Sciences, 35(3),
pp.333-347
* Schmenner, R.W. and Swink, M.L., 1998. On theory in operations management. Journal of
operations management, 17(1), pp.97-113
* Fredendall, L.D., Craig, J.B., Fowler, P.J. and Damali, U., 2009. Barriers to swift, even flow
in the internal supply chain of perioperative surgical services department: a case
study. Decision Sciences, 40(2), pp.327-349
*Devaraj, S., Ow, T.T. and Kohli, R., 2013. Examining the impact of information technology
and patient flow on healthcare performance: A Theory of Swift and Even Flow (TSEF)
perspective. Journal of Operations Management, 31(4), pp.181-192.

All published information that has been used in the preparation of the essay should
be properly referenced.

The elements of the Individual Portfolio are to be submitted via the Turnitin links –
see Blackboard for hand-in date.

Feedback:

Feedback on the coursework will be returned electronically in written format by the

tutor within three weeks of its submission. Additional verbal feedback and online
consultation will be available upon request. Students are encouraged to complete
their analysis at least three weeks prior to submission should formative feedback be
sought from the Lecturer. No feedback on draft coursework will be provided.

READING LIST

Required

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 Slack, N., Brandon-Jones, A., Johnston, R. and Betts, A. (2018) Operations and
Process Management: Principles and Practice for Strategic Impact, 5th edition,
Harlow, UK, Pearson Education Limited

Recommended

 Schmenner, R. W. (2012) Getting and Staying Productive, Applying Swift Even

Flow to Practice, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press
 Cachon, G. and Terwiesch, C. (2018) “Matching Supply with Demand, an
Introduction to Operations Management”, Fourth Edition, McGraw-Hill
International, Singapore
 Holweg, M., Davies, J., De Meyer, A., Lawson, B. and Schmenner, R. (2018)
Process Theory: The Principles of Operations Management, Oxford, UK, Oxford
University Press
 Anupindi, R., Chopra, S., Deshmukh, S. D., Van Mieghem, J. A. and Zemel, E.
(2014) Managing Business Process Flows, 3rd edition, Harlow, UK, Pearson
Education Limited
 Johnson, R., Clark, G., and Shulver, M. (2012) Service Operations Management,
4th edition, Harlow, UK, Pearson Education Limited
 Goldratt, E. M. and Cox, J. (2012) The Goal: A Process of Ongoing
Improvement, 3rd edition, USA, North River Press
 Seddon, J. (2005) Freedom from Command and Control: a Better Way to Make
Work Work, Buckingham, UK, Vanguard Consulting Ltd.

Directed Reading

Process Orientation

Blackburn, J. D. (1992) “Time –Based Competition: White Collar Activities”, Business Horizons, July-
August, pp. 96-101

Hammer, M. and Stanton, S. (1999) “How Process Enterprises Really Work”, Harvard Business
Review, November-December, pp. 108-118

Kaplan, R. B. and Murdock, L. “Core Process Redesign”, The McKinsey Quarterly, Number 2, pp. 27-
43

Kohlbacher, M. and Reijers, H. A. (2013) “The effects of process-oriented organizational design on

firm performance”, Business Process Management Journal, Volume 19 (2), pp. 245-262

Kohlbacher, M. (2010) “The effects of process orientation: a literature review”, Business Process
Management Journal, Volume 16 (1), pp. 135-152

Kohlbacher, M. and Gruenwald, S. (2011) “Process orientation: conceptualization and measurement”,

Business Process Management Journal, Volume 17 (2), pp. 267-283

Ostroff, F. and Smith, D. “The Horizontal Organization”, The McKinsey Quarterly, Number 1, pp. 148-
167

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Shapiro, B. P. (1988) “What the Hell is Market-Oriented?”, Harvard Business Review, November-
December, pp. 119-1125

Spear, S. (2004) “Learning to Lead at Toyota”, Harvard Business Review, May, pp. 78-86

Weitlaner, D. and Kohlbacher, M. (2015) “Process management practices: organisational

(dis-)similarities”, The Service Industries Journal, Volume 35 (1-2), pp. 44-61

Systems Thinking
Spear, S. and Bowen, H. K. (1999) “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System”, Harvard
Business Review, September-October
Operational Systems Thinking (2012) Darden Business Publishing, University of Virginia

Judge, W. Q. (2011) Chapter 7 Organizational Capacity for Change Dimension 5: Systems Thinking,
Business Expert Press

Scott, B., Burt, D. N., Copacino, W. Gopa, C., Lee, H., Lynch, R. P., Morris, S. and Kirkby, J. (2003)
“Supply Chain Challenges: Building Relationships”, Harvard Business Review, July, pp. 65-73

Service Design / Demand Management

Gulati, R. (2007) “Silo Busting: How to Execute on the Promise of Customer Focus,” Harvard
Business Review, May, pp. 1-9

Moon, Y., and F. Frei (2000) "Exploding the Self-Service Myth," Harvard Business Review, Volume
78, no. 3 (May), pp. 26–27

Frei, F. (2006) “Breaking the Trade-Off between Efficiency and Service”, Harvard Business Review,
November, pp. 2-11

Capacity Management
Thomke, S. (2012) “Mumbai’s Models of Service Excellence”, Harvard Business Review, November,
pp. 121-126

Ferdows, K., Lewis, M. A. and Machuca, J. A. D. (2004) “Rapid Fire Fulfilment”, Harvard Business
Review, November, pp. 104-110

Upton, D. (1995) “What Really Makes Factories Flexible?” Harvard Business Review, July-August, pp.
74-84

Markey, R., Reichheld, F. and Dullweber, A. (2009) “Closing the Customer Feedback Loop”, Harvard
Business Review, December pp. 43-47

Sasser, W. E. (1976) “Match Supply and Demand in Service Industries”, Harvard Business Review,
pp. 133-140

Gratton, L. and Erickson, T. J. (2007) “Ways to Build Collaborative Teams”, Harvard Business
Review, November, 101-109

Martin, R. L. (2013) “Rethinking the Decision Factory”, Harvard Business Review,

October, pp. 96-104

Unruh, G. (2008) “The Biosphere Rules”, Harvard Business Review, February, pp. 111-117

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Relevant Journals

Students are required to consult appropriate articles from journals in the fields of
operations management. A list of journals is available through the links below:

ABS Journal List

ABS “provides guides to the range, subject matter and relative quality of journals in
which business and management and economics academics might publish the
results of their research - empirical and theoretical. The Journals included cover a
wide range of disciplines, fields and sub-fields within the social sciences,
representing an inclusive approach to what constitutes business and management
research.”

Source: Association of Business Schools (ABS) website (2011)

http://www.the-abs.org.uk/?id=257

Suggested Journals

 Journal of Operations Management

 International Journal of Operations and Process Management
 Supply Chain Management: An International Journal
 Production and Operations Management
 Academy of Management Journal
 Academy of Management Review
 Strategic Management Journal
 Management Science
 Harvard Business Review
 Academy of Management Executive
 Sloan Management Review
 California Management Review
 Long Range Planning
 The British Journal of Management

A wide range of journals are available online through the University. For access off-
campus students can obtain an Athens username and password. For a full list of
online journals at UU see http://www.ulst.ac.uk/library/electronic/fulltextejsa.htm.

SUMMARY DESCRIPTION

Managing Operations is the management of organisations using a set of

interdependent and interrelated systems, processes and metrics. This module seeks

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to develop a number of frameworks / techniques for assessing and improving
operations processes in order to add value to customers and maximise productivity.

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