Friday, January 24, 2020

Strategic Manufacturing Management Questions and Answers :: Strategic Manufacturing Management Essays

Question 1: Hayes and Wheelright (1984) and Mintzberg (1987) spoke of strategy as a pattern of decisions. What do they mean by this? (5 Marks) Strategy is the pattern of decisions determining the organization’s objectives, purposes, or goals. It outlines the principal policies and plans for achieving those goals, and clearly defines the range of businesses the organization has to pursue. Strategy as a pattern of decisions also highlights the nature of human and economic organization it intends to be, and the nature of the economic and noneconomic contribution it intends to make towards its stakeholders, mainly, the shareholders, customers, employees, and communities[1]. Mintzberg (1987), characterizing ten ‘schools of thought’ in his consideration of strategy, has defined strategy as a pattern, a plan, a ploy, a position, and a perspective[2]. He has further classified different strategy making processes, specifying that a â€Å"realised strategy† is â€Å"emergent† and â€Å"deliberate† as shown in Figure 1-1. Moreover, Mintzberg discusses the difference between strategic thinking and strategic planning, highlighting that planning involves analysis and thinking involves synthesis, and the outcome of strategic thinking is an integrated perspective[3]. For strategies to be ploys or plans, they need to follow a specific stream of actions. Plans or ploys are â€Å"intended strategy† which are realized through patterns, as pointed out by Mintzberg. Figure 1-1 "Deliberate" and "emergent" strategy forming "realized" strategy[2] According to Hayes and Wheelright (1984) an implementation of strategy requires a structured integrative pattern of mutually supported decisions made over a period of time. Five characteristics that make up strategy are time, concentration of effort, impact, pattern of decision, and pervasiveness as stated by Hayes and Wheelwright. They also point out that effective operation strategies need to be consistent and contribute to competitive advantage. Consistency should prevail between operations strategy and business strategy, between operations strategy and the other functional strategies, and within different decision areas of operations strategy. In order to be able to positively contribute towards competitive advantage, the strategy should enable operations to set priorities right to enhance competitive advantage, clearly state the operations strategy for the rest of the organization to easily comprehend, accentuate opportunities where operations can complement business strategy, a nd ensure operating capabilities that may be required in the future. Hayes and Wheelwright (1984) have categorized different types of organizations based on their attitude towards operations in a four stage model. The four stages, as shown in table below are, Internally Neutral, Externally Neutral, Internally Supportive, and Externally Supportive, in the order[2].

Thursday, January 16, 2020

Indian Festivals Essay

A festival is an occasion of enjoyment and celebration. Indian festivals are known to attract the world due to their harmony, variety, colour and excitement. Thus we can divide the festivals into three categories—national or political, religious and seasonal. These are the festivals which punctuate the seasons of the year. National festivals like Republic Day, Independence Day, Gandhi Jayanti and others are celebrated with great patriotic fervour. Now-a-days they have been declared National Holidays. Religious festivals and ceremonies are as varied as the people, their customs beliefs and faith. In Northern India, Dussehra is observed as Vijaya Dashmi celebrating victory of good over evil, of Rama over Ravana. In Bengal, the occasion is celebrated as Durga Puja. This festival is celebrated with gaiety and lasts for five days. Diwali is the most prominent of the Hindu festivals. The Hindus celebrate this day to commemorate the return of Lord Rama to Ayodhya after winning the decisive war against the evil forces of Ravana. The Muslim celebrates Id-UI-Fitra. It is celebrated to mark the end of Ramzan. It was during the month of Ramzan that Holy Quran was revealed to Prophet Mohammed. Christmas is the greatest festival of the Christians. The festival marks birthday of Jesus Christ the founder of Christianity on 25th December. India is the only country where these festivals are celebrated with great devotion to the Almighty and seasonal variations. The main objectives of festivals are to bring people from different walks of life to welcome each section of society with open arms and to forget the narrow differences between one another.

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Parents Ride The Merry Go Round - 979 Words

Some families ride the merry-go-round their whole lives and others take the roller coaster, which has ups and downs like Buckman’s family in the movie Parent Hood. I thought of my family of us riding the merry-go-round. Until my grandpa died, as a three year old I thought that was the worst thing that could happen to anyone, ever. I thought as a family we had hit rock bottom and was never going to get through the pain. It did bring our family closer together. I realized that there is going to be more stressful situations, and just thought that the merry-go-round had just broken down for a minute. Until three years ago, nothing major happened in our family that I didn’t think as family we were not going to be able to get through. We are not the â€Å"perfect† family anymore; we have gone through a lot ups and downs over the past years. One example, my parents saying they were going to get divorced. I was sitting on the couch, being lazy like a normal teenager, wh en my parents announced to me that there was a possibility that they were getting a divorce. I thought at first they were kidding but soon heard screaming everyday that seemed that went on forever. I had never heard my parents scream at each other like this. It sounded like two bears fighting over delicious food. I honestly never saw this coming and didn’t think our family was going to recover from this. That was when my family was like the Buckman’s. Again, watching TV, my parents issued that they needed to talk toShow MoreRelatedMuseum On Rails771 Words   |  4 Pages The Picnic Van and merry-go-round Visitors enjoy the relaxed atmosphere and light refreshments served in the Picnic Van, a converted guards van. 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