OPMT 477
ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING
SPRING SEMESTER 2001
INSTRUCTOR:
A. Dale Flowers (adflowers@aol.com)
OFFICE:
608 Enterprise Hall
PHONE (all 216-):
368-3825 (Office); 289-0723 (Home); 368-4776 (Fax-Office);
368-3809 (Secretary, Ramona David)
OFFICE HOURS:
Virtual 8 a.m.-10 p.m. daily; Thursday 4-6 p.m.
Others by Appointment
GRADUATE ASSISTANT:
TBA
OFFICE:
TBA
PHONE (all 216-):
TBA
OFFICE HOURS:
TBA
COURSE DESCRIPTION
OPMT 477. Enterprise Resource Planning (3).
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) includes the application of various concepts to properly plan resource
utilization for an enterprise. Concepts including forecasting, material requirements planning, operations
scheduling (aggregate and detailed), capacity planning, and activity control are central to ERP. Both
quantitative modeling and managerial analysis for these subjects are included in this course. The
quantitative analysis will be performed on a microcomputer using software available in the Weatherhead
Computer Lab.
The course is designed for graduate students who need to develop a strong competence in Enterprise
Resource Planning.
Prerequisite: MBAC 425, OPMT 405, OPMT 423, or consent of instructor.
REQUIRED TEXT
Vollmann, Berry and Whybark, Manufacturing Planning and Control Systems, ISBN # 0786312092, 1997.
The word "Text" followed by a number in the column labeled READING below refers to that chapter
number in the above text.
A CWRUnotes course pack is also available for this course from the CWRU bookstore, and is required.
DATE
SUBJECT/ASSIGNMENT DUE
NOTES
READING
Jan 18
Introduction and Overview
Introduction to ERP
Modernization of Merit Brass
Flowers article
Siekman article
Halex letter
Gunderson article
Elliot article
Hamel & Sampler
article
Text 1,2
Jan 25
The BOM Explosion & The Files
BOM Structuring
Read Chaircraft Corp.
FORM TEAMS
ERP
BOM File Structuring
Collier (1 page)
STORM, Chs. 1-4
STORM, Ch. 16
Collier article
“Yank the Supply
Chain”
Stickler article
Feb 1
BOM Commonality and Group
Technology
ERP Lot Sizing
Lot Sizing
Text 11
“The Customized
…” article
Feb 8
Capacity Planning (CRP)
Production Activity Control
CHAIRCRAFT I DUE
Text 4, CRP Example
Text 5
Text 4
Text 5
Kirchmier article
“Solectron …”
article
Feb 15
Shop Loading & Scheduling
CHAIRCRAFT II DUE
Text 13
Text 13
Latamore article
Schultz article
Bylinsky article
Feb 22
Demand Management
Text 8
Text 8
STORM, Ch. 12
Westerlund article
Mar 1
Midterm Exam (covers topics through 2/15)
Mar 8
Operational Forecasting
Mar 15
Spring Break
Mar 22
Operational Forecasting
CHAIRCRAFT III DUE
Mar 29
Production Planning
Operational Forecasting
Text 16
Flowers paper
Text 7
Operations Scheduling
2
Text 7
MacPherson Case
DATE
SUBJECT/ASSIGNMENT DUE
NOTES
READING
Apr 5
Production Planning
CHAIRCRAFT IV DUE
MacPherson Formulation
STORM, Ch. 15
Apr 12
Hierarchical Production
Planning
Hierarchical Production
Planning
A Multi-Echelon
Integrated
Production
Planning and
Scheduling
System
Apr 19
Hierarchical Production
Planning
Master Production Scheduling
CHAIRCRAFT V-a DUE (4/16/01)
Text 6
Text 6
Text 10
Text 3, 9
Text 10
Text 3, 9
Serwer article
Apr 26
Implementation Issues
The Integrated Production
Control System
CHAIRCRAFT V-b DUE
May 3
FINAL EXAM
COURSE GRADING
The five CHAIRCRAFT CASE assignments average 100 points each and will represent one-half the total
points for the course. They may be completed by use of the STORM software package that is available in
the WSOM Computer Laboratory. The base case data set should be submitted for each of the five
assignments along with the case report. You should strive to make your case reports thorough, but not long
(target for 5 pages or less of text). Students may request that any case be regraded if they discover any
misapplication of the grading criteria presented in class. Such requests must be submitted with their original
graded case within one week after the cases are returned in class. After that, all grades are final.
Both examinations (MIDTERM and FINAL) count 250 points or 25% each of the total course points. The
final exam will be cumulative, insofar as certain basic concepts (such as the BOM explosion) that are
discussed in the first half of the course, are assumed for the second half. However, the final exam will not
stress detailed technical aspects of topics taught in the first half of the course. The examinations will be
open-book, open-note, bring-your-calculator.
The guidelines used for recording final course grades will be:
% of course points
> 90
> 80
> 70
> 60
< 60
Grade
A
B
C
D
F
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COURSE POLICIES
1. No assignments will be accepted late except:
. Bona fide documented emergencies
2. Students are responsible for making up any work they miss due to absences.
3. While students are welcome to visit the instructor and/or the course graduate assistant during posted
office hours or by making an appointment, it is expected that the student will have read and
STUDIED all assigned work prior to such visits. The student should come prepared with detailed,
specific questions.
4. Except for the first week of class, it is expected that all assigned reading material will be done prior to the
class meeting for which it is assigned.
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FORM A: REQUEST FOR REGRADE
(reproduce before using)
I request that the following assignment be regraded because (state your
reasons clearly and completely):
Signed:________________________________________________________________
Date: _________________________________________________________________
Your assignment has been regraded with the following result:
____ No change
____ New score is: __________
Signed:________________________________________________________________
Date: _________________________________________________________________
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SUGGESTIONS FOR DOING OPMT CASES
The following are some thoughts that I hope students will find useful to guide their
preparation of Operations Management cases. They are based on experience with students in the
past, especially with common mistakes students have made which resulted in frustration. The
objective of sharing these thoughts is to try to get you started off on the right foot in this course,
and then keep you there!
Careful Design, then Implement
The most common mistake students make in analyzing OPMT cases with the assistance of
computer software is to assume the software will do all the work. It won't. You must very
carefully construct a design of experiments you want to do with the software to address the issues
in the case. Then and only then should you plunge into data analysis.
Data Analysis in Stages
When you begin your data analysis with a careful design in mind, make the preliminary
runs and then stop and analyze the results. See what they tell you and decide if the rest of your
design is still appropriate, or if it should be modified. In this way, you will know exactly what you
are doing at each stage, and where you are on your design road map.
Start with Company Statement of the Problem
In OPMT (and in life), you should start with the problem as laid out by the company (your
boss). Do not leave it until you have "nailed it," that is, until you feel that you have exhausted all
realistic approaches to solving that exact problem. Some students want to solve some other
problem first, and never bother to address the problem as the case statement implied.
Relax Assumptions to try Other Scenarios: Leverage Points
After exhausting the problem as stated by the company, change the problem to explore
relationships between different parts of it. Try some things to facilitate your learning the subject,
even if you think they would be impossible to achieve in reality. Find out where the leverage
points are, that is, what changes to the problem scenario would yield the greatest benefits to the
organization. Ask yourself, how would I try to make these changes in reality? To what degree
could I reasonably expect to succeed? Scenarios that involve quadrupling sales in one year for a $2
billion company will be graded with the humor they deserve. Some improvement on leverage
points may be realistically possible, however. State specific approaches you would take to try to
make these improvements happen (automate, work with vendors, etc.).
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Know your Software, and let it help your Design
You should know the case thoroughly before you attempt to design your analysis, as well as
the software you are going to use. The input data required by the software (any software, by the
way) gives you ideas about what scenarios can be easily analyzed. Examine each input data item
to decide what, if any, changes you might make to it to evaluate alternative scenarios. As
mentioned above, use the software to satisfy your curiosity and simply to learn about relationships
between problem variables as well. Some runs you make may not contribute greatly to your
solution of the case, but may help you understand some of the material in the course better, and
may apply to other cases you will solve later in life at your own organization.
Do a thorough Managerial Analysis, too
While we admit that OPMT courses are fairly technical and that a thorough technical
analysis is expected on every case, we also want to encourage strong managerial analysis.
Sometimes all our technical analysis pales in comparison to taking one strategic action to relieve a
critical constraint. Your managerial analysis may draw on concepts we have used in this course,
concepts you have learned elsewhere in your academic experience, and concepts you have
learned from your work experience. Managerial suggestions should be action oriented; they should
not simply restate information provided in the case.
Leave Time for the Write-up
Plan on finishing all your analysis and deciding what you want to say in your report a
couple of days or more before it is due. Then spend some time discovering what you feel is the
best way to communicate your results. Summary tables and charts are particularly effective at
summarizing a lot of analysis in a simple, but powerful way. Construct these first and they will
make your writing task much easier.
Start your report with your conclusions and recommendations. Follow this with your
analysis and discussion, including technical and managerial analysis sections. Conclude with any
appendices such as detailed printouts, etc. Be as concise as possible in your report, consistent with
clearly communicating your work. For example, if you have a series of things you think the
company in the case should consider that are fairly self explanatory, put them in a simple bullet list.
Don't drag on for many paragraphs about them when a simple bullet list will do. On the other hand,
if you suggest a radical departure from the way the company is doing business, and it is not
immediately clear how it would be implemented, provide enough explanation to
convince the reader that your approach can be done.
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
A. Dale Flowers is Co-Director, Institute for the Integration of Management and Engineering,
Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio 44106,
Phone: 216-368-3825. He has acquired an extensive teaching, research and consulting background over
the last 25+ years.
Experience - Professor Flowers has completed applied research/consulting projects for many
companies, both large and small. Some of the firms include: Alcoa, Avery Dennison, Belden Wire and
Cable, Blue Coral Inc., BP America, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, The Cleveland Plain Dealer,
Fanny Farmer Candy Shops, Inc., General Electric Company, General Motors Corporation, The Geon
Company, M. A. Hanna Company, IBM Corporation, Keithley Instruments Inc., Lincoln Electric
Company, The Little Tikes Company, Merit Brass, Ohio Bell, Parker Hannifin Corporation, PCC
Airfoils, QualChoice, Sherwin-Williams Company, TBN Holdings Inc., Texas Instruments Inc., TRW
Inc., University Hospitals, and Western Publishing Company. His assignments have covered a broad
range of management problems, including analysis projects as well as many software development and
installation projects. Problem areas in which he has worked include: Quality Assurance and
Management, Forecasting, Scheduling, Manufacturing Planning and Control Systems, Business Process
Reengineering, Distribution Systems Design, Justification of Advanced Manufacturing Systems,
Facilities Layout, Assembly Line Balancing, Inventory Control, Methods Engineering, Facilities
Maintenance, Computer Integrated Manufacturing, etc. He is a principal in the STORM quantitative
modeling software package for IBM and compatible microcomputers. It has been adopted at more than
200 universities for teaching management science and operations management including: Case Western
Reserve University, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Dartmouth, U. C. Berkeley, Georgia Tech, U. of
Minnesota, U. of Wisconsin, Michigan State University, Columbia University, and many, many more.
It is also now in use in a number of business firms in a large, industrial strength version. It was
nominated in 1990 for the Lanchester Prize awarded annually by the Operations Research Society of
America. He served on the Material Advisory Board for the Manhattan Engine Project for General
Motors Corporation, the Board of Directors of MIM Mutual Funds, and is currently serving on the
Board of Directors for Storm Software Inc.
Education and Honors - Professor Flowers received his B.S. in Operations Research, and M.B.A. and
D.B.A. in Production Management and Industrial Engineering from Indiana University, the last degree
being awarded in 1972. He has published articles in journals such as IIE Transactions, Journal of
Operations Management and Interfaces. He received the 1981 IIE Transactions Development and
Application Award for work in quality control implemented by Texas Instruments and General Electric.
He received the 1992 Franz Edelman Finalist Award for work he did with Merit Brass Company as a
part of leading their TQM process. He received the University Outstanding Teacher Award in 1978
while teaching at Texas Tech University and was a finalist for the Outstanding Teacher Award for the
Weatherhead School of Management in 1987. He is listed in Who's Who in Engineering, Leading
Consultants in Technology, Who's Who in Technology Today and American Men and Women of
Science. He is a member of POMS, IIE, APICS, ASQ, and INFORMS.
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OPMT 477 STUDENT INFORMATION FORM
(Please print or write legibly; you may skip items you prefer not to answer)
Name:
E-Mail:
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
Home Address:
Street:
_________________________________________________
City/State/Zip:
_________________________________________________
Phone:
_________________________________________________
Business Address:
Job Title:
_________________________________________________
Company Name:
_________________________________________________
Street:
_________________________________________________
City/State/Zip:
_________________________________________________
Phone:
_________________________________________________
Undergraduate Degree/Major: ___________________________________________
Circle the choice which best describes your background as concerns the OPMT 477 course:
Little or None
Modest
A Lot of Relevant Background
What is your career objective? ________________________________________
What is your degree program & concentration? __________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
Please sign below so that the above information may be distributed to your classmates:
Signature:__________________________________ Date:_____________________
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