Lesson-8

1.    One approach that can be effective in reducing the impact of production bottlenecks in a job shop or batch operations setting is to use smaller lot sizes. What is the impact of a production bottleneck? Explain how small lot sizes can reduce the impact of bottleneck operations. What are the key trade-offs in using small lot sizes for the purpose of reducing the bottleneck effect? In some cases, the location of a bottleneck will shift (i.e., sometimes it is at workstation 3, another time it is at workstation 12). Furthermore, there can be more than one bottleneck operation at the same time. How would these situations impact scheduling using small lot sizes?

The production bottleneck creates a boundary for the production of the entire system due to not having sufficient capacity or excessive demand or some combination of both at a given workstation. The entire production system will depend on the output of the bottleneck workstation.

It is obviously true that smaller the lot sizes, quicker the batches transfer from one workstation to another. It would be very helpful to produce the smaller batch at a bottleneck workstation and transfer it to the next workstation. Thus, next workstation could begin to work quickly so that there will be less idle time that ultimately lead to higher throughput of the entire manufacturing system.

When we use small lot sizes for the purpose of reducing the bottleneck effect, it can cost more due to more frequent setups since additional batches needed to be produced. On the other side, smaller lot sizes result in less work-in process inventory and smaller transfer batches, which is likely to increase the throughput of the system.

As the bottlenecks shift from one workstation to another, it becomes more difficult to identify and take appropriate action on bottleneck workstations. Thus, it could be advantageous to use smaller lot sizes in producing many different jobs at many different workstations because we generally do not know how long a bottleneck will remain a bottleneck. In addition to that, it can improve the efficiency of the production process.  However, sometimes it is not desirable to reduce the batch size because small batch sizes could increase the setup cost.

References

Russell & Taylor. (2011). Operations Management: Creating Value Along The Supply Chain. USA: JOHN WILEY & SONS.INC.

Stevenson, W. J. (2015). Operation s Management. Penn Plaza, New York: McGraw- Hill Education.

2.    Doctor' and dentists' offices frequently schedule patient visits at regularly spaced intervals. What problems can this create? Can you suggest an alternative approach to reduce this problem? Under what circumstances would regularly spaced appointments constitute a reasonable approach to patient scheduling?

The various problems that can be created when Doctor’ and dentists’ offices schedule visits at regularly spaced interval are as follows:

·         It would create a long waiting time for patients when a consultation takes long time than the scheduled time.

·         There can be a possibility of higher idle time for doctors when they treat their patients before the scheduled time.

·         There can be long patient queue when there will be long waiting time.

·          There can be a problem for doctors when a patient forget or cancel the appointment without a prior notice and it may lose a valuable appointment slot.

An alternative approach to reduce these problems would be to schedule spaced interval regularly for most frequently visiting patients. For this, a proper planning of maintaining hospital resources, number of doctor' or dentists' should be already determined so that maximum number of patients can be treated. In fact, the optimum utilization of resources like inventory and machineries, other staffs need to be utilized.

Moreover, the number of doctor' and dentists' to serve the patients need to be increased so that each patients can get treatment when they are suffering from diseases and even scheduled doctor' and dentists' patient visit will not be affected. For example, regular dental cleaning services, scheduling all emergency visits or not-scheduled visit on an appointment basis. The Scheduling for most frequently visiting patients should be approached on a regular spaced interval when more and more patients are likely to visit the hospital.

References

Russell & Taylor. (2011). Operations Management: Creating Value Along The Supply Chain. USA: JOHN WILEY & SONS.INC.

Stevenson, W. J. (2015). Operation s Management. Penn Plaza, New York: McGraw- Hill Education.

3.    Project management techniques have been used successfully for a wide variety of efforts, including the many NASA space missions, huge construction projects, implementation of major systems such as ERP, production of movies, development of new products and services, theatrical productions, and much more. Why not use them for managing the operations function of any business?

It is quite true that project management techniques have been used successfully for a wide variety of efforts, including the many NASA space missions, huge construction projects, implementation of major system such as ERP, production of movies, development of new products and services etc. However, it doesn’t mean that its techniques are not as much as useful in operation management.  It can be even more useful in operation management of any business such as designing new products or services, information systems, advertising, reengineering process, and so on.

The project management techniques enable an organization to focus attention and concentrate efforts on accomplishing a set of objectives within given time and budget frame.  These techniques will have strategic importance for organizations. For instance, good project management can be instrumental in successfully implementing an enterprise resource planning (EPR) system or converting a traditional operation to a lean operation (Stevenson, 2015).

The major uses of operation management techniques in any business are described below:

1.       Planning and Control: Project management techniques are widely used in planning and controlling the available resources in any businesses. The business performances need to be monitored and progress need to be measure and for this, project management techniques could be used.

2.      Time Management: Time management is the process of making sure the project schedule does not slip and it is on time. For managing time, project management techniques are used so that timely decisions can be made and demand can be fulfilled according to customer needs.

3.      Cost Management: In order to reduce the costs, project management techniques could be used so that no extra costs take place during the production or operation of business activities.

4.      Quality Management: Quality products or services need to be produced and delivered them to customers. However, it would not be possible without the use of project management techniques such as statistical analysis and statistical process control for quality measurement.

5.      Performance Management: Performance management is one of the key tasks for any business organization. With the help of project management techniques, performance and progress can be measured and instant actions will be taken if necessary.

References

Russell & Taylor. (2011). Operations Management: Creating Value Along The Supply Chain. USA: JOHN WILEY & SONS.INC.

Stevenson, W. J. (2015). Operation s Management. Penn Plaza, New York: McGraw- Hill Education.

Lesson-7

1.      Discuss the importance of the master production schedule in a MRP system.

A master production schedule (MPS) is a plan for individual commodities to produce in each time period such as production, staffing, inventory, etc. Material Production Scheduling is a fairly standard tool within manufacturing companies its usually administered through the operations/planning function and controlled by a team headed by a Master Production Scheduler. It's typically administered through the MRP system. The MPS process stops the business being led by the "he who shouts loudest gets their parts syndrome” and delivers a manufacturing plan that not only targets meeting the needs of the customer but also the broader capabilities of the manufacturing organization (Key benefit of Master Production Scheduling).

The importance of the master production schedule in a MRP system is as follow:

·         It can be used to give production, planning, purchasing, and management the information to plan and control manufacturing.

·         It will be very useful to tie overall business planning and forecasting to detail operations.

·         It enables marketing to make legitimate delivery commitments to warehouses and customers.

·         It increases the efficiency and accuracy of a company's manufacturing.

In short, Master Production Schedule is critical in guiding all other activities that follows a MRP system. Without Master Production Schedule, it would not be possible to check other how and when to order other related parts.  It serves as a guide and provides the end picture as well as the big picture, and is a critical part of the entire planning process. Thus, MPS is very important to make and implement the plan for productions and operation of business activities.

References

Russell & Taylor. (2011). Operations Management: Creating Value Along The Supply Chain. USA: JOHN WILEY & SONS.INC.

Stevenson, W. J. (2015). Operation s Management. Penn Plaza, New York: McGraw- Hill Education.

2. Suppose you work for a furniture manufacturer, one of those products is the chair depicted in Figure 14.5 in Chapter. Finished goods inventory is held in a control warehouse in anticipation of customer orders. Finished goods are controlled using EOQ/ROQ methods. The warehouse manager, Juan Villa, has suggested using the same methods for controlling component inventory. Write him a brief memo outlining your opinion on doing that.

To: Juan Villa, Warehouse Manager

From: Mani Kumar Budathoki

Date: 14th August, 2015.

Subject: EOQ method for controlling finished goods

Inventory management or inventory control tends to make a balance inventory needs and requirements with the need to minimize costs resulting from obtaining and holding inventory (Rea). Firms that carry hundreds or even thousands of different part numbers can be faced with the impossible task of monitoring the inventory levels of each part number. In order to facilitate this, many firm's use an ABC approach. ABC analysis is based on Pareto Analysis, also known as the "80/20" rule. The 80/20 comes from Pareto's finding that 20 percent people may possess 80 percent of the wealth for generating revenue for the company. From an inventory perspective it can restated thus: approximately 20 percent of all inventory items represent 80 percent of inventory costs. Therefore, a firm can control 80 percent of its inventory costs by monitoring and controlling 20 percent of its inventory. But, it has to be the correct 20 percent.

The EOQ model assumes that the finished goods are sold at constant rate overtime. The important decision in inventory management is to balance the cost of holding inventories with the cost of placing inventory replenishment orders. When the holding costs and ordering costs are balanced, the inventory costs are minimized and resulting order quantity is called the economic order quantity (EOQ).

As long as manufacturing produces according to the MPS and sales makes commitments according to the ATP information, this method increase customer service and reduce inventory carrying cost (www.docs.oracle.com). Production capacity the ATP process allows companies to commit to both order quantities and delivery schedules in upcoming weekly periods. Conceptually similar to the MRP concepts of gross to net exploding and lead time offsetting, ATP uses unallocated inventories and available future production capacity to determine the quantities of product that can be committed to clients in approaching period as well as the timing of delivery of each order.

References

Russell & Taylor. (2011). Operations Management: Creating Value Along The Supply Chain. USA: JOHN WILEY & SONS.INC.

Stevenson, W. J. (2015). Operation s Management. Penn Plaza, New York: McGraw- Hill Education.

3.      In operations management, as in life, a balanced approach is often the best policy. One of the best examples of the benefits of this in operations management is the lean approach. Explain the basic factors that must be in place in order to achieve a balanced lean system

The main purpose of a lean system is to create a system that is demand driven, and provides supply based on demand at any given point. Lean systems tend to concentrate on waste reduction and have continuous improvement. The lean operation manufacturing system helps to create a balance between cost minimization and profit maximization. More concisely, it is a balanced system that promotes rapid flow of materials and work throughout the entire system. In order to make it the best policy, major elements such as Product design, process design, organizational elements, manufacturing planning need to be done effective, Disruptions and waste need to be kept as low as possible, and Layout and employees should be placed properly. There are four basic factors or building blocks that that must be in place in order to achieve a balanced lean system:

1.       Product Design: Product design consists of standard parts (workers have fewer parts to deal with), modular design (an extension of standard parts, they are separate parts clustered together and treated as one unit), highly capable production systems with quality built in (JIT requires highly capable production systems), and concurrent engineering (keeping engineering practices shouldn't change to avoid disruptions).

2.      Process Design: Process Design consists of small lot sizes (optimal one unit), setup time reductions, manufacturing cells (specialized and efficient production centers, quality improvement, production flexibility, a balanced system (distributing workload evenly among the workstations), little inventory storage, and fail safe methods (incorporate ways to reduce or eliminate the potential for errors during the process). Lean systems have an extremely effective production method.

3.      Personal/Organizational Elements: Personnel/organizational elements includes workers as assets (A JIT philosophy), Cross-trained workers (perform several parts of the process and operate several machines), cost accounting, and leadership/project management (a two-way communication process between managers and workers).

4.      Manufacturing Planning and control: It includes level loading,(achieving stable, level daily mix schedules) pull systems (work moves on in response to demand from the next stage in the process), visual systems (A kanban card used as authorization to move or work on parts), limited work-in-process, close vendor relationships, reduced transaction processing(logistical, balancing, quality, or change transactions), preventive maintenance and housekeeping(keeping the workplace clean and free of unneeded material. .

References                                                           

Russell & Taylor. (2011). Operations Management: Creating Value Along The Supply Chain. USA: JOHN WILEY & SONS.INC.

Stevenson, W. J. (2015). Operation s Management. Penn Plaza, New York: McGraw- Hill Education.

4. Discuss ways to use lean to improve one of the following: a pizza restaurant, a hospital, and an auto dealership.

Lean has become very successful in lots of service environments.  As services identify their components that resemble an assembly line and are repetitive in nature, the concepts will work. It is obviously true that the philosophy of reducing waste and streamlining flows to eliminate waste can work in any setting. For example, a pizza restaurant will be perusing the following ways to use the lean:

·         5S (sort, set, shine, standardize and sustain) - workplace improvements based on tidiness, cleanliness and orderliness.

·         Just In Time (JIT) - strategy that strives to cut inventory by delivering components or materials where needed, when needed and in the amount needed.

·         Zero-defect - quality control procedures that aim to eliminate every defect as soon as it is identified.

·         Balancing efficiency and environment.

·         Reducing waste and using Lean methods involve the same language and tools.

In addition to above, in a pizza restaurant, streamlining the pizza preparation and baking operations would speed the product to the customer.  Fast and efficient customer ordering and payment would allow the system to process more customers. Possibly letting customers refill their own drinks or serve themselves would speed processing.  In a hospital or automobile dealership, procedures can be streamlined and altered to serve the customer.

References

Russell & Taylor. (2011). Operations Management: Creating Value Along The Supply Chain. USA: JOHN WILEY & SONS.INC.

Stevenson, W. J. (2015). Operation s Management. Penn Plaza, New York: McGraw- Hill Education.

Lesson-6

1.      Given the complexities and risks involve with supply chains, might it make sense for a business to vertically integrate and be its own supply chain? Discuss the pros and cons of this approach.

The degree to which a firm owns its upstream suppliers and its downstream buyers is referred to as vertical integration. It can have a significant impact on a business unit’s position in its industry with respect to cost, differentiation, and other strategic issues. Vertically integrated supply chains occur when two or more organizations or businesses at various stages of production merge for the common purpose. The main purpose of vertical integration is to enhance the overall efficiency and to reduce costs all throughout the supply chain, thus improving business competitiveness and profitability. Let’s discuss about its pros and cons as follows:

Pros:

1.      It enables the businesses to invest in greatly specialized assets: With highly specialized assets, it is possible to invest and develop the products or services that differentiate it from its competitors so that it can increase share within the market, leading to business profits.

2.      Lower costs of Transactions: It is certainly true that when there will be less number of transactions then there will be also less transaction costs.

3.      High certainty when it comes to quality: Since the subsidiary company has a quality control system, then there is more possibility to produce high standard products.

4.      Lead to expansion of new or core competencies: Vertical Integration increase the chance of developing new core competencies for business organizations.

Cons:

1.      Capacity balancing problems: There could be a conflict in regard to its capacity balancing. This may lead to retaliation from the business’ previous suppliers that can potentially endanger the production.

2.      Decreased Flexibility: It may reduce the flexibility because of the downstream or upstream investments that the business will make.

3.      Sometime it may create some barriers to market entry: A manufacturer sometimes control access to crucial components or the raw materials that are scarce through vertical integration.

4.      Increased bureaucratic costs: It is possibly can increase the bureaucratic costs that may result in loss of business organizations.

References

Russell & Taylor. (2011). Operations Management: Creating Value Along The Supply Chain. USA: JOHN WILEY & SONS.INC.

Stevenson, W. J. (2015). Operation s Management. Penn Plaza, New York: McGraw- Hill Education.

(n.d.) Retrieved August 7, 2015 from http://occupytheory.org/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-vertical-integration/

2.       Under what conditions would a plant manager elect to use a fixed-order quantity model as opposed to a fixed-time period model? What are the disadvantages of using a fixed-time period ordering system?

                                                    

Fixed-Order-Interval (FOI) model is a process of placing an order at fixed time intervals such as weekly, twice a month, monthly. Fixed ordering system is very useful in retail businesses such as drugstores, small grocery stores where demand is variable and order size tends to vary from cycle to cycle. On the other hand, in fixed-order-quantity (FOQ) model, the order size basically remains fixed from cycle to cycle while the length of the cycle varies. For example, if demand is above average, the shorter length it will be and vice-versa.

Under the condition of demand time variability, a plant manager elects to use a fixed-order quantity model as opposed to a fixed-time period model. It also can be used when there are certain deliveries commitments that need to be made for final products in order to meet the production commitment. There are some disadvantages of using a fixed-time period ordering system are as follows:

·         It requires a larger amount of safety stock for a given risk of stockout because it is necessary to protect against shortages during an entire order interval plus lead time.

·         It may increase the carrying costs, and there are also the costs of the periodic reviews.

References

Russell & Taylor. (2011). Operations Management: Creating Value Along The Supply Chain. USA: JOHN WILEY & SONS.INC.

Stevenson, W. J. (2015). Operation s Management. Penn Plaza, New York: McGraw- Hill Education.

3.      Discuss the general procedure for determining the order quantity when price breaks are involved. Would there be any differences in procedures if holding costs were a fixed percentage of price rather than a constant amount?

Answer:

The procedure for determining the overall order quantity differs slightly, depending on given cases. First, when price breaks are given or carrying costs are constant then procedure is as follows:

1.      First, we need to compute the common minimum point.

2.      Only one of the unit prices will have the minimum point in its feasible range since the ranges do not overlap. Identify that range.

3.      If the feasible minimum point is on the lowest price range, that is the optimal order quantity. However, if the feasible minimum point is in any other range then we must compute the total cost for the minimum point and for the price breaks of all lower unit costs.

4.      We have to compare the total costs, and the quantity that yields the lowest total cost is the optimal order quantity.

Similarly, when holding costs are expressed as a percentage of prices, then there would be a little bit differences to consider. We need to determine the best purchase quantity with the following procedure:

1.      Beginning with the lowest unit price, we have to compute the minimum points for each price range until you find a feasible minimum point(i.e. until a minimum point falls in the quantity range for its price).

2.      If the minimum point for the lowest unit price is feasible, it is the optimal order quantity. If the minimum point is not feasible in the lowest price range, compare the total cost at the price breaks for all lower prices with the total cost of the feasible minimum point. The quantity that yields the lowest total cost is the optimum.

References

Russell & Taylor. (2011). Operations Management: Creating Value Along The Supply Chain. USA: JOHN WILEY & SONS.INC.

Stevenson, W. J. (2015). Operation s Management. Penn Plaza, New York: McGraw- Hill Education.

4.What are characteristics of efficient, responsive, risk-hedging, and agile supply chains? Can a supply chain be both efficient and responsive? Risk-hedging and agile? Why or why not?

A supply chain is the sequence of organizations-their facilities, functions, and activities-that are involved in producing and delivering a product or service (Stevenson, 2015). The major characteristics of efficient, responsive, risk-hedging, and agile supply chains are as follows:

·         Efficient supply chains:

-          Focus on cost efficiency

-          Initiatives: eliminate non-value adding activities, pursue scale economies, and optimize capacity utilization and implementation efficient information transmission.

·         Responsive Supply Chains:

-          Focus on flexibility in responding to customer needs

-          Initiatives: Postponement, build-to-order process, mass customization, information sharing and ensuring order accuracy.

·         Risk-hedging Supply Chains:

-          Focus on pooling and sharing resource across the supply chain

-          Initiatives: Increased safety stocks, multiple suppliers for critical components and real-time sharing of inventory and demand information.

·         Agile Supply chains:

-          Hybrid of responsive and risk-hedging strategies

-          Implement strategies that allow flexibility in response to changing customer needs and pool inventory and other resources to mitigate shortages and supply disruptions.

A Company can be both efficient and responsive because products or services can be delivered to its customers quickly just by charging nominal fees. On the same way, they can be both risk-hedging and agile too since it tries to reduce the risks by hedging.

References

Lee, H. L. (2002). Aligning Supply Chain Strategies. California Management Review , 105-119.

Russell & Taylor. (2011). Operations Management: Creating Value Along The Supply Chain. USA: JOHN WILEY & SONS.INC.

Stevenson, W. J. (2015). Operation s Management. Penn Plaza, New York: McGraw- Hill Education.

Lesson-5

5.1. "You don't inspect quality into a product; you have to build it in.” Discuss the implications of this statement.

2. What are the key elements of the TQM approach? What is the driving force behind TQM? Business writer Tom Peters has suggested that in making process changes, we should "Try it, test it, and get on with it.” How does this square with TQM and the DMAIC/continuous process improvement philosophy?

3. In an agreement between supplier and a customer, the supplier must ensure that all parts are within tolerance before shipment to the customer. What is the effect on the cost of quality to the supplier?

4. How important is it for managers to maintain and promote ethical behavior in dealing with quality issues? Does your answer depend on the product or service involved?

5.1 Answer

Inspection is an appraisal activity that compares goods or services to a standard (Stevenson, 2015). When it comes to quality inspection, it doesn’t necessary to inspect quality into a product because product inspection should go hand in hand while converting inputs into outputs.  Ideally, there are three points in which quality inspection can occur-before production, during production and after production. Inspection before and after production often are taken to determine acceptance sampling procedures and process control during production as to check whether the standards are met. Through these three inspection points, product quality should be made in order to meet the given standard. For example, at Apple computer, a technician inspects an Apple Powerbook on the assembly line in California.

When it comes to implication part, it is totally a wastage to inspect a product after its completed for quality, in essence the time and resources have already been unutilized and therefore, wasted, if a defect occurs. By building a product to attain a specific level, you have optimally envisioned any defects which might occur, adapted the manufacturing process to overcome those defect levels, and then used the resources to create the product. This is not to say that there won't be the occasion in which unforeseen defects can't occur, but rather it states, that all foreseen defects have been planned for. In this case, resources are only utilized after making a plan to inspect possible defect correction, which in turn results in a more economical usage of resources.

Once inspection points have been identified, we must address these points to make it more cost-effective as well as quality assurance. Hence, it is not critically important to check quality into a product, but it must be made in such manner.

References

Russell & Taylor. (2011). Operations Management: Creating Value Along The Supply Chain. USA: JOHN WILEY & SONS.INC.

Stevenson, W. J. (2015). Operation s Management. Penn Plaza, New York: McGraw- Hill Education.

5.2 Answer

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a philosophy that involves everyone in an organization in a continual effort to improve quality and achieve satisfaction (Stevenson, 2015). Professor, Edward Deming, once said that "Quality is everyone's responsibility.” The key elements of the TQM approach are discussed as follows:

1.      Customer driven quality: The main purpose of TQM is to satisfy the customers’ needs and demand by delivering the quality products or services.

2.      Continuous improvement: TQM strongly believes that quality can be improved no matter how it looks like so that it emphasizes on continuous improvement.

3.      Leadership: It helps people to do a better job so that quality can be drastically improved.

4.      Employee participation and development: Without having quality workers, it is hard to improve quality and control the scraps and waste. They, thus, should be taken as quality workers, and they need to be updated and trained for emerging quality process and standards.

5.      Quality Control circles (QCC): It refers to a quality circle small group of staffs (6-12) working together to contribute quality. They especially look for quick response, design quality and prevention, management by fact, partnership development and corporate responsibility etc.

The main driving force behind TQM is customer satisfaction that plays a critical role in determining a quality product or service. As suggested by Business writer Tom Peters, “try it, test it, and get on with it” in making process changes; this is certainly true because process change is never ending process and it cannot be determined effectively before we try it, test it and go on with it. The main philosophy of TQM and DMAIC is almost the same, customer satisfaction, so that they square with each other, although ways are somehow different. DMAIC is a process unto itself that can be – and should be – improved in each organization that uses Six Sigma as a critical component of continuous improvement and quality initiatives.

To Sum up, Over the years TQM has become very important for improving a firm's process capabilities in order to achieve fit and sustain competitive advantages. TQM and DMAIC both focus on encouraging a continuous flow of incremental improvements from the bottom of the organization’s hierarchy.

References

Russell & Taylor. (2011). Operations Management: Creating Value Along The Supply Chain. USA: JOHN WILEY & SONS.INC.

Stevenson, W. J. (2015). Operation s Management. Penn Plaza, New York: McGraw- Hill Education.

(n.d.) Retrieved 29 July 2015 from http://www.isixsigma.com/new-to-six-sigma/dmaic/continuous-improvement-dmaic/

5.3 Answer

No businesses can run no longer without making a profit, and profit comes from the customers. To please the customers by delivering the products or services, suppliers must be able to maintain an agreement made between them before. If suppliers couldn’t dispatch the products or services on timely to its customers, customers are more likely to switch the company or products so that there will be much more negative effects when it comes to the cost of quality to suppliers.  The major impacts of not meeting predetermined promises to its customers for suppliers are as follows:

·         Returned goods

·         Reworking costs

·         Warranty costs

·         Loss of goodwill

·         Liability claims, and penalties

It is inevitably true that suppliers have to bear lots of issues as mentioned above when their deliveries are not performed as promised by the customers. In order to ensure that every part is within tolerance, the suppliers need to add extra efforts to inspect each part before conducting shipment to its customers. These costs are related to delivering substandard products or services to customers so sometimes it is also called external failure to the organization. In my view, these costs are to be avoided or reduced in order to gain a competitive advantage in the markets.

References

Russell & Taylor. (2011). Operations Management: Creating Value Along The Supply Chain. USA: JOHN WILEY & SONS.INC.

Stevenson, W. J. (2015). Operation s Management. Penn Plaza, New York: McGraw- Hill Education.

5.4  Answer

Ethical behavior comes into play in many situations that involve quality. Maintaining and promoting ethical behavior in dealing with quality issues could be a critical task for managers. Having performed the organizational activities by a single member cannot produce the quality product so that all members of the organization are obliged to perform their roles and responsibilities in an ethical manner. A manager is primarily responsible to have an ethical behavior in dealing with the quality issues as she/he is bound under the rules of the company and will not be liable to enforce to the customers more than what he is authorized to do so. Maintaining ethical behavior in dealing with quality issues is very important due to given reasons:

•       Enhance productivity
•              Reduce costs
•        Improve employees’ roles/responsibility
•        Motivate and promote the continuous improvement
•          Maintain product quality consistently etc.

 Ethical behaviors are not likely to be totally different as to different products or services. But it is certainly true that they should be designed more importantly to the products or services which are more important to the organization. Personally what I think is that services need more ethical behavior than products because services are directly attached to external customers whereas products are primarily concerned with internal employees.

References

Russell & Taylor. (2011). Operations Management: Creating Value Along The Supply Chain. USA: JOHN WILEY & SONS.INC.

Stevenson, W. J. (2015). Operation s Management. Penn Plaza, New York: McGraw- Hill Education.