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Management Programme
ASSIGNMENT
SECOND SEMESTER
(JULY TO DECEMBER)
2020
MS – 56 : Materials Management
School of Management Studies
INDIRA GANDHI NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY
MAIDAN GARHI, NEW DELHI – 110 068
ASSIGNMENT
| Course Code : | MS – 56 |
| Course Title : | MATERIALS MANAGEMENT |
| Assignment Code : | MS-56/TMA/Sem-II/2020 |
| Coverage : | All Blocks |
Note: Attempt all the questions and submit this assignment to the Coordinator of your Study Centre on or before 31st October, 2020.
Question. 1. “Product development and design is basically a research and development activity”. Elaborate the statement with suitable examples.
Answer: Product development typically refers to all of the stages involved in bringing a product from concept or idea through market release and beyond. In other words, product development incorporates a product’s entire journey.
There are many steps to this process, and it’s not the same path for every organization, but these are the most common stages through which products typically progress:
- Identifying a market need—Products solve problems. Identifying a problem that needs solving (or a better way of being solved) is where this journey should begin. Conversations with potential customers, surveys, and other user research activities can inform this step.
- Quantifying the opportunity—Not every problem is problematic enough to warrant a product-based solution. The pain it causes and the number of people or organizations it impacts can determine whether it’s a worthy problem to solve and if people are willing to pay for a solution (be it with money or their data).
- Conceptualizing the product—Some solutions may be obvious, while others may be less intuitive. Here’s where the team puts in the effort and applies their creativity to devising how a product might serve its needs.
- Validating the solution—Before too much time is spent prototyping and design, whether the proposed solution is viable should be tested. This can still happen at the conceptual level. Still, it is an early test to see whether the particular product idea is worth pursuing further or if it will be rejected or only lightly adopted by the target user.
- Building the product roadmap—With a legitimate product concept in hand, product management can build out the product roadmap, identifying which themes and goals are central to develop first to solve the most significant pain points and spark adoption.
- Developing a minimum viable product (MVP)—This initial version of the product needs just enough functionality to be used by customers.
- Releasing the MVP to users—Experiments can be conducted to gauge interest, prioritize marketing channels and message, and begin testing the waters around price sensitivity and packaging. It also kicks off the feedback loop to bring ideas, complaints, and suggestions into the prioritization process and populate the product backlog.
- Ongoing iteration based on user feedback and strategic goals—With a product in the market, enhancements, expansions, and changes will be driven by the user feedback being collected via various channels. Over time the product roadmap will evolve based on this learning and the objectives the company sets for this product. This work never ends until it’s finally time to sunset a product at the end of its lifecycle.
Research and Development vs. Product Development
Product development is no less than to research development and design as it requires equal care and cautions to develop product development plans and steps.
The difference between research and development and product development is that research and development is the conception phase in the product life cycle, while product development is the entire process of designing, creating, and marketing new products or existing products with new features.
Question. 2. “Job design is the consciously planned structuring of work effort performed by an individual or a team of persons”. Explain the statement.
Answer: Today jobs are designed to suit an average worker & capability distinction is more likely to be on the basis of education & experience. Since the industrial revolution job design is approached by using socio technical system. There are three important approaches to job design –Engineering approach, human approach and the characteristic approach.
ENGINEERING APPROACH
1) The most important single element in the engineering approach, proposed by F W Taylor and other, was the task idea,” the work of every workman is fully planned out by the management at least an day in advance & each man receive in most cases complete written instruction describing in details the task which he is to accomplish. This task specific not only what to be done but how it is
Question. 3. What do you understand by the term “batch production”? Explain the advantages and disadvantages of batch production.
Answer: batch production in manufacturing:
Batch production is a method of manufacturing where identical or similar items are produced together for different sized production runs. The method allows for products to be mass-produced in batches with small to major changes to the product, from car doors through to children’s toys.
Each batch goes through a single stage of the production process before moving onto the next stage to make the desired product. It’s a key solution used by businesses of various sizes across multiple industries.
Changes may occur between different batches, such as products constructed in different colours, sizes, and styles. If a product needs to be altered, this variation can be changed as the production process switches from one batch style to the other.
Question. 4. Critically examine the following statement: “value engineering is more of a human relations, team building and motivation programme than anything else”.
Answer: Value Engineering is a systematic process used by a multidisciplinary team to improve the value of a project through the analysis of its functions. Value is defined as a fair return or equivalent in goods, services, or money for something exchanged. Value is commonly represented by the relationship:
Question. 5. “Inventory management for slow moving expensive items should focus more on lead time reduction than anything else”. Critically examine the statement.
Answer: Slow moving inventory is defined as stock keeping units (SKUs) that have not shipped in a certain amount of time, such as 90 or 180 days, and merchandise that has a low turn rate relative to the quantity on hand.
Slow moving inventory, or SMI, not only varies from seller to seller, but it can also vary from item to item. Here are three specific ways that can be used to define slow moving inventory…
- Overstocked Items
- Stock Turns
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