Q1. Explain the basic competitive priorities considered while formulating operations strategy by a firm? Ans.

Competitiveness is at the core of all strategies. Even among them, priorities tend to bring the organisations focus on the areas to be dealt with in terms of allocation of resources people, money, and time. This means that different functional areas with their own capabilities and constraints have to be integrated for the overall corporate strategy. Flexible strategies and an adaptive production process help to achieve high productivity and also to satisfy the needs of customers, thereby improving the deliverables.Forexample,onehour paper printing and one hour screen printing services on the cover and same-day flex printing and binding services. Corporate strategy, functional area strategies, mar et analysis, competitive priorities, competitive capabilities, and new service!product design are the main operations strategies in any organisation. "perations strategy is formulated to leverage the advantages, absorb the conse#uences of the variable nature of various functions and provide a dependable implementation programme. $s you can see, effective and timely communication is a vital factor to involve people at various stages and monitor the progress. Figure shows the lin s between the factors of operations management. Formulation of a strategy depends on the following% $ssessment of strengths &nderstanding of the wea nesses 'ature of external environment (esilience of the internal environment The policies derived from the operations strategy should be amenable to go along with other functions. "rganisation strategy should be such that the strategies of different functions are designed to lend support to one another. Culture of the organisation should be established and nurtured in such a way, that, conflicts are resolved with the overall organisation strategy in view. "perations strategy ta es under its umbrella the #uality, time, and flexibility. a) Quality: )uality is the driving factor for any organisation. *hen buying a product, a customer will always thin about the value of the money he is investing. Even if the price of the product is high, the #uality of the product will provo e the customer to buy it. b) ime: Time aspect considers that deliveries are made on time to meet customer+s expectations. Time ta en to develop and mar et new products is becoming very critical in the global environment. c) !lexibility: Flexibility enables to meet the changing demands of customers, in order to develop new processes and materials and to ma e the organisation more agile in its manufacture.

Q". a. #ist the benefits of forecasting Ans. ,t ta es a little more ingenuity to pin down the benefits. There are three main categories of benefit% -irect cost savings% savings in expenditure other than labour - print, paper, telephone, travel costs, etc. - that can be directly attributed to the introduction of the intranet. These can usually be calculated in three steps% ./0 the number of incidences of expenditure in the time period, .10 the cost of each incidence and .20 the proportion of these that could be eliminated using the intranet. For example, if the number of pages of formal printed material received per person per year was 344, the cost in pence per page, including printing and delivery, was 5p and the percentage of these pages that could be delivered on-line was 647, the saving in pounds would be 344 x .5 ! /440 x 647 x the si8e of the population.

b. Explain the significance of plant location decision Ans. -efinition $ plant layout study is an engineering study used to analy8e different physical configurations for an industrial plant. 9lant location refers to the choice of region and the selection of a particular site for setting up a business or factory. The selection of location is an important phenomenon for the success of an enterprise and re#uires thorough analysis.The location of a plant is an important entrepreneurial decision because it influences the cost of production and distribution to a great extent. ,n some cases, you will find that location may contribute to even /47 of cost of manufacturing and mar eting. Therefore, an appropriate location is essential to the efficient and economical wor ing of a plant. $ firm may fail due to bad location or its growth and efficiency may be restricted. The selection of location is of paramount importance both for new and already established enterprises. For example% materials that are produced in bul #uantities, such as cement, mineral acids and fertili8ers, where the cost of the product per ton is relatively low and the cost of transport is a significant fraction of the sales price, the plant should be located close to the primary mar et.

Q$. %hat do you understand by &line balancing'? %hat happens if balance doesn(t exist? Ans. :ine ;alancing and *or Cell ;alancing is an effective tool to increase the output of the $ssembly line and *or Cell line to reduce manpower and cost. $ssembly :ine ;alancing is nothing but the <imple :ine ;alancing is the calculation of assigning wor s to wor station alongside an $ssembly :ine and that operation will be optima in sense. =enry Ford who introduced the $ssembly :ine ;alancing and in early times it was simple line balancing .:;0 which has optimi8ed the industrial importance, the effective difference between the optimal and sub-optimal operation can afford savings which will be million dollars every year.:ine ;alancing% it is a Classical "peration (esearch ."(0 which optimi8es the problem, and it has been handled by "( for many decades. >ost of the algorithms have been proposed to this problem and it contempt the usual importance of the issue and the "( use to handle this. ,t+s commercial software which is available to optimi8e the industry and their lines.$ssembly :ine ;alancing is dependent on 2 models and it is described that these 2 inds of models is related to $ssembly :ine ;alancing and they are <ingle->odel $ssembly lines, mixed models,and multi-model $ssembly lines.<inge->odel $ssembly :ine% in early times assembly lines were used in high level production of a single product. ;ut now the products will attract customers without any difference and allows the profitable utili8ation of $ssembly :ines. >ixed >odel $ssembly :ine% in this model the setup time between the models would be decreased sufficiently and enough to be ignored. <o this internal mixed model determines the assembled on the same line. $nd the type of assembly line in which wor ers wor in different models of a product in the same assembly line is called >ixed $ssembly :ine.>ulti->odel $ssembly :ine% in this model the uniformity of the assembled products and the production system is not that much sufficient to accept the enabling of the product and the production levels. To reduce the time and money this assembly is arranged in batches, and this allows the short term lot-si8ing issues which made in groups of the models to batches and the result will be on the assembly levels.

Q). *escribe the various approaches to Q+? Ans. T)> is viewed from many angles- as a philosophy, as an approach and ?ourney towards excellence. The main thrust is to achieve customer satisfaction by involving everybody in the organisation- across all functions- with continuous improvement driving all activities. T)> systems are designed to prevent poor #uality from occuring. The following <teps are implemented to achieve Total )uality. ,ustomer-focused. The customer ultimately determines the level of #uality. 'o matter what an organi8ation does to foster #uality improvement@training employees, integrating #uality into the design process, upgrading computers or software, or buying new measuring tools@the customer determines whether the efforts were worthwhile. otal employee involvement . $ll employees participate in wor ing toward common goals. Total employee commitment can only be obtained after fear has been driven from the wor place, when empowerment has occurred, and management has provided the proper environment. .rocess-centered. $ fundamental part of T)> is a focus on process thin ing. $ process is a series of steps that ta e inputs from suppliers .internal or external0 and transforms them into outputs that are delivered to customers .again, either internal or external0. The steps re#uired /ntegrated system. $lthough an organi8ation may consist of many different functional specialties often organi8ed into vertically structured departments, it is the hori8ontal processes interconnecting these functions that are the focus of T)>. >icro-processes add up to larger processes, and all processes aggregate into the business processes re#uired for defining and implementing strategy. Everyone must understand the vision, mission, and guiding principles as well as the #uality policies, ob?ectives, and critical processes of the organi8ation. 0trategic and systematic approach. $ critical part of the management of #uality is the strategic and systematic approach to achieving an organi8ation+s vision, mission, and goals. ,ontinual improvement. $ ma?or thrust of T)> is continual process improvement. Continual improvement drives an organi8ation to be both analytical and creative in finding ways to become more competitive and more effective at meeting sta eholder expectations. !act-based decision ma1ing . ,n order to now how well an organi8ation is performing, data on performance measures are necessary. T)> re#uires that an organi8ation continually collect and analy8e data in order to improve decision ma ing accuracy, achieve consensus, and allow prediction based on past history. ,ommunications. -uring times of organi8ational change, as well as part of day-to-day operation, effective communications plays a large part in maintaining morale and in motivating employees at all levels.

Q2. a. %hat is meant by productivity? Explain. Ans. 9roductivity is a measure of the efficiency of the system and loo s at the economies achieved during the processes. Every process will have a number of contributors which help in achieving maximum productivity. The processes are% 9eople, >achines, Facilitating goods, $ncillary e#uipments, and Technology. Each of these elements attempts to enhance the contribution of other elements. "pportunities exist at all stages of the wor flow in the entire system to introduce measures for increasing productivity. Communication, effective review processes and innovative methods will ensure optimisation of resources. ;uilding up reliability into the e#uipments, managing the supply chain to economise on the cost factors improves productivity. )uality circles are very efficient in incorporating low cost and non-intrusive methods of improving productivity and #uality throughout the organisation. )uality circles% ,nvolve all persons who are actually involved in the production system and the information they elicit and bring about improvements that are highly cost effective. &nveil creativity and encourage team wor and bring about improvements almost on a day to day basis. ;ring continuous incremental changes in a harmonious way instead of dramatic changes

Encourage identification of possible failures and see methods of preventing things going wrong.

b. %hat do you mean by operations strategy? Explain in brief. Ans. <trategic planning consists of the process of developing strategies to reach a defined ob?ective. $s we label a piece of planning AstrategicA we expect it to operate on the grand scale and to ta e in Athe big pictureA .in contradistinction to AtacticalA planning, which by definition has to focus more on the tactics of individual detailed activities0. A:ong rangeA planning typically pro?ects current activities and programs into a revised view of the external world, thereby describing results that will most li ely occur .whether the planner wants them or notB0<trategic planning ta es place primarily in military situations .see military strategy0, in business activities and in government. *ithin business, strategic planning may provide overall direction .called strategic management0 to a company or give specific direction in such areas as% Financial strategies =uman resource!organi8ational development strategies ,nformation technology deployments >ar eting strategy *ithin government, strategic planning provides guidance for organi8ational management similar to that for business, but also provides guidance for the evolution or modification of public policy and laws. $reas of such public policy include%Functional plans such as for land use, transportation, and water resources Crowth management and!or comprehensive planning.

Q3. %hat is logical process modelling? %hat is physical modelling? Ans. #ogical .rocess +odeling is the representation of putting together all the activities of business process in detail and ma ing a representation of them. The initial data collected need to be arranged in a logical manner so that lin s are made between nodes for ma ing the wor flow smooth. The steps are % .a0 Capturing relevant data in detail to be acted uponD .b0 Establishing controls and limiting access to the data during process executionD.c0 -etermining as which tas in the process to be done and subse#uent tas s in that processD .d0 >a ing sure that all relevant data are available for all the tas s that need to be in the order determinedD .e0 >a ing available the relevant and appropriate data for that tas D .f0 Establishing a mechanism to indicate acceptance of the results after every tas or process to have the assurance that flow is going ahead with accomplishments in the desired path.<ome of the activities may occur in se#uential order whereas some of them may run parallel.There may be circular paths, li e rewor loops. Complexities arise out of the manner in which process activities are connected together. :ogical 9rocess >odel consists only of the business activities and shows the connectivity among them. The process model is a representation of the business activities different from the technology dependent ones. Thus we have a model that is singularly structured only for business activities. :ogical 9rocess >odel improves control on the access to data and identifies who is in possession of data at different nodes in the dataflow networ that has been structured. $ few of the logical modeling formats are given below a0 9rocess -escriptions with tas se#uences and data addresses b0 Flow Charts with various activities and relationships c0 Flow -iagrams d0 Function hierarchies e0 Function dependency diagrams. .hysical +odeling 9hysical modeling is concerned with the actual design of data base meeting the re#uirements of the business. 9hysical modeling deals with the conversion of the logical model described above into a relational model. "b?ects get defined at the schema level. The ob?ects here are tables created on the basis of entities and attributes. =ere the database is defined for the business. $ll the information is put together to ma e the database software specific. This means that the ob?ects during physical modeling vary on the database software being used. The outcomes are server model diagrams showing tables and relationships with a database.