Operations Management - Assignment Example

On the other hand, experimenting with the real world has not only proven to be expensive but is also dangerous and in most cases impossible. The Dry cleaning case study highlights one of the current issues and challenges affecting operations management in most industries. In the case study, the dry cleaner processes two pieces of suites by allowing suites to arrive with exponential time between the arrival times having a mean of G minutes and are at first served by server 1. After the completion of service at server 1, the jacket (one piece of the suite) is expected to go server 2 while the other parts (pants) goes to server 3.

However, during the service at sever 2; the probability of the jacket being damaged is 0.05 while at the same time the probability of the pant being damaged at server 3 is 0.10. From server 2, the jackets enter into a queue for server 4 where suit parts are matched and reassembled. Management of waiting lines is a common challenge in operations management. As evidenced in the above case study, service systems normally face a number of problems such long queues of waiting lines due to the complexity and high levels of heterogeneity in the operations management processes (Barnes, 2008). . rena Modeling in Service Systems Spreadsheet and Arena modeling programs are some of the simulation tools and techniques that are commonly being used to help solve the queuing problems in the contemporary services systems.

In operations management, queue systems are not usually possible to analyze using mathematical or analytical formulas. Consequently simulation is currently one of the widely used means of analysis by most operation managers. With regard to the queue problem highlighted in the case study, both the two software tools can effectively be used as viable alternative techniques to experiment and find solutions to the issues affecting the service systems through abstraction. Generally, spreadsheet is currently one of the most accessible modeling tools that can be used for a wide range of applications and problem solutions in operations management.

For example, the simulation modeling using spreadsheet can help explore the problems of long waiting lines and queues associated with the dynamic service systems. In spreadsheet based simulation modeling, the technology used simply involves entering the model inputs into cells and viewing the output in other cells (Winston and Albright, 2007, p.124). In this regard, the input values are linked to the output values through chains of formulas and even scripts. Compared to Arena modeling, both some of the potential advantages of spreadsheet modeling include the fact that it is virtually available on any office computer and is normally very easy to use.

Additionally, spreadsheet simulation modeling is relatively extensible particularly when using spreadsheet simulation modeling to solve the queue problem in service systems such as the one highlighted in the above dry cleaning case study. For example, one can easily add