ABSTRACT

In this chapter you will learn to:

Identify and explain each of the three tactical strategies.

Describe the steps used to conduct managerial diagnosis and intervention implementation.

Describe productivity control and output productivity interventions.

Describe production systems contained within functional departments.

In The Real World

A friend of yours from school, Kelly, has been engaged in an internship at a theme park for the past three months. She has been working alongside a very experienced manager, Jeremy, who never seems to be satisfied with the current state of his operations.

One day you meet with Kelly at the park for lunch. You ask her how the internship is going. She sighs and begins by saying, ‘You know, when I first started working with Jeremy, I thought he was the most negative person I ever met. But over time, I realized he is just into continuous improvement for his operation. The guy is so good at diagnosing and implementing productivity interventions.’ You ask her, ‘What is that?’ Kelly smiles and says, ‘It’s when you constantly tweak some part of the operation to make it more efficient and effective. Jeremy has shown all sorts of ways to do this. In fact, this Friday we are going to sit down and review our accomplishments. I’m a little nervous about that,’ Kelly finishes.

A week has passed since you last spoke with Kelly. You run into her at school and ask about the review of accomplishments session went on her internship with Jeremy. Kelly smiles and says, ‘It was awesome! I couldn’t believe how many things we accomplished in just three months of work.’ You smile back and ask, ‘Like what?’ ‘Well,’ she responds, ‘We lowered labor expenses through cross-training and scheduling revisions. We also implemented some great controls for material resources. Another thing we did was to expedite new-hire departmental training to get workers into their positions quicker.’ ‘Wow,’ you say, ‘Those are some great accomplishments!’ Kelly looks at you and says, ‘That is just the beginning.’ She continues, ‘We streamlined a lot of our production systems to save costs and enhance outputs. Our repeat guest count went up significantly and we improved sales dollars per employee by an average of 5%.’

You smile at Kelly and say, ‘You know, you are starting to sound like a seasoned veteran of management.’ ‘I know,’ she says, ‘I’m starting to feel like one. In fact, Jeremy’s parting words to me were, “Congratulations, you have learned to be an effective and efficient value-added manager.” ’