Operations Management: Strategy and Quality Management for the Digital Age

In this module, after introducing the concept of operations strategy, we specifically investigate different levels of strategy, including operations strategy, and how the different types of strategy are intertwined and must be aligned for the company to be successful. We will explain how operations strategy is formulated using a five-step process. You will learn key terms such as order qualifiers, which are the minimum must-have attributes that companies need to provide to the customers, and order winners, which allow the company to win customers. You will learn the concept of strategic focus and the need for strategic trade-offs. You will also learn the competing theory of cumulative capabilities and a way to reconcile the two.

In this module, we will learn how service quality is the result of a customer’s journey before, during, and after a service experience, and how a customer’s expectations, experience, and the gap between the two affect a customer’s satisfaction. We will analyze this satisfaction gap to understand why it may arise due to misalignments between the customers’ and service providers’ understanding of the customer need. We will then learn about the five dimensions of service quality used by a popular measurement technique called SERVQUAL to measure service quality. Next, we will discuss how service failures arise and ways to recover from such failures.Finally, we will see how service operations are being disrupted by new technologies and new business models.

In Module 3, we will learn about common and special-cause variations and the role of statistical control charts in identifying them. We will focus on three common control charts, the p-chart, the c-chart, and the Xbar-R chart. We will learn when each type of chart is used, and how they are constructed and interpreted. Using statistical methods, we will learn to recognize if processes are capable of meeting customer specifications. Finally, we will consider how newly emerging technologies are making it possible to extensively and routinely use the techniques of statistical process control.