Essays and Research Papers on Applied Operations Mgt.

9 pages in length. With the use of JIT affecting inventories and material handling, future recessions will be less severe and shorter than past recessions. This well-researched paper explores the recessionary effects of Just-in-time inventory management (JIT) and how inventory levels are going down as compared to economic activity. Bibliography lists 6 sources.

A 5 page paper which discusses a method planning a facility layout in order to maintain the most productive processing. The method discussed as the most beneficial is that found in flow manufacturing. This method of approach employs a U-shaped layout for manufacturing products. With this particular shape all materials and products are close at hand, and the employees ...

A 5 page paper discussing a public company's efforts to reengineer its IT function in an effort to become more responsive to customers' and suppliers' needs. Champion has experienced wonderful growth in the past five years, but its market share has declined and management has determined that the company needs to be more responsive. Rather than direct ...

A 12 page paper discussing historic developments at four companies in terms of Peter Senge's "The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization." Senge's observations of the learning organization have never been more relevant to the successful business as they are today. Business was undergoing immense changes at the time his book was published, ...

A 15 page paper. Adidas-Salomon is the #2 company in the world for athletic footwear, apparel and gear. This essay presents an analysis of this company and includes: brief introduction and history of the company; strategic actions taken to revitalize the company in 1993, when its market share plunged to 2 percent; strategic decisions ...

This 5 page paper looks at work teams and examines applicable literature to support the position that work teams should be controlled by an outside authority. Various points are discussed. Bibliography lists 4 sources.

This 6 page paper looks at what an activity based system is, the way it may be used along with its advantages and disadvantages. The paper then ends with a case study of a successful company which has used this to system to change from a loss making company into a profitable and thriving organisation. ...

A 5 page paper discussing McDonald's worldwide leadership while maintaining the lowest rate of customer satisfaction in its industry. The paper argues that product quality and service quality are two separate entities, and makes suggestions for improvement from among Deming's 14 Points. McDonald's has no driving need to change anything about the way it operates. It ...

(5 pp). The Baldrige Award's strategy is to create an evolving body of knowledge in the United States by encouraging the learning and sharing of competitive knowledge. The Baldrige Award application provides a broad framework for implementing a quality program and establishes benchmarks suitable for monitoring and measuring quality progress.

(6 pp) The challenging question for discussion is: who is responsible for world hunger? What if the "who" is not a singular person, and maybe not even a group, but what if we all are? If someone had asked me, the question, I would have answered, over population, and fallen for one ...

29 pages in length. The ideas of Michael Porter of Harvard Business school have regularly been compared and contrasted with those of Gary Hamel of the London Business School and C. K. Prahalad of the University of Michigan. In 'What is Strategy,' Porter outlines the ideas of business strategy that are akin to ...

An 8 page discussion of the relationship between workplace safety, and employee perception of that workplace and employee satisfaction and pay requirements. Contends that employees will either refuse to work in an environment which they consider unsafe or they will demand such unrealistically high wages as compensation for their risk that business profitability will ...

(12 pp) When you look at a map, you may not see Littleton, a "bedroom" community of Denver, seven miles to the south on I-25. Littleton made the news in 1999 as the site of the Columbine High School killings. Yet the reality was that Columbine High School is in Jefferson ...

A 15 page paper discussing Britain's efforts to devise effective rules for increased safety while maintaining common sense. Narrow and immediate issues of workplace safety rest with individual workers and their employers' management of active safety issues, but they also extend to greater levels as evidenced by rules applying to consultants and designers. Mandatory certifications can work to ...

This 3 page paper provides an overview of Donald Phillips' work Lincoln on Leadership (1992). This paper outlines the central premises of Phillips' book and then considers the application for the development of management strategies. No additional sources cited.

A 6 page discussion of the correlation between the changing workplace and the shortage of skilled white-collar workers. Asserts that this shortage is not solely attributable to the educational system and that companies must take employee training into their own hands. Bibliography lists 6 sources.

5 pages in length. The presumption has long been put forth that leadership is causally related to organizational performance. With this in mind, one would automatically surmise that without effective leadership, organizational performance would cease to exist; however, it is more the ability of the individual to either be born or made a ...

(15 pp) The thesis question for this paper: Is the treatment of prison inmates handled in an ethical manner? Areas of medical care, mental health, and death and dying will be examined. Bibliography lists 10 sources.

A 5 page paper based on a case study prepared at Harvard Business School. A machine company has a fixed price policy but a long-term customer has initiated a multiple bidding process for their latest purchase. The regular supplier's bid is considerably higher than others. The writer discusses the issues involved as well as some ...

(5pp) Did you know that about 1,200 soft drink and salad dressing containers could be recycled to carpet the average living room? Or that over 5 years ago the United States threw away 193 million tons of plastic, and recycled only about 5% of it? We will look at Texas, and focus on ...

An 11 page paper discussing the necessity for interim testing in the development of any new product, whether it is a physical widget or a software application. The increasing intensity of today's business climate dictates that products reach the market more quickly than ever before, a change that has had immense implications for product design and testing. ...

This 5 page report discusses the purchase and turnaround of Cin-Made Corp, a small manufacturing company in Cincinnati, Ohio. “Empowerment or else,” published in the Harvard Business Review in 1993 discusses issues of employee empowerment and the processes a business owner, manager, or worker must go through in order to truly empower co-workers and employees. Bibliography lists one source.

5 pages. There are many terms that are interchangeable when referring to change management. For instance, project management, organization development and project organization are frequently interchanged. All of these terms refer to some type of cross-functional organization. What this means, of course, is that they invariably involve bringing people together from two or more usually separated organizational ...

A 7 page paper discussing the IT needs for the company resulting from the merger of three European manufacturers. The company will have 10 locations including corporate headquarters after one year, and each of the three manufacturing sites will be involved in increasing foreign business. The paper recommends an intranet approach with each site optically networked. ...

A 5 page discussion of the problems being experienced by this long-term care facility for the elderly. Originally based on the provision of the needs of a low-income community, this facility has strayed from its original mission to emphasize appearance over function. Suggests a return to the basics of community health needs. ...