3e2a1b56-dafb-454d-87ad-86adea3e7b86

662
Glossary
Fault tree analysis: a logical procedure starts with a failure
or potential failure and works backwards to identify its
origins.
Finite loading: an approach to planning and control that
only allocates work to a work centre up to a set limit
(usually its useful capacity).
First-tier: the description applied to suppliers and customers
that are in immediate relationships with an operation
with no intermediary operations.
Fixed cost break: the volumes of output at which it is necessary
to invest in operations facilities that bear a fixed cost.
Fixed-position layout: locating the position of a product
or service such that it remains largely stationary, while
transforming resources are moved to and from it.
Flexibility: the degree to which an operation’s process
can change what it does, how it is doing it, or when it is
doing it.
Flexible manufacturing systems (FMS): manufacturing
systems that bring together several technologies into
a coherent system, such as metal cutting and material
handling technologies, usually their activities are controlled
by a single governing computer.
Flexi-time working: increasing the possibility of individuals
varying the time during which they work.
Flow record chart: a diagram used in layout to record the
flow of products or services between facilities.
Focus group: a group of potential product or service users,
chosen to be typical of its target market who are formed
to test their reaction to alternative designs.
Forward scheduling: loading work onto work centres as
soon as it is practical to do so, as opposed to backward
scheduling.
Four-stage model of operations contribution: model
devised by Hayes and Wheelwright that categorizes the
degree to which operations management has a positive
influence on overall strategy.
Front-office: the high-visibility part of an operation.
Functional strategy: the overall direction and role of a function
within the business; a subset of business strategy.
Gantt chart: a scheduling device that represents time as a
bar or channel on which activities can be marked.
Globalization: the extension of operations’ supply chain to
cover the whole world.
Heijunka: see ‘Levelled scheduling’.
Heuristics: ‘rules of thumb’ or simple reasoning short cuts
that are developed to provide good but non-optimal
solutions, usually to operations decisions that involve
combinatorial complexity.
Hierarchy of operations: the idea that all operations processes
are made up of smaller operations processes.
High-level process mapping: an aggregated process map
that shows broad activities rather than detailed activities
(sometimes called an ‘outline process map’).
Hill methodology: an approach to formulating operations
strategy, most often used in manufacturing operations.
Hire and fire: a (usually pejorative) term used in mediumterm
capacity management to indicate varying the size
of the workforce through employment policy.
House of quality: see ‘Quality function deployment’.
Human factors engineering: an alternative term for
ergonomics.
Immediate supply network: the suppliers and customers
that have direct contact with an operation.
Importance–performance matrix: a technique that brings
together scores that indicate the relative importance and
relative performance of different competitive factors in
order to prioritize them as candidates for improvement.
Improvement cycles: the practice of conceptualizing
problem solving as used in performance improvement
in terms of a never-ending cyclical model, for example,
the PDCA cycle or the DMAIC cycle.
Independent demand: demand that is not obviously or
directly dependent on the demand for another product
or service.
Indirect process technology: technology that assists in
the management of processes rather than directly
contributes to the creation of products and services,
for example, information technology that schedules
activities.
Indirect responsibilities of operations management: the
activities of collaborating with other functions of the
organization.
Infinite loading: an approach to planning and control
that allocates work to work centres irrespective of any
capacity or other limits.
Information technology (IT): any device, or collection of
devices, that collects, manipulates, stores or distributes
information, nearly always used to mean computer-based
devices.
Infrastructural decisions: the decisions that concern the
operation’s systems, methods and procedures and shape
its overall culture.
Input resources: the transforming and transformed
resources that form the input to operations.
Intangible resources: the resources within an operation
that are not immediately evident or tangible, such as
relationships with suppliers and customers, process
knowledge, new product and service development.
Interactive design: the idea that the design of products and
services on one hand, and the processes that create them
on the other, should be integrated.