Employing Important techniques used in Operations

Employing Important
Techniques Used in Operations Management 
Working individually, students will demonstrate competency in operations
management by analyzing three operations management techniques and
applying them to improve Acme Mexico City's operations in an integrated
report.
Two of the techniques are mandatory. They are:
•Ã¯â‚¬Â Data-driven decision-making aka data analytics
•Ã¯â‚¬Â Linear programming
The student will select the third technique from the following list:
•Ã¯â‚¬Â Decision support systems
•Ã¯â‚¬Â Outsourcing to include offshoring, reshoring, and nextshoring
•Ã¯â‚¬Â Sustainable supply chain management
The student will submit a report in pdf format that integrates their three analyses
and the applications to Acme Mexico City.
Follow the format provided for text assignments in this course.
Specifically, include an executive summary.
Critical thinking, information literacy, problem solving, systems thinking, and
technology fluency are required.
Assignment
Within your analyses on the first - Data-driven decision-making aka data
analytics -
and third - your choice of one from among
•Ã¯â‚¬Â Decision support systems
•Ã¯â‚¬Â Outsourcing to include offshoring, reshoring, and nextshoring
•Ã¯â‚¬Â Sustainable supply chain management
- techniques, address the following:
•Ã¯â‚¬Â What is the general purpose of the technique?
•Ã¯â‚¬Â How does or should this help operations in general?
•Ã¯â‚¬Â What are the limitations of the technique?
•Ã¯â‚¬Â What are the costs involved? What training is needed to use the
technique? What else is needed?
•Ã¯â‚¬Â At Acme Mexico City, what is the problem, opportunity, or challenge that
this technique can address?
•Ã¯â‚¬Â How will the technique help Acme Mexico City's operations? Why?
•Ã¯â‚¬Â What would be the areas that present challenges in the approach
(e.g., cost, personnel, training, culture, technology, management
commitment, etc.?)
Within your analysis on linear programming applied at Acme Mexico City,
address the following:
•Ã¯â‚¬Â What is the recommended low-cost (not necessarily the minimum cost)
customer service employee daily assignment schedule?
•Ã¯â‚¬Â What are your underlying assumptions and any qualitative factors that you
believe are involved?
•Ã¯â‚¬Â How might non-typical days affect the schedule?
Optionally, and for extra points to be determined by your section professor,
provide a sensitivity analysis that shows how relaxation of the 50% constraint
on the hours worked by part-time customer service employees might affect the
daily personnel costs.
The following information is provided for your use in this linear programming
analysis:
To the extent permitted by local law, each Acme Home Improvements store,
including Acme Mexico City, is open from 7 am - 11 pm every day.
Acme Mexico City advance planners in North Carolina have provided the
following table, which identifies the minimum number of customer service
employees estimated to be needed on the floor of the store each hour of a typical
work day:
Customer Service Employees

 
In the interest of cost control, the planners have also imposed a not-to-exceed
maximum of 30 customer service employees on the floor at any time.
Full-time customer service employees at AMC work a 9 hour shift (8 hours of
work plus a 1 hour meal break) either from 7 am to 4 pm or from 2 pm to 11 pm.
Workers on the 7-4 shift are assigned an hour-long lunch break at either 11 am
or 12 noon. Workers on the 2-11 shift are assigned an hour-long dinner break at
either 5 pm or 6 pm.
Part-time customer service employees work four consecutive hours per day and
their shifts can start any hour between 7 am and 7 pm. They receive no meal
breaks.
By company policy, which is consistent with Mexican labor law, the company
limits the hours worked by part-time customer service employees to 50% of the
day's total scheduled hours.
Part-time customer service employees earn $500 per day, and full-time customer
service employees earn $1100 per day in salary and benefits (here, $ = Moneda
Nacional, i.e., the Mexican peso).
Acme operations analysts working in North Carolina, working with the AMC
advance planners, have used linear programming to propose in accordance with
the foregoing factors, an employee assignment schedule for a typical day. Their
proposed schedule is the following item in Course Content. You may elect
to recommend this schedule or to recommend o