Operations Management revised

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
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1.0 INTRODUCTION
To have a broad understanding of operations management, we need to vividly understand what operations deal with and what it is all about. Operations are seen as being the sections of the business that is concerned and in charge of manufacturing goods and offer services. In this case, goods are the physical items such as raw materials, parts of computers (subassemblies and even final products from a production like cell phones and pens. On the other hand, services are regarded as activities that provide the full and detailed combination of location, time, form and even psychological value. As such, the environment around us is filled with numerous examples of goods and services which assist us in our day to day activities. Everything you eat, read, watch, send, every phone call you make, every medical treatment you receive, all these are examples of goods and services. Therefore, it is evident that operations contribute a huge chunk of the economy and as such a prominent contributing variable in the occurrence of various events around the world.
The understanding of operations in a business organization can be viewed from another perspective. In this particular case, “the accomplishments of a business’s operations play a contributing role in the success of any nation and as such the competitive power within the League of Nations” (Tan, 2002, 95).

Considering all the above, “it is clear that operations is responsible for the production of goods and also providing services which are then to be offered to the market (customers) by the organization.” To make this clear, in the case that the business organization was a car, the operations would be the engine. Therefore, just as how the engine plays an important role in making the car able to drive, operations is termed as the core pillar of what the organization is involved in. As such, “operations management is defined as the pillar in the sector of management that is concerned with managing the “core” of the business. Therefore, operations management is clearly the management of systems, procedures, and processes that are concerned with the creation of both goods and services or either one of them” (Slack, Brandon-Jones, and Johnston, 2013, 1) & (Stevenson & Hojati, 2002, 1). For this research paper, “we are going to focus on various facets that are necessary for the proper management of operations in a business organization.” They include product design, job design, supply chain management, lean operations and inventory management. We will analyze their theoretical foundations with a clear indication of how they assist in operations management basing on “three operations objectives which are cost, quality and dependability. These objectives are highly important as they enable an organization or company to be able to measure its success in terms of operating resources and generating revenue. Additionally, the five operation facets were specifically chosen, therefore important. Firstly, product design allows the company to be competitive, allows a change in customer expectations when it comes to the design being produced and also with a high-quality product design the company can penetrate the market much faster. Moreover, when a company employs concurrent engineering, there will be improved productivity while cutting down on costs. Furthermore, Supply chain management is beneficial in ensuring that the company’s systems are strong and that with advancement in technology the operations of the company can be enhanced. Additionally, it also plays a crucial role in supporting other operation facets such as lean operations and inventory management which are important in ensuring that supply and demand processes run smoothly. Finally, job design ensures that the company has a proper design which will ensure that there is a conducive working environment for both employers and employees. Finalizing on each operation facet, we are going to provide a case study of a company and how the operation facet is in operation.
2.0 OPERATIONS FACETS
2.1 PRODUCT DESIGN- Apple Inc.
The Theoretical Foundations of Product Design
The relationship between creativity, innovation, and design is highlighted as shown below.

In the area of operations management, product design is regarded as one of the crucial stages. In this case, “the design of a product or even service is one of the most vital steps.” This is because the design will affect the earnings of a product or even its marketing which eventually leads to the total earnings all the same. As such, the basic and limiting characteristics of the product are set during the product design phase (Homburg, Schwemmle, and Kuehnl, 2015, 41-56).
Functional Design
For a product to have value, it needs to be functional, therefore, “it needs to be designed perfectly for it to be functional.” As such, various decisions are made on the dimensions to be used, the materials that are relevant and applicable to the product, the type of appearance and final finish that is required for the product to have the feel from the initial designer’s perspective.
Production Design
In this stage, the designer gives room for various considerations in terms of modification and new concepts to the product for it to be suitable and appealing to the bigger portion of the market and also for production purposes (Allen et al., 2018, 1). Therefore, some of the concepts and methods employed in this stage are:
Standardization: In this case, the designer has the freedom to facilitate the production of part of a product through the standardization of a port or the whole product. As such, through this method, production costs can be significantly reduced as the need for planning for several different varieties of the product will be eliminated.
Modular Design: Modular Design enables the facilitation of the production and maintenance processes. In this case, they are mostly seen to be used with computers as parts are made to be easily detachable.
Simplification: In the designing of a product, sometimes the product designer might include various features in the functioning aspect of the product. These features cannot be very crucial for the functioning of the product and as such can cause severe complications during the production phase. To curb these problems, these features must be simplified for the product to be perfect.
The stages and crucial steps that have been discussed above can be summed up as shown below.

The Impact of Product Design on the Following Operations Objectives
Product Design and Costs
From above, it is vehemently clear that “product design plays an important role in the earnings of a company through the production costs that are incurred.” As such, “it should be noted that an effective and productive design process should mostly focus on low costs of production while keeping in mind that the product should be appealing and serve its intended purpose on the side of the customer.” It is only through the implementation of such measures that the organization can enjoy revenue and eventual profits over the years (Weustink, Ten Brinke, Streppel and Kals, 2000, 141).
Product Design and Quality
For a product to have quality, it needs to undergo various checkings and modifications for it to be considered that it meets the standards that are required by the regulatory bodies that check on the standard of a product. Therefore, for a business organization to make sure that it does not get fined or even face closure, it is important that the product has the required level of quality. Something to note is that quality guarantees competition in the market and with competition comes profits. Therefore, a quality product will enable the business organization to be regarded as one of the companies that customers are attracted to and hence a longer stand and high ranking position in the industry.
Case Study: Apple Inc.
Today, Apple Inc. is one of the leading companies in the area of product design and innovation. This competitive nature came with a number of challenges. In the period 1985-1997, Apple struggled to achieve standing in the market especially when other giants such as IBM were dominating a huge percentage. Among the challenges that were experienced were; first, unstable strategy due to continuous change of executive teams. Second, having an unclear vision in terms of product design and growth. Third, the products that were being produced were considered not to be unique in the market. Finally, there was confusion and uncertainty among the Apple consumers.
To offset these challenges, therefore, the company adopted the design thinking strategy which was aimed at fuelling the innovation and design operations within the company. This strategy was mainly focused on putting the consumer in mind at every stage of the product development and design. Therefore, the company managed to implement key aspects such as user desirability, market viability, and technology possibility. Also, the Apple products were made more functional. These design thinking characteristics were highly optimized by Steve Job showing a reflection of the vision that he had for Apple products. This is to mean. First, he focused on people’s needs and desires rather than the needs of the business. Second, he built empathy by helping people to have the desire for the Apple products. Third, focused on more of the design than the engineering process. Finally, the design of the products was simple yet user-friendly. Through these product design concepts, the quality of the products was much higher than any other mobile and computer products in the market. Additionally, they were considered to be of value for money, and therefore the costs incurred during production were justified and therefore more profits were coming in together with revenue for the company to keep operating smoothly. Through these principles, Apple Inc. until today has remained loyal to its customer base and hence showed that it could be dependable to deliver better products all through.
Recommendation
For every company that deals with products such as Apple Inc., needs to invest a lot of resources and clear-cut management strategies that not only concentrate on producing a perfect design but also have a keen interest on what the customer requires. Therefore, feedback should be a highly regarded strategy as this will shed more detail on what Apple Inc. requires to bring to the market (customer satisfaction). Also, quality will be optimized while reducing costs.
2.2 JOB DESIGN- Starbucks
The Theoretical Foundations of Job Design
Job design also sometimes referred to as task or work design is regarded as a core function of human resource management (Cascio, 2018, 1). Also, it is one of the operations facets of operations management. “It is related to the specification of various contents throughout the business organization, the methods, and job relationships in order for the organization to achieve technological and various requirements and also for the personal and social requirements of the job holder.” The nature of its principles is focused on the aspect of how a person’s job affects their behavior, attitude, well-being and more so relating to characteristics such as autonomy and skill variation (Marinova et al., 2015, 104). Therefore, in operations management, job design has the aim of “improving job satisfaction among employees and also improving the quality of the environment they are working in. Through this the number of employee problems that are experienced on a daily basis can be reduced, e.g., absenteeism, grievances, etc.” (Lawler, 1969, 426), (Belias & Sklikas, 2013, 85) & (Korunka, 2017, 131-151).
Within this operations facet, various theoretical models can be employed by organizations. These include Taylorism, Social-Technical Systems Approach, Psychological Empowerment Theory and Core Characteristics Model. Each of these models vehemently emphasizes on different aspects or approaches that can be taken for an effective job design model or approach.
The Impact of Job Design on the Following Operations Objectives
Job Design and Cost
It should be noted that “the cost-effectiveness of job design interventions are rarely calculated, and when this is combined with the low reporting of interventions which were deemed as unsuccessful, complications arise on how to thoroughly assess the designs which are most useful for promoting to other organizations.” Therefore, “if organizations are to realize the essential nature of cost benefits associated with doing job design in a manner which is consistent, then they need to be in a position to see how these types of interventions are effective” (Daniels, 2017, 1177). As such, to come to such a standing, there needs to be proper and effective record keeping of what has happened, the time that it has happened and the nature of the favorable and unfavorable outcomes (Campion & Thayer, 1987, 66). Although, it is seen that the costs and eventual consequences of poor design and the poor sync between the employee and the work can be effectively calculated. In this case, for example, MSDS can or may occur because of the poor design implemented in a business organization. Even for the fact that MSDs can be non-work related, as they are seen to affect the joints, muscles and tendons and other parts of the musculoskeletal system, they eventually have an impact on the work output of employees.
Job Design and Quality
When it comes to job design and quality, the aspect of job enrichment is never far behind. In this case, it is concerned with how jobs can be able to be designed for diversity, personal responsibility and the sense in performing tasks to be realized (Chae & Choi, 2018, 1). In turn, leading to improvements in the areas of job performance and employee satisfaction. Therefore, this gives a general perspective on why having a personal sense of achievement in the work that your doing can lead to organizational commitment which assists business organizations to be able to achieve there set strategic business goals and objectives (Godfrey, 2015). As such, operations managers and human resource managers, therefore, need to be in-tune, and up to date with the varying needs of their workers and with this information they will be able to design interesting and enriching jobs for their employees (Williams, 2015, 1-3). This will eventually “lead the employees to feel like they belong and they are a part of the organization” (Zareen, Razzaq, and Mujtaba, 2013, 46).
Case Study: Starbucks
Starbucks, in the beginning, had a simple organizational structure. Therefore, for the need to get wider coverage of the consumer market, it expanded and as such diversified its line of products. The new organizational structure comprised of designing jobs, departmentalizing the decisions within the organization and identifying the best structural configuration for the company. All these were adjustments that affected the behavior, attitude, and well-being of the employees. Hence, the company moved from being centralized to being decentralized where the focus was on the relationship between the various headquarters. Through this division structure, the functions and operations of the company both product and service wise were effective and efficient. Also, through the departmentalization, the costs in terms of operations were able to be cut down as each department and headquarters was able to meet their responsibilities depending on the region. Additionally, having different managers serving in different stores in different regions, was able to enhance better decision making and thus the company was able to serve its customers in a better way. Moreover, the departmentalization ensures that different people with different skills are employed. For example, people are employed to work in the bakery, others to make coffee, tea and so on. Even with the decentralization, the centralization method of job design would have also come in handy during the 2008 recession as it would have made the leaders be accountable for the financial problems and then come up with swift action to offset the risk(s). As such, a proper job design tends to reduce quite a number of problems that are experienced in the workplace.
All round, Starbucks is continually looking for new and innovative ways to bringing in revenue, cutting down costs, producing quality products and being dependable in the market and as such, they are often reevaluating the nature of their organizational design.
Recommendation
In the area of job design, it is crucial for Starbucks to establish a relevant yet stable design that ensures that the relationship between the employer and employees is maintained and built in such a way that the working environment is conducive for proper operations. This nature of the design will ensure that the services and products being rendered are of quality as the company, on the other hand, cuts down on unnecessary costs used in operations.
2.3 INVENTORY MANAGEMENT- IKEA
The Theoretical Foundations of Inventory Management
Inventory management is the process concerned with identification and tracking of software and hardware assets as well as information services (Muller, 2011, 2). Inventory management is categorized into three procedures. The first procedure is the acquisition procedure, “these procedures are established to assist personnel in the procurement of software and hardware products. Its main purpose is to ensure that proper justifications are performed and that financial guidelines are followed.”
The second procedure is the redeployment procedures, “these procedures are responsible for making sure that firm assets are tracked during their transfer or movement from one place to another (Muller, 2011, 49) & (Lee et al., 2016, 989).
The third procedure is termination. “Termination plays the role of deleting the asset from the inventory in cases where the particular asset has been replaced or discontinued. The firm’s budget or records will be updated to reflect the asset termination and the asset will no longer appear in the coming location reports.”
Like all databases, the Inventory System will only prove to be effective if the information stored is up to date (Allen et al., 2018, 1). To have a clear understanding of the operations procedures and elements that are involved in inventory management, the below diagram will be described in detail.

The Impact of Inventory Management on the Following Operations Objectives
Inventory and Cost
Having inventory in a firm has both positive and negative impacts on cost. Some of the negative impacts an inventory has on cost in a firm are as follows (Deepak and Sasi, 2016, 4):
Storage cost, this can be regarded as extra cost incurred, and it includes warehouse and stockroom expenses. However, within some organizations, it may be considered as being a “fixed cost of operation.”
Insurance expenses. The cost of insuring an inventory in a firm is an additional expense.
Taxes, some government policies favor taxing inventories, this will be an additional cost.
The cost of capital, this refers to the funds used by a firm to purchase or set up an inventory system. This cost comes with another cost referred to as opportunity cost.
Obsolescence spoilt, this expense may be incurred in case the inventory is damaged in moving, comes in contact with dirt, or rust, this may happen regardless of the inventory’s shelf-life.
The cost of tracking the inventory, this is the cost a firm incurs in paying the people responsible for inventory management and control.
Inventory Management and Dependability
When it comes to the dependability of a firm by its customers, inventory management has a big role to play. However, it is greatly affected by many factors as listed below. First, the unpredictability of supply and demand causes difficulties in inventory management. Factors like “unsteady supplier performance, supply chain disruptions, perishability and obsolesce of goods/products, scarcity of materials, and shrinkage spark the need to establish buffer stocking levels to provide safety days of lead- time supply.” In regards to demand, factors like “new products and innovations, the overall economic environment, and high-traffic sales volume for some items and sporadic seasonal sales traffic for others makes it necessary for a firm to consider the approach of item-by-item socking levels.” Second, for distributor and manufacturer firms, complications arise when a lot of finished goods for sale are stored in multiple places/warehouses.
Inventory Management and Quality
Inventory management has the following impact on quality; inventory management helps an organization access the right materials hence high quality produce. Inventory management ensures the efficient storage and the eventual transportation of products; this also ensures “the quality of the particular products.” (Thomas, 2012, 1-3).
Inventory management is crucial for the generation of profit and revenue. Therefore, organizations should invest in up to date software which will make it possible for the above operation objectives to be enhanced and hence better services and products. Even though inventory systems are crucial to almost every company, there are reasons that they should be avoided. Firstly, when it comes to quality, the physical type of inventories can tend to cause deterioration and damage. Secondly, queueing of customers which is a type of an inventory can tend to offset quality as customers can sometimes be waiting for longer than expected. Thirdly, inventories that are concerned with digital storage of information in databases can tend to make the data corrupted due to a number of reasons, one being ignorant employees operating and managing the databases. Finally, organizations should, therefore, not put all their eggs in one basket. This is to mean that they should balance the ways that they operate their processes when in it comes to inventory management.
Case Study: IKEA
IKEA is regarded as the world’s largest home furnishing retailer with a total of 298 stores in 37 countries. Being the largest has allowed it to invest in huge stores containing warehouses within the premises each containing approximately over 9,500 products. With regard to this, therefore, it needs a sophisticated inventory management system in its operations. As such, the company uses the Cost-per-Touch Inventory tactic where customers are able to select furniture and after that retrieve the packages themselves.
According to the rule of thumb, companies over the years have found that the more a product is touched, the more costs are eventually associated with it. This is to mean, every other time a product is moved, shipped and loaded, the more the costs incurred and vice versa. Also, this process tends to reduce the quality of the products as they can end up facing damage if they are continuously returned to the warehouses. Additionally, even through the waiting in line by customers, the quality of products can also be reduced. Therefore, IKEA has managed to implement this principle, and as such it does not have to retrieve the product for the customer and take it home. This principle significantly reduces the cost of operations while ensuring that the quality of the products is up to standard at all times. Also, the company has become dependable with its customers which is something that has drastically improved the customer service.
Recommendation
Under this operation facet, it is essential for IKEA to ensure that it facilitates the delivery of up to standard products. Additionally, continuous checks should be done to make sure that the needed stock (enough) is always present so that the operations of the organization don’t shut down. If this happens, the costs of operations will increase while making IKEA less dependable.

2.4 SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT- Southfield Packaging
The Theoretical Foundations of Supply Chain Management
Supply chains include the activities of a firm or rather a business that achieves the designing, making, delivering and consumption of a product or service. Businesses greatly rely on their supply chains to access what they require to survive and grow (Jacobs, Chase and Lummus, 2014, 533) & (Hugos, 2018, 1-5). Supply chain management, therefore, “regards all the activities of the supply chain and all firms involved as a single entity. This, in turn, triggers a systematic approach to managing the flow of products and services to reach the final consumer. The different supply chain requirements harmonized under supply chain management could otherwise have conflicting needs” (Christopher, 2016, 3-10) & (Stadtler, 2015, 3).
The figure below tends to paint a good picture of what supply chain management really is.

The Impact of Supply Chain Management on the Following Operations Objectives
Supply Chain Management and Cost
The supply chain management of a firm has a major impact on the costs incurred by the firm in its operations in many ways. First, the choice how inventory is moved from one supply chain destination to another, in this case, the use of air transport and road transport are relatively more expensive as compared to the use sea and rail transport. Second, the infrastructure connecting the firm to its suppliers; by investing in infrastructure that more tightly connects their supplier ecosystem and automates the manual or disconnected processes, firms enable process based communication like approvals and escalations and automation quality workflows which deliver improved visibility and control. This, in turn, leads to lower costs due to reduced detection costs and avoided recalls (David, Frank and Donavon, 1997, 6).
Supply chain management outlines the type of inventory to be stocked at the various stages of the supply chain. The type of inventory kept affects cost in that a lot of inventory is expensive to stock and vice versa.
Supply Chain Management and Quality
The supply chain management of a firm affects quality in various ways. First, “the choice of the suppliers.” Choosing suppliers for a firm “is a role of the firm’s supply chain management, to better the quality.” It is necessary that the choice of suppliers considers the following factors; the supplier’s relationship with the key product, here, “suppliers with a strategic relationship with the key product are likely to offer products of better quality.” “The suppliers’ relationship with the client firm, suppliers who have a strategic relationship with the client firm is likely to offer good quality products because of their expectedly better understanding and visibility of what the client firm needs.” To have a better view of the supplier base, a firm’s supply chain management needs to invest in the infrastructure that will enable it to achieve this.
The second way the supply chain management affects quality is through their supplier evaluation programs. Various firms evaluate supply chain partners’ performance in the following areas, quality, on-time delivery, service, price, total cost, contract compliance, and responsiveness. These evaluation programs, however, face certain challenges, some of these challenges include; “a large number of suppliers, disparate sources of data, inconsistent goals and metrics and limited systems and analytical tools.”
Thirdly, the “supply chain management” impacts quality by “ensuring that the tools and techniques of managing quality in the supply chain keep pace with the evolution of the supply chain management.”
The supply chain management further contributes to the quality of production by; one, curbing the different stances held by manufacturers and suppliers helping them have a unified approach to quality. Two, the supply chain management creates a common database for input of data; this creates a credible source of information on which quality production will be based. Three, “the supply chain standardizes the processes that support quality making it easier for all the members of the supply chain to understand the standards of quality.”
Case Study: Southfield Packaging
Southfield Packaging is concerned with packing and distributing promotional products and materials in the USA’s leading hair, cosmetics and beauty manufacturers. It has been able to implement the services of the Microsoft Business Solutions system where the company has been able to optimize its Supply Chain Management functions. Through this, it has been able to increase its revenue without the need to add employees in administrative capacities. With this installation, the benefits were seen to be far more reaching than Southfield Packaging anticipated. It was for the first time able to monitor each job on an individual basis while providing real-time updates to its clients in a fast and easy manner. Therefore, having a unified form of the system, the company has been able to cut down costs associated with purchase orders and fulfillment. Also, the integration between Microsoft Business Solutions and Southfield Packaging has allowed for easy capturing of data and in-depth analysis of information. According to the management, it has described customer service as a hallmark of the company as they are now able to accurately and timely provide their clients with a report on the status of their products.
In the successful enhancement of the above operation objectives, there is need to have a checking system that will be able to account for the processes that take place within the organization. As such, this will optimize everything from reducing costs to quality and ensuring that it is dependable. As seen from the working operations of Southfield, it is evident that the objectives of the operation of cost, quality and dependability have been impacted to a great extent. Through this, the company has been able to double its revenue since the installation of the Microsoft Business Solutions system into its Supply Chain management.
Recommendation
For Southfield Packaging to be able to deliver products to their customers on a timely manner and in a condition that is of quality, supply chains should be continuously maintained so that any hiccups foreseen are dealt with promptly so as not to waste resources. Additionally, proper management strategies such as proper decision-making process should be a key factor that should be highly considered.
2.5. LEAN OPERATIONS- Ford Motor Company
The Theoretical Foundations of Lean Operations
Lean operations are firms or businesses that employ the strategy of producing the best quality product with the use of the least amount of resources. Forms of lean operations can be traced to have existed since the early 1900s when Henry Ford introduced the concept. Ford is said to have first introduced lean operations in his automobile manufacturing company. Moving forward, the power of lean operations was later manifested when Toyota’s chief engineer, Taiichi Ohno integrated Ford’s concepts into the Toyota production system (Blanchard, 2010, 94), (Moore and Scheinkopf, 1998, 1-3) & (Van der Merwe, Pieterse, and Lourens, 2014, 131).
Ford was less interested in the organizational structure of his company; he mostly focused on producing the best product possible. He also aimed at having his employees work smarter rather than having them work harder. In his quest to achieve the above, he came up with ways that eliminated waste in production and improved the workers’ efficiency.
First, standardization. Once the best way of performing specific duty in production was established, the duty was done so every day, every time. In other words, “there was no provision for change or deviation from the best way of doing things.” For instance, the worker whose role was to fix the door of the car in the company did it the same way over and over. Second, employees were paid well based on the fact that their specialization and perfection of various roles in the company also resulted in great profits. Third, the practice of minimum movement. Ford arranged his firm operations such that, while playing their various roles in the organization, the employees made few movements as possible. Fourth, minimal waste. In this case, lean operations aimed at minimizing the amount of product disposed off as waste. Therefore, anything that has not been completely utilized in producing the main product is channeled into other fields of production. For instance, in Ford’s company wasted wood was distilled into other products like charcoal, the slag from blast furnace was used in road paving, and the sulfur obtained from the cooking of coal was sold for use in fertilizers. Fifth, the practice of joining smaller materials to form a usable larger material, in the case of the automobile industry, this applies when smaller parts are welded into a whole. Sixth, Lean operations aim at avoiding a large amount of inventory. In lean operation, the supply chain is managed in that there is enough raw material on hand to execute production based on demand. This ensures there is no shortage of produce and also avoids the expenses that come with a large inventory. Seventh, “Lean operations ensures that the customer is satisfied with the service delivery of the particular firm.”
The Impact of Lean Operations on the Following Operations Objectives
Lean Operations and Cost
Lean operations have a major impact on cost. This comes from since Lean operations’ main goal is to minimize the waste in the production process. Cutting on waste will, in turn, lower the production cost in a firm and this will consequently increase the revenue earned by the firm. In Lean operations, unfinished work is tracked and finished. This ensures that product delivery happens in speed which cuts down on the number of resources wasted over time. According to Ford, work cannot be of use to the customer or the firm unless it is finished. Ford, therefore, insisted that the production process must follow the flow which he outlined where it begins from the reception of raw material to the final production of a finished-good.
Lean Operations and Quality
One of the main ways in which lean operations affect quality in production is by the use of best practices possible. As earlier mentioned, one of the founding principles of lean operations is standardization. Employing the best practices in any given line of production will ultimately result in the production of high-quality products.
Lean operations encourage thorough inspection of products in all the lines of operations in a firm, from receiving supplies, production lines and manufacturing process. The goal of this closer inspection being to avoid defective materials and products. This further ensures that the products that are released from a particular firm to the market have met the acceptable standards.
Case Study: Ford Motor Company
Ford’s vision has always been to improve on quality and human resource management and become a house name (competitive) through implementing new technology. As such, the company has implemented the Lean Manufacturing Design (LMD) to the Initial Application Area (IAA) based on the lean manufacturing concept that is concerned with the continuous elimination of waste. In order to identify the effective implementation strategies and solutions that are tied to Lean Manufacturing and Operations, various measuring indices were to be identified. In line with this, therefore, the problem findings were; first, there was too much NVA to pick up parts by walking. Second, the defect rate in terms of machinery parts was seen to be high. Third, there was high setup time which is mostly caused by aged equipment. Through these findings, the company was able to come up with solutions to the problems through applying effective lean operations methods where; firstly, they re-balanced works in order to identify surplus workforce that can be used in other areas of operations. Second, the company was able to setup error proofing devices that were used to improve the quality of products on a first-time basis. Third, the company implemented the use of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) mechanisms which were effective in identifying the aged equipment which hence reduced costs in production and also made the whole process dependable in meeting tight deadlines.
Recommendation
Considering that technology is a dynamic component, Ford Motor Company should continuously be on the lookout for more effective ways of reducing and eliminating waste in their day to day operations. This will make sure that the company is more competitive and hence more profits than losses.
3.0 CONCLUSION
“Operations management is a key and core pillar to the success of any business organization (Hill & Hill, 2012, 1). Therefore, for it to be effective, some operations facets had to be kept in check and maintained as discussed above as they have a major impact on the three chosen operations objectives which are cost, quality, and dependability.” As these objectives “play a crucial role in the effective running of an organization from the production aspect to finance and eventual marketing and profits. Having shown the impact that these three operations objectives have had on the chosen companies in terms of their operations management, some key measures and recommendations should be provided.” First, organizations should settle on operation facets that are crucial for the running of the operations. This is to mean, not all efforts should be channeled on all facets. “Some are more superior to the other, and therefore they will need more work and effort for them to be helpful to the company.” For instance, the five operations facets above happen to be uniform with most organizations, and thus they are vital in the operations of an organization. Second, the organizations should be keen to check on the costs incurred in managing some operation facets. As such, not more than required capital should be channeled towards one operations facets than the other, unless there are key concerns or issues that need immediate attention. In this case, therefore, such use of capital can be overlooked but properly recorded in the books of accounting. Lastly, the use of modern technology and innovation on the operations facets should be encouraged as this will lighten the load on the personnel hence ensuring that operations of the business organization are effective. Even though this is good for many organizations, there is the factor that, even though all the right measures are taken, it is not possible for all the operational objectives to be enhanced. This means therefore that every company should strive to improve on the operational objectives that best suit them so as to remain relevant in the market.
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