I MBA BA

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
QUESTION BANK

UNIT -1

PART A

1. What do you mean by production management?

2. What do you mean by production system?

3. Mention the difference types of production system

4. What is job shop production?

5. Define batch production

6. What is meant by mass production?

7. What is meant by continuous production?

8. Mention the recent trends in production and operations management?

9. List the role of operation management in strategic management

10. Why Facilities Location is important?

11. Define facility layout

12. State the principles of facility layout.

13. Mention the merits and demerits of Product layout

14. Mention the benefits and costs of process layout.

15. Mention the merits of fixed layout

16. Write a note on cellular manufacturing.

17. List the factors influencing facility layout

18. Mention Criteria for selection and Design of layout.

PART B

1. Explain the production system and its importance.

2. Discuss the different approaches to analyze the nature of a production system?

3. Explain detail the system perspective of production.

4. Explain the recent trends in production and operations management

5. Explain role of operations management in strategic management

6. Explain the competitive priories in strategic management

7. Analyses the issues in international operations management

8. Express the influence of an operations strategy product/service plan.

9. Enumerate the five basic elements of operational excellence

10. Brief on the element of location election.

11. Explain in detail the types of layout.

UNIT -2

PART A

1. Why Forecasting is Essential in OM?

2. What are the Forecasting Methods?

3. Explain Time Series Analysis?

4. What are the Components of a Time Series?

5. Explain Fixed position plant layout

6. Explain Product oriented plant layout

7. Explain Process oriented plant layout (Functional Layout)

8. Explain Combination Layout

9. Explain Group Technology

10. Explain Limitations of Group Technology Layout

11. Explain Aggregate Planning

PART B

1. Explain in detail Quality and Quantity forecasting methods?

2. Explain Plant location or the facilities location

3. In Case of Location Choice for the First Time or New Organisations what are the steps will
follow?

4. In Case of Location Choice for Existing Organisation what are the steps will follow?

5. In Case of Global Location plant what are the steps will follow?
 6. What are the objectives of Plant Layout?

7. Explain Types of Plant Layout

8. Explain product layout advantages?

9. Explain process layout advantages?

10. Explain Advantages of Group Technology Layout?

11. Explain Aggregate Planning Strategies

12. Explain Objectives of Short Term Forecasting

13. Explain Objectives of Long Term Forecasting

UNIT -3

PART A

1. Define capacity planning

2. State the role of long-term capacity planning

3. Distinguish between production capacity and design capacity

4. Mention the need for long-term capacity planning

5. What is meant by capacity cushion?

6. List the objectives of capacity planning.

7. What is production planning?

8. List the benefits of maintenance.

9. What is the need for maintenance in operations?

10. What are the types of maintenance?

11. Define break down maintenance.

12. What do you mean by reliability with respect to product and service?

13. What is failure in production?

14. Define replacement cost.

15. Why should you avoid repair and replacements?

PART B

1. State the role of product Design

2. List some factors that influence product design

3. Enumerate the characteristics of product design.

4. Explain in detail the production planning process.

5. Give brief notes on long term and short term capacity planning.

6. Explain the various types of maintenance with examples.

7. Discuss in detail the rough cut capacity plan.

8. Bring out the need and importance of maintenance in operations.

UNIT-4

PART A

1. Define Quality

2. What do you mean by quality costs?

3. What is a quality circle?

4. What is the periodicity of meeting in a quality circle?

5. What are the different quality problems faced?

6. Bring out the importance of training for quality.

7. What is accepted sample?

8. What is statistical quality control?

9. Define control charts.

10. What type of QMS would you suggest for a manufacturing company?

11. Define time study.

12. Define method study.

13. What is work measurement.

14. Define Therbligs.

15. What is the role of flow chart in motion study?

16. What is standard time?

17. What do you mean by allowances?

18. What is downtime losses?

Part B

1. Explain in detail the need for quality management system.

 2. What is quality loss? Discuss in brief the various quality losses.
3. Bring out the significance of control charts. What are the various types of charts used?
4. Discuss in detail the process of time study.
5. Explain the process of work measurement.
6. List out the various symbols and representation in work flow process chart.
7. Explain in detail the SIMO chart.
8. Explain the computation of allowance timings.

UNIT-5

Part A

1. Discuss the role of inventory

2. What is meant by carrying cost?
3. Enumerate the costs involved in carrying costs.
4. What is ordering cost?
5. Define EOQ.
6. What is safety stock?
7. Define pipeline inventory.
8. What is seasonal and cyclic inventory?
9. Define ABC control.
10. What is VED system?
11. List few inventory control techniques
12. What is meant by Just In Time?
13. Mention the characteristics of JIT
14. Mention the seven wastes of JIT .
15. What is the role of a stores manager?
16. Define stores management.

Part B

1. Explain in detail the stores management process.

2. What are the various stores layout available?
3. Explain the importance of 5S in store management.
4. Describe in detail the inventory controlling techniques.
5. Discuss in detail the EOQ chart.
6. Write in brief the ABC, VED, XYZ and FSN systems.

Part C- Case studies

Case 1.

Problems of the Pak Elektron Limited, PEL Appliances

The Pak Elektron Limited, PEL Appliances manufactures printed circuit boards to the specifications of its
different customers, the electronic manufacturers. It employs new designs and prototype production
techniques that enable the company to become more adept in anticipating and resolving the problems
of its consumers, over its competitors. However, despite the effective maintenance of the company’s
workers over its operations, several problems have been encountered in sustaining the operations of
the company, which become the source of its loss of profit and sales. The problems identified and
described by Mr. Mohsin Qayyum include problems related to operations, productivity, quality and
delivery. Primarily, the operation of the company is declining, due to production bottleneck

The shifting of workload from one operation to another without pattern causes this bottleneck. The
company is having a hard time anticipating the workload pile up in the shop daily because individual
orders from clients impose varying workloads on each operation. The variation in the workload depends
upon the differences in the size of the order that bypass some operations and from the differences in
circuit designs. In addition, the company entertains four-day rush orders, which require rework at one or
two operations, thus, delaying the process of delivering art work modifications of a client. This is
because the company’s workers are shifted from one work operation to another depending on the
demand of the operation. In this sense, some workstations are left vacant, while some workstations are
overloaded. Moreover, disturbance in the operations of the company is may be attributed to telephone
calls from the customer’s engineers who had encountered a design problem. As a result, the customer
would be requiring redesigning and rework on the products. Another problem of the company can be
encountered in terms of its productivity, as some machines are left idle more often that expected.
Another source of this problem is that the standard labor hours do not include time spent in reworking
parts that have failed inspection or have been returned by clients. In addition, the time used for moving
from one station to another adds to the idle time used by workers, thus, further lessening their time for
production. I also believe that the job strategies used in the company are far from ideal, thus, not
reflecting improvements in its operations. This leads to the realization that operations and productivity
method improvements are not being implemented due to the pressure for output, the constant shifting
of workers from one job to the next, and in inhibiting experimentation with new ideas. Furthermore, the
introduction and implementation of new ideas and methods has led to further confusion, as the
increase in the production of a particular station resulted to the piling up of work in another, thus,
rescheduling orders and reassigning workers. This further impeded the productivity of the company.
Aside from operations and productivity problems encountered, the company also encounters problems
and failures in maintaining the quality standards of products and inmeeting promised delivery dates.
The company’s sales manager, reported that since August, the company has been receiving customer
returns, which increased from under one percent to about3%, and delay in product delivery, which
averaged 9 days late. This would result to the continuous loss of sales, as the company’s competitors are
able to promise four -week deliveries on small orders. In addition, the company fails to inspect the
quality of their products more effectively, thus, resulting to increase in returns and reprocessing. The
problem occurs as the president feels that a more strict inspection system would not be possible, as
product standards vary from customer to another and from one order to another. In September, the
company’s reshipments reject rates increased, resulting to a 6% total loss due to incomplete operations
and subsequent reworking and reprocessing of circuit boards. Moreover, due to the delay of production
and the increase in the reworking of products, the company has fewer shipments, with actual deliveries
delayed with an average of 9 days. This forced the company to hire an addition of eight employees
assigned in the production force. However, it would still take some time before making the additional
employees skilled in the business.

1. List out the operational bottlenecks and suggest suitable solutions.

Case 2

Prime powers Ltd is a growing start up which manufactures the spare parts for bicycles, located in
Ambattur, Chennai. The customers of PPL include brands like Hero, BSA and Hercules. Apart from this,
the company takes up all fabrication work for other companies as outsourcing. The company has bagged
orders recently for the Government cycles to school students. The capacity of the company is now
insufficient for the demand at hand.The Production manager is in a dilemma and approaches the MD for
discussing the issue. The manager anticipates more demand and suggest for expansion of new facilty
which the MD is not willing.

1. What would you suggest for capacity planning?

2. Give a clear picture about the demand supply match here.

Case 3

The Double Rite Bottling Company delivers soda to vending machines throughout the northern section
of Rhode Island. The Company takes pride in the fact that all the beverages are sold in returnable
bottles. The president of Double Rite feels it is his civic duty to help decrease theroadside trash that is
often attributable to disposable beverage cans.The returned empty bottles are stored on the roof of the
truck when thedriver is making his deliveries.Upon returning to the warehouse after deliveries are
made, a helper passesthe empty cases from the roof of the truck to the driver standing on the ground.
The driver then places the cases onto a conveyor.

Question: How can the handling of empty cases from the roof of the truck beaccomplished in a more
economical manner?

Disregard the handling of empty cases in the body of the truck

Case 4

The JAW Bottling company has recently introduced a new beer to the market called HEAVY. It is extra
high in calories. It has been developed specifically for those people that enjoy feeling full after only one
beer. The materials handling supervisors at JAW Bottling have been receiving complaints from lift truck
drivers that cases of the new HEAVY beer are slipping off pallets during intra-plant movement and truck
deliveries. Thus far the JAW engineering department has tried to eliminate or reduce case slippage
through the use of the following methods:

1. Top case clamp on the fork truck.

2. Strapping cases to pallet.

3. Plastic wrapper around cases.s

4. The use of a large size pallet with a retainer strip nailed along the edges.

Question: Using a method other than those described above, can the case slippage problem be
solved?

Case 5

The Jones Company operates a centrally located storeroom in their manufacturing complex. Every
afternoon each craft foreman (Tin Shop, Electric Shop, Iron Workers, etc.) writes a requisition for
common use items that will be required for the next day's work. These common use items include nuts,
bolts, screws, washers, flashlight batteries, and gloves. All specialty items are ordered separately.

During the night shift, storeroom personnel fill the orders of items requested by the craft foreman. Each
morning, one or two workers from each department go to the storeroom with a four-wheel platform
truck to pick up the filled order.
Question:

Although studies have never been performed to determine the amount of time craftsmen spend
waiting for supplies, it is the thoughts of the management that idle craft manpower is a problem
resulting from this procedure. How can time spent traveling to and from the described storeroom be
reduced, thus, eliminating or decreasing crafts' personnel travel time?