Performance Measurement and Evaluation

About this Course

In this course, you will explore how to use accounting to allocate resources and incentivize manager and employee behaviors in using these resources. You will also learn how financial and non-financial accounting information facilitates strategic performance measurement and how to integrate this information to continuously improve strategy.

Course Overview and Relevant Information for Decision Making

In this module, you will become familiar with the course, your instructor, your classmates, and our learning environment. Decisions are at the heart of all organizations. In this module, you will also explore the nature and role of relevant information in common business decisions, and how such information facilitates these decisions and helps managers and employees avoid common pitfalls. You will also consider how the financial perspective adopted by accountants complements other, qualitative perspectives.

Budgeting for Planning and Control

At the heart of an organization’s planning and control function is its budget. In this module, you will explore the purpose of budgeting, the role of managers and employees in budgeting, and related implications. You will also develop an organization’s budget, ultimately understanding the iterative nature among the budget’s key components: the operations, financing, and capital investments budgets.

Standard Costing and Variance Analysis

After establishing goals, setting targets, and the budget, upper management uses variance analysis to compare, assess, and investigate differences between actual and expected performance. In this module, you will learn how upper management uses variance analysis to motivate and monitor managers and employees, how to perform variance analysis on any aspect of the organization, and ultimately understand the power of this important tool for planning and control.

Performance Measurement and Evaluation

Accountants help implement, communicate, and evolve organizational strategy via the information they provide to owners, managers, and employees. Specifically, they help plan, monitor, and control decisions via the performance measurement, evaluation, and compensation system. In this module, you will explore many aspects of this important system, including decentralization, financial and non-financial performance measurement, strategic performance measurement systems, and subjective performance evaluation.

About this Course

In this course, you will learn about the role of operations and how they are connected to other business functions in manufacturing- and service-focused organizations. You will learn and practice the use of decision-making frameworks and techniques applicable at all levels, from management-level strategic decisions such as connecting process to the needs of various customer segments, to front-line tactical decisions such as choosing between ordering larger quantities vs. ordering more frequently. Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to: • Understand the role of operations management • Relate underlying principles to operations management frameworks and techniques • Synthesize information to make strategic operations decisions • Evaluate processes on different dimensions • Apply analytical techniques for tactical operations decision

 Course Orientation & Process Analysis

In this module, you will be introduced to the idea of operations as processes that are composed of coordinated activities. Processes will then be characterized by how activities and resources required to perform them are organized. Process types will be described and guidelines on the appropriate choice of a process type will be presented. Activities and processes will be analyzed and key performance metrics will be presented. You will learn about cycle times, flow rates, throughput times, and how to calculate them for activities and processes. The calculated metrics will allow you to identify bottleneck activities and understand the idea of capacity utilization. The module ends with Little’s law, which introduces the notion of inventories and how other process metrics are related to amount of inventory in a process.