Production and Operation Management

The production and operation management topic that I choose to do for my project is the preparation of making coffee in the morning. What is exactly the definition of Production and Operations Management, it is a system that provides tools, techniques, concepts, models, ideas, design, dimension, control, and to improve production systems. In the production system first you have your inputs which consist of the materials, capital, labor and managing resources. The inputs then turn into a transformation process, which in this paper is the production of coffee. After the organization you get your final output which consists of the goods and services. When I prepare coffee in the morning I have to perform different operations and make different decisions. Throughout this paper I will review these operations and decisions and draw a parallel between the problems the coffee maker faces and those faced by a production manager in a company.

The first part in the coffee making process or in the production process is scheduling. So, I ask myself “When do I need to make the coffee?” I choose to start making the coffee before I take a shower in the morning, that way it will be ready for me when I get out of the shower. In this step I must schedule the production of coffee and the other activities. In a company you need to organize the different activities (sequence, priority,…). Companies differentiate based on product volume and product variety. Differentiation affects how the company organizes its operations, each kind of company operation needs different scheduling techniques. Scheduling has specific definitions for routing, bottle neck, due date, slack and queue.

The second part is deciding the location. I have to ask “where is the coffee machine at?” Usually, the coffee machine is in the kitchen where you get the water and drink the coffee. You locate the production system where the raw materials are located and where you use the finished products. Also, I have to...