MG 423, Operations Management
Study Guide Chapters 1-5 and Chapter 10, Summer 2007
All formulas are provided for the test
1. Understand the importance of productivity to an organization and how organizations improve
productivity.
2. Understand how an organization develops a strategic plan to help them gain a competitive
advantage.
3. Understand how organizations compete and what could cause them to perform poorly or fail.
4. Understand the three functions of project management.
5. Understand the skills a project manager should possess.
6. Understand how to set up a project network using the AON method—determine paths, critical
path, ES, EF, LS, LF, and slack, and probability of completion. Problem
7. Understand how to calculate the expected time, variance, probability of completion and
critical path using PERT. Problem
8. Understand how to crash a project and determine the cost for crashing. Problem
9. Understand the importance of the forecasting process.
10. Understand the steps and elements to consider in the development of a good forecast.
11. Understand how to determine a forecast using naïve, moving average, weighted moving
average, and exponential smoothing and the concept of measuring forecast error. Problem
12. Understand how to determine a forecast using linear trend and seasonality. Problem
13. Understand how to calculate and use linear regression, coefficient of correlation, and
coefficient of determination. Problem
14. Understand the importance of manufacturability, value engineering, robust design, and
modular design.
15. Understand the techniques and factors organizations use in the design of services.
16. Understand how organizations develop new ideas for products and services and then how they
decide which ideas to pursue
17. Understand the importance and guidelines of creating ethical and environmentally friendly
designs.
18. Understand the relationship and importance of ergonomics and job design.
19. Understand the objective of human resource strategy and the various considerations to
achieve an effective HR strategy.
