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Question:
Furniture Supplier company who provides finished good to leading furniture retailers are reviewing their management of operations and would like to investigate new ideas
which can be implemented to improve efficiency and effectiveness of their business?
Answer:
Introduction
Operations management is concerned with the effective production and distribution of goods and services to customers (Bamford & Forrester, 2010). It helps ensuring that
goods and services that are being delivered to the target customers are of high quality. It helps enhancing the overall performance and productivity of the organisation thus
enabling them to achieve desired organisational goals and performance objectives (Boyer & Verma, 2009). Established in year 2004 Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited was
developed with a purpose of developing worlds finest furniture designs, manufactured using high quality materials in order to meet the high expectations of leading craftsmen of
the industry (British Furniture Manufacturers, 2011). Today the furniture manufacturer employs more than 500 employees in 3 of their manufacturing facilities across North
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Wales. Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited wants to concentrate on the designing and manufacturing of high quality furniture thus they are not involved in direct selling of
products to end-customers. They sell their products to high street retailers and independent furniture stores from where they are sold to end customers. Westbridge Furniture
Designs Limited is today UKs largest own brand upholstery manufacturer.
Operations management helps organisations in enhancing overall productivity and streamlining activities so that value added products are delivered to customers that exceed
their expectations (Brown, et al., 2013). Input, processes and output are the three key elements of operations management.
Input Resources: Input resources are of two types; transformed resources are those materials that are actually been altered. Raw materials, customers and information are the
transformed resources (Greasley, 2007). Transforming resources are those that act upon transformed resources during the production process. Human resources, facilities and
equipments are some transforming resources (Gupta & Starr, 2014). In case of Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited operations management helps ensuring that acquisition of
transformed resources is carried out effectively and the adequate transforming resources are allocated to produce high quality goods.
Transformation Processes: It is actual transformation of input resources into desired output products (Hill, 2012). In case of Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited
transformational processes refer to activities like sourcing, designing, cutting, assembling and polishing of furniture.
Output: Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited provides their customers with best quality products within specified time frame and at a price that guarantees margin for the
retailers and distributors.
Thus, effective operations management has made them UKs largest own brand upholstery manufacturer. They offer innovative, stylish and original sofas and upholstered
products for those who equally value quality, comfort and fine design.
Strategic operations management helps ensuring that the products and services produced and delivered not only meet customer expectations but exceed them (Brown, et al.,
2013). Operation functions at Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited help them in achieving strategic objectives. Their operation functions are concerned about effective
allocation of resources to production process so that high quality goods with best designs are produced. Their supply chain network helps ensuring that goods are delivered
safely and within desired time frame to customers. They have a very ethical supply base which ensures that remain most competitive and efficient.
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1.3 Evaluation of operations management of Westbridge Furniture Design Limited using a process model
Process model is a puts together process of same nature and type in the form of a model, thus defining a process at its type level. (Walters & Rainbird, 2007). The production
and distribution processes of an organisation are broken down into several small processes that works independent of each other, these processes can then be represented in
the form of a process model. This enables evaluating the performance and contribution made by each system and system interfaces as the system takes up a hierarchical form.
Based on the amount of interaction with the environment and output predictability systems could take up four forms namely; Open system wherein the system present high
degree of interaction with the environment, high level of information exchange takes place between the system and the environment and the overall productivity of system is
greatly affected by various environmental changes (Simons, 2011). Closed systems are those where no interaction or information exchange takes place between the system and
the environment, thus the system are referred to as isolated systems (Panneerselvam, 2006). A deterministic system is one which tends to produce the same output without any
randomness being involved when the initial state or starting conditions remain same (Mahadevan, 2010). A probabilistic system works in a opposite manner when compared to
deterministic system, it involves a lot of randomness and occurrence of an event does not predict occurrence of the next event.
The entire operations management activities at Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited are arranged in a hierarchical pattern of process model. Nigel Holifield serves as the
operations director and Marie Jones as the factory manager (British Furniture Manufacturers, 2011). They are mainly responsible for ensuring that operations management
techniques are in place and work effectively in order to ensure that production and distribution processes are carried out effectively. The furniture production process is divided
into small tasks of Sourcing, acquisition, cutting, designing, assembling and polishing. Subdivision of processes into small tasks facilitate in effective resource allocation.
An audit of three Es of operations management at Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited reveals that they have developed a policy of sourcing raw materials from international
vendors which help them remain competitive in the market. Thus they insist on delivering uncompromised quality products within their economical limits and with high efficiency.
All these activities enable them offer guaranteed profit margins for their customers. The operations audits performed at Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited evaluate each
operation process against the three Es of operations management. They have a global and ethical supply base which helps keeping distribution costs low making the entire
process further economical.
Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited has developed a clear vision of developing finest furniture designs that are manufactured using high quality raw materials and delivered
within desired timescales. They are also pressurised by a virtual fight between cost minimisation and quality maximisation however they are very clear on this point that they will
not comprise on quality. In order to provide high quality products they have adopted a policy of sourcing raw materials from international vendors so that they can offer most
competitive prices to their customer along with best quality. They use a global and ethical supply base that further help them minimise operations cost.
Quality: Adherence to policy that allows Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited source raw materials from international vendor help them purchase high quality raw materials at
best prices. The various quality control measures are followed rigorously that helps ensuring desired quality products are delivered to customers.
Speed: Effective operations management help them save time by eliminating processes and steps that are not useful. They have employee highly trained professionals with
good industry experience. They have implemented techniques like just-in-time and total quality management that help ensuring that allocated lead times are met. Thus
operations management helps them in speeding up production and distribution processes.
Dependability: Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited owing to their sourcing policy and supply base offer the most competitive prices to their customers. They offer high quality
products with unique designs within timescales at most affordable prices thus increasing customer dependability.
Flexibility: Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited offers their customers with widest possible choice in a range of sofas and upholstered products which help them in satisfying
the most discerning customers.
Cost: Effective operations management help Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited in greatly reducing operational expenses thus ensuring profit margins for themselves as well
as there customers.
Production process at Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited uses a flow method of linear programming. Implementation of linear programming has helped them in maximising
profits and work in coordination in order to achieve their vision.
Networking planning helps operations managers in monitoring and controlling processes. It uses a network diagram to display processes that are a group of related activities.
Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited ensures that all their operations managers are using these tools to streamline production processes so that high quality products are
delivered within specified time scales.
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Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited has adopted product layout for their more than a million square feet of production area. All equipments are arranged in a passage and
inputs have to pass through them. This layout is most effective when the ultimate goal of production process is to development products that have unique designs. Effective
operations management has enabled Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited in meeting all five performance objectives of quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost.
4.2 Quality management techniques to improve operations in Westbridge Furniture Design Limited
Quality management techniques help organisations in ensuring that their production processes are achieving effectiveness in terms of quality (Gupta & Starr, 2014). There are
two main types of quality management techniques namely; Quality control mechanism is a set of quality check processes that help organisations in ensuring that their goods
meet specific quality standards and customer expectations. Quality assurance is a process that ensure that product development cycle meet predefined quality standards
(Panneerselvam, 2006). Fish-bones diagram that take the form of a fish skeleton and evaluates level of process dispersion; development of groups like quality circles which
comprises of employees who are expected to solve their own issues and deliver quality output; Variance analysis that determine the difference between actual cost and standard
cost, six sigma and Lean manufacturing are some of the most commonly used quality management tools (Leseure, 2010). Westbridge Furniture Designs Limited has
implemented most effective quality management techniques and has rigorous quality control. They have created quality circles and use techniques like six sigma and lean for
elimination of waste processes. All these efforts help delivering products that have uncompromised quality and designs, made of best raw materials sourced from international
vendors and delivered within specified timescales.
Conclusion
Effective operations management not only helps organisations in delivering desired quality goods and services to customers but also in increasing overall organisational
productivity and performance efficiency. Operations functions also referred to as best practices help reducing operations costs and enforcing continuous improvement. Effective
operations management techniques at Westbridge Furniture Design Limited help them in achieving strategic objectives and delivering high quality products within definite lead
times at the most affordable prices that guarantee profit margins for retailers and distributors.
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References
Bamford, D. & Forrester, P., (2010) Essential Guide to Operations Management. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Boyer, K. & Verma, R., (2009) Operations and Supply Chain Management for the 21st Century. New York: Cengage Learning.
Brown, S., Bessant, J. R. & Lamming, R., (2013) Strategic Operations Management. New Jersey: Routledge.
Brown, S., Blackmon, K., Cousins, P. & Maylor, H., (2013) Operations Management: Policy, Practice and Performance Improvement. New Jersey: Routledge.
Chary, (2009) Production and operations management. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Education.
Galloway, L., Rowbotham, F. & Azhashemi, M., (2012) Operations Management in Context. New Jersey: Routledge.
Gupta, S. & Starr, M., (2014) Production and Operations Management Systems. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Hill, A. V., (2012) The Encyclopedia of Operations Management: A Field Manual and Glossary of Operations Management Terms and Concepts. London: FT Press.
Jones, P. & Robinson, P., (2012) Operations Management. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kamauff, J., (2009) Manager's Guide to Operations Management. Chicago: McGraw Hill Professional.
Krajewski, L. J., Ritzman, L. P. & Malhotra, M. K., (2011) Operations Management: Processes and Supply Chains. New Delhi: Pearson Education India.
Kumar, S. A., (2009) Operations Management. New Delhi: New Age International.
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Mahadevan, B., (2010) Operations Management: Theory and Practice. New Delhi: Pearson Education India.
Murthy, P. R., (2005) Production And Operations Management. New Delhi: New Age International.
Panneerselvam, R., (2006) Production and Operations Management. New Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.
Sanders, N. R. & CSCMP, (2013) Definitive Guide to Manufacturing and Service Operations, The: Master the Strategies and Tactics for Planning, Organizing, and Managing
How Products and Services Are Produced. New Jersey: Pearson FT Press.
Simons, R., (2011) Operations Management: A Modern Approac. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Walters, D. & Rainbird, M., (2007) Strategic Operations Management: A Value Chain Approach. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
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