IME 5050 - Continuous Improvement in Operations

Catalog Data:

The purpose of this course is to introduce business and engineering students as well as managers to the process of kaizen (continuous improvement) and Total Employee Involvement.

Prerequisites by topic:

  1. Principles of objective presentation of factual material, logical organization,
    summarization, ethical practices, information gathering techniques, oral
    communications, and listening through practical applications. (IME 1020).
  2. Basic knowledge of spreadsheets, drafting software, presentation software,
    World Wide Web, and e-mail.
  3. Basic knowledge of statistics; mean, standard deviation, and percentiles.

Textbook:

  • Nicholas, J. M. (1998). Competitive Manufacturing Management. Irwin/McGraw-Hill Publishing, NY.

Reading:

Kearns, D. T., Nadler, D. A. (1992). Prophets in the Dark: How Xerox Reinvented Itself and Beat Back the Japanese. Harper Business, a division of Harper Collins Publishers, NY.

Objectives:
In accordance with the above stated course description, at the conclusion of the semester the students should have the ability to :
  1. Perform essential functions of production management (j).
  2. Manage interpersonal work relationships (I,g).
  3. Improve operations for a given work situation (c,k,f,h).

Performance Criteria:

The student will be able to:

Objective 1

  1. Accurately apply standard problem solving techniques to multiple types of work environments. (1,3,4,5)
  2. Determine the appropriate type of chart to use to solve problems identified in objective 1.1 (1,3,4,5)
  3. Accurately interpret data gathered from charts. (1,3,4,5)

Objective 2

  1. Collect reliable and reproducible data on humans and workstations. (2,3,4,5)
  2. Accurately interpret the statistical meaning of data gathered on humans. (2,4,5)
  3. Understand the ramifications (ethical and legal) of making appropriate recommendations in the workplace. (2,5)

Objective 3

  1. Accurately perform time studies on manual, semi-automated, and automated tasks. (4,5)
  2. Accurately perform work-sampling studies on manual and semi automated tasks. (4,5)
  3. Accurately apply predetermined time study techniques to justify recommendations. (4,5)
 
Revision Date: Fall 2004
 

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Department
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo MI 49008-5336 USA
(269) 276-3350 | (269) 276-3353 Fax

 

 

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