Case Study, Management
Operations Management
Project description
The student will select the two techniques from the following list (note that data-driven decision-making aka data analytics is a mandatory selection):
•Data-driven decision-making aka data analytics (mandatory selection)
•Decision support systems
•Outsourcing to include offshoring
•Sustainable supply chain management
The student will submit a report in pdf format which integrates their analysis and the application to their organization and/or to Acme Mexico City. Critical thinking, information literacy, problem-solving, systems thinking, and technology fluency are required.
Assignment
Within your report, on the first two techniques, address the following:
•
Describe the purpose of each technique chosen
•
How does or should this help operations?
•
What are the limitations of the technique?
•
What are the costs involved? What training is needed to use the technique? What else is needed?
•
In your own organization or at Acme Mexico City, what is the problem, opportunity, or challenge to be addressed?
•
How will each technique help your own organization’s or Acme Mexico City’s operations? Why?
•What would be the areas which present challenges in the approach (e.g., cost, training, culture, technology, management commitment, etc.)
{About 3 to 5 pages for the discussion of each OM technique, double spacing, 12 point font, one inch margins.}
Using Linear Programming to recommend a low-cost customer service employee daily assignment schedule
To the extent permitted by local law, each Acme Home Improvements store, including Acme Mexico City, is open from 7 am – 11 pm every day.
Acme Mexico City advance planners in North Carolina have provided the following table, which identifies the minimum number of customer service employees estimated to be needed on the floor of the store each hour of a typical work day:
Customer Service Employees
Time Period
Minimum number needed on the floor
7 am – 8 am
10
8 am – 9 am
12
9 am – 10 am
18
10 am – 11 am
22
11 am – 12 pm
22
12 pm – 1 pm
26
1 pm – 2 pm
26
2 pm – 3 pm
26
3 pm – 4 pm
26
4 pm – 5 pm
26
5 pm – 6 pm
28
6 pm – 7 pm
28
7 pm – 8 pm
24
8 pm – 9 pm
22
9 pm – 10 pm
14
10 pm – 11 pm
12
In the interest of cost control, the planners have also imposed a not-to-exceed maximum of 30 customer service employees on the floor at any time.
Full-time customer service employees at AMC work a 9 hour shift (8 hours of work plus a 1 hour meal break) either from 7 am to 4 pm or from 2 pm to 11 pm. Workers on the 7-4 shift are assigned an hour-long lunch break at either 11 am or 12 noon. Workers on the 2-11 shift are assigned an hour-long dinner break at either 5 pm or 6 pm.
Part-time customer service employees work four consecutive hours per day and their shifts can start any hour between 7 am and 7 pm.
By corporate policy, which is consistent with Mexican labor law, the company limits the hours worked by part-time customer service employees to 50% of the day’s total scheduled hours.
Part-time customer service employees earn $500 per day, and full-time customer service employees earn $1100 per day in salary and benefits (here, $ = Moneda Nacional, ie, the Mexican peso).
Acme operations analysts working in North Carolina, working with the AMC advance planners, have used integer linear programming, an important tool employed by operations managers, to propose in accordance with the foregoing factors, an employee assignment schedule for a typical day. Click this link -> proposed schedule to see what the analysts have developed.
Assignment Taskings
Each student recommends to the AMC store manager, who is unfamiliar with integer linear programming, a customer service employee daily assignment schedule for Acme Mexico City that includes the following:
1.An employee assignment schedule for a typical day that minimizes personnel costs using the operations analysts’ schedule modified as by the qualitative factors, if any, that you determine are relevant
2.A discussion of underlying assumptions and of your selected qualitative factors
3.A further discussion of how non-typical days might affect the schedule
4.Optionally, and for extra points to be determined by your section professor, a sensitivity analysis that shows how relaxation of the 50% constraint on the hours worked by part-time customer service employees might affect the daily personnel costs.
{About 5 to 8 pages for the Linear Programming assignment, double spacing, 12 point font, one inch margins. The Excel spreadsheet does not count towards the page limit.}
