2- day learning courses

Planning and Control

 The design activities for determining the physical form, shape and composition of products, services, and processes put in place all operation’s resources needed to complete input-process-output cycle. But in order to work effectively, there must be adequate plans and control mechanism to ensure availability, appropriate and optimal deployment of these resources on a day-to-day basis.

 Planning and Control reconciles the supply of an operation’s products and services with the demand for them. It is all about managing the ongoing activities of the operation to satisfy customer demand.

 

Capacity Planning and Control

 Providing capacity to satisfy current and future demand is a fundamental responsibility in operations management. A balance between capacity and demand leads to high profitability and customers’ satisfaction, but a wrong balance is disastrous.

Capacity decisions affect the entire supply chain management of an organization, and so therefore, its planning and control are major responsibility of both the operations and other function managers. The capacity control and planning are performed on aggregate basis and does not discriminate between the different products and services which an operation might produce. It is sometimes referred to as aggregate planning and control.

 

 Inventory Planning and Control

 All operations keep inventory, and it is defined as the stored accumulation of material resources in a transformational system or generally, it is used to describe any stored resources. Inventory gives information on products in stock which provide data on production capacity, demand, resources on hold, materials requirement to meet current demand, losses as a result of damaged goods, production scheduling etc.

 

 Supply Chain Planning and Control

 The need to managing the flow of materials and information between operations which form the strands or chains of a supply network in production/distribution management can no longer be done in a traditional manner.

 The material and information flow from supply end which includes different tiers of suppliers, operational activities, and through distribution to the end users (customers) must be structured in a manner that cost is reduced, time for delivery is minimized, customers are being satisfied, and there are no bottle necks along the supply network or the entire business process.  

 

Materials Requirements Planning (MRP)

One of the concepts of operations management is MRP. It helps in planning and controlling materials requirements in production system. It is also known as manufacturing resource planning and is used to plan all business resource requirements.

MRP enables a company to calculate how many materials of particular types are required, and at what times they are required using sales order data of future orders and sales forecast.

  

Just-In-Time (JIT) Planning and Control

 JIT is a philosophy and method of operations planning and control with the ultimate aim of meeting demand instantaneously with perfect quality and no waste.

JIT means producing goods and services exactly when they are needed- not before and after they are needed which always result into waiting as inventory, and customers waiting respectively.

 

 Traceability and Root-Cause Analysis

 Some of the key elements of Quality Management System are Traceability and Root-Cause Analysis. Traceability allows tracking of products / services inventory movements from end to end which implies that products can be traced from where it was manufactured and shipped from to their destinations. The trace also involves what transpire within the operational activities and give historical information on the products which includes Suppliers; Items; Inspection notes; Manufacturing details; Time spent at each workstation; and Distributors.

 Because Quality Management System guarantees detection of faults/defects/ and their prevention, traceability makes Root-Cause finding of any defect associated with a product or service very easy to identify any problem with finished products or services. Root-Cause Analysis (RCA) seeks to identify the origin of a problem using a specific set of steps, with associated tools, to find the primary cause of the problem.

 

Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA)

Many businesses including manufacturing companies find it difficult to establish coherent strategy, vision, and purpose. While strategy is about improvement and setting of direction for an organization, it will not deliver results until it is aligned to organization’s system.

Alignment is to make sure that everyone in an organization understands the strategy: what to do, why it is very important, and that everything they do contribute to the success of achieving organizational goals.

Strategy and alignment is called policy deployment, and its foundation is Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s scientific method- Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) which is a way of thinking in solving organizational problems.

 

Six Sigma Methodology – General overview

Six Sigma is a fact-based, rigorous methodology for process and quality improvement that aims for defect prevention in products rather than defect detection. Six Sigma quality performance aims to increase process efficiencies while reducing defects in products. Six Sigma philosophy and practice, when fully applied in an enterprise, leads to thriving business. Among its impacts have been lower costs for the enterprise, revenue growth, increased customer satisfaction, increased capacity and capability, and reduction in complexity and production errors.

Lean Six Sigma- General Overview

The multi-dimension of challenges that face manufacturing businesses and the multiple demands of customers in meeting their dynamic needs requires cross and hybrid application and deployment of proven business management strategies such as Lean philosophy and Six Sigma Methodology.

While Lean philosophy focuses on ‘ruthless elimination of waste in all the business processes’, Six Sigma methodology focuses on ‘zero tolerance for any defect’. The combination of these two proven continuous improvement concepts, gives manufacturing company leverage in achieving more with less within her limited resources.

Continuous Improvement Workshop

Executives of most organizations are too busy to the extent that they barely have time for detailed analysis of organization’s processes. Their notion is that certain individual managers have responsibility to oversee manufacturing processes. But while this structure is also part of best global practices, researches showed that most organizations have collapsed or are not productive enough because the core decision makers do not on daily basis familiarize with the ongoing challenges, ongoing needs for improving productivity, and the need to be part of the process from the beginning to the end so that a culture of mutual inclusiveness is created across the chain of commands and among all categories of employees.

Therefore, there is a need to put in place Continuous improvement leadership trainings that will inform manufacturing organizations’ executives of myriad of lapses in business processes and how best to handle them.

 

Managing, Developing and Motivating Subordinates

 Over 90% of operational job activities that determine the outputs or results of all business processes in any organization rest on performance of people who execute the strategies formulated by the executives; these people called subordinates at all levels of organizational process chart can make even the best CEOs to fail, especially when they are not being motivated to have or develop ‘a sense of belonging’.

 Therefore, the success of a business leader is directly proportional to how different classes of his/her subordinates are being managed, developed, and motivated towards achieving organizational goals.

 

 Business Analysis ( Overview)

 Many organizations play down on data which are both quantitatively and qualitatively used to measure how a business is doing in meeting its goals and comparatively to both its local and global competitors. The process of analyzing a business is data driven and cannot be reduced to an ‘armed chair’ guessing or trial and error predictions and decisions. Business is analyzed from strategic planning to its execution; in order words, the entire business system is subject to detailed evaluation and monitoring.

Therefore, business analysis is a continuous process that must be embraced by both the management and operational teams of any establishment in order to remain competitive or have competitive and distinctive advantage.

 

 Project planning and control

 A project is a set of activities which has a defined start point and a defined end state with a defined goal and a defined set of resources. And one of the most challenging jobs that any manager can take on is the management of large-scale project that requires coordinating numerous activities. When every activity that constitutes a business system is handled like a project, the interplay among all the activities will have a beginning and an end. Therefore, project planning and control (PPC) deals with management of a one-off set of activities with a defined beginning and end.  PPC is all about understanding the project environment, defining a project, project planning, project execution, and project control.

Project planning and control ensure that critical path to project completion is not deviated from. Many factors define how complex or not a project is. These factors include size, value and number of people involved, uncertainty of achieving the project objectives of cost, time and quality.

 

Operations Improvement

  All operations, no matter how well managed, are capable of improvement. Therefore, Strategic, operational and tactical teams of any organization must evolve a culture of doing better in all the related activities that produce outputs. Improvement in operations can be in terms of cost reduction, employees’ welfare, quality delivery, reduction in time, elimination of waste and irregularities, unperturbed flow of business process, creating a better working environment, employees’ participation in decision making, etc.

Some of the questions to provide answers to achieve operations improvement are: how can operations measure their performance in terms of performance objectives? How can an organization through its operations managers prioritize improvement of performance objectives? What are approaches to managing rate of improvement? Where does business process re-engineering (BPR) fit into the improvement activity? What are the techniques of improvement?

 

Failure Prevention and Recovery

 Although no operations should be indifferent to failure, in some operations, it is vital that products and services do not fail. The reliability of a product or service provided is measured by its zero failure and quick recovery from failure.

Operations managers must have strategies in place which attempt to minimize the likelihood of failure and learn from it when it does occur. Though there may still be occurrence of failure or breakdown in an organizational system due to one reason or the other, there must be plans in place also to recover as soon as possible. 

 

 KPI Setting Process for Objective Performance Management

 Business enterprises strive for sustainable success. Senior managers and executives in these companies require measures that will help them evaluate how well they are moving towards stated goals and objectives. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are qualitative and quantitative measures that are specifically designed to help companies keep track of changes in their performance. KPIs are often tailored to meet the unique needs of every company or enterprise and help it meet its long-term goals. They are similar, however, in quantifying goals that direct future changes in an organization. In an efficiently run company, KPIs should provide employees with clearly defined measures that are directly related to common goals and objectives in the organization. Critical success factors (CSFs) is about what need to be done to succeed, Key performance indicators (KPIs) refers to the effect of success on business.

 5S and Kaizen Methodology

 A system of work can be improved for better outcomes and performance. While 5S is a philosophy and a way of organizing and managing the workspace and work flow with the intent to improve efficiency by eliminating waste and irregularities, improving flow and reducing process perturbation, Kaizen is a Japanese term for continuous improvement in manufacturing and business standards and practices. It is a breakthrough process strategy.

 The 5S and Kaizen methodology focus on improving quality and business productivity with zero tolerance for waste and defect within and without business process.

 Forecasting

 Questions like how will the consumer taste be changing? What will be effect of subsidy removal on production cost in 2023? What will be the effect of ban on core raw materials for production of consumables in the next 5 years? Forecast, a scientific prediction of what may likely occur as a result of prior actions taking can provide answers to the questions above but not in absolute term.

Nevertheless, the future success of any business depends largely on how savvy its management is in spotting trends and developing appropriate strategies. Forecasting is the sixth sense of deploying data analytics to predict what might happen in the future.