_McGraw-Hill_Irwin series in

operations and decision sciences._

Stevenson, William J. - Operations
management-McGraw-Hill_Irwin
_2018__compressed
Page 175: Vlasic's Plan to Develop a Giant Pickle
Frank Meczkowski's plan to develop a giant pickle slice that could cover a hamburger was met
with skepticism.
Meczkowski and his team at Vlasic Foods International believed the project, code-named
Frisbee, could be successful.
They spent four years cultivating a jumbo cucumber with the taste, shape, and crunch to be a
perfect pickle.
The monster-sized pickle slices, known as Hamburger Stackers, became one of Vlasic's best-
selling products.
The sales of Hamburger Stackers helped reverse a decline in consumption of Vlasic pickles.

Challenges in Developing the Giant Pickle

Growing a bigger cucumber was not as simple as it seemed.
Dealing with gigantic cucumbers proved to be tough for Vlasic's team.
The idea for the mammoth pickle slices came after the success of Vlasic's regular-size Sandwich
Stackers.
Vlasic had to find oversized varieties of cucumbers, most of which were not in commercial
production.
Different cucumber varieties were grown in greenhouses to find the right one for the pickle.
The cucumber had to taste like a regular cucumber, stay crisp when pickled, have a small seed
cavity, and be straight enough for mechanical cutting.
Vlasic conducted focus groups to determine the perfect size for Hamburger Stackers.

The Patented Cucumber and Commercial Production

Vlasic found a patented cucumber that grows 3.25 inches in diameter, reaches 12 to 16 inches
in length, and weighs about five pounds.
The company had to figure out how to grow the cucumbers in fields instead of greenhouses.
The jumbo cucumbers grew quicker than expected.
 Most of the cucumbers are grown in Florida and handpicked due to their size.
The cucumbers take about 54 days from seed to harvest.
Once harvested, they are shipped to Vlasic's plant in Sussex County.

Challenges in Processing the Giant Cucumbers

The size of the new cucumbers required adjustments to the processing methods at Vlasic's
plant.
The first batch of jumbo cucumbers ended up broken during processing.
Vlasic had to make adjustments to one of the production lines to handle the jumbo cucumbers.
The process of making Hamburger Stackers involves a mix of automation and the human touch.

Note: The note is within the 2000 token limit.

Page 176:
Legal and ethical considerations in design
Mandatory for designers to take into account
Environmental harm is also important to consider
Government agencies that regulate organizations
Food and Drug Administration
Occupational Health and Safety Administration
Environmental Protection Agency
State and local agencies
Examples of regulations impacting design
Bans on cyclamates, red food dye, phosphates, and asbestos
Automobile pollution standards and safety features
Toy design for safety
Construction regulations for lead-free paint, safety glass, accessibility, insulation, wiring,
and plumbing
Product liability and its impact on design
Responsibility of manufacturer for injuries or damages caused by faulty product
Lawsuits and potential suits leading to increased costs and recalls
Importance of designing products free of hazards and providing warnings

Page 177:
Importance of legal, ethical, and sustainability considerations in product and service design
Industrywide standards developed by collaboration between business firms, government
agencies, and consumer groups
Ethical issues in design
Pressure to speed up design process and cut costs
Trade-off decisions involving ethical considerations
Guidelines for designers
Consistency with organization's goals
Providing expected value to customers
 Prioritizing health and safety of employees, workers, customers, and the general public

Page 177 (continued):

Human factors in design of consumer products
Safety and liability as critical issues
Crashworthiness of vehicles
Adding new features to products or services for competitive edge

Additional details from the transcript:

Vlasic pickle-making process for Hamburger Stackers
Cucumbers arrive by truck and are cooled in a cold-storage facility
Cucumbers are washed, sliced, and sized
Slices that are too small or too big are sorted out
Slices that make the cut are mechanically stacked into jars and topped off by hand
Jars are filled with water, vinegar, salt, and other flavorings and colorings
Jars are capped, vacuum-sealed, pasteurized, labeled, and packed for distribution
Example of "vaporware" in software design
Software company faces dilemma of releasing software with bugs or waiting for bug
removal
Importance of crashworthiness in vehicles for consumers, insurance companies, automobile
producers, and government
Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft resuming flights after being grounded for battery defect

Page 178:
"Creeping featurism" can lead to customer dissatisfaction in electronic products with too many
features
Cultural differences can result in different product designs for different countries or regions
Global product design allows for the combined efforts of designers from different countries,
providing advantages such as access to the best human resources and operating on a 24-hour
basis
Global teams can also assess customer needs in multiple countries and incorporate local
resources, opportunities, and constraints
Care must be taken in managing diversity in global teams to avoid conflicts and
miscommunications
Cultural variations in fast food offerings can be seen in McDonald's menus in different countries

Page 179:
Advances in information technology enable continual contact and sharing of designs among
global product design teams
Product and service design plays a key role in sustainability efforts
 Cradle-to-grave assessment, or life cycle analysis, evaluates the environmental impact of a
product or service throughout its useful life
Cradle-to-grave assessment considers factors such as global warming, smog formation, oxygen
depletion, solid waste generation, energy consumption, pollution, waste, and transportation
End-of-life programs aim to reduce the dumping of products, particularly electronic equipment,
in landfills or third-world countries
The three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) are important aspects of cost saving and reducing
environmental impact in product design
Value analysis examines the function of parts and materials to reduce cost and improve product
performance

Page 180:
Value analysis can help reduce costs and improve efficiency in manufacturing
Questions to consider in value analysis:
Is the part necessary? Can it be eliminated?
Are there alternative sources for the part?
Can the part be provided internally?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of the current arrangement?
Can another material, part, or service be used instead?
Can specifications be less stringent to save cost or time?
Can two or more parts be combined?
Can more/less processing be done on the item to save cost or time?
Do suppliers/providers have suggestions for improvements?
Do employees have suggestions for improvements?
Can packaging be improved or made less costly?
Table 4.1 provides an overview of value analysis

Page 181:
Remanufacturing is the refurbishing of used products by replacing worn-out or defective
components
Remanufacturing can be done by the original manufacturer or another company
Benefits of remanufacturing include lower cost, use of unskilled and semiskilled workers, and
environmental benefits
Companies are embracing sustainability initiatives for cost savings and environmental protection
Kraft Foods (now Kraft Heinz Company) focused on sustainability efforts prior to its merger with
H.J. Heinz Company
Kraft achieved cost savings through redesigned packaging
Examples of packaging redesigns and their benefits for Kraft Foods:
DiGiorno and California Pizza Kitchen pizzas: Slimmer cartons allowed for more pizzas
per pallet and fewer trucks on the road
Oscar Mayer Deli Creations: 30% less paperboard used, resulting in less packaging going
to landfills
Kraft salad dressing: 19% less plastic per bottle, increased transportation efficiency
 Kraft also worked on reducing water pollution/soil erosion and supporting biodiversity

Page 182: Xerox's Sustainability Milestone

Xerox Corporation has surpassed a major sustainability milestone by diverting billions of
pounds of electronic waste from landfills through waste-free initiatives.
Xerox's environmental program focuses on waste avoidance through reuse and recycling in
imaging supplies, product take-back and recycling, and parts reuse.
Xerox integrates innovative environmental priorities into manufacturing operations to enhance
recycling efforts.
Patricia Calkins, Xerox vice president, states that the company's experience with reuse, recycling,
and remanufacturing has saved billions of dollars and kept waste out of landfills.

Maria's Market in Recycle City

Maria's Market aims to reduce waste and encourage reuse and recycling.
Maria stocks items with fewer harmful ingredients and less packaging to reduce waste.
Maria created a bulk food section where shoppers can measure out the exact amounts they
need to reduce packaging and wasted food.
Maria implements a program to reuse items like cardboard boxes and offers discounts to
customers who return plastic bags or bring their own cloth sacks.
Maria ensures that many items in the store can be easily recycled and sets up well-marked
collection containers for shoppers to participate in the recycling program.

Design Considerations for Recycling

Design for disassembly (DFD) is a consideration in product design to make products easily
taken apart for recycling.
Recycling involves recovering materials for future use, including manufactured parts and
production materials like lubricants and solvents.
Companies recycle for cost savings, environmental concerns, and compliance with
environmental regulations.
Design for recycling (DFR) refers to product design that facilitates the recovery of materials and
components in used products for reuse.

Page 183: Paper or Plastic?

Choosing between paper and plastic bags at the checkout counter has no easy answer.
Paper comes from trees, which are renewable resources, but it takes time to replace cut-down
trees.
Plastic is made from non-renewable petroleum, and plastic bags are seldom recycled and often
end up in landfills.
The best solution is to use cloth bags or bring back old bags to the store for reuse.
Recycling containers, such as igloos, are placed near supermarkets to encourage recycling.
Cardboard boxes used for shipping can be reused by residents or collected for recycling.
 Maria's Market aims to order items with minimal packaging and stocks green products with
environmentally friendly packaging.
Fresh and bulk foods are offered to reduce waste from excessive packaging.
Shoppers can use refillable containers or recyclable/reusable bags for their purchases.
Buying recycled paper products helps save natural resources and creates a market for recycled
materials.

Page 184: Chapter Four Product and Service

Design
Designers must consider product or service life cycles, standardization, reliability, and operating
conditions
Products and services go through stages over their useful life, such as introduction, growth,
maturity, and decline
Different strategies are needed for each phase
Forecasts of demand and cash flow are important inputs for strategy
Design improvements and increasing demand lead to higher reliability and lower costs
In the growth phase, accurate projections of demand growth rate and capacity increases are
important
In the maturity phase, few design changes are needed and costs are low
In the decline phase, decisions must be made on whether to discontinue or find new uses for
the product or service
Some products do not exhibit life cycles, while most new products do
Service life cycles can be related to the life cycles of products
The time it takes for a product or service to pass through each phase of its life cycle varies

Page 185:
Product life cycle management (PLM) is a systematic approach to managing the changes a
product goes through
PLM includes data related to production processes, business processes, and people
PLM software can automate the management of product-related data and integrate it with
other business processes
Lego A/S overcame challenges in the toy market and achieved market success by introducing
new products and targeting different customer segments
Lego Friends theme, targeting girls, helped triple sales to girls

Note: The note includes the main ideas and supporting details from the given transcript. The
information is organized into two sections based on the page numbers provided.

Page 186:
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)
Goal is to eliminate waste and improve efficiency
 Three phases of PLM application:
Beginning of life: design and development
Middle of life: working with suppliers, managing product information and warranties
End of life: strategies for product discontinuance, disposal, or recycling
PLM can be applied to software development and services as well

Degree of Standardization
Standardization refers to the extent of absence of variety in a product, service, or process
Standardized products are made in large quantities of identical items
Standardized service implies that every customer or item processed receives the same service
Standardization carries benefits such as immediate availability, lower production costs,
interchangeable parts, lower design costs, and increased quality and reliability
Lack of standardization can lead to difficulties and competitive struggles, such as problems in
selling goods in foreign countries or buying foreign machines

Page 187:
Designing for Mass Customization
Companies like standardization for high volume and low-cost production, but customers prefer
more variety
Mass customization is a strategy of producing standardized goods or services with some
degree of customization
Tactics for mass customization include delayed differentiation and modular design
Delayed differentiation is the process of producing, but not completing, a product or service
until customer preferences are known
Modular design involves grouping component parts into modules that can be easily replaced or
interchanged
Modular design enables quick assembly of customized products and simplifies diagnosis and
repair of failures
Dell Computers and other manufacturers have successfully used modular design for mass
customization
Modular design is also found in the construction industry, allowing for prefabricated rooms to
be integrated into structures

Page 188:
Disadvantages of modular design
Decrease in variety
Number of possible configurations of modules is less than individual components
Inability to disassemble a module
Faulty part requires scrapping the entire module
Importance of reliability
Measure of ability to perform intended function under prescribed conditions
Used by buyers to compare alternatives and by sellers to determine price
 Impact on repeat sales, product image, and legal implications
Consideration for sustainability
Failure
Situation where item does not perform as intended
Includes instances of non-functioning, substandard performance, and unintended
response
Example of pulled pork sandwiches as a popular fast-food item with delayed differentiation

Page 189:
Reliability specified with respect to normal operating conditions
Failure due to users not heeding conditions
Ways to improve reliability
Improving reliability of individual components
Backup components
Upgrading user education and maintenance recommendations
Simplifying the system or altering component relationships
Determining the needed level of reliability
Depends on potential benefits and cost of improvements
Reliability improvements become increasingly costly
Optimal level of reliability is where incremental benefit equals incremental cost
Robust design
Products or services that function within a narrow or broad range of conditions
More robust design leads to higher customer satisfaction
Environmental factors can negatively affect quality
Resistance to influences leads to less negative effects
Potential ways to improve reliability listed in Table 4.3

Page 190: Chapter Four Product and Service

Design
Heating process in various industries
Food products, ceramics, steel, petroleum products, pharmaceutical products
Furnaces do not heat uniformly
Taguchi's approach to robust design
Designing a product that is unaffected by minor variations in temperature
Parameter design to determine specification settings for robust design
Reducing the number of test runs using expert knowledge
Degree of newness in product or service design
Modification of existing product or service
Expansion of existing product line or service offering
Clone of competitor's product or service
New product or service
Assessing risks and potential benefits of design change
 Quality function deployment (QFD)
Integrating the "voice of the customer" into product and service development
Translating customer requirements into technical terms
Using matrices to structure data collection

Page 191: Chapter Four Product and Service

Design
Structure of QFD based on matrices
Additional features in QFD
Importance weightings and competitive evaluations
Analysis using the house of quality format
Customer requirements and technical requirements
Importance and correlation matrix
Competitive evaluation and technical evaluation
Target values and importance weightings

Page 193:
House of Quality approach in product design
Sequence of "houses" in design process
Design characteristics, specific components, production processes, quality plan
Kano Model in product and service design
Three definitions of quality: basic, performance, excitement
Basic quality leads to dissatisfaction if not present
Performance quality generates satisfaction or dissatisfaction based on functionality and
appeal
Excitement quality causes excitement and "wow" factor
Features migrate over time from excitement to performance to basic quality

Page 194:
Lesson from Kano model: focus on basic needs first, then performance features, and identify
excitement features
Feasibility analysis in product design and development
Market analysis, economic analysis, technical analysis
Collaboration between marketing, finance, accounting, engineering, and operations
Phases in product design and development
Feasibility analysis, product specifications, process specifications, prototype
development, design review, market test, product introduction, follow-up evaluation

Page 195:
Designing for production
Concurrent engineering in product design and production
 Bringing design and manufacturing engineering together early in the design phase
Involving cross-functional teams including manufacturing, marketing, purchasing,
suppliers, and customers
Challenges of traditional "over-the-wall" approach in product design and manufacturing

Page 196: Chapter Four Product and Service

Design
Simultaneous development approach advantages:
Manufacturing personnel can identify production capabilities and capacities
They have latitude in design and can select suitable materials and processes based on
production capabilities
Knowledge of production capabilities helps in the selection process
Cost and quality considerations can be influenced by design, reducing conflicts during
production
Design or procurement of critical tooling can occur early in the process
Shortens the product development process and provides a competitive advantage
Technical feasibility of a design can be assessed early on
Avoids serious problems during production
Emphasis can be on problem resolution instead of conflict resolution

Potential difficulties of concurrent engineering:

Long-standing boundaries between design and manufacturing can be difficult to overcome
Extra communication and flexibility are required for the process to work

Computer-Aided Design (CAD):

CAD uses computer graphics for product design
Designers can modify existing designs or create new ones on a monitor using various input
devices
CAD increases the productivity of designers from 3 to 10 times
CAD creates a database for manufacturing that provides information on product geometry,
dimensions, tolerances, and material specifications
Some CAD systems allow for engineering and cost analyses on proposed designs
CAD with finite element analysis (FEA) capability can shorten the time to market of new products

Page 197:
Production Requirements:
Designers must consider production capabilities
Design needs to understand the capabilities of production, such as equipment, skills, materials,
schedules, technologies, and special abilities
Forecasts of future demand provide information on timing, volume, and demands for new
products and services
 Manufacturability is important for cost, productivity, and quality in manufactured goods
Ease of providing the service, cost, productivity, and quality are concerns for services
Design for manufacturing (DFM) indicates designing products compatible with an
organization's capabilities
Design for assembly (DFA) focuses on reducing the number of parts and optimizing assembly
methods and sequence
Manufacturability refers to the ease of fabrication and/or assembly of products

Component Commonality:
Companies benefit from using common parts in multiple products or services
Standard training, bulk buying, and commonality of parts lead to cost savings and efficiency
Component commonality reduces the variety of jobs and training needed in services
Multiple-use forms in financial and medical services are examples of component commonality
Computer software often uses common modules for similar applications, saving time and cost

Page 198: Chapter Four Product and Service

Design
Service design is similar to product design but with some important differences
Services are usually created and delivered simultaneously
Service refers to an act done to or for a customer
Service delivery system includes facilities, processes, and skills needed to provide the service
Services can be part of a product bundle
Customer-oriented service is a key competitive differentiator
System design involves development or refinement of the overall service package
Service design begins with the choice of a service strategy and target market
Customer requirements and expectations must be determined
Degree of variation in service requirements and customer contact impact standardization and
customization
Degree of customer contact affects opportunities for selling
Service design considerations include intangible factors, simultaneous creation and delivery,
inability to inventory services, high visibility, low barriers to entry and exit, importance of
location, and range of customer contact

Page 199:
Services cannot be inventoried, making capacity issues important
Services must be designed with consumer visibility in mind
Some services have low barriers to entry and exit, requiring innovation and cost-effectiveness
Location is often important to service design
Service systems range from little or no customer contact to high customer contact
Demand variability creates waiting lines or idle service resources
Design objectives can be based on cost and efficiency or customer perspective
Perceived quality in services relates to intangibles in the service package
 Attempts to achieve efficiency can depersonalize service and negatively alter customer
perception of quality
Design objectives based on customer perspective require understanding customer experience
and maintaining control over service delivery
Phases in the service design process are similar to product design, with the addition of
designing the delivery system

Chapter Four: Product and Service Design -

Service Blueprinting
A service blueprint is a method for describing and analyzing a service process.
It is similar to an architectural drawing but focuses on customer and service actions.
The blueprint includes customer actions, direct contact service people, backstage contacts, and
support operations.
Support operations in the example include the reservation system, ordering of food and
supplies, cashier, and outsourcing of laundry service.
Time estimates for actions and operations are typically included in a service blueprint.

Major Steps in Service Blueprinting:

1. Establish boundaries for the service and determine the level of detail needed.
2. Identify and determine the sequence of customer and service actions and interactions.
A flowchart can be used for this purpose.

Table 4.5: Phases in Service Design Process

1. Conceptualize:
Idea generation
Assessment of customer wants/needs (marketing)
Assessment of demand potential (marketing)
2. Identify service package components needed (operations and marketing).
3. Determine performance specifications (operations and marketing).
4. Translate performance specifications into design specifications.
5. Translate design specifications into delivery specifications.

Service Blueprint Example: Restaurant

Customer actions:
Arrive
Seated
Order
Eat
Pay and leave
Contact persons:
Greeted by hostess
Hostess checks reservation
 Hostess escorts customers to their table
Greeted by server
Server provides menus
Server fills water glasses
Server describes specials
Server takes orders
Dinners are served
Server occasionally checks to see if any problems
Server brings the check
Server receives payment
Backstage contacts:
Busboy clears table
Kitchen staff prepares food
Support:
Reservation system
Ordering food
Cashier
Laundry service