CASE STUDY: Design house partnerships at Concept Design Services.
Q 1) Why operation management is important in CDS?
Ans- Operation management is management activities that adds value in the form of goods and services. Operation management is important in CDS as company is one of the most profitable homeware company in Europe. As they moved into higher margin homeware their revenue and profit increased by 75 % and 90 % respectively. Company’s main objectives are to add value to their finished final product, customer satisfaction and improve productivity. To fulfill these objectives company has successfully adopted technology used in aerospace sector to improve consistency, accuracy and better finishing in their homeware products. Also, to make world class designs house, company collaborated with highly reputable designers to make intricate designs into manufacturable products.
Q 2) Draw a four Vs profile for the company’s product and services?
Ans- As of my understanding company’s product and services are as follows:
Volume- (High)-
By reviewing case study, it can be seen that obtainment of large injection molding machines increased volume and also productivity by 600 percent. Initially with same labor they were making three items per minute using old machines and currently they are making eighteen items per minute.
Variation in demand- (High)-
I. Company replaced Old small machines with large machines as demand increased and achieved dimensional accuracy, extreme consistency of color and excellent surface finish.
II. Prefer production sequence for machine from a light color to the darkest color and speed of changing color is incredibly reduced to minimum with new machines.
Versatility- (High)-
Company successfully introduced following techniques which shows its versatility in the homeware business.
I. Design techniques- As company collaborated with distinguished designers it could make new, complex and assorted designs to keep customer interested and to stay in competition.
II. Manufacturing techniques- Acquisition of large molding machines to increase productivity, accuracy, quality of the product.
III. Planning and Distribution services techniques- Proper sequence of machines and operations to reduce set-up times. Company offers ‘express delivery’ who are willing to pay delivery premium.
Visibility- (High)-
As said by Grant Williams, CDS operations manager “we were often asked to make small runs of concept product at short notice” meaning process is visible in the operation phase and company can receive feed back or changes from customer.
Q 3) What would you recommend to the company if they asked you to advise them in improving their operations?
Ans- There are couple of problems company faces that needs to improve:
The co-ordination of proper production schedule and better forecasting of sales. For first problem, we can introduce lean thinking in the organization by applying Kanban tool to optimize production schedule. By lean manufacturing tools company can establish right metrics. Second problem is improving sales forecasting which can done by implementing continuous improvement tools as we can create an information management system by using forecasting database.
CASE STUDY: Operations objectives at the Penang Mutiara.
Q 1) Describe how you think the hotel’s management will:
(a) make sure that the way it manages the hotel is appropriate to the way it competes for business;
(b) implement any change in strategy;
(c) develop its operation so that it drives the long-term strategy of the hotel
Ans- a) In order to compete for business hotel management never compromises with quality. A quality comprises well-skilled courteous, knowledgeable staff, food, services and providing luxury atmosphere to satisfy customer’s needs. Hotel stays in intense competition with following things:
I. Hotel remembers its old guest by reviewing their information in the database so without any delay staff directly take them to their room. Staff deliberately avoids repetitive information which don’t cause irritation to the old customers
II. Fast response to the customer’s request.
III. Well managed and organized things such as from entire hotel to single room and other places.
b) By implementing some change in strategy can hike hotel’s business in every way:
I. Hotel should give concessions to old customers and should entertain them in every way such as dance competition, musical concert, movie shows, ocean safari etc. this is unique way to attract any customer.
II. By providing cardinal and essential services such as well-organized transportation system, electricity, communication services like internet, phone service and facility of medical treatment in case of emergency.
III. For increase the profitability and value-added services marketing strategies is important such as advertisement, vacations offer etc.
IV. By providing security to customers in case of severe tragedy.
c) Long term strategy:
I. For continuous improvement in hotel organization, hotel management should adapt lean manufacturing and apply leans tools for better operation management.
II. A website which includes hotel services, road map and facility of online booking, online payments, range of prices of hotel rooms and pictures of various places as well as hotel rooms to know the customer about hotel and customer feedback facility so as to improve quality and services.
III. Offer best quality services and training to staff. Hiring of staff that can speak various languages to attract international customers.
IV. Developing automatic digital system which should interconnect hotel’s core system to improve reliability and speed of hotel services. It also includes secure E-payments, digital inventory system.
Q 2) The case study describes how quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost impact on the hotel’s external customers. Explain how each of these performance objectives might have internal benefits.
Ans- Quality- For Mutiara quality means providing impeccable services and not price. As per hotel’s point of view producing good services means attracting guest using high class resources to impress customer and create better environment for them. Better quality leads to less mistake thereby improving process efficiently. Quality for Mutiara is achieving excellence and ability to increase customer reliability by satisfying their needs.
It reduces cost by hiring well skilled staff in result lowering the chance to make mistakes and cost reduction on their training program. Skilled staff can handle irritate customers easily which is also a quality.
Speed- Speed means doing things fast without any mistakes. For Mutiara speed is fats response to customers’ request. Providing speedy services in no time to the customers by taking decisions speedily. Right and speedy communication and exchange of information gives visibility and flexibility. Speed in services such as cleaning, serving food etc.
Dependability- For Mutiara dependability means keeping promises and doing things on time. Dependability is a principle of well management of hotel which ensures reliability. Reliability means providing right things on right time without any delay. For Mutiara less dependability is legal cause dissatisfaction.
Flexibility- Flexibility means availability of things to meet guest’s request. Recognizing change and learning to use to maximize competitiveness is a flexibility. For Mutiara flexibility is ability to fight and deal with seasonal fluctuation in demand. Staff can do anything to fulfill customers’ demands by doing this staff keeps motivated.
Cost- Cost is a important thing for better function of any organization which means operate things economically. Cost estimation for hotel organization will increase revenue and thereby increase profit. Reducing cost can decrease hotel’s operating cost but Mutiara doesn’t compromise with quality in order to cut cost. Proper management and high-quality operations reduces cost and prevent wasting time.
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