Apollo 13 Case Study (Movie) QuestionsThe point of showing a movie as a case study that demonstrates failure is that it should encourage you to look for, apply and learn from the operations management theory we have studied in class in many different areas of your life; both everyday life and your professional careers. An ideal example is the Apollo 13 movie starring Tom Hanks. It is a great example of failure and recovery from failure. All manner of lessons come out of this case study including the importance of improvisation, the use of fail-safe devices, the concept of balancing risks, the role of creativity in failure problem solving and so on.

The following questions should be answered in groups of 2-3 (pick your own groups). This assignment is due on December 18th for sections 1, 3, and 6 and is due on December 21st for section 5. This case study assignment is worth 100 points.

Step by step, the Apollo crew took their problem apart to see how it worked and therefore how it could be "fixed"--redefined, reconfigured, and recreated--to get them home. What fueled that process was "backwards planning." Instead of figuring forward from their present status, they had to work backwards from their target: splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. The gap between present and future was closed by looking at how everything aboard could fit that future. Here the objective could not be a straight-line projection of the present, but "drew" the present toward the desired state in ways not logically expected.

Question 1:Give three examples of failure from the case study with clear explanations of situations.

Question 2:Choose one of your examples from question one to define how the failure was redefined, reconfigured, and recreated to overcome the failure.

Question 3:Using the same example as question two, describe how teamwork affected the recovery from failure; use specific examples from the case study.

Question 4:What are the ways in which your example of failure explained in questions two and three could have been prevented? Use examples of how designing out faults, redundancy, fail-safe devices, and maintenance might have been used.

Question 5:Overall, was the mission a success or a failure? Use specific examples from the case study to support your answer.

Question 6:What was the root problem for the failures that occurred?