OPREATION MANAGEMENT

Operation Management



Operation Management

Executive Summary

This paper will be discussing the case study of Marsden Community Store. We will be studying the concepts of operations management and supply chain management. Also, we will be implementing these concepts to the case of Marsden Community Store. The methodology applied for the collecting data is the mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods. After these discussions, some recommendations will be provided.

Introduction

The case study pertaining to Marsden Community Store needs to be evaluated through the perspective of operational and supply chain management. Furthermore, the case also presents critical evaluations on how Marsden community Stores transferred the valuable operational concepts. Marsden Store is a grocery chain with 215 outlets located in the major towns and cities in England with an average size of 6500 sq feet. The USP (Unique Selling point) is the strategy that it has adopted. Niche Strategy, where price, location, convenience, and an acceptable product range are seen as major criteria to maintain customer loyalty.

The major part of the application of theories concept will be discussing the lean implementation and six-sigma for Marsden Community Store. The world is witnessing a reformed shape of business an approach more focused on quality and customer care (Kotler & Keller, 2006: 71). The traditional concept of supplier orientation has shifted to customer orientation; and traditional meaning of quality has also changed. Quality management, total quality management, zero defect level, lean management, continuous improvement and Six Sigma have evolved to meet quality requirements of customers. Each having a slighter different and updated focus of quality, Six Sigma is the most exploratory approach. Six-Sigma is a quality management initiative that takes the methodological approach based on data attempting; to eliminate the defects to minimize standard deviation to desired level of quality (Leseure, 2010: 166).

Outline of the Purpose of the Case Study

For every business, the primary objective is to achieve high profits. To achieve high profits, there are various elements, which has to, be kept in consideration. Elements include types of products, manager managing inventories and suppliers (supply chain management). This case illustrates using a wide range of supply chain management concepts implementing to the case of Marsden Community Store. The problem with every organization is that the inventories are not stable at an equilibrium point, also the demand and supply of the products changes according to the market requirement which disturbs the equilibrium point (Leseure, 2010: 168). Operations management is very important to understand in order to bring the costs of the products low.

Methodology

This section will discuss the method that is used for collecting the data. The data collection to develop an analysis of information for the case may be based on one of these methods of collecting the data, but the use of either is subject to certain advantages and disadvantages implicit in both a method and the other (Box & Hunter, 2005: 22). A limitation of qualitative methods is their difficulty in providing a generalized and deliverable quantifiable ...