Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Operations Management Business Outsourcing Process Model

Question: Discuss about the Operations Management for Business Outsourcing Process Model. Answer: Introduction Operations Management is a part of management in any business that is concerned with designing and controlling of an organizations or a businesss production process with an aim of producing the best result (Mentzer et all, 2008). Therefore it involves the use of input raw materials, processing or production, marketing and distribution of goods and services that are safe to be used by the consumer. Production systems or processes are all the activities that are meant to design, process and distribute a product or a service according to customers requirements and needs (Ward et all, 1995). This essay shows a discussion the operational issues that are challenging Hawkesbury Cabinets limited. Operational issues are the problems that are involved in the production process, marketing, distribution of products, running of the business and managing the entire business activities (Hockley, 2010). Therefore, the essay is going to point out some of these issues and give an advice on how they ca n be solved. Hawkesbury Cabinets uses various production processes and in its business activity operations. Traditionally, they focused only on custom made cabinets whereby they only made the cabinets after receiving an order from their customers with the specifics and cabinet requirements. This shows that Hawkesbury used the made to order production process. In this process, the craftsman has to rely fully on what the customer want to ensure customer satisfaction from the product or service (Kouvelis et all, 2006). By using this process, the business started making good profits, sales increased and it started becoming popular to many. This therefore led to the business being assigned a contract to produce high quality and standardized cabinets for small spec builders. However, the contract required Hawkesbury to make the cabinets in small batches designed for 1-5 kitchen cabinet specifications which is evidence that they also used batch production process. In this kind of production process, an activity passes through a functional department in form of batches or lots but with each activity having its own different routing where the results are in batches (Kumar et all, 2009).These cabinets began to become vital to Hawkesbury because they represented 40% of the business volume and 20% of the sales revenue in general. Furthermore, Hawkesbury uses a single manufacturing facility where both the custom and standardized cabinets are made and sold. The custom cabinet making equipment is designed to highly flexible. In addition, machines, equipment and tools are stored according to their uses. E.g. the saws and cutting tables are stored in one section, routers and shapers in a different section among others. This evidently shows that Hawkesbury also uses the mass production process in addition to the other two mentioned above (Kleindorfer et al, 2005). In this process, a business focuses on production of large quantities and varieties of goods or services at a low cost per unit but in the same building and using the same equipment and machines (Stuart et al, 2002). This process came up with a positive effect on Hawkesbury where by the displayed cabinets reflected the craftsmanship of the individual makers and the good quality of the materials used (Kouvelis et all, 2006). Due to the increased number of builders kitchens, Hawkesbury, increased the sales of builders cabinets. This made the management to start doing work schedules to be able to maintain their markets and sales. Therefore, the custom-made cabinets were given priority because of their higher sales and profit margins while the standardized cabinets were set aside without total completion and instead they were left as work in progress. This shows that Hawkesbury uses job shop production process where most of the products are usually not complete but left as Work in Progress (WIP) (Gupta et all, 2009). This process involves high variety of product but with low volumes, highly skilled employees are required, large material, inputs and tools inventories, good planning is required and use of general purpose machines and equipment (Barrile et all, 2002).This process played a big role for Hawkesbury like: increased growth of the business, custom kitchen cabinets sale remained strong and the builde rs increased cabinets rapidly. However, from these processes, Hawkesbury faced some problems during their business operations especially with the small spec builders cabinets. The contract required the cabinets to be in low volumes, high quality but standardized, cheaper than the custom-made cabinets and their delivery means to be special. These rules became challenges to Hawkesbury business even though the cabinets seemed to be profitable. In addition to that, Hawkesbury faces a challenge of operating in just one building where both kinds of cabinets are made by the same employees. These therefore means that the cabinets will have to compete with each other for attention when it comes to customer buying and also to the craftsmen making them. This becomes a problem also because Hawkesbury has few equipment and tools that are available for the business operations and therefore both types of cabinets are forced to share. Furthermore, Hawkesbury has currently allowed a lot of cabinets to be left as WIP which leads to overcrowding the factory. This also leads to lack of space for work and a lot of work is left unfinished. Therefore, this clearly shows that Hawkesbury has the problem of lack of employees, tools and enough working space which forced the business even to hire the nearby warehouse to increase the space. Recommendations I would recommend the Hawkesbury to continue using the production processes that they are already using i.e. custom made production process and batch process because they are already making good profit from the products they make. However, I would recommend them to set aside the job shop process because it is causing a lot of disadvantages. Conclusion In conclusion, I can say that Hawkesbury Cabinets uses some of the best production processes that are most effective and popular for such kind of business and that it should continue operating with those processes. References Barrile, S. Cameron, T. (2002).Business management. South Yarra, Vic.: VCTA Pub. Flynn, B. B., Sakakibara, S., Schroeder, R. G., Bates, K. A., Flynn, E. J. (1990). Empirical research methods in operations management.Journal of operations management,9(2), 250-284. Gupta, S., Koulamas, C., Kyparisis, G. (2009). E-Business: A Review of Research Published in Production and Operations Management (1992-2008).Production and Operations Management, 18(6), 604-620. https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1937-5956.2009.01100.x Handley, S. Benton, W. (2009). Unlocking the business outsourcing process model.Journal of Operations Management,27(5), 344-361. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2008.11.002 Hockley, L. (2010).Global operations management. New York: Nova Science Publishers. Kumar, S. Suresh, N. (2009).Operations management. New Delhi: New Age International. Kouvelis, P., Chambers, C. and Wang, H., 2006. Supply chain management research and production and operations management: Review, trends, and opportunities.Production and Operations Management,15(3), pp.449-469. Mentzer, J.T., Stank, T.P. and Esper, T.L., 2008. Supply chain management and its relationship to logistics, marketing, production, and operations management.Journal of Business Logistics,29(1), pp.31-46. Stuart, I., McCutcheon, D., Handfield, R., McLachlin, R., Samson, D. (2002). Effective case research in operations management: a process perspective.Journal of Operations Management,20(5), 419-433. Ward, P. T., Duray, R., Leong, G. K., Sum, C. C. (1995). Business environment, operations strategy, and performance: an empirical study of Singapore manufacturers.Journal of operations management,13(2), 99-115.

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