Marvin E.

Espeño/ BSME-II “ Engineering Management " 06/28/21

Professor: Engr. Constantine F. Merida

Chapter 9: Controlling

1. Why is controlling a very important management function?

When controlling is properly implemented, it will help the organization achieve its goal in the most
efficient and effective manner possible.

2. What is controlling? Is it applicable to the day-to-day activities of the engineer manager?

Controlling refers to the process of ascertaining whether organizational objectives have been achieved
and determining what activities should then be taken to achieve objectives better in the future.

3. Why is establishment of performance objectives and standards an important step in the control
process?

In controlling, what has to be achieved must first be determined. Once objectives and standards are
established, the measurement of performance will be facilitated.

4. Compare and contrast the three distinct types of control.

Feed forward control is when management anticipates problems and prevents their occurrence.
Concurrent control is when operations are already ongoing and activities to detect variances are made.
Feed back control is when information is gathered about a completed activity and in order that
evaluation and steps for improvement are derived.

5. How do strategic plans provide a basis for control?

When there are indications that activities do not facilitate the accomplishment of strategic goals, these
activities are either set aside, modified or expanded.

6. What are policies? In what ways do they facilitate control?

Policies refer to the framework within which the objectives must be pursued.
7. When the engineer manager reviews the financial statements of the company under his supervision,
what benefits does he have?

A review of the financial statements will reveal important details about the company's performance.

8. What are financial ratios? How may they be categorized?

Under this method, one account in the financial statement is paired with another to constitute a ratio. It
is categorized into liquidity, efficiency, financial leverage and profitability.

9. What is measured in the debt to total assets ratio? How may it be computed?

This ratio shows how much if the firm's assets are financed by debt. Debt of total assets ratio = total
debt/total assets.

10. Do you consider "idle facilities or personnel" as a symptom of inadequate control? Why or why not?

Yes, Inadequate management control leads to idle facilities or personel affected by such insufficient
control system inside an organization.

Chapter 10: MANAGING PRODUCTION AND SERVICE OPERATIONS

1. What is meant by "operations"? Does the term cover production of farm products?

Operations refer to any process that accepts inputs and uses resources to change those inputs in useful
ways.

2. Why is operations management an important activity? Who are qualified to become operations
managers?

Operation is an activity that needs to be managed by competent persons. It must be performed in

3. What are the types of transformation process? In what ways are they similar and different?
The types are manufacturing and service processes. Manufacturing processes are those that refer to the
making of products by hand or with machinery while service processes are those that refer to the
provision of services to persons by hand or with machinery.

4. What is a job shop? What makes it a useful transformation process?

A job shop is one whose production is based on sales orders for a variety of small lots. Job shops are very
useful components of the entire production effort, since they manufacture products in small lots that are
needed by, but cannot be produced economically by many companies.

5. What is the batch flow process? What possible advantages does it offer?

The batch flow process is where lots of generally own designed products are manufactured.

6. What is the worker-paced assembly line? Why is it called as such?

An assembly line refers to a production layout arranged in a sequence to accommodate processing of

7. Why is the machine-paced assembly line very popular among large corporations? ---This type if
production process produces mostly standard products with machines playing a significant role.

8. What is a service factory? Provide an example.

A service factory offers a limited mix of services which results to some economies of scale in operations.
Example McDonalds.

9. What types of services are offered by professional service firms? What production problems do these
firms encounter?

Professional service firms offer a diverse mix of services. Professional service firms are often times, faced
with delivery problems brought about by non uniform demand.
10. What are the important parts of productive systems? Point out the relationships between these
parts.
Productive systems consist of six important activities as follows:

1. Product design- Customers expect that the products they buy would perform according to assigned
functions. A good product design assures that this will be so. Customers avoid buying products with poor
product design. An example is that certain brand of ballpen which fails to write after one or two days of
actual use. This happens because of poor product design. Product design refers to the process of
creating a set of product specifications appropriate to the demands of the situation,"Companies wanting
to maintain or improve its market share keeps a product design team composed of engineers,
manufacturing, and marketing specialists.

2. Production planning and scheduling- Production planning may be defined as forecasting the future
sales of a given product, translating this forecast into the demand it generates for various production
facilities, and arranging for the procurement of these facilities,"Production planning is a very important
activity because it helps management to make decisions regarding capacity. When the right decisions
are made, there will be less opportunities for wastages. Scheduling is the "phase of production control
involved in developing timetables that specify how long each operation in the production process
takes." Efficient scheduling assures the optimization of the use of human and nenhuman resources.

3. Purchasing and materials management- Firms need to purchase supplies and materials required in the
various production activities. The management of purchasing and materials must be undertaken with a
high degree of efficiency and effectiveness specially in firms engaged in high volume production. The
wider variety of supplies and materials needed adds to the necessity of proper managing and purchasing
of materials. Materials management refers to the approach that seeks efficiency of operation through
integration of all material acquisition, movement, and storage activities in the firm".

4. Inventory control-Inventory Control- Inventory control is the process of establishing and maintaining
appropriate levels of reserve stocks of goods. As supplies and materials are required by firms in the
production process, these must be kept available when they are needed, Too much reserves of stacks
will penalize the firm in terms of high storage costs and other related risks like obsolescence and theft.
Too little reserves, on the other hand, may mean lost income opportunities if production activities are
hampered. A balance between the two extremes must be determined.There are ways of achieving
proper inventory control.

These are as follows:

1 determining rearder point and reorder quantity

2 determing economic order quantity

3 the use of just in time (IT) method of inventory control

4 the use of the material requirement planning (MRP) method of planning and controlling inventories.
5. Work flow layout- Work-flow layout is the process of determining the physical arrangement of the
production system. In the transformation process, the flow of work may be done either haphazardly or
orderly. The job of the operations manager is to assure that const-effective work inflow layout is
installed. A good work-flow layout will have the following benefits.

1 Minimize investment in equipment.

2 Minimize overall production time.

3. Use existing space most effectively.

4. Provide for employee convenience, safety, and comfort.

5. Maintain flexibility of arrangement and operation.

6. Minimize material handling cost.

7. Minimize variation in types of material-handing equipment.

8. facilitate the manufacturing (or service) process.

9. Facilitate the organizational structure.

6. Quality control- Quality control refers to the measurement of products or services against standards
set by the company. Certain standard requirements are maintained by the management to facilitate
production and to keep customers satisfied. Poor quality control breeds customer complaints, returned
merchandise, expensive lawsuits, and huge promotional expenditures.

As a system, each part of the productive system plays significant role as “a group of related parts that
move or work together".