During the second week of the module, we will be exploring the impact of innovation and technology management on business performance. It is often argued that innovation is an organisational capability that includes the supply chain and is difficult to imitate. If done in a way which responds to the market’s needs, it can therefore lead to a competitive advantage. We will be exploring how innovation can be managed as a transformation process and discussing the problems that this can lead to. We will focus on the stages of innovation and some of the popular models associated with it. We will also explore the relatively emerging model of open innovation and link it with some of the more traditional views of managing the development of new products and services. As you will see a key element of this week will be to go beyond product development and to explore how innovation applies in services and even business models.
By the time you finish the activities for this week you should be able to:
define innovation for products and services
describe the processes involved in converting ideas into products and services
Apply the dimensions of innovation in different product and service contexts
recognise the key differences between traditional and open innovation models of innovation
Week 3:
So far we have explored the role of operations in supporting business performance. We have also discussed the role of innovation and technology management in supporting these activities. This week we will be going a bit further in this direction and we will be exploring how technology can be adopted and diffused. We will be exploring this at both the organisational and the broader supply chain levels.
We will be discussing what an organisation can do to change its routines to adapt to a new technology and some of the barriers associated with technology diffusion. We will be exploring how organisations and, to a lesser degree, how individuals adopt new technology. We will use examples from both the high-tech and the more traditional sectors.
By the time you finish the activities for this week you should be able to:
define technology adoption and diffusion
understand the barriers to adopting a new technology
understand the different models that can explain how diffusion materialises
recognise the key differences between the various diffusion models
Week 4:
This week we will keep exploring aspects of innovation and technology management. However, our focus will shift on processes. Process management is at the core of operations and as a result, it is often seen as a key activity of an operations manager. We will be exploring the vertical integration question and then discuss what an organisation can do to develop its processes. We will also be exploring some of the approaches behind ‘ lean production’ and discussing how they can affect the choices that operations managers can make.
By the time you finish the activities for this week you should be able to:
understand the role of design in managing operations
understand the role of process design in delivering value
use the key principles to design a process
analyse how a process can improve to deliver organisational value
Week 5:
Week 6:
understand the strategic role of managing capacity and where possible demand calculate process related times
understand how queues are shaped and the key principles of managing them
Week 7:
understand the role planning can play in managing operations and meeting customer demand
explain the differences between the planning approaches
calculate some of the basic economic order quantity
understand the limitations of the techniques and the role of human intuition
Week 8:
understand the role of supply networks in managing operations
understand how the sharing of information can act as an enabler to the effective management of suppliers and customers
understand the importance of partnerships
Week 9:
define quality
evaluate the degree to which an operation is meeting its performance objectives
understand the importance of quality management systems and their limitations
identify the key improvement techniques
