Jay Heizer

Myomlab Support

In earlier Blogs, Barry and I have mentioned that we continue to refine myomlab. I also want to note that Pearson continues in a major way to do the same. Their commitment to the on-line learning platform and myomlab is substantial. As a part of this 100 million-dollar plus software investment, Pearson has added two new sites to assist faculty. I think you will find these sites helpful in understanding the power and use of myomlab. They are:

www.myomlab.com/tours_training This link provides access to the Instructor’s User Guide, How-to Videos, and the schedule for online myomlab training via WebEx.

Also, www.mybschoolcommunity.com contains articles, FAQs, and links to discussions. This site was developed as a place for faculty to connect with their peers by exchanging ideas and advice on courses and content for myomlab.

Additionally, Pearson’s Customer Experience Manager, Matthew Dorsey, (matthew.dorsey@pearson.com) is available to help you get started. Matthew is the Pearson contact who understands all of the nuances of myomlab, and given the growing power of myomlab, we are glad to have him aboard.

Our students are very excited about learning with myomlab and we think your students will be too. Myomlab is available to students for a modest fee with purchase of the text or as a separate product. Your sales rep can help you with these options.

Teaching Tip: Myomlab Improves Learning (and evaluations)

I have just completed 5 days at the 2011 Academy of Management meeting in San Antonio where activities began at 7am and went well into the evening. And almost 8,000 people were on the program! The OM division alone has 722 members. I met with many colleagues who are using the Heizer / Render text, some with and some without the myomlab option. Therefore, as we begin this semester, I want to encourage those who are not using myomlab to do so. The students love it. They learn more. And your evaluations go up. Those are real payoffs.

Myomlab, which Barry and I have been refining for several years, is now a mature product. Additionally, Pearson continues to enhance the underlying platform with more options. Myomlab includes the end of chapter problems, as well as the T/F and multiple-choice questions from the text bank. The result is a very rich set of exercises that allows you to focus on the topics and style of class you want to teach. Additionally, Howard Weiss has enhanced the POMs for Windows software and Excel templates with a ‘cut and paste’ feature that facilitates easy transfer of problem data into those software packages. Howard particularly likes this feature because it allows him to assign many problems and devote more class time to interpreting results.

Use of myomlab also opens up some book options that can reduce cost to the student. Your sales rep or our editor Chuck Synovec (chuck.synovec@pearson.com) can tell you more about the various options. Pearson also has talent available to aid you with any coaching you may want when starting and using myomlab.

OM in the News: Eli Goldratt

With regret, we inform you that Dr. Eli Goldratt passed away June 11, 2011 at his home in
Israel. It was hoped he could get to New York this week for the Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization Conference, but that was not to be. He was an inventor with a number of patents, an author, consultant, and teacher. Although trained as a physicist, and perhaps because he was trained as a physicist, he brought a new perspective to our discipline. I saw him at a conference a number of years ago and confirmed that, he could be more than outspoken, perhaps on occasion even arrogant and combative, but passionate and committed to his TOC approach of addressing issues in our discipline. We are richer for his contribution and the poorer for his passing.

Notable among his books is The Goal (with Jeff Cox , 1984), which is still often used as supplemental reading in POM courses. He also wrote: It’s not Luck (1994), The Race (with Robert Fox, 1996) , Production the TOC Way (2003), The Haystack Syndrome (2006), and more.

His TOC approach has make it way into a number of texts including the Heizer Render text with TOC material and problems in Supplement 7, Capacity and Constraint Management.

Teaching Tip: Globalizing our OM Classes

I’ve just returned from a trip to India and was again reminded not only how much the world’s economies are intertwined, but also that we need to be sure our students appreciate that economic integration. This is a shrinking world. For instance, while in New Delhi, Boston University was having Executive MBA presentations in my hotel. And GE Chairman Jeffrey Immelt was also in town holding GE’s Corporate Excellent Council meeting and talking about added investment in GE’s energy, aviation, and locomotive facilities as well as GE’s 30% growth in India. Warren Buffett was in Bangalore speaking at the Confederation of Indian Industries and then in New Delhi discussing growth of Berkshire Hathaway’s insurance business. Michael Dell, with eight data centers across India, was also in New Delhi reportedly reviewing performance and investment opportunities. Meanwhile, Sara Palin was speaking about the US economy at the India Conclave 2011 in Mumbai. And, of course, the Indian auto assembly plants of Honda, Toyota, and Suzuki were concerned about part shortages after the earthquakes in Japan.

As an aside, perhaps I should add that Bill and Melinda Gates were also in India and slated to meet with Buffett to recruit others to join them in their philanthropic activities.

As we put on our professor hats and ‘profess’, it is hard for us to overemphasize the global perspective our students need (and that we introduce in Chapter 2). Whether it is international economics, investments by GE, Berkshire Hathaway, or Dell, automotive supply chain issues, or Boston University’s international education, we owe it to our students to ensure that they have an international perspective. The world is not flat, but it is getting there.

Good OM Reading: Lean Culture… The Leader’s Guide

For those faculty with some background in management theory, leadership, and organization behavior, Larry Miller’s new book, Lean Culture, The Leader’s Guide, is an excellent refresher in a very applied way…. that is, how to build lean organizations. For faculty (and students) with limited exposure to these topics, it is a great survey book. The strong applied nature of the book makes it good supplemental reading regardless of background. Miller has done a great job of tying management literature to lean literature. One can tell from the presentation that Miller has fought the culture wars necessary to bring about organizational change. And successful implementation of lean often means fighting those wars. Miller, has indeed, provided the ‘leader’s guide’ for the battle.

The book is an easy read and full of great figures, many of which focus on lean topics, while others deal with management and behavioral issues. The lean topics of his text are excellent reinforcement of material covered in the Heizer/Render text. Supplementing your course by adding the structure and applied approach of Lean Culture, either as outside reading or via lectures, may help students identify what is to be done and how to do it. There is no way to be an effective manager or a change agent as we seek lean organizations without understanding leadership, organization culture, and the tools of lean. Here is the plan.

I think you will find that the book really is The Leader’s Guide for implementing lean and that it will help you and your students make lean work.

Teaching Tip: Using Real Data for Inventory

For lots of varied reasons many of us spend substantial class time on inventory. The Heizer / Render text covers inventory in Chapter 12 (managing inventory and inventory models), Chapter 14 (lot sizing), and Chapter 11 (measuring assets committed to inventory and inventory turnover).

One way to engage students in discussions of inventory, and perhaps understand its significance better, is to have them use real turnover data for companies or industries they know. We show how to do this in Chapter 11, Examples 5 and 6, where we use Home Depot and Pepsi data. Assignments where students compute and compare these ratios can be facilitated by the use of annual reports as most annual reports provide enough data for the calculations. Alternatively, data on an aggregate basis are available and down loadable from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Additionally, Quarterman Lee has just published some Wholesale Inventory Turn Data that you and your students might find interesting for developing industry comparisons. His raw data are from the U.S. Census Bureau, but he has organized it into 18 broad categories and more than 260 subcategories. He has a modest fee of $6 or $8 to access the down loadable data.

Teaching Tip: Examining Supply Chains

In Chapter 11, Figure 11.1, we present a Supply Chain with costs for beer. This figure provides an opportunity to discuss both the value added and the risks associated with each step in the supply chain. And, because students can often relate to the product, beer, the presentation encourages a discussion of not only the multiple tiers, but also the processing delays, logistics, storage, cooling, and where and how costs might be reduced in the supply chain. Finding other examples of Supply / Value Chains can be a challenge, but we found very timely and good examples (and perhaps almost as interesting as beer), by PetroStrategies, Inc. — supply chains of the oil and gas industries.

PetroStrategies shows both the Crude Oil Value Chain and the Natural Gas Value Chain. The great thing about their presentation is that in addition to the ‘chains’ being shown, so are estimates of Costs, Value (selling price at each stage), Gross Margins, Net Margins, and Percent of selling price for each component in the chain.

Given the current interest in oil and gasoline prices, a lively discussion of costs and values in the supply chain from wellhead to gasoline pump should ensue. You might note that although the data is relatively recent (2007), gasoline costs are shown at $2.00 per gallon.

Discussion Questions:

1. Where are the risks in these supply chains?

2. What can be done to enhance supply and / or reduce the risks?

3. Have you any suggestions about what could be done to reduce costs in these supply chains?

Teaching Tip: Inventory Simulation Game

Inventory Simulation Game

An excellent exercise for a hands-on understanding of the impact and cost of inventory policies was developed by Keith Willoughby (Bucknell University) and Ken Klassen (Brock University). The objective, not unexpectedly, is to maximize revenue against one of three normally distributed demand functions while driving ordering, shortage, and holding cost to a minimum.

The game, He Shoots, He Scores, is described in Chapter 12 of the Instructor’s Resource Manual. The Student Instructions handout is also there. These are also available in myomlab (see below). EOQ material is presented in the text in Chapter 12 and 14, while lot-for-lot and PPB are presented in Chapter 14. All are available in POM for Windows software as are Wagner-Whitin, Period Order Quantity, and a User Defined option.

The IRM and the Instructor Resources Section of myomlab suggest 30 to 40 minutes, but with any summary / analysis that is tight. I have run the game in a 50-minute period, but even then, I needed to keep an undergraduate class moving. Any introduction to inventory policies or software mechanics suggests a longer class.

To enliven the class, I give points for the team with the highest profit (say 10 points for the highest profit) and reduce the scores down to 1 point. With ten 3-person teams, a 30-student class is easily accommodated. I let the students be as creative as they want in selecting and implementing an inventory policy (EOQ, PPB, Wagner-Whitten, or something of their own creation, etc.) and use any software they want.

Another option is to assign various inventory policies to teams and then compare the results. This has the advantage of moving the class to a more structured discussion of inventory management…but it is less fun.

The instructions, student handout, and excel spreadsheet are available in myomlab under the ‘Instructor Resources’ button on the left hand navigation. Once on the ‘Instructors Resources’ page, look under the heading ‘Instructor Supplements’ for the bullet point, ‘See the Simulation Games.’ This shows three simulation exercises; click on the first one, the ‘Inventory Simulation Game;’ then click on ‘spreadsheet’ on the left top of the first page to get to the Excel spreadsheet.

My experience with the exercise is all positive … I recommend it.

Myomlab: Homework vs. Quiz

As we receive comments and questions regarding Myomlab, I am reminded just how rich a teaching tool myomlab is. So here are some hints that you may find helpful.

Hint: You can create homework assignments using quiz mode, but the homework assignment defaults offer more student learning aids than the quiz option. The difference in problem presentation is that in homework, problems are presented in smaller chunks while in quiz/test they are unrolled and presented all at once. Additionally, if assignments set-up as homework the students can have more options in the help menu. Quiz has fewer options.

It may help to think of homework is a practice tool and not an assessment tool. For assessment use, assign graded homework as a quiz where you have more controls over how the assignment is presented and when students can view results. You may create ungraded practice homework and make those available to students, but not required. Then, if you would like to assign a grade for the practice homework, create a quiz covering the relevant learning objectives.

Hint: If you make an assignment so that it will give the correct answers after the due date, students who do not take the assignment cannot see the correct answers. The answers do not appear until after they attempt something.

Hint: The learning aids: text pages, guided solutions, and tutorial video tabs are all available to the student at faculty discretion as learning aids within myomlab. The guided solutions will walk a student through the same problem, but with different numbers. This helps them understand how to complete the problem, but does not disclose the answer to the exact problem they are working.

I think students will find all of the leaning aids helpful, but the guided solutions are wonderful!

Heather Kazakoff heather.kazakoff@pearson.com is the myomlab expert available to answer questions for current adopters. Prospective users should contact Anne Fahlgren, Anne.Fahlgren@pearson.com.

Pretest Using Myomlab

To follow-up on last week’s Blog regarding Myomlab, I’ll comment on what I found to be a very successful application. I use a Pretest. That is, when introducing a new topic, I choose 6 to 10 introductory questions from Myomlab. These are usually multiple choice and perhaps a simple introductory problem. These problems are due via Myomlab prior to class. All I have to do is select the questions; the grading and posting are done automatically. I set-up a cutoff time a few minutes prior to class (I find student are often in the lab down the hall doing the problems at the last minute……what a surprise). With cumulative points on the pretests at 10 to 15% of the course grade, I find I get the attention of most students. However, a few words in class reminding students that the pretests are a part of the course that is an easy ‘A’ can be helpful.

The pretests can be a real aid in stimulating class interest and enhancing class participation. Pretests are a win-win. Students are more involved, your classes are more interesting, students are learning more, and your class evaluations go up.

I think you and your students will like Pretests. Give them a try.

Myomlab updates and enhancements

The Guided Solutions for all of the problems in Myomlab are now completed and available for spring semester. This means that students have the opportunity to click on the 123 tab on the upper left of the problem screen for help (a problem specific tutorial) when solving a bookmatch problem. The Guided Solutions are in addition to the Examples and Videos that are available with many problems.

As you may know, thousands of questions from the Test Item File are also available in Myomlab. With the good help of Chuck Munson (Washington State University), we have reviewed all of the True/False and Multiple Choice questions for accuracy. We have also made a special effort to remove any ‘tricky’ problems or problems with any ambiguity. These revisions too, are now available.

Additionally, the Myomlab platform has some enhancements. Among these are:

Track Time Spent on Media Students now will have to explicitly click the ‘submit’ button after viewing the media relevant to the assignment. This enables instructors to track the time students spent on each media file.

Custom Question Builder Updates For those of you adding your own questions, you are now able to edit table properties in Word-like tables.

Mobile App for iPhones, Pads, and Android phones (or it is a hi-tech world) This enhancement allows students to login and review information from the dashboard of their course. This means that course announcements, assignments, and results for completed work are readily available. However, students may not complete assignments from their mobile devices.

Teaching Tip: Myomlab

The last two weeks have been rather full. First, it began with a surprisingly well-attended DSI meeting in San Diego. At DSI on Saturday we had an all day session on Technology in the Classroom Miniconference that included Amy Phelps (Duquesne) doing a show-and-tell of Mystatlab. Mystatlab is much like Myomlab so the presentation was also helpful to users and prospective users of Myomlab. Amy’s experience parallels mine. That is, if you are not using an algorithmic teaching supplement like Myomlab, you are not doing all you can for your students …..or for yourself. Myomlab improves student learning and teaching evaluations while giving you more time for lecture prep and research. Myomlab is a sure bet for being a better teacher.

By Sunday evening, it was time for Jessica Gilmore, PH’s Customer Experience Manager, and Anne Fahlgren, Senior Marketing Manager, to introduce faculty to Myomlab. Their Sunday presentation had the added bonus of wine and hors d’oeuvres compliments of Prentice-Hall. Anne knows pricing so she focuses on prospective users and Jessica aids implementation. Both would be delighted to schedule a time with you to demonstrate Myomlab. Anne’s email is Anne.Fahlgren@pearson.com) and Jessica’s is (Jessica.Gilmore@pearson.com).

After flying home and a brief Thanksgiving break, I got back to work on the Guided Solutions for problems in Myomlab. I finished a batch and submitted them Monday. I think you will like them. The Guided Solutions are step-by-step explanations of the related problem. They complement the text references and the Virtual Office Hour videos. And all are available with the click of a mouse.

The goal is to have a Guided Solution for each problem and we are almost there. We expect to have most of them coded and loaded for the spring semester.

Yours for great teaching!

Supplier and Risk Monitoring

A good way to help students gain insight into the significance of supply chain risks (Chapter 11 introduces the issue of supply chain risk) may be to reference the Dow Jones Supplier & Risk Monitor. This Dow Jones approach may help students see that mitigating supply chain risk is a significant issue in the real world. So much so that firms (in this case Dow Jones) sell the service. The DJ Supplier and Risk Monitor helps companies keep track of and evaluate events that may be critical to their supply chain. Dow Jones claims that they can identify potentially disruptive events, new products, product recalls, reputation problems, product safety issues, and other types of breaking news. Additionally, DJ believes they can help companies uncover potential problems by highlighting news stories by volume and relevancy. Also available are company performance and financials. The system can provide graphic displays of selected priorities, instant alerting, and emailing. The idea is to show students that commercial tools exist to expand risk scanning to all of the elements in the supply chain and potential partners. Monitoring the supply chain and evaluating risk is not just an academic exercise.

Myomlab Enhancements

If you haven’t seen many posts from me in the past few weeks, it’s because I’ve been working on enhancements for myomlab. As you know from my previous post regarding myomlab software, I think myomlab is revolutionizing OM teaching and learning. For the instructors already using myomlab, I hope your classes are going well. We would love to hear from you with your observations and comments (you can click the Comments button below to publish them) or email me.

Some of the new features in myomlab are:

A greatly enhanced set of Guided Solutions to provide an improved tutorial experience for individual problems. The goal is to have a Guided Solution for each problem as well as a text reference. The Guided Solutions are being added as they are developed and evaluated for pedagogy and accuracy.
A ‘copy and paste’ option that we have been developing with Howard Weiss of Temple University facilitates transfer of data from myomlab problems to Howard’s Excel OM and POM for Windows as well as to Excel.
The ability to apply a penalty (deducting points or percentage) for assignments submitted late.
The ability to assign multiple prerequisites for assignments.
And a ‘custom question builder’ enabeling you to create and edit your own questions.

OM in the News: Mass Customization at BMW

BMW at its Spartanburg S.C. plant along with 170 suppliers wants to build a custom X5 sport utility vehicle for you. The Spartanburg plant thinks they can do it for you as they already export 70% of the vehicles it makes to more than 130 countries; each with its own specifications. And they do it with 18 owner’s manual languages. The number of custom options includes 500 side-mirrow combinations, 1300 front-bumper combinations, 2,500 possible wiring harnesses, 5,000 seat and 9,000 center-console combinations.

BMW wants 4 to 6 weeks to make the custom ordered SUV, but orders are locked in with a lead time of only 5 days. Dealer software is closely tied to BMW’s manufacturing and supply chain, with workers getting the word on what car they are building via overhead screens. The frequent changes required by variations in custom orders complicates every thing from entering the order, to procurement, to moving parts to the line, and balancing the assembly line. Customization is not cheap. But BMW is betting that mass customization for a premium priced car will pay off.

Discussion questions:

Why don’t more auto purchasers request custom-made cars (the car they really want)?

How do we balance an assembly line with many different products coming down the assembly line (the article says the standard time is 106 seconds)?