Question 1:

DMart is a well-known retail chain that has gained popularity for its DMart ready service,
an online platform for grocery shopping. One of the critical aspects that contribute to its
success is its robust inventory management system. Describe the concept of DMart
Ready and how it differs from the traditional DMart physical stores by listing down the
various inventory management techniques prevalent in the retail industry. Also, discuss
the key components and strategies employed by DMart Ready in its inventory
management system to ensure efficient operations and customer satisfaction.

Answer: -
Introduction: Inventory management:
The term inventory refers to any idle resource that has been put or stored for future
uses. Several manufacturing and service organizations have significantly invested in
inventory. Investment in inventory has a direct bearing on the profitability of a company.
In the last twenty years of experience it has been suggested that the world-class
performance of a firm relies on the firm’s ability to cut investment in inventory to very low
levels.
Automobile assembly plants and component manufacturers are known to carry very
little inventory and yet provide good quality finished goods at the right time. Also cutting
down inventory carrying cost, and optimizing inventory levels could help an organization
to improve on its quality, planning systems, and supply chain coordination. They also
reduce wastage and obsolescence. Therefore, inventory planning and control remains
to derive significant attention of the management in organizations.

Concept & Application:-

In manufacturing organizations, finished goods and spare parts typically belong to the
category of independent demand items. While planning for a needy demand item is
done to meet manufacturing requirements, in the case of independent demand items it
is done to meet customer requirements. Two attributes distinguish independent demand
items: They are in continuous demand, and there is an element of considerable
insecurity in the demand for such items.
In case of sudden shortages of an item at a location, the corporate office could advise
another location to transfer stocks because it knew the safety stocks at each location.
The corporate office advises the purchase departments at the units on the following:
1. What to order?
2. How much to order?
3. When to order?
4. On whom to place the order?
5. What should be the delivery date?
6. What will be the price?
On receipt of this, the purchase department at the operating units took the responsibility
for the procurement of items based on the advice and subsequently made the payment
to suppliers. For the corporate office to take decisions on these items, it needed the
following:
1. Stock levels of every items under inventory management.
2. The production plan for the following month.
3. The maximum and the minimum stock levels to be maintained for each item.
4. The previous month’s consumption.
The operating unit provided the information belong to Item 1. Items 3 and 4 were policy
decisions made at the concerned corporate office based on historical data and future
plans and Item 2 was market-related information that was forecast.
Managing inventory invariably amounts to handling a large number and variety of items.
For instance, an online shopping platform such as D-Mart may have an inventory of
about 50,000 items in their stores. A vast majority of them will be consumed and will
require a mechanism for monitoring inventory on-hand, establishing reorder points,
order quantity, and the type of inventory control system that needs to be adopted.
Noticeably, establishing the same level of inventory monitoring and controlling for all the
items may not be practically feasible. Therefore, organizations devise suitable ways of
categorizing the items and adopt mechanisms that have variable levels of control on the
different categories of items.
A good inventory management does not happen only because of good inventory
planning tools. Organizations need to take several measures to optimize the inventory.
A frequently faced issue is part number creation. Over many years, organizations
creates a vast number of part numbers and managing such a large variety of parts in
inventory could be a extraordinary task. Efforts to reduce part numbers by variant
reduction measures are an important aspect of better inventory management.
Similarly, an organization having several manufacturing/service divisions must engage
in inter-divisional joint planning efforts towards standardization of classification and
coding systems and stock holding of expensive items such as capital spares.
Conclusion:-
Opportunities for better inventory control and management often exist outside of the
materials management function in organizations.
An inventory planner should take all the above points into consideration while actively
pursuing the models. Such an approach will ensure greater chances of reducing
inventory in the system.

Question 2:
Explain the fundamental concept of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) and its significance
in optimizing manufacturing processes. Considering a suitable example, describe the
key principles of the TOC philosophy and how it can be applied to synchronous
manufacturing to enhance production scheduling. Also illustrate how the concept of
DBR helps in improving overall system performance, reducing lead times, and
increasing throughput in manufacturing environments (Assume any industry)

Introduction: Theory of Constraints (TOC) and its significance in optimizing

manufacturing processes
In every organization, operations management requires planning and control at
many levels and time perspectives. Arrangement of an operations system at the right
location and choice of suitable process and product designs are issues associated with
the long term. On the other hand, aggregate planning, material and capacity
requirements planning are issues associated with the medium term. In the same
manner, there is a mass of issues that one needs to address in short term planning.
Focusing on planning and control issues associated with the short term. In the short
term, there is more importance on operational control than planning. This does not
involve that there is no planning involved.
In general, a majority of manufacturing and service organizations would involve a
horizon ranging from a day to week or two. In some special cases, “short term” may
mean a few hours or a shift, as in the case of a power transmission fi rm or an event
management firm. Let’s discuss about this in detailed in the concept and application.

Concept & Application:-

The fundamental concept of Theory of Constraints (TOC) are follows
• The importance of scheduling in operations management
• Scheduling an operation in a shop. Algorithms used for flow-shop scheduling
• How scheduling is done in a job shop?
• Operational control issues in mass production systems
• Scheduling using the principles of the theory of constraints

Synchronous Manufacturing:
Synchronous manufacturing focusses on synchronizing flow rather than on balancing
capacities. It is important to plan the scheduling and control of the entire manufacturing
system based on the availability of resources. The below definitions are common in
synchronous manufacturing writing.
Bottleneck resource: Resources which has its capacity that is equal to or less than the
demand placed on it is called as bottleneck resource. On the contrary, any resource
whose capacity is more than the demand placed on it is a non-bottleneck resource.
Capacity constrained resource (CCR): In a manufacturing system it is observed that
some resources can significantly deviate the product flow, from the planned flow, if not
properly scheduled.
Activation of a resource: Activation purely refers to the deployment of a manufacturing
resource to process materials. Just processing material may not in itself guarantee
increase in output.
Utilization of a resource: Utilization refers to the activation of a manufacturing
resource that will lead to improving the output.
Process batch: A process batch states the quantity of a product processed at a time
before that resource changes over to another product.
Transfer batch: Transfer batch denotes the quantity moved at a time from one resource
to another resource in a manufacturing system.

The Drum–Buffer–Rope (DBR) Methodology :

When a preliminary production plan is determined, synchronous manufacturing
develops detailed schedules for the CCRs in the plant. Based on these schedules, the
production plan can be finalized. The resulting modified production plan can become the
master production schedule (MPS) and can be used as the base for making contracts to
customers. This process of arriving at the MPS based on the detailed schedules for
CCRs is the drum in DBR methodology.
The MPS, which is based on the processing capabilities and requirements of the CCRs,
determines the sequence of production of the plant. The MPS is similar to the drumbeat
of the march. The drumbeat ensures that all resources are not purely activated but
utilized as per the output requirement. Since statistical fluctuations are bound to
happen, there could be potential opportunities for the planned flow to deviate from the
actual. To protect the schedule from disturbances, a time buffer is built into the system.
The planned lead time is the sum of the process and set-up times and the time buffer. In
effect, the time buffer increases the planned lead time by a sufficient time to
accommodate troubles and fluctuations that are likely to happen in the manufacturing
system.
Since the bottleneck resource dictates the output of the entire system, an hour of
capacity lost at the bottleneck translates directly into an hour of lost output. Therefore,
the buffer is placed in front of a bottleneck resource. On the contrary, nothing is
achievable by placing a buffer ahead of a non-bottleneck resource. It only increases the
inventory in the system but not the output. Once the MPS is finalized, the product
structure and other production policies are used to decide the quantity and timing of
planned production at each resource in the plant. Through this methodology, we can
ensure synchronization of schedules at all non-CCRs. Therefore, this is the rope
component of the DBR methodology.

Conclusion:-
According to the theory of constraints, it is possible to increase the output even
while the operating expenses and inventory are being reduced. This is identified as the
single most important goal of managing manufacturing organizations. The principles
running the theory of constraints are best explained. The focus shifts from operations
planning to operational control in the short term. Scheduling services operational control
in manufacturing and service systems. Operational control in mass production system is
largely achieved with TAKT time–based scheduling. The theory of constraints indicates
that scheduling of operations must take into account the reality of bottlenecks and
statistical fluctuations in operations.
Question 3(a):
Explain the role of an operations manager in implementing and monitoring quality
control measures in the hospital.

Introduction:
A good quality management system must enable a manager to understand the
qualitative characteristics that influence a customer and have a method of translating
these into clear quantifiable parameters for design and manufacturing.
A total quality management program consists of four components:
• top management commitment,
• employee involvement in continuous improvement initiatives,
• training and skill development,
• Investment in robust systems.

Several tools and techniques are available which helps in highlighting problems,
detecting specific improvement opportunities, analyzing the problems and their root
causes, and operational and strategic planning to build high quality products and
services.

Concept & Application:-

In the usual method, production workers were not expected to worry about quality. They
just have to engage in jobs assigned to them and take care of their productivity. The
quality control department will assess the quality and take the required actions if there is
any quality problem. In the TQM philosophy, the responsibility for quality lies with the
production workers.
Similarly, previously the middle managers and top managers played the role of
controllers. They directed improvement efforts and establish tight controls and
supervision to ensure that quality goals were met as per the requirements. On the
contrary, in TQM, the focus shifts to one of facilitating the production workers in their
efforts towards producing quality goods and services. This calls for a certain shifting of
process ownership to the workers and their supervisors. The success of the TQM
program depends on how well this transition is made. There is a greater degree of
vagueness with respect to outcomes in the long term. On the other hand, short-term
goals and benefits are easily attainable. They are not only easily reachable but also
tangible.
Managers are hesitant to working for long-term benefits and mind to compromise on
them to post impressive performances in meeting short term goals.
This may call for leadership and guidance in minimizing conflicts between short-term
and the long-term goals. Nothing is taken seriously when employees in organizations
come to know that the changes do not have the top management’s involvement and
commitment. This is a significant aspect of the management of change. The top
management also needs to play a vital role in communication. They should not miss
even a single opportunity that comes their way to demonstrate their support and
involvement in the TQM implementation process.

Conclusion:-
The greatest strength of a TQM is the importance that laid on using simple powerful
tools for tracking various aspects related to quality management. There are several QC
tools have been developed. These tools are widely applied in practice too.
The QC tools fall under five broad categories
Quality management tools available tools fall under five broad categories:
• Tools for detecting quality problems
• Tools for highlighting specific improvement opportunities
• Tools for analyzing problems and their root causes
• Tools for operational planning
• Tools for strategic planning
Question 3(b):
Discuss the various dimensions of quality in the healthcare sector and how each
dimension contributes to overall patient care and experience.

Introduction:
In the healthcare sector, there are six important dimensions of quality which helps the
producers to meet the customer’s expectations.
It has been defined as a strategic management tool which can be used as a structure to
analyze the properties of quality.

• Safe
• Effective
• Patient-centered
• Timely
• Efficient
• Equitable

Concept & Application:-

It has been advised by the Institute of Medicine, an American nonprofit, non-

governmental organization in 2001, there are six domains which is originated as a
response to a book which was published in 2000, To Err Is Human.

This book have brought an special attention to the extreme number of patient deaths
from medical errors compared to other causes such as motor vehicle accidents, breast
cancer, AIDS, and workplace injuries.

In order to focus on individual errors or specific cases to eliminate the causes, the
authors argued, would not be as effective as implementing a systemic approach. By
focusing on the six domains as an operational structure, healthcare organizations would
have a higher probability of both by reducing errors and improving the quality of health
care that they provide.

Added benefit of the structure was that it could serve as a communication tool to help
patients measure care quality and their satisfaction with the care they received.

• Safe — avoid harms to the patients from the care that is meant to help them.
 • Effective — providing services based on scientific knowledge to all who could
benefit
• Patient-centered — providing care in a humble way to the patients and
responsive to individual patient preferences and needs,
• Timely — reducing delays and sometimes harmful waiting period for those who
receive and those who give special care.
• Efficient — avoid wastage, including waste of equipment, supplies, ideas, and
energy.
• Equitable — providing special care that does not differ in quality because of
personal quality such as gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

Conclusion:-

These proposed changes recognized that challenges like climate changes, the
internet and digital media, COVID-19, the increasing complication, diversity, and
discriminations within health care, and other developments have changed the view and
quality measures

By categorizing and picking proper measures to improve quality across the above six
elements will help to narrow the scope of developments to those that have the capability
to create the greatest improvement.