Manufacturing Operations – Planning, Management and Control

Global operations expand a firm's reach into larger markets and diverse supply sources, boosting profitability while raising awareness of barriers like tariffs and longer lead time.

Analyze challenges of global operations, including customer customization, culture, and the mix of global and local marketing, while evaluating total cost of ownership and hidden costs.

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.

Evaluate how political and economic factors shape global supply chain decisions, from instability and currency risk to regional trade agreements, tariffs, non-tariff barriers, corruption, and terrorism.

Explore quantitative decision methods across complete certainty, risk, and uncertainty, including algebra, calculus, statistics, simulations, decision trees, and game theory for robust production planning and cost analysis.

Explore decision making under uncertainty using maximin, maximax, Laplace, and minimax regret criteria, and apply them to a payoff table to choose among small, medium, and large facilities.

explain decision making under risk using the expected monetary value criterion, calculating the expected value for each alternative with known state probabilities, and selecting the highest-value option.

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.

Explore break-even calculations through practical examples. Determine units to break even, assess profit or loss at given sales, and evaluate machine options with fixed and variable costs.

Explore break-even analysis through four practical examples, applying fixed and variable costs, contribution margin, and break-even quantity to determine equal total costs and optimal production levels.

Explore equations for discrete and continuous data, including grouped frequency data and probabilities, with an example of a 0.08 sample proportion and 0.014 standard error for central value and dispersion.

Use a decision tree to analyze sequential decisions and chance events, read left to right and evaluate from right to left to maximize expected monetary value.

Plan capacity to match demand and address long term and short term needs by shaping the production system and managing inputs, conversion, and outputs.

Explore how capacity decisions limit output, meet future demand, and shape operating costs and competitiveness. Learn to assess efficiency, utilization, design and effective capacity, and break-even concepts through practical examples.

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.

Explore locational models for facility placement, focusing on the factor rating method. See steps to compare site scores with a Boston healthcare example to identify the best location.

Apply the weighted factor rating method to merge quantitative and qualitative factors, using a preference matrix to assign weights by relative importance and identify site with the highest weighted score.

The load distance method selects facility locations by minimizing population-weighted distances using rectilinear or Euclidean measures, illustrated by choosing between census tract C and F.

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 locational economics by evaluating site costs and the rate of return for three locations in a smartphone plant example, highlighting factors like land, labor, materials, and distribution costs.

Explore plant layout basics, focusing on the optimal arrangement of departments, equipment, and services to maximize profit, streamline material flow, and minimize handling and costs.

This lecture classifies five manufacturing layouts—process, product, combination, fixed position, and group—and explains process layout for batch production, its advantages and limitations, and contrasts with product layout features.

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.

Explore group or cellular layout and group technology, forming component families into cells to blend process and product layouts, minimize intercell movements, and balance transportation and equipment costs.

Design of product layout dedicates equipment to a product line with straight-line flow for high-volume assembly. Learn line balancing, cycle time, and task precedence to optimize buffers and pacing.

Explore line balancing with a practical MS 800 car assembly example, deriving cycle time, theoretical minimum workstations, and task assignments under precedence constraints to achieve 77 percent efficiency.

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

Analyze how service layout and location impact sales and customer satisfaction; use car service product layout and hospital process layout with accessible entrances, packing areas, parking, and walkways.

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.

Explore time series methods for manufacturing planning, including decomposition into trend, seasonal, cyclical, and random components; apply moving averages, hand fitting, least squares, and seasonal indexes for forecasting.

Explore simple exponential smoothing, a moving-average forecasting method that updates forecasts using Ft-1 + alpha(At-1 - Ft-1). Alpha ranges 0-1 and controls responsiveness.

Explore regression and correlation methods, focusing on simple linear regression with y = a + b x and the line of best fit, illustrated by a plasterboard shipments example.

Explore simple correlation methods by analyzing the linear relationship between two variables using r and r-squared, including explained versus total variation with a plasterboard shipments X and permits Y example.

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.

Apply moving averages, seasonal indexes, and exponential smoothing to demand forecasting for production and inventory planning. Use ready-to-use sheets with your data to forecast next periods.

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 manufacture integrates product design with manufacturing realities to reduce lead times and costs by easing material procurement, handling, changeovers, and quality control.

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.

Master the purchasing function in materials management to ensure continuous supply and cost efficiency. Apply the ten Rs—right price, quality, time, source, quantity, attitudes, contracts, material, transportation, and delivery.

Identify suitable suppliers through survey and inquiry stages to build an approved supplier list. Use vendor ratings and evaluation methods such as categorical and weighted point method.

Explore stores management and its role in supplying uninterrupted materials to manufacturing, detailing receiving, storage, issue, and control. Highlight codification's advantages for standardization and efficient purchasing.

Discover how inventory management creates a buffer between supply and demand, guiding when and how much to order, through ABC and other analyses to optimize stock and costs.

Explore the economic order quantity EOQ by trial and error and analytical methods, balancing carrying and ordering costs to minimize total costs, with an example showing optimal lot size.

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.

Explore mixed strategies and trial-and-error approaches to aggregate planning that balance variable employment, inventory, and ABC company’s quarterly demand and costs.

Formalize the production plan through the master production schedule and translate it into end-item requirements, guiding the production and inventory system with forecasts and customer orders.

Explore how master scheduling integrates forecast demand, customer orders, and inventory to produce a six week plan with four production runs of 25 units, guided by a demand time fence.

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.

Analyze inventory balances and production planning through practical examples, calculating production rates, ending inventory, and available-to-promise from forecasts and master production schedules.