Employing Important
Techniques Used in Operations Management

Overview
Working individually or optionally, with a partner, students will demonstrate competency inoperations management by analyzing three
operations management techniques and applying them to improve Acme Mexico City's operations in an integrated report.

Two of the techniques are mandatory. They are:

• Data-driven decision-making aka data analytics
• Linear programming

The student will select the third technique from the following list:

• Decision support systems
• Outsourcing to include offshoring, reshoring, andnext/nearshoring
• Sustainable supply chain management

The student will submit a report in pdf format that integrates their three analyses and the applications to Acme Mexico City.

Follow the format provided for text assignments in this course.  Specifically, include an executive summary.

Critical thinking, information literacy, problem solving, systems thinking, and technology fluency are required.

Assignment
Within your analyses on the first - Data-driven decision-making aka data analytics -and third - your choice of one from among

• Decision support systems
• Outsourcing to include offshoring, reshoring, and nextshoring
• Sustainable supply chain management

Techniques, address the following:

• What is the general purpose of the technique?
• How does or should this help operations in general?
• What are the limitations of the technique?
• What are the costs involved? What training is needed to use the technique? What else is needed?
• At Acme Mexico City, what is the problem, opportunity, or challenge that this technique can address?
• How will the technique help Acme Mexico City's operations? Why?
• What would be the areas that present challenges in the approach (e.g., cost, personnel, training, culture, technology, management commitment, etc.?)

Within your analysis on linear programming applied at Acme Mexico City, address the following:

• What is your recommended low-cost (not necessarily the minimum cost) customer service employee daily assignment schedule?
• What are your underlying assumptions and any qualitative factors that you believe are involved?
• How might non-typical days affect the schedule?

The following information is provided for your use in this linearprogramming analysis:
To the extent permitted by local law, each Acme Home Improvements store, including Acme Mexico City, is open from 7 am - 11 pm every day. Acme Mexico City advance planners in North Carolina have provided the following table, which identifies the minimum number of customer service employees estimated to be needed on the floor of the store each hour of a typical work day:

In the interest of cost control, the planners have also imposed a not-to-exceed maximum of 30 customer service employees on the floor at any time.

Full-time customer service employees at AMC work a 9 hour shift (8 hours of work plus a 1 hour meal break) either from 7 am to 4 pm or from 2 pm to 11 pm. Workers on the 7-4 shift are assigned an hour-long lunch break at either 11 am or 12 noon. Workers on the 2-11 shift are assigned an hour-long dinner break at either 5 pm or 6 pm.

Part-time customer service employees work four consecutive hours per day and their shifts can start any hour between 7 am and 7 pm. They receive no meal breaks.

By company policy, which is consistent with Mexican labor law, the company limits the hours worked by part-time customer service employees to 50% of the day's total scheduled hours.

Part-time customer service employees earn $500 per day, and full-time customer service employees earn $1100 per day in salary and benefits (here, $ = Moneda Nacional, i.e., the Mexican peso).

Acme operations analysts working in North Carolina, working with the AMC advance planners, have used linear programming to propose in accordancewith the foregoing factors, an employee assignment schedule for a typical day. Their proposed schedule is the following item in Course Content. You may elect to recommend this schedule or to recommend one that is different.

Required Format:
Except as provided above, use A Format for Our Text Assignments found in Content/General Information.

Required Readings:

• Johnson, W.H.A. (n.d.). Toyota Motor Manufacturing Company Canada
(TMMC): The Lexus RX 330 Line. Waltham, MA: Department of Management, Bentley
College. http://polaris.umuc.edu/~jstewart/Amba604/TMMCCase_Final.pdf
• Toyota Motor Corporation. (2015). The Toyota production system - terms. http://www.toyotageorgetown.com/terms.asp
• Mind Tools. (2015). Grid analysis. http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_03.htm
• Mind Tools. (2015). Decision tree analysis. http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_04.htm

Multimedia:
• Knode, C.S. (2011). Linear programming 1 - formulating the problem. http://vimeo.com/duffer44/linear-programming-part-1.

• Knode, C.S. (2011). Linear programming 2 - solving with Solver. http://vimeo.com/duffer44/linear-programming-part-2.

• Knode, C.S. (2011). Linear programming 3 - sensitivity analysis. http://vimeo.com/duffer44/linear-programming-part-3.

• Knode, C.S. (2011) Decision tree video 1 (setting up the problem): http://vimeo.com/duffer44/decision-trees-part-1.

• Knode, C.S. (2011) Decision tree video 2 (determining the value of perfect information valuation): http://vimeo.com/duffer44/decision-treespart-2.

• Knode, C.S. (2011) Decision tree video 3 (determining the value of imperfect information valuation): http://vimeo.com/duffer44/decisiontrees-part-3.

Additional Readings:
Find them in Content/Week 5 above (before) the Assignment Instructions that you are now reading.

There are several optional readings on Big Data, offshoring, reshoring, next shoring, NAFTA, and Toyota.