Operations Management For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 4

Dealing with Shared Resources, Batches, and Rework

IN THIS CHAPTER

Assigning resources to multiple operations or processes

Understanding batch size and setups

Dealing with rework

Even the simplest processes can be difficult to analyze and manage, but some common situations make analysis even more challenging. For example, resources are often shared in a process or even across processes, and you must account for everything a resource does when calculating the resource’s work time.

In many processes, operations produce more than one item at a time or an operation produces several items before they progress to the next operation. For example, you don’t bake one cookie in the oven at a time; a batch of cookies bake together on one pan in the oven. In fact, you might place multiple pans of cookies in the oven at the same time. This is called batching. In a batching situation, a single resource is producing or serving more than one unit at the same time.

Another challenge of performance assessment involves process disruptions. Many things can happen to disrupt the smooth flow of parts through a process. One of the biggest is the production of poor quality products that require ...