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Appropriate for courses in operations management and process improvement. This technical note explains how to utilize process maps as tools to show workflow steps, clarify process expectations and responsibilities, and see possibilities for eliminating waste and redundancy. The note details when to use basic process mapping tools, why they work, and how to apply them. The note presents four types: Process Flowchart Map, Swim Lane Flowchart Map, Suppliers-Inputs-Process-Outputs-Customers (SIPOC) Tool, and Value Stream Map.

Appropriate for general management courses emphasizing lean operations strategy implementation and large-scale change management across a network of global manufacturing facilities. In this case, site-level leadership, including senior, midlevel, and supervisory positions, must respond to a critical corporate directive to achieve a 25% cost reduction. Under the direction of an advisory firm, the development and implementation of an operational Transformation strategy is the responsibility of the new VP of operations. Three key elements of the Operational Excellence Transformation Program are described in detail and year-one progress in three first-wave sites is presented through interviews. Students must critique the progress and offer suggestions for the VP, who must evaluate the results at the three sites and plan for a continuation of the rollout across other sites. A teaching note (OM-1400TN) is available.

Appropriate for courses in operations management and leadership. Owners and employees of this company spent considerable time and effort developing a unique, extremely successful high-performance work-place culture based on trust and a decentralized structure. Individuals and teams managed their areas with little direct supervision from middle and upper management. Some managers, based on sales opportunities with new, large, and demanding customers, felt that it was essential to consider how a Lean or Six Sigma program could be blended into their work-place culture. But other managers were concerned about altering what was already successful. A teaching note (OM-1393TN) is available.

Appropriate for general management courses emphasizing operations strategy and senior leadership. Senior leadership in a company's global manufacturing department must respond to the critical senior management directive to achieve a 25% cost reduction. Under the direction of an advisory firm, an operational transformation strategy is developed and implementation is underway in the company's global network of 28 sites. Elements of the transformational program, including leadership challenges and progress after one year of implementation are presented. Students are asked to critique the progress and offer suggestions for the new vice president, who has recently been tasked with continuing a successful program rollout.

Appropriate for marketing and operations management courses. The director of CS at a customer-focused catalog electronics company has asked a Six Sigma Black Belt for assistance in evaluating several ideas to effectively obtain and analyze feedback from users of its CS department. A Design For Six Sigma project was run six years previously and discovering why the company used the Six Sigma project, as opposed to one of the many new customer-satisfaction-survey tools available from third-party vendors is a goal. Students are asked to discuss the Design For Six Sigma methodology as it applies to the project.

This B case, which accompanies "Hudson's Seafood Corporation (A)" (UVA-OM-0875), is ideal for use in service- and operations-management business courses. It presents the business decision made by an owner who has considered which option to focus on for each of his two restaurants: a distinctive service package or reshaping one restaurant around the market currently being successfully served by its sister restaurant. A teaching note (UVA-OM-0875TN) that includes video from the era when the A case was written is available to support both cases in this set.

This case is appropriate for courses that focus on the areas of environmental sustainability and systems thinking. Students explore how the structure and information flows in the shrimp industry can create boom and bust performance. Key decision-making policies by industry participants and public administrators are designed and tested for improving industry performance through an in-class simulation. The A case (UV3569) serves as background.

This case fits with courses that have a focus on environmental sustainability and systems thinking, which help students conceptualize and formulate policy recommendations in industries dependent on the conservation of natural resources. Students are asked to construct a stock-flow map that depicts the interactions between markets, pricing, production, policy, and environment impacts. Class discussion explores stakeholder perspectives and compares student maps to an actual map constructed by a consultant working in the shrimp industry. Followed by a B case [OM-1389] and a systems simulation model available for further exploration of the issues surrounding the design and testing of policy to improve industry performance.

Cycle-stock ordering decisions, including cost-element considerations, are examined. As materials flow from suppliers through a firm's operations to customers, the cost-effectiveness of inventory investment is improved by the development and implementation of an inventory management system.

Inventory replenishment concepts and tools are described.

This overview of inventory management covers ways to categorize inventories and measure performance. The financial implications of inventory, inventory management systems, economic order quantities, and decision rules for determining safety stocks are discussed.

This case focuses on the application of Value Stream Mapping as a means of identifying waste in a supplier's logistics- services activities. Students are given the information needed to construct a Value Steam Map, identify value-added and non-value-added activities, and develop opportunities for reaching 50% improvement in throughput time. It is based on the case Supplier Development at SysInteg (A), about a summer intern in the Supplier Development department at XS Inc. who is participating in a two-day Value Stream Mapping (VSM) event at a key supplier's facility--SysInteg.

This file contains slides that show the elements chosen by the senior management and consultants to re-engage and re-launch the lean journey at Wausau Equipment Company, following its original failed implementation and necessitated by implementation and acceptance problems at the management level.

A manufacturing company with a solid reputation for excellent service and quality and a command-and-control style of management with little communication across the organization decides to undertake a lean transformation, working closely with Lean Dynamics, a management consulting group with extensive lean-implementation experience. The challenges the company faces are examined in detail as are the lean implementation process, tools, and practices. But little progress has been made by the end of the second cycle of a three-improvement-process cycle. Students are asked to reflect on various aspects of the case and describe alternative solutions and actions that they might have taken by placing themselves in the role of the CEO, division president, or consultant.

The lean initiative detailed in the (A) case, UV1079, had reached a precarious stage. Despite an optimistic business forecast, there was a disturbing trend developing: the Machine and Systems division of Wausau Equipment Company (WECO) had failed to sell several harvesting systems to customers previously thought to be reliable buyers. It also appeared that the competition was making important inroads in what was traditionally "WECO country." The first wave of improvements made by the eight teams with regard to quality, productivity, and cycle-time reduction was not yet having any impact in the field. Team member enthusiasm to re-engage in the next improvement cycles had waned, yet some managers, supervisors and team leaders voiced strong support for the lean initiative. Pressure to cut costs was growing, and the lean initiative was increasingly seen by some as unnecessary and even wasteful. If the lean initiative were restarted, what could be done to ensure that it was effective and sustainable and what areas of the enterprise should be included? The president of WECO had to develop an agenda for the coming staff meeting, where he hoped to guide discussion toward the future of the lean initiative at his company.

This technical note requires students to define and describe a practical application deploying the 5S process steps of lean thinking methodology: Sort, Set in Order, Shine to help future business managers organize, create new habits, and visually control a personal area or workplace setting in order to eliminate waste in the activities undertaken by one or more individuals. The note provides guidance for students to document their 5S journey, reflect their on their learning, and then summarize the experience.

Business entities must continually respond to shifts in the competitive landscape. When internal or external pressures cause a company to undertake an operational improvement process such as Six Sigma or Lean, managing the human aspects of implementation is critical. Change management in an operational-improvement setting can be challenging; however, it is well worth understanding and utilizing the appropriate tools and the FEEL-SEE-DO-PRACTICE-OBSERVE iteration. Ultimately, the robustness of an organization may be due in large part to its ability to build a continuous-improvement cycle solidly into the infrastructure of its culture and operations.

A summer intern in the Supplier Development department at XS Inc. is participating in a two-day Value Stream Mapping (VSM) event at SysInteg. This is his first chance to put his knowledge of lean principles and tools into practice working with a key supplier. As this is XS's first time sponsoring an improvement initiative led by a third party, it was under tight scrutiny by the XS corporate-level senior management. XS saw this as an opportunity to deploy external lean experts as some members of senior management were skeptical about the lack of oversight on milestones, performance management, or (supplier) resource allocation; however the intern is concerned that a poor performance at SysInteg would affect his chances for future employment at XS. After today's event at SysInteg, he is expected to establish a communication plan and identify stakeholders for each future VSM event.

In the nearly 30 years since it was introduced, Six Sigma has evolved to mean different things in different circumstances and in different organizations, so that now it is difficult to identify a single, universally accepted definition. The purpose of this note is to provide a basic overview of Six Sigma by explaining its underlying principles and most commonly utilized methods while providing a brief review of its history. Finally, this note provides a brief summary of a Six Sigma case study illustrating the practical application of Six Sigma.

Students' preparations and first-class discussions focus on the key resources, factors, and relationships that could be causing the poor performance of the student-run consulting organization. Students should develop a causal-loop diagram showing the key resources, feedback relationships, and delays in the system. As a follow up assignment, sufficient information is available for the students to develop a system simulation model. Instructors can choose an alternate assignment requesting students to evaluate and utilize a simulation model developed by the authors. Systems-intervention analysis and policy testing is expected once a valid model is developed or given to the students. Instructors should contact Professor Robert D. Landel at the Darden School for free use of the model.