Technology and Operations Management
Technology and Operations Management
Management
Nofie Iman
• Introduction
• The importance of operations
• Organizational function
• Role of productions in global economy
Contents
• Production vs. operations
• Ten strategic operations decisions
• Characteristics goods vs. service
• Productivity challenge
• Division of labor
• Contemporary issues in operations
Blind monks
examining
an elephant,
an ukiyo-e
print by
Hanabusa
Itchō (1652–
1724).
Why Study Operations Management?
• Operations management is one of three major functions (marketing,
finance, and operations) of any organization
• To know how goods and services are produced/delivered
• To understand what operations managers do
• Operations management is a costly part of an organization
• Operations management presents interesting career opportunities e.g.,
supply chain management (SCM), quality assurance (QA), process re-
engineering, etc
Costs of Quality
• Prevention costs - reducing
the potential for defects
• Appraisal costs - evaluating
products, parts, and services
• Internal failure costs -
producing defective parts or
service before delivery
• External failure costs - defects
discovered after delivery
Main Organizational Functions
Finance/
Marketing Operations
Accounting
Production Quality
Manufacturing Purchasing
Control Control
Commercial Bank
Finance/
Marketing Operations
Accounting
Finance/
Marketing Operations
Accounting
Operations
is managing the set of activities
that creates value in the form
of goods and services by
transforming inputs into
outputs
100 75 50 25 0 25 50 75 100
Percent of Product that is a Good Percent of Product that is a Service
Unless we could totally revise our every day’s perceptions of time and
performance, we could not live in such a world
Strategies That Win Customers
Strategy for Attracting What the Company Does to Implement Its
Company
Customers Strategy
Toyota Quality Cars perform reliably, have an appealing fit and finish,
and consistently meet or exceed customer
expectations at a competitive price
Save-A-Lot Low cost Foods and everyday items offered at savings up to 40
percent less than conventional food chains
Source: Ebert, R.J., Griffin, R. W. Business Essentials, 12th ed. (Pearson Education Ltd. 2019).
Strategies for Competitive Advantage
• Differentiation – better, or at least different
• Cost leadership – cheaper
• Response – more responsive
Source: Heizer, J., Render, B., Munson, C. Operations Management, 13th ed. (Pearson Education Ltd. 2020).
Strategies for Competitive Advantage
• Differentiation – better, or at least
•
different
Uniqueness can go beyond both the physical
• Cost leadership – cheaper characteristics and service attributes to encompass
everything that impacts customer's perception of
• Response – more responsive value
• Walt Disney Magic Kingdom – experience
differentiation
• Hard Rock Cafe – dining experience
• Engaging a customer with a product through
imaginative use of the five senses, so the customer
“experiences” the product
• Theme parks use sight, sound, smell, and participation
• Movie theatres use sight, sound, moving seats, smells,
and mists of rain
• Restaurants use music, smell, and open kitchens
Source: Heizer, J., Render, B., Munson, C. Operations Management, 13th ed. (Pearson Education Ltd. 2020).
Strategies for Competitive Advantage
• Differentiation – better, or at least different
• Cost leadership – cheaper
• Response – more responsive • Provide the maximum value as perceived by
customer. Does not imply low quality.
• Southwest Airlines – secondary airports,
no frills service, efficient utilization of
equipment
• Walmart – small overhead, shrinkage,
and distribution costs
Source: Heizer, J., Render, B., Munson, C. Operations Management, 13th ed. (Pearson Education Ltd. 2020).
Strategies for Competitive Advantage
• Differentiation – better, or at least different
• Cost leadership – cheaper
• Response – more responsive • Flexibility is matching market changes in
design innovation and volumes
• A way of life at Hewlett-Packard
• Reliability is meeting schedules
• German machine industry
• Quickness in design, production, and delivery
• Johnson Electric, Pizza Hut
Source: Heizer, J., Render, B., Munson, C. Operations Management, 13th ed. (Pearson Education Ltd. 2020).
Qualification Test
How to draw
a chicken
B
C
1. Draw a big circle from F3 to
D5 in light yellow color
D
2. Draw a second circle from
B4 to halfway E5 and F5
3. Draw two eyes between C4 E
and D5
4. Put a mouth just below
those two eyes
5. Put three rectangular with
rounded corner as the tail
6. Do not forget to put two
feet between F4 and G5 in
orange
7. Finally, put three red crest on
top of the B circle
F
G
Process Standardization
• Fundamentally, process standardization describes the establishment of a
set of rules governing how people in an organization are supposed to
complete a given task or sequence of tasks.
• Every task — regardless of how often you do it — requires rules that
define the scope, quality, and methods to be followed. If you don’t
standardize these rules, you can’t have visibility over whether you’re
ensuring quality and reducing human error.
• Your company’s operations consist of tasks that must be completed on a
daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis to ensure that it runs smoothly. But
if these processes aren’t standardized, you’re inviting chaos.
• When done well, standardization can decrease ambiguity and guesswork,
guarantee quality, boost productivity, and increase employee morale.
Quality and Strategy
• Managing quality supports differentiation, low cost, and response strategies
• Quality helps firms increase sales and reduce costs
• Building a quality organization is a demanding task
Defining Quality
• Quality control is an action of ensuring that operations produce products that meet
specific quality standards (Ebert, Griffin, 2019)
• An operations manager’s objective is to build a total quality management system
that identifies and satisfies customer needs (Heizer, Render, Munson, 2020)
• Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that
bears on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs (American Society for Quality)
• Total quality management encompasses entire organization from supplier to
customer – it stresses a commitment by management to have a continuing
companywide drive toward excellence in all aspects of products and services that are
important to the customer
Different Views of Quality
• User based: better performance, more features
• Manufacturing based: conformance to standards, making it right the first
time
• Product based: specific and measurable attributes of the product
Implications of Quality
• Company reputation
• Perception of new products
• Employment practices
• Supplier relations
• Product liability
• Reduce risk and cost
• Global implications
• Improved ability to compete
Operations Management as a Strategic Process
Source: Heizer, J., Render, B., Munson, C. Operations Management, 13th ed. (Pearson Education Ltd. 2020).
Quality Service and Process/
management product design capacity design
Maintenance
Quality Service and Process/
management product design capacity design
How do we define quality?
Maintenance
Quality Service and Process/
management product design capacity design What product or service
should we offer?
Maintenance
Quality Service and Process/
management product design capacity design
Maintenance
Quality Service and Process/
management product design capacity design
Supply-chain Inventory
Scheduling
Operation
Decisions
management management
Maintenance
Quality Service and Process/
management product design capacity design
Maintenance
Quality Service and Process/
management product design capacity design
Ten
Who are our good suppliers and
Human
how many should we have?
Location Layout design resources, job
design Strategic
Supply-chain Inventory
Scheduling
Operation
Decisions
management management
Maintenance
Quality Service and Process/
management product design capacity design
How much inventory of each
Maintenance
Quality Service and Process/
management product design capacity design Is subcontracting production
a good idea?
Supply-chain Inventory
Scheduling
Operation
Decisions
management management
Maintenance
Quality Service and Process/
management product design capacity design
Maintenance
Characteristics of goods
Tangible product
Can be inventoried
Characteristics of service
Intangible product (intangibility)
Often unique
Often knowledge-based
Frequently dispersed
Productivity
• Productivity is the amount of output produced compared with the
amount of resources used to produce that output
• Measure of process improvement
• Represents ratio of output to input
$1,000 100.00%
90.00%
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DevOps
Operate Continuous Dev/Test
Feedback
Mobile
Containers Deploy
Tooling
APIs
IoT Microservices
Cloud provides developers with instant access to the APIs, services and
infrastructure they need to launch their ideas into the present.
Technology Cycles
• Anderson and Tushman (1986) found that:
• A dominant design always rose to command the majority of market share
unless the next discontinuity arrived too early.
• The dominant design was never in the same form as the original
discontinuity but was also not on the leading edge of technology. It
bundled the features that would meet the needs of the majority of the
market.
• During the era of incremental change, firms often cease to invest
in learning about alternative designs and instead focus on
developing competencies related to the dominant design.
• This explains in part why incumbent firms may have difficulty
recognizing and reacting to a discontinuous technology.
Speeding Up Innovation
• Shrinking overhead costs and head counts reduces start-up costs
• Radical drop in cost of IT: WhatsApp has 450 million users and only 34 IT
engineers
• Non-rivalrous data use: Information derived from products can create
a collateral revenue stream
• Ads
• Using Facebook “likes” to predict behaviour
• Privacy issues
• User-co-invention: The ongoing, networked interaction of product
suppliers and users allows for a continual re-invention of the
product/business model
• Includes use of open-source software
• Users have flexibility in using product—play lists for music
Speeding Up Innovation
• Financial alternatives for funding innovation combines
experimentation and discovery model with new distribution
models:
• Crowd sourcing—traditional marketing yields to co-invention
• “The Store”—e.g., Apple and Amazon
• Alibaba — Alternative Funding Mechanism
• Batch-oriented production become more common, even in
mass production.
• Commercial scientific innovation processes are changing
• Emerald Therapeutics — networked robots operate lab testing equipment
More Complex Types and Patterns of
Innovation?
• BMW warns that new cars are networked—should information
about its performance be shared? Consumer privacy?
• Progressive Insurance: If you install a vehicle monitoring device,
good driving conduct (no sharp braking, less nighttime driving) will
yield discounts. Changes in valuation method and actuarial
practices?
• Facebook “likes” better predict consumer smoking and drug use
than other techniques—Facebook in insurance industry? Reshape
marketing and research industries?
Technological Ethics
• Would it be unethical to make learning addictive?
• Hint: TV, music, game, drug, pornography, gambling and
other industries do not understand the question
• Time=Value=Mind Share=Learning where the time goes,
the mind goes
Technological Ethics
• What about when we can digitally and elementally duplicate the
pleasurable to achieve the difficult?
• As we identify the electrochemical processes and stimulants that
are involved with pleasure, spirituality, comfort, fun, etc., will the
vice and commercial industries be the only ones willing and able
to use them?
• If we can make learning to solve quadratic equations feel like
eating junk food, gaming, and skateboarding all at once, what is
wrong with that?
Creative Deconstruction Destruction
• Modern science and technology
• Humanity’s Great Quest: Being able to observe, identify,
model, manipulate, create, form and combine the parts of
anything
• Cosmos, atoms, genes, cells, brains, bodies,
ecosystems, knowledge, work, processes, markets and
institutions
Key Effects of IT Age
• Digitalization • Globalization
• Automation • Mutation
• Robotization • Commoditization
• Miniaturization • Disintermediation
• Specialization • Modularization
• Customization • Technological
Determinism
Determinism: A Short Cut
• The long-term sneaky way to change the world without ever asking
permission or having to try to convince those who will be forced to
change and already hate the idea, whatever it is and no matter
what it is, before you even thought of it.
• Change key, interconnected tools, and the rest of the system will
change.
Technological
Determinism
• Technological systems are
interconnected webs.
• The history of such systems shows a
consistent repeating pattern.
• Changes in the speed, power or
complexity of one part causes
comparable changes in all other
parts to which it is connected.
The Internet and Social Interaction
Nofie Iman
Contents
• Inevitable changes
• Organizational responses
• Organizational ambidexterity
• Limited resources and retrofitting
• Tensions and truth/power dynamics
• Transformational challenges
• Transformational leadership
In a complex world, we face contingency, recursiveness, and indeterminacy, so we need
systems, organisations, or actors capable of learning by doing, of developing structures that
can react flexibly and adapt, and of ‘self-organising’ — Dietmar Braun (2003)
Type of Change The big change that happens to people no
matter what they do, such as technology,
politics, social change, pandemic, and so
forth.
Global
change
“Little and micro changes that All the “revolutionary”
assail us on an individual level”, change initiatives that
such as a loss of the security most organizations
that goes with a specific job, undertake to cope
lack of skills and stamina with the pressure of
needed for change, among environmental change
others. such as restructuring.
Type of
change Organi-
Personal
zational
change
change
Improvements Innovations
= Exploitation = Exploration
• Efficiency/Productivity • Shift in organizational model
• Reliability • Risk taking
• Incremental • Discontinuous
• Short-term performance • Long-term performance
High
Success Trap
Exploitation
Failure Trap
Low High
Exploration
§ Too much exploitation leads to success trap, and too much exploration leads
to failure trap (Levinthal & March, 1993).
§ Balancing is very difficult. Most businesses struggle to find the balance.
Types of Organizational
Ambidexterity
1. Sequential/cyclical ambidexterity
Temporal sequence of exploration and
exploitation (e.g., one follows the other)
2. Structural/spatial ambidexterity
Local or organizational separation of
exploration and exploitation (e.g., different
business units)
3. Contextual/integrative ambidexterity
Contextual balancing of exploration and
exploitation (e.g., simultaneous activities in one
organizational unit)
4. Intellectual ambidexterity
Cross-over capability or talent of single persons
Are we?
Locally
Rooted,
Globally
Respected
Mengakar
Kuat,
Menjulang
Tinggi
Dynamic Capability
• “The firm’s ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external
competences to address rapidly changing environments” (David J. Teece,
Gary Pisano, and Amy Shuen, 1997)
• Constantly reinventing the resource-base to maintain sustainable competitive
advantage.
• Three types of dynamic capabilities are needed:
• Learning: Employees need the capability to learn quickly. To do that, they need
common codes of communication and coordinated search procedures.
• Building New Assets: Firms need to quickly acquire, orchestrate and reconfigure
externally sourced resources
• Transforming Existing Assets: Reconfiguring current resources so that they can be
used in the new environment
What if changes happen too often?
What if we have limited resources?
Organizational Capacity Individual Competencies
• Information and evidence • Knowledge of context
• Supply of, and capacity to generate, information and evidence for • Including organizational, political and wider social context
issue analysis and for development and evaluation of policy
options • Knowledge of different disciplines
• Personnel management and workforce development • Including law, economics, accountancy, statistics, the social
sciences, project management and information technology
• Adequate supply of highly skilled policy personnel and
appropriate skill mix in policy units; supported by personnel • Comparative and historical knowledge
management and workforce development practices • Knowledge of systems and developments in other countries and
• Relationships with stakeholders ability to learn from them (facts, general principles, judgement)
• Formal and informal relationship with internal and external • Analytic skills
stakeholders, including capacity for timely and comprehensive • Ability to frame problems; appraise research evidence; evaluate
consultation policy options; predict likely consequences and evaluate risks
• Intergovernmental and cross-portfolio co-ordination • Practical skills of policy development and analysis
• Co-ordination within and between departments and between • Researching, drafting, consulting, evaluating, project management
different levels of government
• Implementation links • Personal attributes
• Communication skills; creativity, intuition and judgement
• Closer links between policy development and implementation (inventiveness, insight, foresight)
• Monitoring, evaluation and review
• Systematic processes for monitoring, evaluation and review which
are institutionally integrated with policy development
• Leadership and organizational culture
• Policy leadership (overall direction and policy frameworks);
strategic management of the policy process; culture characterized
by clarity of direction, innovation and preparedness to take risk,
teamwork and trust
substance articulacy
technocratic politic
elitist populist
Truth vs. Power Dynamics
Academics/
Professionals Administrators Politicians
Researchers
Academic Popular
consent as a consent as a
source of source of
authority authority
TRUTH POWER
Legitimate Illegitimate
claims for claims for
institutional institutional
autonomy autonomy
Adapted from Gustavsson (1984)
HiPPO is an acronym for the
“highest paid person’s opinion”
or the “highest paid person in
the office.” The acronym is used
to describe the tendency for
lower-paid employees to defer
to higher-paid employees
when a decision has to be
made.
Nofie Iman
Key Aspects
Knowledge Creation •KM helps in systematically capturing new ideas and research outcomes. In technology-driven operations,
KM ensures that valuable insights from R&D are documented and made available for future use.
•Employees in operations and technology often possess tacit knowledge (know-how, insights) that is not
and Capture formally documented. KM systems facilitate capturing this knowledge through interviews, debriefs, and
collaborative tools.
Knowledge •Implementing robust data management systems that categorize and store knowledge effectively. This
includes databases, document management systems, and content management systems that make
retrieval of information seamless.
Organization •Developing taxonomies and ontologies to classify knowledge in a way that aligns with the organization’s
operations and technological framework.
•Utilizing tools like intranets, knowledge repositories, and collaborative platforms (e.g., SharePoint,
•Integrating KM with decision support systems (DSS) to provide managers and employees with relevant
• Business System:
• A methodical procedure or process that is used as a
delivery mechanism for providing specific goods or
Systems- services to customers
• Plumbing analogy
Operational
Transaction Operational Level Managers &
Processing Decisions Staff
System
Generic System
Input Process Output Recipient
Manufacturing System
Raw Production Finished
Materials Line Products Customer
Information System
Raw Process/ Information Information
Data Database Products Consumer
Knowledge
Decision Making
Based upon: Strong, Lee and Wang (1997: 104); Wang (1998: 59) and Orna (1996)
Following on
Checkland and Howell (1997) Mutch (2008)
Traditional thinking
• Rather than information somehow emerging out of data and creating knowledge, it is
knowledge that suggests the data that we need and the information that we can draw from
it
• Data is not simply waiting to be found, but is created by the questions which we ask,
questions which can change with changing conditions
• We can view information as both a process and a product, although one helpful way of
viewing its would be as packaged knowledge
Enterprise Data
Relationships and Complexity
Customers
Operations
Personnel
Vendors
Inventory
Products Sales
Locations Financials
Marketing Technology
Industry
Robison (2010)
Enterprise Resource Planning
Managers and
stakeholders
Reporting
applications
Financial
appliactions
Sales and
delivery
applications
Service
applications
Inventory
Human and supply
resource applications
management
appications
Employees
Data Disaster
Research findings and horror stories
Innovation and Continuous • Fostering a culture of continuous improvement and innovation by leveraging
Improvement shared knowledge and collaborative problem-solving.
Explicit
• Codified in blueprints, designs, drawings “We know more
and specifications
than we can tell.”
• Knowledge of rationality (mind)
Polanyi, M. (1967)
• Sequential knowledge (there and then)
• Digital knowledge (theory)
Tacit
• Uncodified, kept in human brains
• Knowledge of experience (body)
• Simultaneous knowledge (here and now)
• Analogy knowledge (practice)
Knowledge Management Cycles
Knowledge Cycle
Embed
Product/ Knowledge Organize/
Create Store
Process Repository
Share/
Use/Exploit Disseminate
Diffuse Access
Creation
Acquisition
Knowledge Integration
Management
Cycle Learning
Categorization
Utilization Storage
Dissemination
Ernst & Young’s Framework for
Knowledge Management
Storage
• Input, Purge
• Archive, Abstract Deploy
Acquire • Index, Catalog • On-demand
• Engagement • Coordinate • Repeatable
based • Content • Event-based
• Non • Subscription
engagement Add Value
based • Commercialize
• Identify needs
• External • Monitor usage
• Research
• Measure
• Develop
satisfaction
proprietary
• Package
Provide Infrastructure
Organization - Culture - Technology - Public Relations
Source: Ernst & Young, and “A Note on Knowledge Management,” Harvard Business School 9-398-031, 1997
Knowledge Management Framework
A structure that Serves as a strategic Allow for the Facilitate the Help organizations
provides guidance roadmap for effective capture management of to better understand
and support for managing, creating, and leveraging of tacit knowledge, the relationship
managing, creating, and distributing knowledge assets, which between knowledge
and distributing various forms of resulting in encompasses and innovation.
organizational knowledge within an enhanced transferable skills,
knowledge. organization. productivity, best practices, and
engaged employees, industry expertise in
and overall success. employees' minds
and experiences
To
Knowledge Tacit
Socialization Externalization
Management knowledge
From
Internalization Combination
1+1
Explicit
knowledge
Linking
Field Explicit
Building Knowledge
Internalization Combination
Learning by Doing
Source: Knowledge-Creating Company, p. 71.
Challenges in Building Knowledge Management Systems
Knowledge evaluation —
Culture — getting people to
assessing the worth of
share knowledge
knowledge across the firm
Knowledge implementation —
Knowledge processing — organizing knowledge and
documenting how decisions integrating it with the
are reached processing strategy for final
deployment
50
Not Only in Operations, but
Promoting Innovation
• Innovation is closely related to knowledge management
because innovation often requires the application of new
knowledge or the combination of existing knowledge in
new ways.
• Existing research suggests that knowledge management
has a positive influence on innovation, but there is limited
research on how knowledge mechanisms interact with
innovation processes.
• By further exploring this relationship, organizations can
develop more effective strategies for managing knowledge
to support innovation.
Why Does It Matter?
Innovation relies heavily on the effective Knowledge management practices such Conversely, innovation can also
management of knowledge assets. as knowledge sharing platforms, contribute to knowledge creation and
Knowledge about market trends, communities of practice, and lessons accumulation. Through experimentation,
customer needs, technological learned repositories facilitate idea research, and development efforts,
advancements, and internal processes generation, collaboration, and learning organizations generate new insights and
fuels the innovation process. within organizations, thus fostering a expertise that can be captured and
culture of innovation. incorporated into the knowledge
management framework.
Knowledge vs. Technology
What is technology? What is knowledge?
“The combination of human “Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed
understanding of natural laws and experience, values, contextual
phenomena accumulated since
ancient times to make things that information, and expert insight that
fulfil our needs and desires.” provide a framework for evaluating and
incorporating new experiences and
information.”
• Technique
• Knowledge ◼ Truth
• Organisation ◼ Believes
• Product (four closely-linked ◼ Perspectives
elements)
◼ Concepts
◼ Judgments
◼ Expectation
◼ Methodologies
◼ Know-how
What Is Technology Transfer?
From transfer
and
practice
technology transfer cannot
happen without knowledge
transfer
Knowledge
of economic
development. Certain
aspects of knowledge Medium
Development
Relationship (notional hypotheses) between knowledge transfer and economic growth
Relationship “Knowledge transfer is not obtainable
Knowledge and
Tacit Knowledge
Relationship (notional hypotheses) between tacit knowledge transfer and explicit knowledge transfer
Knowledge Transfer Process
New knowledge is
unlikely to deliver its full Transferor
potential if it remains with
the originators in an
organization-it needs to be Knowledge
transferred to others.
Knowledge
Explicit Tacit
Channels
•Conferences •On the job training
Explicit Tacit
Knowledge
Transferee
Tacit Knowledge Transfer
Cultural Barriers • Overcoming resistance to sharing knowledge, which can stem from a
culture of hoarding information or lack of trust.
Quality of Knowledge • Maintaining the accuracy, relevance, and up-to-date status of the
knowledge within the system.
Explicit No need to
Technique convert
Knowledge
Tacit Need to
Organization convert
Knowledge
Channel blocked?
Un-blockage ?
IP strategy?
Tacit Knowledge Transfer Is Achievable if …
Leadership Support • Securing commitment from top management to foster a culture that
values and promotes knowledge sharing and utilization.
Training and • Providing training to employees on the importance of KM and how to use
Incentives KM tools, and creating incentive programs to reward knowledge sharing.
Continuous • Regularly reviewing and updating KM practices and tools to ensure they
meet the evolving needs of the organization and its technology
Improvement landscape.
Danke schön
Until next time
Meme Your Knowledge
Gap!
• Objective: Identify gaps in knowledge sharing within organizations
and how to solve them.
• Students create original and interesting memes that related to
knowledge management failures (e.g., communication gaps, outdated
procedures, inaccessible information) or operational settings.
• Students must accompany the meme with a short explanation
(tweet-sized).
• Email me today. The most creative yet insightful meme gets
highlighted.