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[EFIMM0148] – Operations Management

Lecture 2

Process Design
Dr Phuong Tran
phuong.tran@bristol.ac.uk
This week
Learning Objectives

▪ What is process design?

▪ What objectives should process design have?

▪ How do volume and variety affect process

design?

▪ How are processes designed in detail?

Strategic and Operations Decisions

Strategic Decisions Operations Decisions

Operations Performance Process Process

Layout
Strategy Objectives Choice Technology

Support for Priorities are Choice a long Physical Selection of

cooperate and given to: Cost, volume-variety arrangement of process
functional Quality continuum workers equipment and
strategies via Dependability, equipment, and use of
products and Flexibility, Speed work flow information
services
technology
Process Design
What is a process design?

▪ “an arrangement of resources and activities

that transform inputs into outputs that
satisfy customer needs”
▪ Design is “to conceive the looks,
arrangement, and workings of something
before it is created.”
Slack et al., 2022, p178-179
 (Adopted from Slack et al., 2022)

The design of processes cannot be done independently of the services and/or products that are being created
Nature and purpose of
the design activity
▪ Products, services and the processes
which produce them all have to be
designed
▪ Decisions taken during the design of a
product or service will have an impact on
the decisions taken during the design of
the process which produces those
products or services and vice versa
Process Design Objectives and Operations Performance

Quality Being RIGHT

Speed Being FAST

Dependability Being ON TIME

Flexibility Being ABLE TO CHANGE

Cost Being PRODUCTIVE

Sustainability Being IMPACTFUL

Designing processes
▪ There are different ‘process types’.
▪ Process types are defined by the volume
and variety of ‘items’ they process.
▪ Process types go by different names
depending on whether they produce
products or services
Manufacturing process type
Process Process
tasks flow

High
Diverse/ Project
Intermittent
complex

Jobbing

Variety
Batch

Mass

Contin-
Low

Repeated/ Continuous uous

divided
Low Volume High
(adopted from Slack and Brandon-Jones, 2019)
Service process types
Process Process
tasks flow

High
Diverse/ Professional
Intermittent
complex service

Service shop

Variety

Mass service
Low

Repeated/ Continuous
divided
Low Volume High
(adopted from Slack and Brandon-Jones, 2019)
Deviating from the ‘natural’ diagonal on the product–process
matrix has consequences for cost and flexibility.

(Adopted from Slack et al., 2022)

Process Mapping
▪ A process map is a simple way to record
details of a process to help analyse and
improve the process.
▪ Identify different types of activity and show
the flow of materials/people/information
through the process
Process mapping symbols
Process mapping symbols derived from
‘Scientific Management’
Operation (an activity
that directly adds
value)
Inspection (a check of
some sort)
Transport (a movement
of something)
Delay (a wait, e.g. for materials)
Storage (deliberate
storage, as opposed to a
delay)
Process mapping symbols derived
from Systems Analysis
Beginning or end of
process
Activity
Input or Output from the
process
Direction of flow
Decision (exercising discretion)
Process mapping symbols (cont.)
Process mapping symbols derived from ‘Information System Flowcharting’

Operation (an activity

Delay (a wait, e.g. for materials)
that directly adds
value)
Storage (deliberate storage, as
Inspection (a check of opposed to a delay)
some sort)

Transport (a movement
of something) Direction of flow

Decision (exercising discretion)

Example of a process map

Process map for

‘enquire to
delivery’ process
at stage lighting
operation

(Adopted from Slack et al., 2022)

Mapping visibility

The ‘collect and check’ process mapped to show different levels of process visibility.
(Adopted from Slack et al., 2022)
Analytical Approaches
of Process Design
▪ Throughput time: the elapsed time between
an item entering the process and leaving it.
▪ Cycle Time: the average time between items
being processed
▪ Work-in progress (WIP): number of items
within the process at any point in time
▪ Capacity: the maximum level of value-added
that an operation, process, or facility is
capable of over a period of time.
Little’s Law

Throughput time = Work-in-progress x cycle time

Example: At Mc Donald
- Time to make and sell a burger: 2 mins
- Number of staff: 2 people
- Number of customers in the queue: 10 people

Cycle time = 1 minute/customer

WIP = 10 customers
Throughput time = WIP x Cycle time = 10 minutes
Process bottle neck
“A bottleneck in a process is the activity or
stage where congestion occurs because
the workload place is greater than the
capacity to cope with it.”
Slack et al., 2022, p. 201
The bottleneck is that part of the process that is the most overloaded relative to its capacity
(Adopted from Slack et al., 2022)
Requiring passengers to stand on both sides of the escalator makes it less of a bottleneck.
(Adopted from Slack et al., 2022)
Arranging the stages

The arrangement of
stages in a process
can be described on a
spectrum from ‘long
thin’ to ‘short fat’

(Adopted from Slack et al., 2022)

Process Variability

The relationship between process utilization and the number of items waiting to be
processed for constant, and variable, arrival and process times
(Adopted from Slack et al., 2022)
The relationship between process utilization and number of items waiting to be processed for
variable arrival and activity times

(Adopted from Slack et al., 2022)

Throughput time Arrival 9 5–15
Arrival 20
30
10 5–15 Processing
Processing time
frequency
frequencymins 10
and capacity (demand)mins
(demand) mins mins
mins time
utilisation
50 %%%% QQ D
Utilization
Utilization == 100
33.33
<100% Q===0infinity
0>0

High

High utilization but long

time
length of queue

throughput times X
Process throughput
(or inventory)

X
Average

Low utilization but short X

throughput times
Reduce process
Low
Y X Z variability

A B
0 20% 40% 60% 80% C
100%
Capacity utilization
 Layout Design

*note: this part is for self-study

Layout Design

(Adopted from Slack et al., 2022)

(Adopted from Slack et al., 2022)
Any Questions
You can post your questions on the Padlet board!
https://uob.padlet.org/phuongtran/efimm0148-online-lecture-q-a-2024-vby6k8n4tbarwv14
References

Slack, N., Brandon-Jones, A., and Burgess, N. (2022) Operations

Management. 10th edn. Pearson Education Limited.

Slack N and Brandon-Jones A. (2019) Operations Management. 9th

edn. Pearson Education Limited