Operations Management and Innovation

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

• 8. Decend work and economic growth
• 12. Responsible consumption and production
• 13. Climate action

Objectives

Operations Management and Innovation is applicable to the core activities that any organisation performs in the automotive sector, for making processes more efficient and introducing technical improvements to the processes. Operational management and innovation is also responsible for introducing established best practices to the system. Automotive industries are leaders in LEAN manufacturing and innovation.

Every organisation needs to develop innovative products, services and business models. Also crucial is the need to develop innovative ways to deliver such products and services. To meet these challenges, the integration of innovation management with operations strategy is fundamental.

Focusing on developing the latest knowledge in the field of operations and innovation management in manufacturing, supply chains and intra-organizational collaboration.

Finally, to provide to the student enough tools to deal in a practical way facing the most normal and current process issues in automotive industry.

Learning outcomes

• Applies and knows the quality control, logistics and production systems in the automotive sector.
• Plans and manages the tasks entrusted to develop in the field of the automotive industry.
• Identifies and uses the technological terminology of the automotive industry.
• Applies and knows the mechanisms of teamwork and communication.
• Writes technical information in English.
• Critically analyses the results obtained.
• Applies their knowledge, their understanding and their problem-solving abilities in labor or professional and specialised movements that require the use of creative and innovative ideas.
• Applies the procedures of scientific research in the development of training and professional activity.
• Exposes orally and written effectively the precise results and communications to different types of audiences (specialised or not) clearly and precisely.
• Presents treaties in coherence to democratic and sustainability values showing respect for the fundamental rights of people.
• Prepares written reports and documents (mainly of a technical nature) with spelling and grammar correction in Catalan, Spanish and English.
• Shows an attitude of motivation and commitment to personal and professional improvement.
• Solves problems and situations of professional performance with entrepreneurial and innovative attitudes.
• Analyses their own personal and professional capacities in relation to different professional practice capacities.

Competencies

General skills

• Combine scientific knowledge with technical skill and technological resources to solve the difficulties of professional practice.
• Desire to take part in lifelong learning, innovate, create value and acquire new knowledge.
• Endeavour to overcome the adversities professional practice and learn from mistakes to integrate knowledge and improve one's training.

Specific skills

• Understand the concept of enterprise and its institutional, legal and economic framework, and use resources for organisation, management and quality management of companies; know about organisational structure and functions of an engineering project office, and know how to use techniques to organise, manage and lead projects.

Basic skills

• Students can apply their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional manner and have competencies typically demonstrated through drafting and defending arguments and solving problems in their field of study.
• Students can communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialists and non-specialists.

Core skills

• Exercise active citizenship and individual responsibility with a commitment to the values of democracy, sustainability and universal design, through practice based on learning, service and social inclusion.
• Interact in international and worldwide contexts to identify needs and and new contexts for knowledge transfer to current and emerging fields of professional development, with the ability to adapt to and independently manage professional and research processes.
• Project the values of entrepreneurship and innovation in one's academic and professional career, through contact with a variety of practical contexts and motivation for professional development.
• Use oral, written and audiovisual forms of communication, in one's own language and in foreign languages, with a high standard of use, form and content.

Content

Unit 1

• Introduction to operations management and innovation
• Business typology in the Catalan automotive sector
• The role of the engineer in the processes

Unit 2

• The operational process
• Process analysis. Value stream map

Unit 3

• LEAN Kaizen
• LEAN 5S. SMED
• OPF, assembly line balance

Unit 4

• Maintenance management. Department organisation
• LEAN TPM. OEE

Unit 5

• The logistics of the industrial company
• LEAN Kanban, JIT
• Six Sigma

Unit 6

• Overview of I4.0
• Circular economy. Life cycle analysis
• Collaborative robotics

Unit 7

• Digitisation of the industrial plant
• Blockchain, IIoT
• Big data, cloud, IA, machine learning in the automotive industry

Note: Some of the contents may not be taught and, consequently, not evaluated, depending on the development of the course, to deal in a practical way facing the most normal and current process issues in automotive industry.

Evaluation

• Continuous assessment (10%)*
  • Three activities:
    • Continuous improvement exercise
    • 5S's activity
    • Collaborative robots online learning
• Memory and documents required for continuous assessment (15%)*
• Final Project (25%)*
  • Report of the students of the Final Project (10%)
  • Memory and documents required in the Final Project(15%)
• Final Exam (50%)
  • Multi choice test type examination
  • Minimum score 3 points
  • Every hit counts +1
  • Every mistake counts -0,5

• Recovering Exam (50%) (it replaces the 50% of the final exam)
  • Multi choice test type examination
  • Minimum score 3 points
  • Every hit counts +1
  • Every mistake counts -0,5

* Total percentage corresponding to the required reports and documents (25%) of which 15% correspond to the continuous assessment and 10% to the Final Project assessment.

Methodology

UVic-UCC courses will prioritise on-site teaching for all activities involving experiments, interaction and the use of specific facilities. This type of teaching will be backed up with online synchronous sessions and support when on-site attendance is not possible due to public health restrictions. If a new emergency impedes access to university facilities, teaching activities will go online entirely, but as soon as the health authorities authorise it, on-site activities will return, in line with the indications of each faculty.

Bibliography

Key references

• Eliyahu M Goldratt (1984). The Goal: A process of ongoing Improvement (3 ed.). North River Press.
• Eric Ries (2011). The Lean Startup: How Today´s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Succesful Business. Random House, Inc.
• Jeffrey K. Liker (2004). The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer. McGraw-Hill.
• Michael Hammer (1993). Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution. HarperColins Publishers, Inc.

Further reading

Teachers will provide complementary bibliography and compulsory reading throughout the course via the Virtual Campus.