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Comparison and contrast of operation problems among Executive Holloware ltd., Oilpartz ltd. and London zoo
Summary
In this article, three operations management related cases are studied and analysed. The writer compares and contrasts
similarities and differences in these cases in the following aspects: the transformation process model, types of operations,
the objectives of operations. By looking into more detailed problems in each case, those more complex items such as
quality improvement, process planning, capacity planning, scheduling/loading, are also illustrated. And finally, some key
factors concerned with operations improvement and strategy are given to the cases.
Operations management is the term used for the activities, decisions and responsibilities of operations managers who
manage the production and delivery of products and services. Because the functions, characteristics are different in various
companies, operations management themes will not always be the same in those societies. In the cases we studied, for
example, Executive Holloware and London Zoo have to tackle the biggest problem of quality, while Oilpartz Ltd (in the
case of I'll phone you back) is mostly concentrating on the capacity planning. Before we go deeper into those problems,
let's first look at the basic similarities and differences in those companies.
Those inputs are different too. For the transformed resource, known as resources that are treated, transformed or converted,
Executive Holloware and Oilpartz Ltd transfer raw materials, while London Zoo transfers customers. For the transforming
resources, known as resources that act upon the transformed resources, three companies all need adequate and qualified
buildings, labour, information, but animals are unique to London Zoo, while machineries are unique to Executive Holloware
and Oilpartz Ltd.
The outputs from transformation processes are products and services. It is obvious that Executive Holloware and Oilpartz
Ltd give out products, that's why their outputs are tangible, storable, transportable, non-simultaneous (products are always
produced prior to the customer receiving them), low-customer contact (customers have a low contact level with the
operations which produce products). London Zoo provides services, that's why their outputs are totally different from that
of the former two ones, their outputs are intangible, non-storable, non-transportable, simultaneous, high-customer contact.
Types of operations
Although all operations are similar in that they all transform input resources into output products and services, they do differ
in four important respects:
The volume of their output;
The variety of their output;
The variation in the demand for their output;
The degree of 'visibility' which customers have of the production of the product or service (also called the degree of
customer contact).
In the three cases, because of the different outputs of those companies, some of the performance objectives are critical and
vital to certain companies, while some are of less importance. In order to meet those objectives, operations managers have
to tackle those complex problems such as quality planning and control, , capacity planning and control, operations
improvement, etc. In the following article, we will go through the problems in the companies.
Fortunately, by carefully selecting the order types and giving full attention to each step, Oilpartz Ltd manages to maintain
an exceptional quality almost all the time. But story is not the same in Executive Holloware and London Zoo. The biggest
problem they are facing is quality. There's 5% of return of products from the retailers, and 5% of rejected from the final
inspection stage in Executive Holloware. London Zoo is totally not sure how customers judge the quality of the service
they provide.
When we are diagnosing quality problems, we first should check whether the product or service meet the expectations of
customers, and whether there's gap between the customers' perceptions of the product or service and their expectations of it.
If the latter exits, there must be other gaps elsewhere. They are:
Gap1: The customer's specification-operation's specification gap
Gap2: The concept-specification gap
Gap3: The quality specification-actual quality gap
Gap4: The actual quality-communicated image gap
In Executive Holloware, there's an obvious gap between quality specification and actual quality. We can see that there is
high frequency of scratches and bruises in the assembly line, even the final goods which arrive to the retailers exit the same
problem. They don't have a clear definition of what is scratches and bruises, what is the standard of semi-finished and
finished goods. The internal quality services are rather poor, workers don't care what kind of semi-finished goods they are
'throwing' to the next stage.
Meanwhile, by doing the questionnaire, London Zoo is trying to find out the gap between service concept and the way the
organization has specified the quality of the service internally, the gap between the customer's specification and operation's
specification of quality.
By doing the questionnaire, London Zoo is trying to define their quality of service. It is good for them to develop the
explanation of zoo service by means of benchmarking the 18 determinants of service quality. In their anticipation, the
performance score will give out the perception of the quality, and the priority scores will give out the customers'
expectations. Since resources such as investment of money, human resources, are not sufficient enough for all the
improvement. London Zoo tries to find out ten priorities to be first considered, if the final score doesn't match the recent
performance scores, that means, London Zoo has to improve those criteria. By looking at the table of priority overall
scores, we first pick up ten aspects and compare them with the performance scores.
Priority
Sequence Aspect of VisitExpected
Performance
ScoreRecent
Performance
Score Gap
1Happiness of animals4.791.96-2.83
2Visibility of animals4.782.08-2.70
3Care of animals4.653.77-0.88
4Overall, as day out4.104.39+0.29
5Commitment to animals3.824.37+0.55
6Number of animals to see3.782.88-0.90
7Educational experience3.673.58-0.09
8Cleanliness and tidiness3.542.76-0.78
9Comfort of animals3.531.73-1.80
10Commitment to visitors3.392.86-0.53
It is obvious that those 10 priorities are what customers expect from visiting the zoo. Although customer choosing criteria
may change under different situations, for example, parking is critical when visitors are over 6000, however, it is not
included into the 10 priority by looking at the overall scores, the overall scores are by far the balance of the whole situation,
those gaps with the negative scores are urgent to be met, the more negative the score is, the more urgent the situation should
be changed.
In London Zoo, the quality characteristic can be given a continuously variable scale as well as the attributes. For example:
Aspect of Visit
Variable Attribute
Happiness of animalsHow happy is the animals?Are the animals happy to
live in the zoo?
Visibility of animalsHow visible are the
animals?Can you the visitors see all
the animals?
Care of animalsHow much care does the
animals receive?Are the animals receiving
good care?
Overall, as day outWhat should customers
feel when they are out?Are customers happy when
they are out? Will they
come again?
Commitment to animalsHow commitment is the
zoo to the animals?Is the zoo commitment to
the animals?
Number of animals to seeHow many animals can
the visitors see?Is the number enough for the
customers to see?
Educational experienceHow much education
can the zoo give to the
customers?Are customers satisfied with
the education the receive in
the zoo?
Aspect of Visit
Variable Attribute
Cleanliness and tidinessHow clean and tidy is the
zoo?Are customers satisfied with
the cleanliness and tidiness?
Comfort of animalsHow comfortable are the
animals?Are the animals comfortable?
Commitment to visitorsHow commitment is the
zoo to the customers?Is the zoo commitment to
the customers?
This step is critical to London Zoo, because without a good standard, everything will still be in a mass. What they should
do next is to find out what the acceptable level of each quality characteristic, for example, how many animals customers are
hoping to see in the zoo. They can do it with more customer surveys or adopt some benchmark in other zoos.
Since London Zoo provide service to the customers, except for those objective quality characteristic, they should have good
control of the service quality of their staff. From the performance score, we can see that those staff helpfulness, catering etc
are extremely low, in order to give the customers a complete image of the zoo, employee performances will be a important
controlling point.
Oilpartz Ltd and London Zoo's performance objectives in speed, dependability, flexibility are tightly related to capacity
planning and controlling. Oilpartz Ltd has to work out the timesheet for the complex orders, and London Zoo experience
difficulties when the visitor figure is big. Capacity of an operation is the maximum level of value-added activity over a
period of time that the process can achieve under normal operation conditions.
When we are trying to do the capacity planning and controlling, we usually follow three procedures, they are:
Step1: Measure the aggregate demand and capacity levels.
Step2: Identify the alternative capacity plans.
Step3: Choose the most appropriate capacity plan.
The demand for Olipartz Ltd is relatively stable, since its loading capacity is finite, they have to carefully calculate the
capacity before giving promises to any customers. Without considering the Nitro chemical orders, the average ratio of
load/capacity for processing machinery and for operators are 1.8 weeks and 2.1 weeks, the shortest delivery time is 3 weeks,
theoretically, they are able to accept some extra work. Adding the demand of Nitro, those two figures go to 2.2 and 2.78,
but Nitro asks for the goods in two weeks, it seems that they have to work overtime or deny the order. However, since they
have two turning machines, and considering the bunching of load, things may be different.
Without consider the Nitro order and working overtime, we first design the Gantt chart ( Appendix 1) in three ways, they
are
Due date (DD)
First come, first served (FCFS)
Longest operation time first (LOT)
In the three ways, bunching of load in turning process are all considered, since the deliver date of Gamma Gases and Delta
Engineering are quite late, the bottle neck will be on Alpha Oil and BP. But in the last two ways, products of AL are first
to be produced, that's why they can't deliver the goods to BP on time. When we see that DD is efficient, we then consider of
adding the demand of Nitro Chemical, fortunately, the work can be done on time.
Operations improvement
Since the customers' expectations are changing all the time, operations improvement will thus never stop. For those three
companies, after they solve the urgent problems, they will have to look back again the performance measurement.
Sometimes, they will have to find new performance standards and make continuous improvements or breakthrough
improvement. The operation managers have to do the "trade-off" all the time.