Om Case Approach

How to approcHarvard Business School

9-685-061

February 12, 1985

Note on How to Approach POM Cases

Many Production and Operations Management cases involve looking at an operating unit, diagnosing what if anything is wrong, and fixing the problems. Others involve making plans for the future. In these cases, there are six steps to follow. If in a given situation you are not sure where to start, then looking at this list should help. It is also a useful checklist for thorough analysis and recommendations in a real situation. These steps are only a recommendation. In any given case, one or more of the steps may be relatively straightforward or brief, and a different one may require most of the analysis and thinking. Sometimes you may start in the middle and work backwards. Solving POM problems is often more of an art than a science. Step 1. What does the operating unit have to do well? (For convenience I will talk as if the level of analysis is one operating unit, e.g. a single plant.) Usually this will mean looking at its product or service, looking at its customers to find out what elements of the product or service they value most highly (cost, reliability, features, fast delivery, product variety, etc.) and sometimes looking at competitors to see which market niches they have already filled up or where they are challenging the operating unit. Keep in mind that it is usually impossible to design an operating system to do everything better than its competitors. Step 2. Ask what’s wrong--that is, the symptoms which are causing concern to the management. These may be as vague as declining profits, or as specific as inventory up, or unacceptably high rework and scrap, or late deliveries. These are the symptoms which, if not corrected, will hurt the operating unit and the firm’s profitability and future viability. Step 3. Do a diagnosis of the underlying causes of these symptoms. This is where you will begin heavily using the specific analytical tools such as...