15.763 Manufacturing Systems and Supply Chain Design (H2)
Spring 2013
Instructors: Charles H Fine, Stephen C Graves, David Simchi-Levi
TAs: Wen Feng, Kristine Dianne Johnson
Lecture:
MW 8:30-10:00 AM
(E51-325)
Recitation: F 8:30-10:00 AM
(E51-325)
Information:
Announcements
Feedback on the Wal-Mart and BMW cases
Hi Class!
We are happy to let you know that the last two assignments have been graded. You can either pick them up during work time from my office (33-409, on the table closest to the door), or send me an email to ask for your grades of each assignment. Generally you have done a fantastic job on these two assignments, and please find below our brief feedback.
1. The Wal-Mart Case:
(1) The total score for this assignment is 20 points, and the average grade of 22 teams is 18.8, with a standard deviation of 1.2.
(2) This assignment was graded with the following five rubrics:
a) Wal-Mart's Operations Innovations (4 Points): It was expected that you can mention at least four operations innovations from a long list -- Massive warehouses and distribution centers, Autonomy power to store managers, Dynamic pricing systems, Partnership with large suppliers, Cross-docking of shipments, Private fleet operations, Manageable number of major circulars, Highly automated distribution centers, and so on.
b) Wal-Mart's Other Innovations (4 Points): It was expected you can arrive at the conclusion that Wal-Mart's success origins from the synergy between business and operations strategies. In addition to the operations innovations discussed above, you may want to analyze their innovations from other aspects, such as Long-term considerations (semi-urban and rural locations, private label products, etc.), Human resources considerations (culture created by Sam Walton, open for suggestions, good relationships with local community, training programs for employees, etc.), Brand effect and market power, among others.
c) Wal-Mart's Performance in Katrina (4 Points): It was expected that you can at least identify four factors key to Wal-Mart's performance in Hurricane Katrina from a long list -- Missions and values, Advanced preparation, Structured emergency department, Employee responsibility and autonomy power in emergency, Smooth communication and information flow, Effective supply chain structure, Solid inventory buffer and price freezing in emergency, and so on.
d) Lessons Learned from Katrina (4 Points): In this question, it was expected that you can compare Wal-Mart's performance in Katrina with the responses of public agencies (like FEMA), identify the strengths of private sector in emergency responses (incentives, efficiency, experience, etc.), and synthesize these analyses into high-level recommendations for the public agencies to better respond to future emergencies, for example, Defining clearer missions, values, and responsibilities for employees, Empowering the autonomy power of employees in emergencies, Building preparation into the system before disaster strike, Establishing collaborations with key stakeholders including the profit-seeking private companies like Wal-Mart, Keeping good communication and sharing important information with stakeholders, Coordinating the roles, resources, and responses of each stakeholder in emergencies, among other recommendations.
e) Overall Presentation (4 Points): It was expected that you can present your answers in a clear and logic way.
(3) Most teams did very well on a), b), c), and e), but the discussion on d) can be further improved.
2. The BMW Case:
(1) The total score for this assignment is 20 points, and the average grade of 22 teams is 19.0, with a standard deviation of 1.0.
(2) This assignment was graded with the following five rubrics:
a) Quality Issues (5 Points): It was expected that you can identify three main causes for BMW's quality problem -- "Last minute" engineering changes; Differences of processes, materials, suppliers, and workers between pilot runs and productions runs; and "Mixed-model" production for the ramp-up phase of new models. Better yet, you can also think about other causes, such as the Limitation of a sequential engineering perspective, Lack of integration of customers' insights, and so on.
b) 7-Series Prototypes (5 Points): It was expected that you can discuss the benefits and costs of the suggestion to use pre-production tools, and highlight the trade-off between the speed and flexibility of a good design. In addition, based on your discussion on the main causes for BMW's quality problem, it was expected that you can come up with the corresponding recommendations for the 7-Series prototypes.
c) New Models (4 Points): It was expected that you can elaborate how to extend the above recommendations for the 7-Series prototypes to more new models of BMW. You may want to propose some generalized observations here, such as the Transformation to a concurrent engineering perspective, Simulation of the production environment (including suppliers, tools, processes, employees, etc.) during pilot, and so on. Additionally, you were expected to list a few key attributes that might improve (launch quality, etc.) or deteriorate (design flexibility, etc.).
d) Competition Strategies (4 Points): It was expected that you can identify the main challenge and its implications arising from the Japanese competitors, that is, the industry "clockspeed" becoming faster. Based on that, you should address at least the following aspects -- Brand effect, Product quality and variety, Focus on customer needs, and Partnership with suppliers. Better yet, you can also discuss other potential improvements on Price benchmarking, Marketing strategies, Distribution management, R&D spending, and so on.
e) Overall Presentation (2 Points): It was expected that you can present your answers in a clear and logic way.
(3) Most teams did very well on a), b), c), and e), but the discussion on d) was relatively weaker.
Please definitely let us know if you have any questions or concerns about the grades of these two assignments. We can have a discussion through email or set up a meeting to talk.
Thanks so much for your hard work and firm support in the past a few months, dear Class! You really deserve a good vacation this summer, and we are very proud of you, :-)
Best,
Wen & Kris
We are happy to let you know that the last two assignments have been graded. You can either pick them up during work time from my office (33-409, on the table closest to the door), or send me an email to ask for your grades of each assignment. Generally you have done a fantastic job on these two assignments, and please find below our brief feedback.
1. The Wal-Mart Case:
(1) The total score for this assignment is 20 points, and the average grade of 22 teams is 18.8, with a standard deviation of 1.2.
(2) This assignment was graded with the following five rubrics:
a) Wal-Mart's Operations Innovations (4 Points): It was expected that you can mention at least four operations innovations from a long list -- Massive warehouses and distribution centers, Autonomy power to store managers, Dynamic pricing systems, Partnership with large suppliers, Cross-docking of shipments, Private fleet operations, Manageable number of major circulars, Highly automated distribution centers, and so on.
b) Wal-Mart's Other Innovations (4 Points): It was expected you can arrive at the conclusion that Wal-Mart's success origins from the synergy between business and operations strategies. In addition to the operations innovations discussed above, you may want to analyze their innovations from other aspects, such as Long-term considerations (semi-urban and rural locations, private label products, etc.), Human resources considerations (culture created by Sam Walton, open for suggestions, good relationships with local community, training programs for employees, etc.), Brand effect and market power, among others.
c) Wal-Mart's Performance in Katrina (4 Points): It was expected that you can at least identify four factors key to Wal-Mart's performance in Hurricane Katrina from a long list -- Missions and values, Advanced preparation, Structured emergency department, Employee responsibility and autonomy power in emergency, Smooth communication and information flow, Effective supply chain structure, Solid inventory buffer and price freezing in emergency, and so on.
d) Lessons Learned from Katrina (4 Points): In this question, it was expected that you can compare Wal-Mart's performance in Katrina with the responses of public agencies (like FEMA), identify the strengths of private sector in emergency responses (incentives, efficiency, experience, etc.), and synthesize these analyses into high-level recommendations for the public agencies to better respond to future emergencies, for example, Defining clearer missions, values, and responsibilities for employees, Empowering the autonomy power of employees in emergencies, Building preparation into the system before disaster strike, Establishing collaborations with key stakeholders including the profit-seeking private companies like Wal-Mart, Keeping good communication and sharing important information with stakeholders, Coordinating the roles, resources, and responses of each stakeholder in emergencies, among other recommendations.
e) Overall Presentation (4 Points): It was expected that you can present your answers in a clear and logic way.
(3) Most teams did very well on a), b), c), and e), but the discussion on d) can be further improved.
2. The BMW Case:
(1) The total score for this assignment is 20 points, and the average grade of 22 teams is 19.0, with a standard deviation of 1.0.
(2) This assignment was graded with the following five rubrics:
a) Quality Issues (5 Points): It was expected that you can identify three main causes for BMW's quality problem -- "Last minute" engineering changes; Differences of processes, materials, suppliers, and workers between pilot runs and productions runs; and "Mixed-model" production for the ramp-up phase of new models. Better yet, you can also think about other causes, such as the Limitation of a sequential engineering perspective, Lack of integration of customers' insights, and so on.
b) 7-Series Prototypes (5 Points): It was expected that you can discuss the benefits and costs of the suggestion to use pre-production tools, and highlight the trade-off between the speed and flexibility of a good design. In addition, based on your discussion on the main causes for BMW's quality problem, it was expected that you can come up with the corresponding recommendations for the 7-Series prototypes.
c) New Models (4 Points): It was expected that you can elaborate how to extend the above recommendations for the 7-Series prototypes to more new models of BMW. You may want to propose some generalized observations here, such as the Transformation to a concurrent engineering perspective, Simulation of the production environment (including suppliers, tools, processes, employees, etc.) during pilot, and so on. Additionally, you were expected to list a few key attributes that might improve (launch quality, etc.) or deteriorate (design flexibility, etc.).
d) Competition Strategies (4 Points): It was expected that you can identify the main challenge and its implications arising from the Japanese competitors, that is, the industry "clockspeed" becoming faster. Based on that, you should address at least the following aspects -- Brand effect, Product quality and variety, Focus on customer needs, and Partnership with suppliers. Better yet, you can also discuss other potential improvements on Price benchmarking, Marketing strategies, Distribution management, R&D spending, and so on.
e) Overall Presentation (2 Points): It was expected that you can present your answers in a clear and logic way.
(3) Most teams did very well on a), b), c), and e), but the discussion on d) was relatively weaker.
Please definitely let us know if you have any questions or concerns about the grades of these two assignments. We can have a discussion through email or set up a meeting to talk.
Thanks so much for your hard work and firm support in the past a few months, dear Class! You really deserve a good vacation this summer, and we are very proud of you, :-)
Best,
Wen & Kris
Announced on 21 May 2013 1:41 a.m. by Wen Feng
Reminder: Course Evaluations
Hi everyone!
Hope you all enjoyed your last week of the semester, and congratulations to those of you who graduated!! One final reminder - if you haven't done so already, please take a few minutes to fill out a course evaluation for 15.763 at http://web.mit.edu/subjectevaluation/evaluate.html. We would really appreciate the feedback in order to improve upon the course and our teaching in the future.
Thanks so much for a wonderful semester, and please stay in touch. All the best,
Kris
Hope you all enjoyed your last week of the semester, and congratulations to those of you who graduated!! One final reminder - if you haven't done so already, please take a few minutes to fill out a course evaluation for 15.763 at http://web.mit.edu/subjectevaluation/evaluate.html. We would really appreciate the feedback in order to improve upon the course and our teaching in the future.
Thanks so much for a wonderful semester, and please stay in touch. All the best,
Kris
Announced on 17 May 2013 9:27 a.m. by Kristine Dianne Johnson
Feedback on the MetalWorks case
Hi Class!
We are happy to let you know that the MetalWorks case have been graded and you can pick them up after today's class. As you know, today will be our last class -- Kris and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your hard work, kind consideration, and strong support -- it's such a wonderful experience to spend the half semester (or the whole semester) with everyone of you!
In addition, please find below our feedback on this assignment (we will send feedback on the last two assignments by this weekend):
1. The total score for this assignment is 25 points, and the average grade of 23 teams is 22.4, with a standard deviation of 2.0.
2. This assignment was graded based on the following seven rubrics:
(1) Mexico Plant (3 Points): It was expected that after a comprehensive analysis for the total costs of two strategies (i.e., expanding in Texas or opening in Mexico), you can successfully arrive to the conclusion that the Juarez Mexico plant should be open as soon as possible (i.e., start to build in 2010 and ready to open in 2011).
(2) Expansion in Iowa (4 Points): It was expected that in the above analysis, you can also correctly calculate the four-year costs (2010-2013) of the strategy of expanding the capacity in Iowa, which can be further divided into three scenarios (i.e., expanding the capacity for file cab, or safety box, or both), and then arrive to the conclusion of not expanding the capacity for either product.
(3) Comparison to Baseline (4 Points): As highlighted by Kris in recitation, it is a critical point in this assignment that you are able to clearly define a "baseline" model, correctly calculate the total costs of this model, and take it as the benchmark for the above two strategies, instead of comparing these strategies directly. In the real world, if you want to convince your customer to take one of your recommendations, you must show the advantage of the selected one over a "baseline" or "business-as-usual" scenario -- it's not enough to only compare the pros/cons of your recommendations.
(4) New DC/Warehouse Analysis (5 Points): Answers of opening 3-7 new warehouses over time were considered as correct ones. However, it was expected that you can arrive at this conclusion through a sensitivity analysis for the impacts of different number of new warehouses on the total costs, although such an analysis could be brief. In addition, you need to address the size and location of these new warehouses, as well as the plan to allocate production over a four-year period.
(5) How to Account for Truck Tax (1 Point): It was expected that you can at least explain your ideas on how to include the truck tax in your previous analysis. It would be better if you can also qualitatively analyze the impacts of the truck tax on your previous conclusions (i.e., whether or not the strategy of opening the Juarez plant is still better than others).
(6) Issues (5 Points): This question is actually pretty open. However, it was expected that you can touch at least three important issues -- limitation of the software, consideration for implementation, consideration for the future (i.e., beyond 2012 and even further).
(7) Overall Clear/Concise Work (3 Points): It was expected that you can present your answers in the format of a formal business memo, rather than addressing the questions one by one.
3. Common Mistakes:
(1) The most common mistake (30% of the class) was the neglect of a "baseline" model throughout the whole analysis.
(2) A few teams (15% of the class) did define a "baseline" model, but they only analyzed it for the current year without looking for other years.
(3) Some teams (25% of the class) made the correct conclusion of opening a new factory in Mexico, but they didn't recognize the benefits of opening that factory as early as possible.
4. Positive Comments:
(1) Overall Methodology: There can be different ways to approach this case, but I have been impressed by the rigor and clarity of the methods proposed by a few teams. For example:
(a) Identify the optimization goal or selection criteria;
(b) List key assumptions for the analysis;
(c) Define the baseline model and run it throughout four-year period;
(d) Observe the unmet demand in 2013 and design different scenarios, such as "baseline + additional steel cabinet capacity", "baseline + additional safety box capacity", "baseline + additional steel cabinet and safety box capacity", "baseline + Mexico plant", with the caution that each scenarios could have three additional options regarding to which year to implement;
(e) Run different scenarios throughout four-year period and compare the total cost;
(f) Decide the number of new warehouses via sensitivity analysis;
(g) Decide the location and size of new warehouses;
(h) Discuss the allocation of production;
(i) Summarize the recommendations.
(2) Important Issues: As mentioned in 2(6), although this is an open question, I think it would be beneficial if I can summarize a few good discussions here:
(a) Longer temporal horizon;
(b) Long-term labor cost;
(c) Exchange rates of currency;
(d) Custom and legislation;
(e) Political stability;
(f) Workforce skill and product quality;
(g) Domestic perception (in the U.S.);
(h) Time value of money;
(i) Sub-optimality based on the limitation of software.
Last but not least, if you have any questions or concerns about the grades, please definitely send me an email and then we can find a time to talk.
Thank you again, Class! Wish you have a cool summer, :-)
Best,
Wen
We are happy to let you know that the MetalWorks case have been graded and you can pick them up after today's class. As you know, today will be our last class -- Kris and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your hard work, kind consideration, and strong support -- it's such a wonderful experience to spend the half semester (or the whole semester) with everyone of you!
In addition, please find below our feedback on this assignment (we will send feedback on the last two assignments by this weekend):
1. The total score for this assignment is 25 points, and the average grade of 23 teams is 22.4, with a standard deviation of 2.0.
2. This assignment was graded based on the following seven rubrics:
(1) Mexico Plant (3 Points): It was expected that after a comprehensive analysis for the total costs of two strategies (i.e., expanding in Texas or opening in Mexico), you can successfully arrive to the conclusion that the Juarez Mexico plant should be open as soon as possible (i.e., start to build in 2010 and ready to open in 2011).
(2) Expansion in Iowa (4 Points): It was expected that in the above analysis, you can also correctly calculate the four-year costs (2010-2013) of the strategy of expanding the capacity in Iowa, which can be further divided into three scenarios (i.e., expanding the capacity for file cab, or safety box, or both), and then arrive to the conclusion of not expanding the capacity for either product.
(3) Comparison to Baseline (4 Points): As highlighted by Kris in recitation, it is a critical point in this assignment that you are able to clearly define a "baseline" model, correctly calculate the total costs of this model, and take it as the benchmark for the above two strategies, instead of comparing these strategies directly. In the real world, if you want to convince your customer to take one of your recommendations, you must show the advantage of the selected one over a "baseline" or "business-as-usual" scenario -- it's not enough to only compare the pros/cons of your recommendations.
(4) New DC/Warehouse Analysis (5 Points): Answers of opening 3-7 new warehouses over time were considered as correct ones. However, it was expected that you can arrive at this conclusion through a sensitivity analysis for the impacts of different number of new warehouses on the total costs, although such an analysis could be brief. In addition, you need to address the size and location of these new warehouses, as well as the plan to allocate production over a four-year period.
(5) How to Account for Truck Tax (1 Point): It was expected that you can at least explain your ideas on how to include the truck tax in your previous analysis. It would be better if you can also qualitatively analyze the impacts of the truck tax on your previous conclusions (i.e., whether or not the strategy of opening the Juarez plant is still better than others).
(6) Issues (5 Points): This question is actually pretty open. However, it was expected that you can touch at least three important issues -- limitation of the software, consideration for implementation, consideration for the future (i.e., beyond 2012 and even further).
(7) Overall Clear/Concise Work (3 Points): It was expected that you can present your answers in the format of a formal business memo, rather than addressing the questions one by one.
3. Common Mistakes:
(1) The most common mistake (30% of the class) was the neglect of a "baseline" model throughout the whole analysis.
(2) A few teams (15% of the class) did define a "baseline" model, but they only analyzed it for the current year without looking for other years.
(3) Some teams (25% of the class) made the correct conclusion of opening a new factory in Mexico, but they didn't recognize the benefits of opening that factory as early as possible.
4. Positive Comments:
(1) Overall Methodology: There can be different ways to approach this case, but I have been impressed by the rigor and clarity of the methods proposed by a few teams. For example:
(a) Identify the optimization goal or selection criteria;
(b) List key assumptions for the analysis;
(c) Define the baseline model and run it throughout four-year period;
(d) Observe the unmet demand in 2013 and design different scenarios, such as "baseline + additional steel cabinet capacity", "baseline + additional safety box capacity", "baseline + additional steel cabinet and safety box capacity", "baseline + Mexico plant", with the caution that each scenarios could have three additional options regarding to which year to implement;
(e) Run different scenarios throughout four-year period and compare the total cost;
(f) Decide the number of new warehouses via sensitivity analysis;
(g) Decide the location and size of new warehouses;
(h) Discuss the allocation of production;
(i) Summarize the recommendations.
(2) Important Issues: As mentioned in 2(6), although this is an open question, I think it would be beneficial if I can summarize a few good discussions here:
(a) Longer temporal horizon;
(b) Long-term labor cost;
(c) Exchange rates of currency;
(d) Custom and legislation;
(e) Political stability;
(f) Workforce skill and product quality;
(g) Domestic perception (in the U.S.);
(h) Time value of money;
(i) Sub-optimality based on the limitation of software.
Last but not least, if you have any questions or concerns about the grades, please definitely send me an email and then we can find a time to talk.
Thank you again, Class! Wish you have a cool summer, :-)
Best,
Wen
Announced on 15 May 2013 7:44 a.m. by Wen Feng
Course Evaluation
Hi everyone!
I hope you all have enjoyed 15.763 and have an exciting summer planned! Prof. Simchi-Levi, Prof. Fine, Prof. Graves, Wen and I have all enjoyed having you in class, and we hope you benefited from the class as well. I would like to encourage you to fill out our course's online evaluation where you can provide feedback to each of us so we can improve the course and our teaching in the future. Both positive feedback and constructive criticism will be very useful to all of us.
I personally would love to be a professor one day and hope to be an effective teacher, so for those of you who have attended the few recitations / interacted with me, I would also be very appreciative of any feedback you can give me with regards to what is effective / what I can improve. I will certainly value your feedback, and I know the rest of the teaching team feels the same way.
The course evaluation can be found at http://web.mit.edu/subjectevaluation/evaluate.html and is available until next Monday at 9:00am.
Thanks so much for your help. Please note that our last class is tomorrow (Wednesday) and also that there will not be office hours today or recitation on Friday; please email me if you would like to meet this week or next week. Congratulations to those of you graduating, and see the rest of you next year!
All the best,
Kris
I hope you all have enjoyed 15.763 and have an exciting summer planned! Prof. Simchi-Levi, Prof. Fine, Prof. Graves, Wen and I have all enjoyed having you in class, and we hope you benefited from the class as well. I would like to encourage you to fill out our course's online evaluation where you can provide feedback to each of us so we can improve the course and our teaching in the future. Both positive feedback and constructive criticism will be very useful to all of us.
I personally would love to be a professor one day and hope to be an effective teacher, so for those of you who have attended the few recitations / interacted with me, I would also be very appreciative of any feedback you can give me with regards to what is effective / what I can improve. I will certainly value your feedback, and I know the rest of the teaching team feels the same way.
The course evaluation can be found at http://web.mit.edu/subjectevaluation/evaluate.html and is available until next Monday at 9:00am.
Thanks so much for your help. Please note that our last class is tomorrow (Wednesday) and also that there will not be office hours today or recitation on Friday; please email me if you would like to meet this week or next week. Congratulations to those of you graduating, and see the rest of you next year!
All the best,
Kris
Announced on 14 May 2013 10:58 a.m. by Kristine Dianne Johnson
Feedback on the CVS case
Hi Class!
We are happy to let you know that the CVS assignments have been graded and returned at the recitation of last Friday. If your team hasn't picked up yet, please do so before today's class. Below is our brief feedback:
1. The total score for this assignment is 20 points, and the average grade of 23 teams is 18.9, with a standard deviation of 1.3.
2. This assignment was graded based on the following four criteria:
(1) Problem Diagnostic (5 points): It was expected that you can identify at least four out of five major problems for CVS, namely lacking early triage, lacking process visibility, lacking real-time problem solving, lacking process measurement, and lacking process ownership.
(2) Improvement Suggestions (5 points): Corresponding to the problems identified above, it was expected that you can bring up useful and creative suggestions for each problem, with clear and sound reasoning. For example, drop-off, data entry, and insurance check can be integrated to improve efficiency and obtain data useful for the early triage of problems as well as for the measurement of process effectiveness.
(3) General Principles (5 points): Based on the above analysis for CVS, it was expected that you can refine a few general principles for process engineering, such as work division, demand segmentation, inventory management, delayed differentiation, ownership mentality, customer communication, etc., behind which the key idea is to understand customer needs and align your own resources (employees as process owners and information as process measurements) to these needs throughout the whole process. Please note that these principles should not simply repeat the previous suggestions, but intend to be more generalized on a higher level of abstraction.
(4) Overall Presentation (5 points): It was expected your answers will be logically structured and well organized. In addition, it was also expected that you can address some potential challenges for the implementation of your suggestions, such as financial cost, pharmacy safety, corporate culture, resistance to changes (referring to the "bathtub effects" from your system dynamics course), etc.
3. As your grades speak, the overall performance of this assignment was very good. However, we did observe that there was a common neglect (about 30% of the class) on the importance of ownership, teamwork, trust, respect, and other "behavioral" or "cultural" factors. Arguably, these human-related factors may be even more important than those technology-related factors (i.e., inventory management, IT infrastructure, etc.) in the CVS case.
4. We were glad to see a few teams had done very creative work in this assignment. For example, one team applied the framework of stakeholder analysis (employees as internal stakeholders and customers as external stakeholders) to guide their reasoning process for the CVS case.
As announced previously, I will have office hours from 3pm to 5pm, every Tuesday and Thursday, at Bldg 33 Room 409, to answer your questions and concerns about the grades. If the office hours are conflict with your schedule, please send me an email and we can find another time to talk.
Thanks a lot for your hard work!
Best,
Wen
We are happy to let you know that the CVS assignments have been graded and returned at the recitation of last Friday. If your team hasn't picked up yet, please do so before today's class. Below is our brief feedback:
1. The total score for this assignment is 20 points, and the average grade of 23 teams is 18.9, with a standard deviation of 1.3.
2. This assignment was graded based on the following four criteria:
(1) Problem Diagnostic (5 points): It was expected that you can identify at least four out of five major problems for CVS, namely lacking early triage, lacking process visibility, lacking real-time problem solving, lacking process measurement, and lacking process ownership.
(2) Improvement Suggestions (5 points): Corresponding to the problems identified above, it was expected that you can bring up useful and creative suggestions for each problem, with clear and sound reasoning. For example, drop-off, data entry, and insurance check can be integrated to improve efficiency and obtain data useful for the early triage of problems as well as for the measurement of process effectiveness.
(3) General Principles (5 points): Based on the above analysis for CVS, it was expected that you can refine a few general principles for process engineering, such as work division, demand segmentation, inventory management, delayed differentiation, ownership mentality, customer communication, etc., behind which the key idea is to understand customer needs and align your own resources (employees as process owners and information as process measurements) to these needs throughout the whole process. Please note that these principles should not simply repeat the previous suggestions, but intend to be more generalized on a higher level of abstraction.
(4) Overall Presentation (5 points): It was expected your answers will be logically structured and well organized. In addition, it was also expected that you can address some potential challenges for the implementation of your suggestions, such as financial cost, pharmacy safety, corporate culture, resistance to changes (referring to the "bathtub effects" from your system dynamics course), etc.
3. As your grades speak, the overall performance of this assignment was very good. However, we did observe that there was a common neglect (about 30% of the class) on the importance of ownership, teamwork, trust, respect, and other "behavioral" or "cultural" factors. Arguably, these human-related factors may be even more important than those technology-related factors (i.e., inventory management, IT infrastructure, etc.) in the CVS case.
4. We were glad to see a few teams had done very creative work in this assignment. For example, one team applied the framework of stakeholder analysis (employees as internal stakeholders and customers as external stakeholders) to guide their reasoning process for the CVS case.
As announced previously, I will have office hours from 3pm to 5pm, every Tuesday and Thursday, at Bldg 33 Room 409, to answer your questions and concerns about the grades. If the office hours are conflict with your schedule, please send me an email and we can find another time to talk.
Thanks a lot for your hard work!
Best,
Wen
Announced on 13 May 2013 4:54 a.m. by Wen Feng
