Production and Operations Management: Manufacturing and
Services*
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Hierarchy Within a Consulting Organization
Stages of Operations Consulting
Operations Consulting Tool Kit
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Plants
Parts
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People
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Hierarchy within Consulting Firms
A way of looking at the typical consulting firm’s
organization
Finders
Partners
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Economics of Consulting Firms
David H. Maister’s article on consulting draws an analogy between
the consulting firm and a job shop operation. Three types of
jobs:
1. Brain Surgery: Requiring innovation and creativity
2. Gray Hair: Requiring a great deal of experience (little
innovation)
3. Procedures: Requiring activities similar to other existing
projects (little innovation or experience)
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When faced with major investment decision(s)
When management believes it is not getting the maximum
effectiveness from the organization’s productive capability
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2. Analyze problem
solutions
5. Present final report
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Five forces model
In this scheme we have five categories of activities, starting with
Problem Definition, that consultants perform and the supporting
tools used to aid the consultant in performing that category
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Data Gathering
Plant tours/audits
Work sampling
Flow charts
Organizational charts
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Data Analysis and
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Cost Impact and
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Implementation
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Reengineering
Defined
Reengineering is defined as the fundamental rethinking and radical
redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in
critical, contemporary measures of performance such as cost,
quality, service, and speed. As a engineering discipline,
reengineering can be applied to any process in manufacturing and
service businesses, education, and the government.
Business process reengineering (BPR) is focused on reengineering
business processes.
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Ignore what is and concentrate on what should be
Radical
4
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Dramatic
Reengineering should be brought in “when a need exits for heavy
blasting”
Companies in deep trouble
Companies that are in peak condition
Business Process
a collection of activities that takes one or more kinds of inputs
and creates an output that is of value to a customer
5
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Organize around outcomes, not tasks
Have those who use the output of the process perform the
process
Merge information-processing work into the real work that produces
the information
Treat geographically dispersed resources as though they were
centralized
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Link parallel activities instead of integrating their results
Put the decision point where the work is performed, and build
control into the process
Capture information once and at the source
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Question Bowl
Reasons for the boom in consulting include which of the
following?
Globalization
All of the above
None of the above
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Question Bowl
According to David J. Collis’s research on the consulting industry,
which of the following companies made the most money?
PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting
KPMG Consulting
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