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December 27, 2014

Development and Training of Managers



This is a chapter in the Principles of Management book of Koontz and O'Donnell, 4th Edition.

Manager development refers to the progress a manager makes in learning how to manage.
Managerial training refers to the program devised by the management of the organization to facilitate this process. The firm is seen as providing training and manager as developing himself by way of this training.

The Nature of Manager Development

A developed manager is a mature manager or a successful manager as he has grown in wisdom. A proposition that a firm cannot develop a manager; it can only provide the opportunity for a manager to develop. According to the proposition, a prime qualification for manager selection is his keen desire to manage. Only a person with such motivation, provided he has the essential intelligence, will take the full advantage of opportunities to acquire knowledge and skill from the various training opportunities provided. He must be ready to learn what he is taught; he must be able, and anxious to absorb learning.

The practice of management training encompasses formal schooling and on-the-job training.  A man may also develop by learning from experience.


Current Approaches to Manager Training (1968)

Formal long term courses and short courses

  Conference Programs
  University Management Programs
  American Management Association's Workshop Programs

Planned Progression

Job Rotation

  Rotaton in  nonsupervisory work
  Rotation in observation assignments
  Rotation among managerial training positions
  Rotation in middle level assistant positions
  Unspecified rotation in managerial positions

Creation of Assistant-to Positions

Psychological Approaches to Traning
  Role playing
  Unstructured discussion

Temporary Promotions

Committees and Junior Boards

Management Training: Suggested Program

Purpose: The major purpose of training should be the creation of opportunities to develop skills related to the execution of managerial functions. They are acquired through study and through the practice of management-the application of learning to experience in solving problems of planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling.

Premises: The effectiveness or usefulness of the training program rests on seven premises.

Top managers actively support the program.
Top managers must participate in training programs.
Learning is voluntary.
Training needs vary with manager levels.
Training needs determine methods.
Managers have to successfully learn at all levels. - Managers should develop through effective training at each successive level to become prime candidates for promotion.
Theory and Practice must go hand in hand

Training is a coin, one side of which the teaching of theory and the demonstration of techniques, the other, the actual practice of management technique.

Programs for Various Levels of Management

Front-line Supervisory Training

Objective: Men must be trained to develop and carry out approved programs within budget, to obtain and use service and staff help. Supervisors can in production departments, planning an scheduling, drawing, sales and service, accounting department, or in purchasing department. Supervisors have to train and motivate subordinates, provide adequate space and equipment, fix operating rates with the requirements of other departments, report progress, carry out the provisions of the labor contract and also deal with customers and other regulatory agency personnel when they visit their shop or work area.

They made need some formal course inputs. Many supervisory development programs are available in USA.

On-the-job training is also essential. Supervisors may be trained through the arrangement of assistant to the supervisor. But every supervisor may not be a good trainer. Therefore, if there are some supervisors with good training ability, they can be asked to take three or four assistants to be trained by him.

The practice of management starts when a trainee is assigned a supervisory position. The supervisor is expected to refine his techniques. His further career depends on his development of skills. An unsuccessful supervisor is demoted, an average person is kept in the job and an outstanding person is promoted the middle level.


Middle-management Training

Objective: These men stand most in need of a knowledge of management theory. Middle managers manage managers and not technicians. To manage managers they particularly need an understanding of the functions of managers because these are the means they utilize to accomplish their charters or jobs.

Technique: To teach the theory of management, it is best to borrow the effective technique employed for the same purpose in universities. It consists of lectures, discussions of theory, and case studies relating to management in business functions and general management.

 It is obvious that successful instructor knows his material and teaches it with confidence, skill, and insight, and thereby attracts the attention of his students and inspires them to learn, apply what they learn, and become themselves creative.

Top-management Training

Objective: What additional knowledge should a successful division manager have in order to manage a whole enterprise? .Functional managers who are reach the divisional manager position or enterprise manager position need training in the management of functions which are strange to them. However, all potential and new top managers have some need for training, whether it be in labor relations, in relations with the financial community, trade association work, government relations or foreign relations.  Moreover, the knowledge and technical aspects of managing are rapidly changing and the perceptive top manager will never assume that his education in management is complete. A top manager attending training programs and using the recently learned learned knowledge is a strong inducement to his subordinates to attend training programs and implement new techniques.

Techniques: The basic techniques recommended are seminars and guided reading.  For on the job training in other functions, the manager may be sent as an assistant to an existing manager. In case the existing manager is retiring in short period of time, the trainee can be given the full position after completing training for an year or so.


Follow-Up Training

After formal training, follow-up training is achieved by coaching, refresher courses, and personal reflection upon the meaning practical experience,.

Coaching: Coaching is face to face counseling. It is given by the superior as well as outside coaches. Coaching by a superior involves the continuous analysis by both superior and subordinate, on a face-t-face basis, of the latter's performance. The coach makes certain that certain lessons are learned by his subordinate.



Accountability for Training

Superior managers are accountable for the training of their subordinates. Too often, training is assigned to some one else instead of the immediate superior. One way to bring training into focus is to let the accomplishment of a manager in the area of training be appraised as a part of the regular program of measurement. Men readily attend to goal achievement if they know it will be appraised. Middle and top managers are to be involved in the in-plant training programs. Managers may instruct through such devices as case histories, incidents, and illustrations of the applications they have made of management principles.

Measurement: The Training Payoff

The authors commented that at this stage, training is in somewhat the position of basic research. There are many instances where managers credit improvement in their skill to their training, but it is not possible to generalize these views and isolate the benefit formal training program from the benefits of personal aptitude, logic, imitation, and pressure of the environment.


MBA Core Management Knowledge - One Year Revision Schedule

December 7, 2014

Job Design and Work Measurement - Review Notes


Job Design Techniques


Operating managers have to plan and organize production processes and systems, acquire resources for running the systems and produce using the systems. Human resources is an important component of resources to be acquired by an operations managers. For each person, a job needs to be designed so that operators and employees can be effective and efficient. Effectiveness means operators produce the required feature of the product or service with the specified process satisfying the specifications of the output. Efficiency refers to the resources consumed by the operator including his own time and rework done and items scrapped. Industrial engineering has special focus on efficiency dimension. Each process designed must be tested by operations managers to make sure it produces the required feature of product or service.

An operations manager uses job design techniques to structure work to meet the physical and behavioral needs of the employee. Organization management principles are used to come out with various jobs in an organization. Industrial engineering techniques like motion study, work station design and ergonomics help in developing the most efficient method at a point time. Work measurement methods are used to determine the standard time for performing a given task. . Work performance standards are important to the workplace so that accomplishments  can be measured and evaluated.  Also, standard time estimates permit better planning and costing and provide a basis for compensating the work force and even providing incentives.

Trends in production job design include quality and maintenance of the equipment as part of the worker's job. Today many workers are cross-trained to perform multiskilled jobs and total quality programs are important for all employees. Team approaches, informating, use of temporary workers, automation, and organizational commitment are other key issues in job design decisions.

Behavioral considerations in job design include how specialized a job will be. Specialization has unique advantages and disadvantages. At the other extreme from specialization are the concepts of job enlargement and job enrichment. Sociotechnical systems of the interaction between technology and the work group influence job design as do ergonomic or physical consideration.

Work methods determine how the work should be accomplished in organizations. Methods efficiency engineering or method study is the classical IE tool for this purpose. Inspection methods and maintenance methods can be also be analyzed using methods study. Work methods can be established for an overall productive system, a worker alone, a worker interacting with equipment, and a worker interacting with other individuals. When individual workers are considered, motion study becomes the technique.

Work measurement and standards exist to set time standards for a job. A basic technique used in work measurement is the stop watch time study. Now comprehensive predetermined motion time systems are available to set standards based on process plans.  Time studies can be done for production jobs or for nursing jobs. Work sampling is a work measurement technique using samples instead of full time time study.

Another issue in job design is the financial incentive plan. These plans determine how workers should be compensated for their differences in production output over long periods of time. Persons who are consistently producing more output for number of days expect more compensation. In preparing a financial incentive plan, management must consider individual, group, and organization wide rewards.

Once a job is designed operators have to be trained in it. Each manager is a teacher or a trainer. Right from the first-line supervisor or foreman to the CEO have to act as teachers or trainers when the occasion demands. Improvement in both effectiveness and efficiency demand involvement of operations managers as teachers, trainers and coaches.

Topics covered in the Note



Job Design Decisions
Job Design Defined

Behavioral Considerations in Job Design
Degree of Labor Specialization
Specialization of Labor Defined
Job Enrichment
Job Enrichment Defined
Sociotechnical Systems
Sociotechnical Systems Defined

Physical Considerations in Job Design
Work Physiology Defined
Ergonomics Defined

Work Methods
A Production Process
Workers at a Fixed Workplace
Workers Interacting with Equipment
Workers Interacting with Other Workers

Work Measurements and Standards
Work Measurement Techniques
Work Measurement Defined
Work Sampling Compared to Time Study
Time Study Defined
Predetermined Motion Time Data Systems Defined
Elemental Data Defined
Normal Time Defined
Standard Time Defined
Work Sampling Defined

Financial Incentive Plans
Basic Compensation Systems
Individual and Small-Group Incentive Plans
Organizationwide Plans

Conclusion
Case: Jeans Therapy—Levi's Factory Workers Are Assigned to Teams, and Morale Takes A Hit




Download material of the text book

Material from the textbook of Chase

Summaries of all Chapters of Operation Management

MBA Core Management Knowledge - One Year Revision Schedule

Project Management

A project is a series of related jobs or tasks directed toward a major output. They require a long period of time to perform.

Many projects are undertaken in manufacturing companies as well as service companies. Developing new product in the design department is a project. Establishing the production process, inspection process and the production line for a new product is a project. Industrial engineering studies to increase efficiency of processes are projects. Thus projects are undertaken by an organization to increase revenue sources, expand capacity, and to improve efficiency or reduce costs. Replacement of equipment is also an example of a project. Thus, it is clear that organization undertake every year number of projects. They are undertaken in marketing area also like  market research projects. In an higher educational institution organizing a research conference can be given as an example of a project. Similarly every year, new admissions can be cited as example of project which has a specific commencement date with admission announcement and gets completed on a specific date when all seats are filled and classes start.

Managing projects require planning, directing and controlling resources. Before a project can begin, senior management must decide which of three organizational structures will be used to tie the project to the parent firm: pure project, functional project, or matrix project. All three structures have advantages and disadvantages.

Projects begin with a statement of work, which can be a written description of the objectives. Breaking the work into smaller and smaller pieces that defines the system in detail is at the center of project management. Milestones or critical steps in the project might be completion of the design or production of a prototype. Maintaining control over projects requires the use of charts to show the scope of the entire project as well as the steps completed at a particular time. Other reports for detailed presentations of projects are used.  Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) shows projects in terms of tasks, subtasks, work packages and activities. A project is complete when all the tasks are completed.

Critical path scheduling is a graphical technique used to plan and control projects. Techniques like PERT and CPM display a project's completion in graphical form. PERT takes, the probabilistic times for the activities involved in the project from various vendors or contractors and summarizes them in expected completion time estimate for the project. It also gives an idea of the risk associated with this expected completion time. Both techniques focus on finding the longest time-consuming path through a network of tasks as a basis for planning and controlling a project. This longest sequence of activities is also the shortest processing time for a project. Slack time for an activity is the amount of time an activity can be delayed without affecting the overall completion time of the project. Non-critical path activities have some slack time. Managers also use PERT and CPM to compute the early start schedule and late start schedules for activities so as not to delay the entire project and change its original completion date. CPM also helps in developing cost estimates for accelerating activities by increasing resources and completing the project in a shorter period as compared to the period planned in the original plan in response to various delays as the project is executed.

Managers must consider the time to complete a project versus the cost to complete the project. Time-cost trade-off models have been developed to help managers with this task. Clearly identified project responsibilities, a simple and timely progress reporting system, teamwork, and good people-management practices are required in effective project management. Teams must have the commitment of top management as well as a talented project manager. CPM and PERT are simply tools to assist the manager in meeting these objectives.

What is Project Management?
Project Defined
Project Management Defined

Structuring Projects
Pure Project
Functional Project
Matrix Project

Work Breakdown Structure
Project Milestones Defined
Work Breakdown Structure Defined
Activities Defined

Project Control Charts
Gantt Chart Defined

Network-Planning Models
Critical Path Defined
CPM With a Single Time Estimate
Immediate Predecessors Defined
Slack Time Defined
Early Start Schedule Defined
Late Start Schedule Defined
CPM with Three Activity Estimates
Maintaining Ongoing Project Schedules

Time-Cost Models
Time Cost Models Defined
Minimum-Cost Scheduling (Time-Cost Trade-Off)

Managing Resources
Tracking Progress

Cautions on Critical Path Analysis

Conclusion

Case: The Campus Wedding (A)

Case: The Campus Wedding (B)

Case: Product Design at Ford

Source
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072983906/student_view0/chapter3/


Summaries of all Chapters of Operation Management

MBA Core Management Knowledge - One Year Revision Schedule

Facility Layout - Review Notes



Layout decisions entail determining the placement of departments, work groups within the departments, workstations, machines, and stock-holding points within a production facility.

This chapter examines how layouts are developed under various formats or work-flow structures. The emphasis is on quantitative techniques but examples of qualitative factors are also included in layout design. Both manufacturing and service facilities are included. When designing the layout of a facility, decisions have long-term consequences in both cost and the firm's ability to serve its market(s). Management must take the time to identify and evaluate layout alternatives. The objective for a layout is to provide a smooth work flow of material through a manufacturing facility or an uncomplicated traffic pattern for customers and employees in a service system.

A process or flow shop layout groups similar equipment or functions together. A product layout groups equipment or work processes according to the steps by which the product is made. Group technology layout groups dissimilar machines into work centers, or cells, to work on products that have similar shapes and processing requirements. The final layout, a fixed-position layout, produces the product at one location.

Process layout focuses on minimizing material handling cost or customer and worker travel times. Computerized layout programs are useful in devising good processing layouts. The original program is CRAFT, or the Computerized Relative Allocation of Facilities Technique.

Product layouts focus on making the product flow easier. As product demand increases, it becomes cost effective to use an assembly line layout for processing. The assembly line consists of a series of workstations with a uniform processing time interval between each workstation.

Line balancing means that tasks are assigned to a series of stations so that the time required at each station is less than or equal to the cycle time and processing time is minimized. Tasks can be balanced, or minimized, by splitting the tasks, by duplicating by number of stations dedicated to a task, sharing the tasks by a neighboring station, using more skilled workers, working overtime, or redesigning the tasks.

Mixed Model Line Balancing


While the earlier assembly lines were designed for assembling one one product at a time in a continuous fashion, Toyota Motors has come out with mixed model assembly lines wherein number of different products are assembled in the same day actually within the same hour. Now operations managers have to learn this technique to become world class operations managers.

The note by Chase et al. discusses the issues of flexible and U-shaped line layouts as well as the use of computerized line balancing and mixed-model line balancing. Current views on assembly lines try to incorporate greater flexibility in products produced on the line, more variability in workstations, improved reliability, and high-quality output. A reading on Dell Computer is included to illustrate current thoughts on assembly lines.

Layouts of facilities are important in service and retail service businesses as well as in assembly and manufacturing. In retail services, layout specialists and planners must consider servicescapes, ambient conditions, spatial layout and functionality, and even signs, symbols, and artifacts.

Industrial engineers evaluate layout from the efficiency perspective and keep doing improvements to reduce material handling and movement of operators etc. Even the U layout promoted by Toyota Motors came out as a result of improving efficiency by encouraging operators with high natural speed of working to help operators experiencing delays. Thus group work is brought into picture in production cells so that line output is maintained within standards.

Basic Production Layout Formats
Process Layout Defined
Product Layout Defined
Group Technology (Cellular) Layout Defined
Fixed-Positing Layout Defined

Process Layout
Computerized Layout Techniques - CRAFT
CRAFT Defined
Systematic Layout Planning
Systematic Layout Planning (SLP) Defined

Product Layout
Assembly Lines
Assembly-Line Balancing
Workstation Cycle Time Defined
Assembly-Line Balancing Defined
Precedence Relationship Defined
Splitting Tasks
Flexible and U-Shaped Line Layouts
Mixed-Model Line Balancing
Current Thoughts on Assembly Lines

Group Technology (Cellular) Layout
Developing a GT Layout
Virtual GT Layout

Fixed-Position Layout

Retail Service Layout
Servicescapes
Ambient Conditions
Spatial Layout and Functionality
Signs, Symbols, and Artifacts

Office Layout

Case: Soteriou's Souvlaki

Case: State Automobile License Renewals

Source
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072983906/student_view0/technical_note6/





Full Material from the Book of Chase on Facility Layout

Full Material from the Book of Chase on Facility Location

Updated 7.12.2014,  3.2.20102


Summaries of all Chapters of Operation Management

MBA Core Management Knowledge - One Year Revision Schedule

Process Capability and Statistical Quality Control - Review Notes

Statistical quality control includes acceptance sampling and process control. Total quality management has more concepts apart from statistical quality control.


Acceptance sampling involves testing a random sample of existing goods and deciding whether to accept an entire lot based on the quality of the random sample.


Statistical process control involves testing a random sample of output from a process to determine whether the process is producing items within a pre-specified range. The details of  techniques are presented in this chapter. Techniques for measurement of process control as well as charting procedures are presented along with a discussion of size of samples, number of samples, frequency of sampling, and control limits. Key points to consider are the costs to justify inspection as well as the correct sampling plan to ensure quality. While there are variations in every process, as variation is reduced, quality is improved.

Motorola made process capability famous by adopting its well-known six-sigma quality limits, ensuring only 3.4 defects per million using six-sigma quality limits.  SPC recommends that a machine needs adjustments if the output is falling outside 3 sigma limits of the process. Motorola came out with the policy that they will employ processes whose six sigma limit on either side is  equal to the difference between the acceptable specification level and the specified size. So naturally, the defects produced in the process will come down. Additionally, the six sigma limit will allow the process mean to drift up to 1.5 sigma and still the defect produced by the process will be only 2 per million items.

Motorola's Six Sigma program also has a method to analyze the existing processes and reduce their sigma or variability by studying the process by changing the input variables' levels and observing the resulting sigma.

KEY OUTLINE

Assignable Variation Defined
Common Variation Defined

Variation Around Us
Upper and Lower Specification or Tolerance Limits Defined

Process Capability
Six-Sigma Defined
Capability Index Defined
Capability Index (Cpk)

Process Control Procedures
Statistical Process Control (SPC) Defined
Attributes Defined
Process Control With Attribute Measurement: Using p Charts
Process Control With Variable Measurement: Using X-bar and R Charts
Variables Defined
How to Construct X-bar and R Charts

Acceptance Sampling
Design of a Single Sampling Plan for Attributes
Operating Characteristic Curves

Conclusion

Source
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072983906/student_view0/technical_note8/

Full Material from the book

Video Lectures from MIT
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Updated  7.12.2014, 31.5.2012, 10.12.2011

MBA Core Management Knowledge - One Year Revision Schedule

Operations Consulting and Reengineering - Chapter Review Notes

Operations' consulting assists clients in developing operations strategies and improving production processes.

In strategy development, the focus is on analyzing the capabilities of operations in light of the firm's competitive strategy.

In process improvement, the focus is on employing analytical tools and methods to help operating managers enhance the performance of their departments. Regardless of where one focuses, an effective job of operations consulting results in an alignment between strategy and process dimensions in a way that enhances the business performance of the client firm.

The management consulting industry can be categorized in three ways: by size, by specialization, and by in-house and external consultants. Most consulting firms are small, generating less than $500,000 in annual billings. Consulting firms are also frequently characterized according to whether their primary skill is in strategic planning or in tactical analysis and implementation.

Some of the major strategic and tactical areas where companies typically seek operations consulting can be classified in five key areas. In the plant area, assistance is provided for adding and locating new plants, expanding, contracting or refocusing existing facilities. In the people area, the consultants focus on quality including quality improvement, setting or revising work standards, and learning curve analysis. Make or buy decisions and vendor selection decisions are key parts decisions. Process decisions for consultants include technology evaluation, process improvement, and reengineering. Finally, planning and control systems analyzed by consultants include supply chain management, MRP, shop floor control, and warehousing and distribution.

Consultants are needed when companies are faced with major investment decisions or when they believe they are not realizing maximum effectiveness from their productive capacity. Operations consulting tools can be categorized as tools for problem definition, data gathering, data analysis and solution development, cost impact and payoff analysis, and implementation.


Consulting Tools


Problem Definition Tools


Customer Surveys
Employee Surveys
Gap Analysis - This can identify the gap between expectations of customers and employees and current performance of the organization.
SWOT Analysis
Porter's Five Force Analysis
Value Chain Analysis
Issue Trees - They are used by McKinsey company to highlight the problems and possible solutions to develop a consulting assignment specification.

Data Gathering


Plant Tours/Audits
Work Sampling

Data Analysis and Solution Development


Statistical tools
Bottleneck analysis
Computer simulation

Cost Impact and Payoff Analysis


Engineering Economic Analysis
Decision Trees - are useful when a set of decisions are to be taken sequentially in response to environment behavior
Stakeholder analysis
Balanced scorecard
Process dashboards

Implementation


Responsibility Charts
Project Management

Business process reengineering (BPR) is a way of rethinking and redesigning business processes for improvements of performance, including cost, quality, service, and speed especially based on new technology. BPR basic premise is that new technology is not understood thoroughly by many users and also the existing way of producing is continued by using the new technology in those areas in which application is visible quickly. Principles of reengineering include: organize around outcomes desire and not around current ways of doing tasks, have those who use the output of the process perform the process, merge information-processing work into the real work that produces the information, treat geographically dispersed resources as though they were centralized, link parallel activities instead of integrating their results, put the decision point where the work is performed and build control into the process, and capture information once - at the source.



Chapter outline (Chase et al Book)

What is Operations Consulting?
Operations Consulting Defined

The Nature of the Management Consulting Industry
"Finders," "Minders," and "Grinders" Defined

Economics of Consulting Firms

When Operations Consulting Is Needed
When Are Operations Consultants Needed?

The Operations Consulting Process

Operations Consulting Tool Kit
Problem Definition Tools
Data Gathering
Data Analysis and Solution Development
Cost Impact and Payoff Analysis
Implementation

Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
Reengineering Define

Principles of Reengineering

Guidelines for Implementation

Conclusion

Case: A California Auto Club Reengineers Customer Service

Appendix: RPA Questionnaire and Rating Sheet

Source:
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072983906/student_view0/chapter9/

Updated  7.12.2014, 10.12.2011


MBA Core Management Knowledge - One Year Revision Schedule