Open Polytechnic Nz Operations Management Assignment 1 T3 2012

71232 operations Management assigning 1 Matt Hinkley 3319696 12/10/2012 Contents Question 1 operations heed role2 Question 2 Types of fruit4 Question 3 environmental factors5 Question 4 Strategic wefts case provided6 end promontory 1 (customers)6 Case interrogative sentence 2 (competitors)6 Case question 3 (strategic decisions)6 Case question 4 (expansion issues)7 Question 5 Measures of prime(a)8 Question 6 Types of quality humpment9 workings Cited10 Figures Figure 1 mettle nigh society building2 Tables Table 1 spirit peculiar(prenominal) flierments8Part A Nature of operations management Question 1 Operations management role I would imagine that my role would be to promise the profitable and reliable running of services. A bus service is a continuous service which runs to a schedule on a m doddering route. Our customers base their yarn-dyements around our schedule and will expect us to sting to those beats. Figure 1 below is an indication of the simplified mo ved social organisation of the community essay writers world reviews. I go by dint of not allowed for aid workshops and such(prenominal) like and deal assumed that these functions ar outsourced to suppliers.Figure 1 Comp each structure The interactions between the departments ar on a two style information route and feedback is ga on that sharpend from the customer by the frontline supply. This could also accept the drivers or ticket staff. The long term strategies of the company would be managed by the CEO and their senior team which would then be fed dispirited to the operations manager for the day to day management to deliver these goals. Operations would see to the efficient running of the services and provide any advance(prenominal) warning signs in their reports to the senior management.An interface with the customer would also be recommended by way of an occasional MBWA (management by walkinging about) style. This enables a ad hominem interaction with both t he staff and the customer. Close relations with suppliers should be kept with the finance side of the relationship being managed by the accounts department. Maintaining this distributor point of disengagement enables the good cop bad cop kind of relations which good deal be of great benefit when bills come due. Question 2 Types of labor The bus company is a transportation operation, as it transports mickle. It works as a mass services production process type.This is demonstrated in the fact that it has many customer transactions, involving limited contact time and olive-sized customisation (Nigel Slack, 2011). It does not store stock but you could argue that resources are stored in the form of bus spares and fuel should they have their own depot sooner than outsourcing these items. The customers are queued in as much(prenominal) as the wait to be picked up on the route but they are not define in a customer list or database. Question 3 Environmental factors As with any cri nkle there are more than one company vying for the limited number of consumers.Running busses you will have really little scope to be better than your competition so you pick out to be very careful how you do it. There will be a couple main reasons why your customer chooses you which will be price, route, condition of vehicle and convenience. Breaking the four t ingest environments down and presume that there is a counter to each of the factors, we sewer reduce the tinge as follows Competitors You could be cheaper or more regular than the competition, perhaps have brisker buses which dont smoke so badly as the others.Try to allege services on the routes which the competitors would struggle to compete on. Customers The customer is king (or Queen). The neighboring to effective way to encourage New Zealand customers is by price. Kiwis love a bargain (Edmunds, 2012). Be it the one day special or concessions for demographic or regular users. But your price will not consider if the route is in the wrong place so location is a major factor when beliefing for the target customer. Id likely hit amply density student areas, they have low income and pick up transport regularly.Suppliers The suppliers in this case would be our vehicle manufacturers, stationary suppliers and most probably land to operate from. You can enter into long term contracts with the suppliers and bulk order to reduce costs. But as with every business we are our suppliers customer so shop around. The only restraint is location. Buses are easy to buy direct from Japan with parts sourced just as intimately. Suppliers will cause your variable costs to change and as such will have a greater impact on your margin which needs to be passed on to your customer.Building good solid relationships is imperative. Labour commercialise The central bank expects unemployment of 7. 1 percent in the March 2013 year, locomote to 5. 9 percent in 2014 and 4. 9 percent in 2015, match to forecasts in th e MPS. Thats more pessimistic than the 6. 4 percent, 5. 3 percent and 4. 9 percent forecasts in September (BusinessDesk. co. nz, 2012). With unemployment predicted to be falling and the labour solid foodstuff choosing to head to Australia in droves it makes the pickings slim.A business like the bus company will require skilled trades people to service the busses unless it out sources this and clerical people to administer the day to day operations. This is on top of the drivers and management team. Labour is a large cost for the company and retention is a big cost reducer, by keeping training and trained staff within the organisation. I fly to PNG where I work on a mine site, every time I get into a chat with the bus driver taking me between international and domestic they ask if I can get them a job as a driver on the mine site.Question 4 Strategic options case provided Case question 1 (customers) Currently the customer base for HollyRock is teens and school aged youths. They hav e been referred to in the term as Young people. There may be some parents who also attend the restaurant but I would assume from the way the article reads this would be in accompaniment of young people. Case question 2 (competitors) From the article we can see that there are two possible original competitors in the area.These are the pizza parlor which serves similar food to HolyRock in as much as pizza pie and Robbs restaurant which opens Friday evenings also. Although neither of these are competing for the same demographic as HolyRocks but they do have similarities in goods and services. It is also hanged in the article that fast food chains had had difficulty in the past gaining cheers to operate but, in time these may be able to move into the area. Case question 3 (strategic decisions) To fully answer this question we should look at the lucubrate for each component 1.Structural. a. Location Large old house in the middle of a retail area 15mins walk from the schools. b. C apacity Ample parking and facility to seat 75. c. Technology menial to mid technology level. 2. Infrastructure d. Work-force 3 staff, cook, counter staff e. Quality Management Nothing is mentioned regarding the Quality Management but I would assume this would be handled on a customer feedback musical arrangement. f. Organisation design A flat structure with an owner manager. Compact enough to manage easily and able to adapt to its target audience easily. . Policies and procedures There was no mention of policies. Procedures are simple with food orders being taken with the issue of a number, empties and waste is collected on a continuous service system. Events bet to managed by the customer with a board in place for bands to declare oneself to play. The initial concept was for the local anaesthetic young people to have somewhere safe to be able to gather and Hang out. The structure of the business would support the initial concept in that it is simple to manage and adapt to the needs of the client.It has furniture that is moveable to accommodate the groups at the time and the venue offers enough space to cater for the needs of the customer. If the organisation were to deform past the current system then other changes would need to be brought into place which would then mean tighter management would be mandatory which would most likely mean a change in infrastructure. I would because say that the decisions do support each other and that of the overall outline of HolyRocks. Case question 4 (expansion issues)The proposed enhancements would step completely outside of the current company structure. Although the base idea is similar in so much as it is a supply of food to customers the demographic is vastly separated. slightly of the issues to consider are as follows * Direct completion with Robbs restaurant. An already well(p)-established lunch and breakfast coffee time shop. * Is the location right for the stop at home mum? We note that its miserly to t he high school, but there is no mention of other facilities which would attract the new client base. * Interior decor.Do rock posters and picnic tables attract stay at home mums looking for a coffee, a chat and some riffle food? * With younger children coming onto the premises are there implications to the high school kids being turned off the idea of it being a Hang out? * Suppliers for the disparate food types will possibly differ, so more contracts need to be administered and accounts. * Extra equipment will be needed for coffee production and the storage and display of finger foods. As these are generally uncooked foods they need to be stored separately from the other food types.Different skills/personalities of staff required. Although there may be more intricate details regarding food, health and hygiene legislation the main points to consider are the local competition and the site suitability for the operation. It may be worth considering the option but at another location and sponsoring the new location with some brand attachment. Part B Quality management Question 5 Measures of quality Using the table system as readn in the find text, the quality lineaments which we can measure would be the following Quality characteristic Variable AttributeFunctionality come up of meals served Was the food acceptable mien Number of seats and layout Were they clean in a timely manner reliability Bands playing or meals delivered on time Were there any complaints persuasiveness Is the venue keeping up with the times Are the trends of the young people being followed Recovery Meals rectified or bands removed Did the customer aspect the staff acted accordingly and timely Contact The extent that customers feel well treated by staff (1 to 5 scale) Did the customers feel that the staff were assistive (yes or no) Table 1 Quality characteristic measurementsWe could easily tump over functionality, appearance and contact to this business with contact being our quan titative measure. Functionality would be measured on the number of meals served against the number returned due to poor quality. Appearance would be a general measure by the management as to the tidiness of the venue finishedout the shift. Contact could be measured through a quick and easy 2 question tick fault with the customer at the end of their visit. This could be a voluntary measure as people with high opinions are certain to leave feedback if it is do easy for them. Question 6 Types of quality managementThere are a clutch of available approaches such as TQM, sestet Sigma and ISO 9000. Briefly each of the systems are as follows. Total Quality Management (TQM) is a comprehensive and organize approach to organizational management that seeks to improve the quality of products and services through ongoing refinements in response to continuous feedback. TQM requirements may be delineate separately for a particular organization or may be in adherence to established standards. TQM can be applied to any type of organization it originated in the manufacturing sector and has since been adapted for use in almost every type of organization, TQM is based on uality management from the customers point of view (Rouse, Total-Quality-Management, 2005). Six Sigma is a management ism developed by Motorola that emphasizes setting extremely high objectives, collecting data, and analyzing results to a fine degree as a way to reduce defects in products and services. The Greek garner sigma is sometimes used to denote variation from a standard. The philosophy tail Six Sigma is that if you measure how many defects are in a process, you can figure out how to systematically eliminate them and get as close to perfection as possible.In order for a company to achieve Six Sigma, it cannot produce more than 3. 4 defects per million opportunities, where an opportunity is defined as a chance for nonconformance (Rouse, Six-Sigma, 2006). ISO 9000 is a series of standards, developed and produce by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), that define, establish, and maintain an effective quality assurance system for manufacturing and service industries. The ISO 9000 standard is the most widely cognise and has perhaps had the most impact of the 13,000 standards published by the ISO.It serves many different industries and organizations as a guide to quality products, service, and management (Rouse, ISO-9000, 2005). From the three approaches higher up only two would lend themselves to our diner environment, these are the TQM and the ISO-9000 approaches. The Six Sigma philosophy is extremely complex to implement and can take years to show any real savings from a financial perspective. It is also not appropriate to our scenario as it better suits mass production or production line businesses. Of the two which are left I would use the TQM approach.It has a far better management system and would suit this small close knit workforce. The customer fe edback would be available as to monitor the results and give indicators to the improvement strategy. The ISO-9000 system is a more formal and managerially implemented system which would detract from the empowerment of the employees in this case, although there may well be some standards within the ISO-9000 that could be used in the TQM structure. Works Cited BusinessDesk. co. nz. (2012, declination 6). NZ official unemployment rate overstates labour market woes, RBNZ says. Retrieved December 10, 2012, from www. sharechat. co. nz