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8 Adapted from Jayaraman, V. and Srivastara, R. (1996)
‘Export systems in Production and Operations Manage-
ment’, International Journal of Operations and Production
Management, vol. 16, no. 12.
9 Brown, D., Mechanical milkman allows farmer a lie in,
Daily Telegraph, 11 Sept. 1993.
10 Loh Den (2008) My New Favorite Barber: QB House,
denniland.com, 25 June.
11 Walley, P. and Amin, V. (1994) ‘Automation in a
Customer Contact Environment’, International Journal
of Operations and Production Management, vol. 14, no. 5,
86–100.
12 Details courtesy of Johan Lindén, S.V.T. and Pär Åhlström,
Chalmers University.
13 Dosi, G., Teece, D. and Winter, S.G. (1992) ‘Towards a
theory of corporate coherence’, in Dosi, G., Giametti, R.
and Toninelli, P.A. (eds) Technology and Enterprise in a
Historical Perspective, Oxford University Press.
14 Chew, W.B., Leonard-Barton, D. and Bohn, R.E. (1991)
Beating Murphy’s Law, Sloan Management Review, vol. 5,
Spring.
Chapter 9
1 Sources include: company web site; The Sunday Times
Best Companies to work for, W.L. Gore & Associates
(UK), The Sunday Times, 8 March 2009; Simon Caulkin,
Gore-Tex gets made without managers, The Observer,
Sunday 2 November 2008; Nick Smith, Profile: W.L. Gore,
The Institution of Engineering and Technology Know-
ledge network, 21 October 2008.
2 Accenture web site, www.accenture.com.
3 Ulrich, D. (1997) Human Resource Champions: The Next
Agenda for Adding Value and Delivering Results, Harvard
Business School Press, Boston.
4 Source: Fuzzy maths, The Economist, 13 May 2006.
5 The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) of the UK govern-
ment, www.hse.gov.uk/stress.
6 Based on work from the Advisory, Conciliation and
Arbitration Service, ACAS.
7 Morgan describes these and other metaphors in Gareth
Morgan (1986) Images of Organization, Sage.
8 Hoxie, R.F. (1915) Scientific Management and Labour,
D. Appleton, Washington, DC.
9 Hackman, J.R. and Oldham, G. (1975) A new strategy for
job enrichment, California Management Review, vol. 17,
no. 3.
10 Bowen, D.E. and Lawler, E.E. (1992) The empowerment
of service workers: what, why, how and when, Sloan Man-
agement Review, vol. 33, no. 3, 31–9.
11 Sources include: company web site; The Times Best
100 Companies, www.thetimes100.co.uk.
12 Kobrick, J.L. and Fine, B.J. (1983) Climate and human
performance’ in Osborne, D.J. and Gruneberg, M.M. (eds)
The Physical Environment and Work, John Wiley.
13 This case was written by Dr Ran Bhamra, Lecturer in
Engineering Management, Loughborough University. It is
based on a real situation, but names have been changed
for reasons of commercial confidentiality.
Chapter 10
1 Source: Interview with Joanne Cheung, Steve Deeley
and other staff at Godfrey Hall, BMW Dealership,
Coventry.
2 Sources: Jean Farman (1999) ‘Les Coulisses du Vol’, Air
France. Talk presented by Richard, E. Stone, Northwest
Airlines at the IMA Industrial Problems Seminar, 1998.
3 The concept of P:D ratios comes originally from
Shingo, S. (1981) Study of Toyota Production Systems, Japan
Management Association; and was extended by Mather,
K. (1988) Competitive Manufacturing, Prentice-Hall.
4 Source: Walley, P. (2009) MBA Course Notes, Warwick
University, UK.
5 Johnson, S.M. (1954) Optimal two-stage and three-stage
production schedules, Naval Logistics Quarterly, vol. 1,
no. 1.
6 We are grateful to our colleague Paul Walley for this section.
7 Source: Thanks to Lawrence Wilkins for this example.
8 Goldratt, E.Y. and Cox, J. (1984) The Goal, North River
Press, Great Barrington, Mass.
9 These are described in Betts, A. and Slack, N. (1999)
Control, knowledge and learning in process development,
Internal Report, University of Warwick Business School.
The original four dimensions are based on Hofstede, G.
(1981) Management control in public and not for profit
activities, Accounting Organization and Society, vol. 6, no. 3.
10 Source: Company website.
Chapter 11
1
With thanks to Alistair Brandon-Jones of Bath Business
School and staff at Britvic National Distribution Centre.
2 Sources: Ashworth, J., ‘Met Office brings sunshine to the
shops, The Times, 17 August 2002; The Economist, And
now here is the health forecast, 3 August 2002; Jackson,
H., Weather derivates are hot, Wall Street Journal Europe,
13 February 2002.
3 With special thanks to Philip Godfrey and Cormac
Campbell of OEE Consulting Ltd. (www.oeeconsulting.com).
4 Sources: Lynch, P. (1991) Making time for productivity,
Personnel Management, March; and Pickard, J. (1991)
Annual hours: a year of living dangerously, Personnel
Management, Aug.
5 Kimes, S. (1989) Yield management: a tool for capacity-
constrained service firms, Journal of Operations Manage-
ment, vol. 8, no. 4.
6 Sources include Robinette, S. (2001) Get emotional,
Harvard Business Review, May.
7 Maister, D. (1983) The psychology of waiting lines,
Harvard Business Review, Jan–Feb.
Chapter 12
1 Source: NBS web site and discussions with NBS staff.
2 With special thanks to John Mathews, Howard Smith
Paper Group.
Chapter 13
1 This example was prepared by Carsten Dittrich of the
University of Southern Denmark. Siemens case back-
Notes on chapters
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ground data: © Siemens Archives 2007. Sources include
Siemens Homepage web-source: http://w1.siemens.com/
entry/cc/en/. Special thanks to Dr. Christian Frühwald,
Partner – Supply Chain Consulting, Siemens Procurement
& Logistics Services.
2 Source: Grant, J., A cautionary tale of roof racks and
widgets, Financial Times, 4 November 2002.
3 Definition from the UK Government Purchasing Agency.
4 Source: Grad, C., A network of supplies to be woven into
the web, Financial Times, 9 February 2000.
5 Garcia-Dastugue, S.J. and Lambert, D.M. (2003) Internet-
enabled coordination in the supply chain, Industrial
Marketing Management, vol. 3, no. 32.
6 Wheatley, C., How to know if e-procurement is right for
you, CIO Magazine, 15 June 2003.
7 Minahan, T., Global sourcing: what you need to know to
make it work. CIO.com, 11 August 2003.
8 Source: www.levistrauss.com/responsibility/conduct/
guidelines.
9 Source: Interview with David Garman, September 2006.
10 This short case was written by Richard Small. Sources
include: Helia Ebrahimi, Hedge funds put Gate Gourmet
in the departure lounge, Daily Telegraph, 6 Dec. 2008;
Maggie Urry, Northern Foods wins BA contract, Financial
Times, 5 December 2008.
11 Parkhe, A. (1993) Strategic alliance structuring, Academy
of Management Journal, vol. 36, 794–829.
12 Fisher, M.L. (1997) What is the right supply chain for
your product, Harvard Business Review, March–April.
13 Basu, A. and Siems, F. (2004) The impact of e-business
technologies on supply chain operations, Working Paper
0404, The Reserve Bank of Dallas, November.
14 Source: Lee, H.L. and Whang, S. (2001) Demand chain
excellent: a tale of two retailers, Supply Chain Management
Review, 3 January.
15 Towill, D.R. (1996) Time compression and supply chain
management – a guided tour, Supply Chain Management,
vol. 1, no. 1.
16 Christopher, M. (2002) Business is failing to manage supply
chain vulnerability, Odyssey, Issue 16, June.
17 All information taken from each company’s web site.
Chapter 14
1 With thanks to Julian Goulder, Director, Logistics
Processes and IT, Rolls-Royce.
2 Wight, O. (1984) Manufacturing Resource Planning: MRP
II, Oliver Wight Ltd.
3 Christopher Koch and Thomas Wailgum (2007) ERP
definition and solutions, www.cio.com.
4 Source: Company web site www.sap.com.
5 Source: Thanks to Lawrence Wilkins for this example.
6 Satyam press release, Satyam to Implement SAP at Vijay
Dairy & Farm Products (P) Ltd, Satyam Computer
Services Ltd, 23 March 2009.
7 Based on a review of the research in this area by Sherry
Finney and Martin Corbett (2007) ERP implementa-
tion: a compilation and analysis of critical success factors,
Business Process Management Journal, vol. 13, no. 3,
329–47.
8 Chris Kanaracus, Waste Management sues SAP over ERP
implementation, InfoWorld, 27 March 2008.
9 Turbit, N. (2005) ERP Implementation – The Traps,
The Project Perfect White Paper Collection, www.
projectperfect.com.au.
Chapter 15
1 Spear, S. and Bowen, H.K. (1999) Decoding the DNA of
the Toyota production system, Harvard Business Review,
Sept–Oct.
2 Harrison, A. (1992) Just-in-time Manufacturing in Per-
spective, Prentice Hall.
3 Kamata, S. (1983) Japan in the Passing Lane: An Insider’s
Account of Life in a Japanese Auto Factory, Allen and
Unwin.
4 Based on an example in Womack, J.P. and Jones, D.T.
(1996) Lean Thinking, Simon and Shuster, New York.
5 Source: Mathieson, S.A., NHS should embrace lean times,
The Guardian, Thursday 8 June 2006.
6 Quoted in: Schonberger, R. (1982)
Japanese Manufactur-
ing Techniques, The Free Press.
7
Yamashina, H. Reducing set-up times makes your com-
pany flexible and more competitive, unpublished, quoted
in Harrison A., op. cit.
8 This great metaphor seems to have originated from the
consultancy ‘2think’, www.2think.biz/index.htm.
9 Staats, B. and Upton, D. (2007) Lean principles and
software production: evidence from Indian software
services, Harvard Working Paper, Harvard Business
School.
10 Goldratt, E.M. and Cox, J. (1986) The Goal, North River
Press.
11 Goldratt, E.M. (1990) What Is This Thing Called Theory
of Constraints and How Should It Be Implemented? The
North River Press, Great Barrington, Mass.
12 Based on: Sergio Rattner (2009) What Is the Theory of
Constraints, and How Does it Compare to Lean Thinking?
The Lean Enterprise Institute, at www.leanvs.com/
TOCvsLeanThinking.pdf.
13 Voss, C.A. and Harrison, A. (1987) Strategies for imple-
menting JIT, in Voss, C.A. (ed.) Just-in-time Manufacture,
IFS/Springer-Verlag.
Chapter 16
1 Source: Slack, A., Popping the Millau Cork, Translated
and adapted from Le Figaro Entreprises, Wednesday,
15 December 2004.
2 From Nicholas, J.M. (1990) Managing Business and
Engineering Projects: Concepts and Implementation,
Prentice-Hall.
3 Based on Pinto, J.K. and Slevin, D.P. (1987) Critical
success factors in successful project implementation, IEEE
Transactions on Engineering Management, vol. 34, no. 1.
4 Weiss, J.W. and Wysocki, R.K. (1992) Five-Phase Project
Management: A Practical Planning and Implementation
Guide, Addison-Wesley.
5 Source: Interview with Leigh Rix, Project Manager, The
Workhouse.
Notes on chapters
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Z01_SLAC0460_06_SE_NOTE.QXD 10/20/09 9:58 Page 655
6 Barnes, M. (1985) Project management framework,
International Project Management Yearbook, Butterworth
Scientific.
7 Lock, D. (1996) Project Management, 6th edn, Gower.
8 Lock, D. ibid.
9 Source: Organization web site.
Chapter 17
1 Source: Interview with Michael Purtill, the General
Manager of the Four Seasons Hotel Canary Wharf in
London. We are grateful for Michael’s cooperation (and
for the great quality of service at his hotel!).
2 Based on Gummesson, E. (1993) Service productivity, service
quality and profitability, Proceedings of the 8th Interna-
tional Conference of the Operations Management Association,
Warwick, UK.
3 Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. and Berry, L.L. (1985) A
conceptual model of service quality and implications for
future research, Journal of Marketing, vol. 49, Fall, 41–50;
and Gummesson, E. (1987) Lip service: a neglected area in
services marketing, Journal of Services Marketing, vol. 1,
no. 1, 19–23.
4 Haywood-Farmer, J. and Nollet, J. (1991) Services Plus:
Effective Service Management, Morin, Vancouver.
5 Berry, L.L. and Parasuraman, A. (1991) Marketing Services:
Competing through Quality, The Free Press.
6 Mechling, L., Get ready for a storm in a tea shop, The
Independent, 8 March 2002 and company web site.
7 Based on Parasuraman, A., op. cit.
8 Sources include: Company web site (2009); Best Factory
Awards, End of day harvest extends shelf life (2005);
Clarkson, G.J.J., Rothwell, S.D. and Taylor, G. (2005),
Hortscience, vol. 40, 1431–5.
9 Source: Scan avoids needless appendectomy, The Sunday
Times, 23 Feb 1997.
10 Feigenbaum, A.V. (1986) Total Quality Control, McGraw-
Hill, New York.
11 Matsushito, K. (1985) Why the west will lose, Industrial
Participation, Spring.
12 For more details of the Taguchi approach, see Stuart, G.
(1993) Taguchi Methods: A Hands-on Approach,
Addison-Wesley.
Chapter 18
1 Source: Deaves, M. (2002) Bottoms up! Manufacturing
Engineer, Dec.
2 Lewis Carroll (1871) Alice through the Looking Glass.
3 Imai, M. (1986) Kaizen – The Key to Japan’s Competitive
Success, McGraw-Hill.
4 International Standards Organization, ISO 8402, 1986.
5 Dale, B.G. (1994) Quality management systems, in Dale,
B.G. (ed.) Managing Quality, Prentice Hall.
6 Sources include: Company web site, The Best Factory
Awards (2006).
7 Ohno, T. (1988) Toyota Production System: Beyond
Large-scale Production, Productivity Press, Portland, Ore.
8 Davenport, T. (1995) Reengineering – the fad that forgot
people, Fast Company, November.
9 Johansson, H.J. (1993) Business Process Reengineering: Break
Point Strategies for Market Dominance, Wiley, New York.
10 Based on an example in Kruse, G. (1995) Fundamental
innovation, Manufacturing Engineer, Feb.
11
For example, Davenport, T. (1995) op. cit.
12 Source: Discussion with staff at Xchanging.
Chapter 19
1 Sources include: Michael Herman and Dearbail Jordan
(2007) Cadbury fined £1 million over salmonella out-
break, Times Online, 16 July, and Valerie Elliott, Cadbury
admits hygiene failures over salmonella in chocolate bars,
The Times, 16 June 2007.
2 The Institute of Risk Management, www.theirm.org/.
3 Quoted in The Risk Management Infokit (2009) Published
by JISC Infonet, available at www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk.
4 Christopher, M. (2002) Business is failing to manage
supply chain vulnerability, Odyssey, Issue 16, June.
5 Source: BBC News site (2008), Pilot arrested over alcohol
fears, http://news.bbc.co.uk/, published 2008/10/20.
6 Sources include: Naughton, J. The typing error that gave
us thirty years of spam, The Observer, Sunday 4 May 2008;
The Economist, The etiquette of telecommunications: a
parable of manners from Victorian dentists to modern
airlines, 13 Dec 2007.
7 Information for this section is based partly on a private
communication from Ben Betts of ht2.com.
8 Raynor, C., Airport security, BBC news web site, 25 July
2005.
9 Nahajima, S. (1988), Total productive maintenance,
Productivity Press.
10 Source: Otis web site.
11 Armistead, C.G. and Clark, G. (1992) Customer Service
and Support, Prentice Hall.
12 Judge, E., Instant replacements to make it business as usual
– from new offices to key staff, The Times, 15 February
2003.
13 Based on information from Read, P.P. (1994) Ablaze: The
Story of Chernobyl, Secker and Warburg; and Reason, J.
(1987) The Chernobyl errors, Bulletin of the British
Psychological Society, vol. 4, 201–6.
Chapter 20
1 Source: the EFQM web site, www.efqm.org.
2 Deming, W.E. (1982) Quality, Productivity and Competitive
Position, MIT Center for Advanced Engineering Study.
3 Deming, W.E. (1986) Out of Crisis, MIT Center for Advanced
Engineering Study.
4 Based on Neely, A. (1993) Performance Measurement System
Design – Theory and Practice, Manufacturing Engineering
Group, Cambridge University, April.
5 Kaplan, R.S. and Norton, D.P. (1993) The Balanced
Scorecard, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, M.A.
6 Bourne, M., Franco, M. and Wilkes, J. (2003). Corporate
performance management, Measuring Business Excellence,
vol. 7, no. 3, 15.
7 Based on Slack, N. (1994) The importance–performance
matrix as a determinant of improvement priorities, Inter-
Notes on chapters
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national Journal of Operations and Production Management,
vol. 14, no. 5, 59–75.
8 Ferdows, K. and de Meyer, A. (1990) Lasting improvement
in manufacturing, Journal of Operations Management,
vol. 9, no. 2.
9 Schein, E.H. (2004) Organizational Culture and Leadership,
3rd edn, Jossey-Bass.
10 Johnson, G. (1988) Rethinking incrementalism, Strategic
Management Journal, vol. 9, 75–91.
11 Bessant, J. and Caffyn, S. (1997) High involvement inno-
vation, International Journal of Technology Management,
vol. 14, no. 1.
12 Argyris, C. and Schon, D. (1978) Organizational Learning,
Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
13 Deaves, M. (2002) Bottoms-up, Manufacturing Engineer,
December.
14 For further details of this approach, see Schaninger, W.S.,
Harris, S.G. and Niebuhr, R.L. (2000) Adapting General
Electric’s Workout for Use in Other Organizations: A
Template, www.isixsigma.com; Quinn, J. (1994) What a
workout! Sales and Marketing Management, Performance
Supplement, Nov., 58–63; Stewart, T. (1991) GE keeps
those ideas coming, Fortune, 124 (4), 40–5.
15 The authors gratefully acknowledge the valuable assistance
of Teo Yi Wen, Department of Industrial and Systems
Engineering, NUS. The authors would like to thank the
interviewees for their participation in this project and
Johnson Paul and Sharon Foo for facilitating the research.
All Rights Reserved, National Library Board Singapore
and the Authors, 2009.
Chapter 21
1 World Business Council for Sustainable Development, at
www.wbcsd.org.
2 Marks and Spencers, retailer, at www.marksandspencer.com.
3 CSR Asia at www.csr-asia.com.
4 BAA, airport operator, at www.baa.com.
5 Mallen Baker, a writer, speaker and strategic adviser on
CSR, www.mallenbaker.net.
6 International Finance Corporation.
7 European Commission.
8 Dahlsrud, A. (2006) How corporate social responsibility
is defined: an analysis of 37 definitions, Corporate Social
Responsibility and Environmental Management, vol. 12,
no. 2.
9 Ehrlich, P. and Commoner, B., as quoted in Hart, S.L.
(1997), Strategies for a sustainable world, Harvard Business
Review, Jan–Feb.
10 Meadows, D., Our footprints are treading too much earth,
Charleston (SC) Gazette, 1 April 1996.
11 The Economist, Just good business, 17 Jan 2008.
12 Traidcraft Exchange (2001) EU Corporate Social Respons-
ibility: a Green Paper, at www.traidcraft.co.uk/.
13 Source: company web site.
14 Based on Kolk, A. (2000) The Economics of Environmental
Management, Financial Times Prentice Hall, Harlow. Also
see www.globalreporting.org.
15 McDougall, D., Gap child labour shame, The Observer,
28 October 2007.
16 Economist Intelligence Unit (2008) Why CSR?
Notes on chapters
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ABC inventory control: an approach to inventory control
that classes inventory by its usage value and varies the
approach to managing it accordingly.
Acceptance sampling: a technique of quality sampling
that is used to decide whether to accept a whole batch
of products (and occasionally services) on the basis of a
sample; it is based on the operation’s willingness to risk
rejecting a ‘good’ batch and accepting a ‘bad’ batch.
Active interaction technology: customer processing
technology with which a customer interacts directly, for
example, cash machines.
Activity: as used in project management, it is an identifi-
able and defined task, together with event activities form
network planning diagrams.
Aggregated planning and control: a term used to indicate
medium-term capacity planning that aggregates different
products and services together in order to get a broad
view of demand and capacity.
Agility: the ability of an operation to respond quickly and
at low cost as market requirements change.
Allowances: term used in work study to indicate the extra
time allowed for rest, relaxation and personal needs.
Andon: a light above a workstation that indicates its state,
whether working, waiting for work, broken down, etc.;
Andon lights may be used to stop the whole line when
one station stops.
Annual hours: a type of flexitime working that controls
the amount of time worked by individuals on an annual
rather than a shorter basis.
Anthropometric data: data that relate to people’s size,
shape and other physical abilities, used in the design of
jobs and physical facilities.
Anticipation inventory: inventory that is accumulated to cope
with expected future demand or interruptions in supply.
Appraisal costs: those costs associated with checking, mon-
itoring and controlling quality to see if problems or errors
have occurred, an element within quality-related costs.
Attributes of quality: measures of quality that can take one
of two states, for example, right or wrong, works or does
not work, etc.
Auto-ID: abbreviation for automated identification; a device
incorporating a memory chip into which is embedded
a unique 95-bits-long electronic product code (ePC)
that uniquely identifies an individual part or product,
it enables the exact state and location of a part or com-
ponent to be tracked through its life.
Automated guided vehicles (AGVs): small, independently
powered vehicles that move material to and from value-
adding operations.
Back-office: the low-visibility part of an operation.
Backward scheduling: starting jobs at a time when they
should be finished exactly when they are due, as opposed
to forward scheduling.
Balancing loss: the quantification of the lack of balance in
a production line, defined as the percentage of time not
used for productive purposes with the total time invested
in making a product.
Bar code: a unique product code that enables a part or pro-
duct type to be identified when read by a bar-code scanner.
Basic time: the time taken to do a job without any extra
allowances for recovery.
Batch processes: processes that treat batches of products
together, and where each batch has its own process route.
Bath-tub curve: a curve that describes the failure prob-
abilty of a product, service or process that indicates
relatively high probabilities of failure at the beginning
and at the end of the life cycle.
Behavioural job design: an approach to job design that
takes into account individuals’ desire to fulfil their needs
for self-esteem and personal development.
Benchmarking: the activity of comparing methods and/or
performance with other processes in order to learn from
them and/or assess performance.
Bill of materials (BOM): a list of the component parts
required to make up the total package for a product or
service together with information regarding their level in
the product or component structure and the quantities
of each component required.
Blueprinting: a term often used in service design to mean
process mapping.
Bottleneck: the capacity-constraining stage in a process; it
governs the output of the whole process.
Bottom-up: the influence of operational experience on
operations decisions.
Brainstorming: an improvement technique where small
groups of people put forward ideas in a creative free-form
manner.
Break-even analysis: the technique of comparing revenues
and costs at increasing levels of output in order to estab-
lish the point at which revenue exceeds cost, that is the
point at which it ‘breaks even’.
Glossary
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Breakthrough improvement: an approach to improving
operations performance that implies major and dramatic
change in the way an operation works, for example, busi-
ness process re-engineering (BPR) is often associated with
this type of improvement, also known as innovation-
based improvement, contrasted with continuous
improvement.
Broad definition of operations: all the activities necessary
for the fulfilment of customer requests.
Broad responsibilities of operations management: the
wider, long-term, ethical and strategic activities involved
in producing products and services.
Buffer inventory: an inventory that compensates for un-
expected fluctuations in supply and demand, can also be
called safety inventory.
Bullwhip effect: the tendency of supply chains to amplify
relatively small changes at the demand side of a supply
chain such that the disruption at the supply end of the
chain is much greater.
Business process outsourcing (BPO): the term that is
applied to the outsourcing of whole business processes;
this need not mean a change in location of the process,
sometimes it involves an outside company taking over
the management of processes that remain in the same
location.
Business process re-engineering (BPR): the philosophy
that recommends the redesign of processes to fulfil defined
external customer needs.
Business strategy: the strategic positioning of a business
in relation to its customers, markets and competitors, a
subset of corporate strategy.
Capacity: the maximum level of value-added activity that
an operation, or process, or facility is capable of over a
period of time.
Capacity lagging: the strategy of planning capacity levels
such that they are always less than or equal to forecast
demand.
Capacity leading: the strategy of planning capacity levels
such that they are always greater or equal to forecast
demand.
Cause–effect diagrams: a technique for searching out the
root cause of problems, it is a systematic questioning
technique, also known as Ishikawa diagrams.
Cell layout: locating transforming resources with a common
purpose such as processing the same types of product,
serving similar types of customer, etc., together in close
proximity (a cell).
Centre-of-gravity method of location: a technique that
uses the physical analogy of balance to determine the
geographical location that balances the weighted import-
ance of the other operations with which the one being
located has a direct relationship.
Chase demand: an approach to medium-term capacity
management that attempts to adjust output and/or
capacity to reflect fluctuations in demand.
Cluster analysis: a technique used in the design of cell lay-
outs to find which process groups fit naturally together.
Combinatorial complexity: the idea that many different
ways of processing products and services at many dif-
ferent locations or points in time combine to result in
an exceptionally large number of feasible options; the
term is often used in facilities layout and scheduling
to justify non-optimal solutions (because there are too
many options to explore).
Commonality: the degree to which a range of products or
services incorporate identical components (also called
‘parts commonality’).
Community factors: those factors that are influential in the
location decision that relate to the social, political and
economic environment of the geographical position.
Competitive factors: the factors such as delivery time,
product or service specification, price, etc. that define
customers’ requirements.
Component structure: see ‘Product structure’.
Computer-aided design (CAD): a system that provides the
computer ability to create and modify product, service
or process drawings.
Computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM): a term used to
describe the integration of computer-based monitoring
and control of all aspects of a manufacturing process,
often using a common database and communicating via
some form of computer network.
Computer numerically controlled (CNC): machines that
use a computer to control their activities, as opposed to
those controlled directly through human intervention.
Concept generation: a stage in the product and service
design process that formalizes the underlying idea behind
a product or service.
Concurrent engineering: see ‘Simultaneous development’.
Condition-based maintenance: an approach to main-
tenance management that monitors the condition of
process equipment and performs work on equipment
only when it is required.
Content of strategy: the set of specific decisions and actions
that shape the strategy.
Continuous improvement: an approach to operations
improvement that assumes many, relatively small,
incremental, improvements in performance, stress the
momentum of improvement rather than the rate of
improvement; also known as ‘kaizen’, often contrasted
with breakthrough improvement.
Continuous processes: processes that are high-volume
and low-variety; usually products made on a continuous
process are produced in an endless flow, such as petro-
chemicals or electricity.
Glossary
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Continuous review: an approach to managing inventory
that makes inventory-related decisions when inventory
reaches a particular level, as opposed to period review.
Control: the process of monitoring operations activity and
coping with any deviations from the plan; usually involves
elements of replanning.
Control charts: the charts used within statistical process
control to record process performance.
Control limits: the lines on a control chart used in statistical
process control that indicate the extent of natural or
common-cause variations; any points lying outside these
control limits are deemed to indicate that the process is
likely to be out of control.
Core functions: the functions that manage the three core
processes of any business: marketing, product/service
development and operations.
Corporate social responsibility: how business takes account
of its economic, social and environmental impacts.
Corporate strategy: the strategic positioning of a corpora-
tion and the businesses with it.
Cost-to-function analysis: an analysis of how much of the
cost of a product or service is devoted to its primary and
secondary functions.
CRAFT: Computerized Relative Allocation of Facilities
Technique, a heuristic technique for developing good,
but non-optimal, solutions.
Crashing: a term used in project management to mean
reducing the time spent on critical path activities so as to
shorten the whole project.
Create-to-order: see ‘Make-to-order’.
Critical path: the longest sequence of activities through
a project network, it is called the critical path because
any delay in any of its activities will delay the whole
project.
Critical path method (CPM): a technique of network
analysis.
Customer contact skills: the skills and knowledge that
operations staff need to meet customer expectations.
Customization: the variation in product or service design
to suit the specific need of individual customers or
customer groups.
Cycle inventory: inventory that occurs when one stage in
a process cannot supply all the items it produces simul-
taneously and so has to build up inventory of one item
while it processes the others.
Cycle time: the average time between units of output
emerging from a process.
Decision support system (DSS): a management informa-
tion system that aids or supports managerial decision-
making; it may include both databases and sophisticated
analytical models.
De-coupling inventory: the inventory that is used to
allow work centres or processes to operate relatively
independently.
Delivery flexibility: the operation’s ability to change the
timing of the delivery of its services or products.
Demand management: an approach to medium-term
capacity management that attempts to change or
influence demand to fit available capacity.
Demand side: the chains of customers, customers’
customers, etc. that receive the products and services
produced by an operation.
Dependability: delivering, or making available, products
or services when they were promised to the customer.
Dependent demand: demand that is relatively predictable
because it is derived from some other known factor.
Design acceptability: the attractiveness to the operation of
a process, product or service.
Design capacity: the capacity of a process or facility as it is
designed to be, often greater than effective capacity.
Design concept: the set of expected benefits to the cus-
tomer encapsulated in a product or service design.
Design feasibility: the ability of an operation to produce a
process, product or service.
Design funnel: a model that depicts the design process as
the progressive reduction of design options from many
alternatives down to the final design.
Design package: the component products, services and
parts within a product or service design that provide the
benefits to the customer.
Design screening: the evaluation of alternative designs with
the purpose of reducing the number of design options
being considered.
Design vulnerability: the risks taken by the operation in
adopting a process, product or service.
Direct responsibilities of operations management: the
activities that produce and deliver products and services.
Diseconomies of scale: a term used to describe the extra
costs that are incurred in running an operation as it gets
larger.
Disintermediation: the emergence of an operation in a
supply network that separates two operations that were
previously in direct contact.
Disruptive technologies: technologies which in the short
term cannot match the performance required by cus-
tomers but may improve faster than existing technology
to make that existing technology redundant.
Distributed processing: a term used in information techno-
logy to indicate the use of smaller computers distributed
around an operation and linked together so that they can
communicate with each other, the opposite of centralized
information processing.
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Division of labour: an approach to job design that involves
dividing a task down into relatively small parts, each of
which is accomplished by a single person.
DMAIC cycle: increasingly used improvement cycle model,
popularized by the Six Sigma approach to operations
improvement.
Do or buy: the term applied to the decision on whether
to own a process that contributes to a product or service,
or, alternatively, outsource the activity performed by the
process to another operation.
Downstream: the other operations in a supply chain between
the operation being considered and the end customer.
Drum, buffer, rope: an approach to operations control that
comes from the theory of constraints (TOC) and uses
the bottleneck stage in a process to control materials
movement.
Earned-value control: a method of assessing perform-
ance in project management by combining the costs and
times achieved in the project with the original plan.
E-business: the use of internet-based technologies either
to support existing business processes or to create entirely
new business opportunities.
E-commerce: the use of the internet to facilitate buying
and selling activities.
Economic batch quantity (EBQ): the amount of items to
be produced by a machine or process that supposedly
minimizes the costs associated with production and
inventory holding.
Economic order quantity (EOQ): the quantity of items to
order that supposedly minimizes the total cost of invent-
ory management, derived from various EOQ formulae.
Economy of scale: the manner in which the costs of run-
ning an operation decrease as it gets larger.
Effective capacity: the useful capacity of a process or
operation after maintenance, changeover and other
stoppages and loading has been accounted for.
EFQM excellence model: a model that identifies the cat-
egories of activity that supposedly ensure high levels of
quality; now used by many companies to examine their
own quality-related procedures.
Electronic point of sale (EPOS): technology that records
sales and payment transactions as and when they
happen.
Emergent strategy: a strategy that is gradually shaped over
time and based on experience rather than theoretical
positioning.
Empowerment: a term used in job design to indicate increas-
ing the authority given to people to make decisions within
the job or changes to the job itself.
End-to-end business processes: processes that totally
fulfil a defined external customer need.
Enterprise project management (EPM): software that integ-
rates all the common activities in project management.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP): the integration of all
significant resource planning systems in an organization
that, in an operations context, integrates planning and
control with the other functions of the business.
Environmental protection: activities and decisions in opera-
tions management that minimize the negative impact of
processes, products and services on the environment.
E-procurement: the use of the internet to organize pur-
chasing, this may include identifying potential suppliers
and auctions as well as the administrative tasks of issu-
ing orders etc.
Ergonomics: a branch of job design that is primarily con-
cerned with the physiological aspects of job design, with
how the human body fits with process facilities and the
environment; can also be referred to as human factors,
or human factors engineering.
Ethernet: a technology that facilitates local-area networks
that allows any device attached to a single cable to com-
municate with any other devices attached to the same
cable; also now used for wireless communication that
allows mobile devices to connect to a local-area network.
European Quality Award (EQA): a quality award organized
by the European Foundation for Quality Management
(EFQM), it is based on the EFQM excellence model.
Events: points in time within a project plan; together with
activities, they form network planning diagrams.
Expert systems (ES): computer-based problem-solving
systems that, to some degree, mimic human problem-
solving logic.
External failure costs: those costs that are associated with
an error or failure reaching a customer, an element within
quality-related costs.
Extranets: computer networks that link organizations
together and connect with each organization’s internal
network.
Facilitating products: products that are produced by an
operation to support its services.
Facilitating services: services that are produced by an
operation to support its products.
Fail-safeing: building in, often simple, devices that make it
difficult to make the mistakes that could lead to failure;
also known by the Japanese term ‘poka-yoke’.
Failure analysis: the use of techniques to uncover the root
cause of failures; techniques may include accident invest-
igation, complaint analysis, etc.
Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA): a technique used
to identify the product, service or process features that
are crucial in determining the effects of failure.
Failure rate: a measure of failure that is defined as the
number of failures over a period of time.
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Fault tree analysis: a logical procedure starts with a failure
or potential failure and works backwards to identify its
origins.
Finite loading: an approach to planning and control that
only allocates work to a work centre up to a set limit
(usually its useful capacity).
First-tier: the description applied to suppliers and customers
that are in immediate relationships with an operation
with no intermediary operations.
Fixed cost break: the volumes of output at which it is neces-
sary to invest in operations facilities that bear a fixed cost.
Fixed-position layout: locating the position of a product
or service such that it remains largely stationary, while
transforming resources are moved to and from it.
Flexibility: the degree to which an operation’s process
can change what it does, how it is doing it, or when it is
doing it.
Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS): manufacturing
systems that bring together several technologies into
a coherent system, such as metal cutting and material
handling technologies, usually their activities are con-
trolled by a single governing computer.
Flexi-time working: increasing the possibility of individuals
varying the time during which they work.
Flow record chart: a diagram used in layout to record the
flow of products or services between facilities.
Focus group: a group of potential product or service users,
chosen to be typical of its target market who are formed
to test their reaction to alternative designs.
Forward scheduling: loading work onto work centres as
soon as it is practical to do so, as opposed to backward
scheduling.
Four-stage model of operations contribution: model
devised by Hayes and Wheelwright that categorizes the
degree to which operations management has a positive
influence on overall strategy.
Front-office: the high-visibility part of an operation.
Functional strategy: the overall direction and role of a func-
tion within the business; a subset of business strategy.
Gantt chart: a scheduling device that represents time as a
bar or channel on which activities can be marked.
Globalization: the extension of operations’ supply chain to
cover the whole world.
Heijunka: see ‘Levelled scheduling’.
Heuristics: ‘rules of thumb’ or simple reasoning short cuts
that are developed to provide good but non-optimal
solutions, usually to operations decisions that involve
combinatorial complexity.
Hierarchy of operations: the idea that all operations pro-
cesses are made up of smaller operations processes.
High-level process mapping: an aggregated process map
that shows broad activities rather than detailed activities
(sometimes called an ‘outline process map’).
Hill methodology: an approach to formulating operations
strategy, most often used in manufacturing operations.
Hire and fire: a (usually pejorative) term used in medium-
term capacity management to indicate varying the size
of the workforce through employment policy.
House of quality: see ‘Quality function deployment’.
Human factors engineering: an alternative term for
ergonomics.
Immediate supply network: the suppliers and customers
that have direct contact with an operation.
Importance–performance matrix: a technique that brings
together scores that indicate the relative importance and
relative performance of different competitive factors in
order to prioritize them as candidates for improvement.
Improvement cycles: the practice of conceptualizing
problem solving as used in performance improvement
in terms of a never-ending cyclical model, for example,
the PDCA cycle or the DMAIC cycle.
Independent demand: demand that is not obviously or
directly dependent on the demand for another product
or service.
Indirect process technology: technology that assists in
the management of processes rather than directly
contributes to the creation of products and services,
for example, information technology that schedules
activities.
Indirect responsibilities of operations management: the
activities of collaborating with other functions of the
organization.
Infinite loading: an approach to planning and control
that allocates work to work centres irrespective of any
capacity or other limits.
Information technology (IT): any device, or collection of
devices, that collects, manipulates, stores or distributes
information, nearly always used to mean computer-based
devices.
Infrastructural decisions: the decisions that concern the
operation’s systems, methods and procedures and shape
its overall culture.
Input resources: the transforming and transformed
resources that form the input to operations.
Intangible resources: the resources within an operation
that are not immediately evident or tangible, such as
relationships with suppliers and customers, process
knowledge, new product and service development.
Interactive design: the idea that the design of products and
services on one hand, and the processes that create them
on the other, should be integrated.
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Internal customers: processes or individuals within an
operation that are the customers for other internal pro-
cesses or individuals’ outputs.
Internal failure costs: the costs associated with errors and
failures that are dealt with inside an operation but yet
cause disruption; an element within quality-related costs.
Internal suppliers: processes or individuals within an opera-
tion that supply products or services to other processes
or individuals within the operation.
Internet: the network of networks that allows electronic
data interchange over a wide geographical area.
Inventory: also known as stock, the stored accumulation
of transformed resources in a process; usually applies to
material resources but may also be used for inventories
of information; inventories of customers or customers
of customers are usually queues.
ISO 9000: a set of worldwide standards that established the
requirements for companies’ quality management systems,
last revised in 2000, there are several sets of standards.
ISO 14000: an international standard that guides environ-
mental management systems and covers initial planning,
implementation and objective assessment.
Job design: the way in which we structure the content and
environment of individual staff members’ jobs within
the workplace and the interface with the technology or
facilities that they use.
Job enlargement: a term used in job design to indicate
increasing the amount of work given to individuals in
order to make the job less monotonous.
Job enrichment: a term used in job design to indicate
increasing the variety and number of tasks within an
individual’s job, this may include increased decision-
making and autonomy.
Job rotation: the practice of encouraging the movement of
individuals between different aspects of a job in order to
increase motivation.
Jobbing processes: processes that deal with high variety
and low volumes, although there may be some repetition
of flow and activities.
Just-in-time (JIT): a method of planning and control and
an operations philosophy that aims to meet demand
instantaneously with perfect quality and no waste.
Kaizen: Japanese term for continuous improvement.
Kanban: Japanese term for card or signal; it is a simple
controlling device that is used to authorize the release
of materials in pull control systems such as those used
in JIT.
Keiretsu: a Japanese term used to describe a coalition of
companies which form a supply network around a large
manufacturer and can include service companies such
as banks as well as conventional suppliers.
Lead-time usage: the amount of inventory that will be
used between ordering replenishment and the inventory
arriving, usually described by a probability distribution
to account for uncertainty in demand and lead time.
Lean: an approach to operations management that em-
phasizes the continual elimination of waste of all types,
often used interchangeably with just-in-time (JIT); it is
more an overall philosophy whereas JIT is usually used
to indicate an approach to planning and control that
adopts lean principles.
Less important factors: competitive factors that are neither
order-winning nor qualifying, performance in them does
not significantly affect the competitive position of an
operation.
Level capacity plan: an approach to medium-term capacity
management that attempts to keep output from an opera-
tion or its capacity, constant, irrespective of demand.
Levelled scheduling: the idea that the mix and volume of
activity should even out over time so as to make output
routine and regular, sometimes known by the Japanese
term ‘heijunka’.
Life cycle analysis: a technique that analyses all the pro-
duction inputs, life cycle use of a product and its final
disposal in terms of total energy used and wastes emitted.
Line balancing: the activity of attempting to equalize the load
on each station or part of a line layout or mass process.
Line layout: a more descriptive term for what is technically
a product layout.
Little’s law: the mathematical relationship between through-
put time, work-in-process and cycle time (throughput
time equals work-in-process × cycle time).
Loading: the amount of work that is allocated to a work
centre.
Local-area network (LAN): a communications network
that operates, usually over a limited distance, to connect
devices such as PCs, servers, etc.
Location: the geographical position of an operation or
process.
Logistics: a term in supply chain management broadly
analogous to physical distribution management.
Long-term capacity management: the set of decisions that
determine the level of physical capacity of an operation
in whatever the operation considers to be long-term;
this will vary between industries, but is usually in excess
of one year.
Long thin process: a process designed to have many
sequential stages, each performing a relatively small part
of the total task, the opposite of short fat process.
Maintenance: the activity of caring for physical facilities
so as to avoid or minimize the chance of those facilities
failing.
Glossary
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