ow can financial and productivity measures be both good and bad for tracking a firm’s performance?

Take-home (Individual) Assignment
Submission due date: Mar 28 (Saturday) Maximum Marks: 80
Please provide short answers to the following questions.
Q1. Strategy trade-offs must be considered in operations. Describe what these might be for a high-quality automobile manufacturer and then a low-cost automobile manufacturer.
Q2. How can financial and productivity measures be both good and bad for tracking a firm’s performance?
Q3. How could Artificial Intelligence (AI) help to improve the quality of education (services) at AUS?
Q4. What OM tools/techniques could help the AUS management in launching a new service (distance/blended learning program)?
Q5. What are the main risks and opportunities associated with globalizing operations?
Q6. Describe key supply chain risks associated with an airline such as Emirates and suggest suitable risk mitigation strategies.
Q7. How is Coronavirus affecting the performance of operations across different businesses? Suggest suitable actions for an airline to cope with this situation.
Q8. What do you think are the main obstacles to successful supply chain management? Why?
Q9. As an operations manager, how would you improve the quality of education (services) at AUS.
Q10. Can noncritical activities (activities that are not on the critical path within the project network diagram) become critical? If so, how? How could a project manager deal with this issue?
(6 marks for each question: 1 mark for each valid and well-justified bullet point)
Case 1: Ethical Dilemma
As a buyer for a discount retail chain, you find yourself caught in a maelstrom. Just last month, your chain began selling an economy-priced line of clothing endorsed by a famous movie star. To be price competitive, you have followed the rest of the industry and sourced the clothing from a low-wage region of Asia. Initial sales have been brisk; however, the movie star has recently called you screaming and crying because an investigative news outlet has reported that the clothes with her name on them are being made by children.
Outraged, you fly to the outsourcing manufacturing facility only to find that conditions are not quite as clear-cut as the news had reported. You feel uncomfortable riding through the streets. Poverty is everywhere. Children are chasing foreigners and begging for money. When you enter the plant, you observe a very clean facility. The completely female workforce appears to be very industrious, but many of them do appear to be young. You confront the plant manager and explain your firm’s strict international sourcing policies. You demand to know why these girls aren’t in school. The manager provides the following response: “The truth is that some of these workers may be underage. We check IDs, but the use of falsified records is commonplace in this country. Plus, you don’t understand the alternatives. If you shut this plant down, you will literally take food off the table for these families. There are no other opportunities in this town at this time, and there’s no comprehensive welfare system in our country. As for the young women, school is not an option. In this town, only boys receive an education past the sixth grade. If you shut us down, these girls will be out on the street, begging, or stealing. Your business offers them a better existence. Please don’t take that away!”
Questions:
Q1. What do you say to your company, the movie star, the media, and the protestors picketing your stores?
Q2. Is the best option to shut down and try someplace else? Why?
Q3. Suggest suitable strategies to deal with this dilemma.
(10 marks)
Case 2: Let Slower Passengers Board Airplanes First
Commercial airlines often prioritize boarding for passengers traveling with small children, or for those who need extra assistance—in other words, those likely to be slower to stow their bags and take their seats—before starting to board the faster passengers. It’s counter-intuitive, but it turns out that letting slower passengers board first actually results in a more efficient process and less time before takeoff, according to new research in ARS Technica (Jan. 15, 2020).
Physicists have been puzzling over this particular optimization problem for several years now. While passengers all have reserved seats, they arrive at the gate in arbitrary order, and over the years, airlines have tried any number of boarding strategies to make the process as efficient and timely as possible. Flight delays have a ripple effect on the complex interconnected network of air travel and often result in extra costs and disgruntled passengers.
The new study found it’s actually 28% more efficient to let slower passengers board first. As boarding progresses, those at the tail-end of the slow group will still be getting settled as the first influx of fast people begins boarding. For instance, 3 or 4 fast people might take their seats in the time it takes a single slow person near the back of the aircraft to sit down. Having all the fast people board first means the last fast passenger is already seated before the first slow passenger gets settled.
To illustrate, use the well-known analogy of trying to pack rocks and sand in a jar. Put the sand in first and there won’t be much room left for the rocks. Put the larger rocks in first, and you can then pour in plenty of sand to fill in all the gaps around the rocks. “That’s the lesson of this latest result,” said one of the researchers. “If you’re going to pour a bunch of passengers into a vessel like this, and you’re dividing them up into slow people versus fast people, it’s better to get the slow people out of the way first and then let the fast people trickle in.”
Questions:
Q1. What other approaches have airlines attempted to speed boarding?
Q2. What process analysis tools do you think could be used to tackle this problem?
(10 marks)
Note:
• Please write in bullet points.
• You need to upload your assignment as a word document (doc file) onto iLearn.
• Although the submission deadline is indicated as Mar 28 (Saturday), there is no penalty for late submission.
• There is no penalty for grammatical mistakes.
• There is no class on Mar 25 (Wednesday); however, you may like to approach me (via email or Blackboard Collaborate Ultra) during the class timing for any assistance.