Manufacturing Operations – Planning, Management and Control

Learn to evaluate total cost of ownership by aggregating purchase price with transportation, carrying costs, landed costs, risk and quality considerations, and environmental costs to compare global vendors.

Explore break-even analysis as a cost–price–volume model that identifies the break-even point and uses margin of safety, fixed and variable costs, and the profit‑volume ratio to guide decisions.

Select plant or facility locations using long-range forecasts, diversification, and dimensional analysis to weigh tangible and intangible costs. Consider expansion, relocation, and global location with virtual proximity.

Explore factors that influence plant and facility location, including dominant and secondary factors, proximity to markets and suppliers, labor, infrastructure, and government policy for manufacturing and service organizations.

Use the center of gravity model to balance cost and service by weighting distances with tonnage. Compute Cx and Cy from Lx, Ly, and load to guide optimal warehouse location.

Explore combination and fixed position layouts, showing how a process and product layout merge advantages for varying gear sizes, while fixed position layout reduces movement and costs.

Design process layouts by analyzing timing and coordination among work centers, placing centers with greatest flow close together to minimize transport, and mapping flows.

Forecasting demand guides capacity, inventory, and staffing to improve service and profitability, using time series or quantitative methods alongside qualitative approaches across short and long horizons.

Learn how to measure forecast accuracy using mean absolute deviation and tracking signals, apply exponential smoothing, and set control limits and action thresholds to monitor forecast error.

Align market demand with product design by evaluating functional scope, operating ease, and market research. Explore how durability, aesthetics, and advertising shape the design to meet consumer needs.

Apply economic analysis to product design decisions, evaluating capital expenditure, production costs, margins, and price competitiveness. Explore production aspects, including process selection and the three s's—standardization, simplification, specialization.

Design for excellence integrates manufacturing, assembly, cost, and testing across the product family. Concurrent engineering and market-driven requirements guide robust, globally tested designs.

Explore materials management as an integrated function that coordinates planning, sourcing, purchasing, storing, and controlling materials to deliver service at minimum cost.

Derive the economic order quantity (EOQ) using the analytical method under known, uniform demand and zero lead time. Balance annual carrying costs with ordering costs to minimize total inventory cost.

Explore standardization and simplification to reduce variety and establish standards, improving quality, resource allocation, and inventory control, while noting potential loss of flexibility and higher costs.

Apply value analysis as an organized, creative approach to identify unnecessary costs. Focus on function and cost, identify functions, and develop viable alternatives.

Explore ergonomics and just-in-time manufacturing, redefining the man-machine system to optimize human efficiency, safety, and comfort while eliminating waste and improving quality and responsiveness.

Examine aggregate planning and master scheduling basics, linking long- and short-range plans by adjusting production, workforce, and inventory over 3-18 months. Illustrate trade-offs with overtime, idle time, stockouts, and subcontracting.

Learn aggregate planning strategies—chase demand, level production, and stable workforce—and compare costs of overtime, subcontracting, inventory, back orders, and hiring to meet nine-month forecasts.

Learn how available-to-promise is calculated in make-to-order operations using master production scheduling, incorporating on-hand inventory, forecast, and customer orders to promise realistic ship dates.