Comment: This Operations Management series takes an operational view of environmental conditions into account and focuses on sustainability through adaptability.
All business operations come down to manpower, methods, materials/machinery, and money also known as the 4M's or in some circles the 5M's. Many disciplines have a narrow focus supporting one or more of these underpinnings. For example, human resources focuses on principally manpower. Accounting focuses mostly on historical capital performance or the money. They do attempt to forecast performance but the historical reporting affects performance for various present (predictive) and future (applied) models. Unlike other disciplines, OM affects every aspect of the business in practical and purposeful ways by establishing the framework under which the operations become effective and efficient. In short, operations management balances all aspects, the 4M's, of the business operations. This series will organize around the 4M underpinnings which are often the primary sprigs in the Ishacawa diagram which is better known as the fishbone or cause and effect diagram. This post focuses on methods.
Methods
There has been a breadth of studies into operational methodologies and many methods persist. The studies range from detailed time standards (highly discrete, quantitative) to generalized frameworks (highly applied, qualitative). Given such a broad range in methods, leaders and managers can be overwhelmed in discerning which methods best apply. In most cases, they make decisions as best they are able. Having a grasp on the basics helps make better decisions.
First, we need to understand the elements of OM methods. OM methods usually involve some level of security, productive work, quality, sustainment, and information. Security in most operations centers on proprietary information, physical security, and protecting Personal Identifiable Information (PII) of clientele. Productive work is the purpose for the method and the mainstay of the business. Quality is an economic and/or legal discretionary decision relating to the fitness or grade of excellence of the productive work. Sustainment is the process of creating the framework or structure that affords durability to an operation. Information is the pertinent and collective volume of data and knowledge associated to the OM method at hand. With these elements, sustainable OM methods arise to serve a purpose with effectiveness and efficiencies.
Looking further into methods, most follow an innate structure that are categorized as either discrete or continuous. Most methods are discrete characterized by distinct individual parts that are discontinuous and connected in various manners such as linear or non-linear. Non-linearity is known as complexity which I will address in a later post. A continuous process is uniform, uninterrupted in time, and once initiated does not stop until the result is achieved. OM professionals tend to look at methods in terms of phases seeking breakpoints and fluidity such as linear or spiral (a form of non-linear). For non-OM professionals, this process has been made easy for recurring processes by creating the models many know. For example, activities like software development and democratic reform processes where democratization of design is prevalent there are a host of stable models to draw upon. However, rarely do any of the models apply perfectly and end up being modified or combined with other models. This was discussed in the post; Software Model Bashing.
Comparing Operations to Projects
In engineered-to-order, job-shop, batch, and mass manufacturing methods are repetitive operations performed in a series of steps that result in the production of work-in-process and ultimately a finished good. Project management has a work breakdown structure (WBS) that details the parent-child work relationships to be completed. Likewise, the Bill of Materials (BOM) in manufacturing serves a similar function. Instead of focusing on the work itself, the BOM focuses on the parent-child material relationship requirements to perform the work. The Material Resource Planning (MRP) method time phases the arrival of materials when the work is to be performed. Work packages in the MRP process occur in the time buckets in which materials arrive for work-in-process on a job follower (a work package) to begin.
The reverse methology to MRP is Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) method. MRP begins with the end date in mind and works backward to the start date. In MRO, a repairable component known as the carcass arrives usually unnannounced because it was an unscheduled failure. Repair crews must perform a engineering and repair evaluation to determine what is wrong and what parts are required for the repair. The BOM in MRO is known as an Illustrated Parts Breakdown, IPB, which list all the parts and shows how they are assembled. Often there is a deliberate work stoppage in MRO while waiting for the parts to arrive before work can begin. To minimize the stoppage requires storage of inventory and the associated management. Once the essential parts arrive the carcass is returned to work-in-process. During this interval, an MRP-like process with job followers and parts arriving as compnents enter work may begin since the repair process is generally well known. In shop floor control, maintenance action forms (MAFs) detail the work perform. Today, the MAF is computerized but in old school, the MAF was placed in a visual information display (VIDs) board. As the work progressed, the MAF was slid back and forth between columns; Awaiting Maintenance (AW), Awaiting Parts (AWP), and Work in Progress (WIP).
Methods are simply broken down into steps, phases, and checkpoints then applied to a form of fluidity such as linear or spiral. Some highly complex non-linear operations have little fluidity as complex relationships between components require progressive elaboration. This is more often observed in operations like engineered-to-order and job shop which tends to be project driven. For example, the construction of a stadium or a spacecraft. Software development operations are typically fluid and spiral processes having multiple phases and stages based on the operational design of the organization producing repetitive software products regardless of the uniqueness of product. The goal is to properly design and select the right methods that maximize effectiveness and optimize efficiencies. This is best achieved by understanding the generalized process and principles that underpins any operation whether manufacturing, software development, or knowledge production.
Methods and Sustainability
In the book Collapse, Nords had settled Greenland but fostered a hostile relationship with the Inuit people. The Nords had a fixed European lifestyle that they attempted to force fit into the Greenland environment having thier livestock and crops. Meanwhile, the indigenous Inuits were skilled fishermen who had adapted to the environment with warm waterproof kayaks resulting in an near endless supply of food from the sea. They utilized nearly all the sea creatures they hunted or fished with marginal waste, feeding that waste back to the remaining stock. The Nords could have learned from the Inuits. Because of the Nord's unwillingness to adapt and who continued to foster animosity against the Inuits, they starved to death amidst some of the most bountiful food sources in the world. Likewise, some companies refuse to adapt to thier environment. They possess a high degree of market place arrrogance or insist on processes that are not effective or efficient due to some sense of posterity. The outcome results in a non-sustainable condition and a collapse of the business.
Sustainable methods center on adaptability designed into the methods. An automated and robotic equipment manufacturer located in Carlsbad, CA that I toured once had taken this concept to the maximum. They had designed a series of automated equipment that performed a set of standard operations on pliable materials such as plastics, soft metals and composites, and composite fabrics. The machines were mounted on wheels and had standard transfer mechanisms for material handling. The idea was that shop floor setup could occur in less than one day by simply unlocking the machines and rolling them into new arrangements or adding in new machines then interlocking them in their new positions. The idea was to maintain an array of machines they could quickly assemble into a new manufacturing process. In this method, adaptable manufacturing operations had a low setup latency such that they could lease shop floors throughout the year by quickly organizing and manufacturing an array of finished goods otherwise not possible.
In practice, another manufacturing plant, I also toured, using the same kind of equipment combined manual labor with the automated processes to manufacture several different products throughout the year. They made the squirt guns found on cleaning products, golf clubs, gym equipment, As Seen On TV products, and a host of other products in addition to their principle product line. The squirt gun manufacturing process was fully automated and no human hands touched the WIP. Plactic parts and raw materials were loaded, in most cases, by automated material handling equipment. Plastic pellets were poured into a vibrating hopper for sorting and some parts arrived in pick-and-place styled bins that rolled up then attached to the machines. Production runs made squirt guns for the entire year in about 6 to 8 weeks. The golf club manufacturing was a hybrid process with production runs for about 12 weeks. Gym equipment manufacturing was 100% manual labor with production runs for about about 12 weeks as well. Other product runs were as seen on TV products that fit their processes and typically had production runs less than 30 days. The point is that the shop floor was adaptable throughout the year for production runs not associated with the primary product line creating a sustainable operation despite varitability in the market, products, economy, and the manufacturing processes.
Sustainability, thus, takes into account down economies, obsolesence, disruptive technologies, and other factors that impact sustained operations. The idea is to back away from becoming too specialized or focused. In doing so, the organization refocuses on the grander processes and methods that lead to a product or service. For example, the classic triangular kitchen design, Figure 1, supports inumerable processes with some minor adjustments to tooling and materials passing through the shop floor. Nonetheless, the preparation and cooking processes remain consistent and involve washing, heating, or chilling the work in progress. Cutting, mixing, and other processes are possible too by varying the tooling and methods in prep areas. The kitchen can also be adapted to first aide and cleansing operations. The refrigerator can provide ice packs and store medicines. The sink can flush wounds and assist in removing heat from burns. Hence, the kitchen can adapt to a variety of operations without making major changes.
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| Figure 1: General Kitchen Design |
Likewise business operations can adapt their methods and processes by not becoming too specialized and designing in capacity and capability to evolve as environmental conditions emerge. I'll be taking these concepts to a higher order in later posts.
The Big Push
In recent decades, an incredible number of certifiable methodologies have spawned for nearly every aspect of a company's operations. These methodologies encompass OM approaches and processes either wholistically or in part when cross-functional. This has been a profitable boon for most professional organizations and other consultancies marketing the methodologies with requisite certifications either for the company or the professional staff. As a result, the OM discipline has spread to a wide swath of the labor force specializing in specific crossfunctional areas as the case with software development, logistics, and many other disciplines.
Comment: Methods is an expansive subject having methods stratified many ways. I focused on some common methods and general concepts in this post. In following posts I will be expanding on methods combining them with organizational design. In the next post, I will look at manpower and manpower issues such as certifications.
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