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Operations case?

Case Framework operations
Recent activity on Apr 11, 2018
1 Answer
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Anonymous A asked on Apr 11, 2018

Hi all,

I will have an interview with a consulting firm that's commonly present in their operational practice so I am anticipating at least one case with an "operational" framework.

I was wondering what this means exactly, could someone clarify what makes a case an operational one (generally speaking I think of it as cost and revenue efficiency) and what type of framework can be generally used for those?

Thank you

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Vlad
Expert
replied on Apr 11, 2018
McKinsey / Accenture Alum / Got all BIG3 offers / Harvard Business School

Hi,

There are several types of operational cases that you may have:

1) Operational math problems. (e.g. Should we increase the speed of the elevator or just buy a second one? How should we reduce the queues? How should we increase the output of a factory?).

Structuring:

  • Usually, you have to look at the process. Even the most complicated systems have the inflows and outflows

The key concepts that you have to learn:

  • Capacity and utilization (both machine and people)
  • Cycle time, Throughput time, Little's Law
  • How the does lowest cycle time influence the production? (Lead time = cycle time of the slowest process)
  • How can we mitigate the bottlenecks with low cycle time? (Buffer, Parallel process, speeding up)

2) Cost cutting cases

Structuring:

  • What is the cost composition and what are the biggest costs
  • Benchmarking of the biggest costs to find the improvement potential
  • Process improvements to meet the benchmarks
  • Costs and benefits of the proposed initiatives

The key concepts that you have to learn:

  • Internal / external benchmarking
  • Idle time
  • Core processes (usually are optimized) and the supporting processes (usually are cut)
  • Math structures (Frequency of operations * time per operation)
  • Other useful structures (e.g. people - process - technology)

Feel free to reach me for further help with these cases.

Best

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