OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

Managing Operations and Quality

Managing Operations and Quality

Introduction

Being the Director of Operations for a profitable medium sized UK Company having two hundred individuals employed, producing a range of specialist garden power tools for the domestic market. These tools are retailed to the trade and public through large out of town “Do it yourself” (DIY) stores, garden centers and agricultural merchants under their “own name” brand. However, whilst the DIY stores offer a facility for shopping on-line with home delivery or store collection, your Board of Directors has tasked you to prepare a briefing paper regarding the implications for managing operations of introducing on-line sales to home and overseas customers from the company's own internet website. These would be branded products produced to an upgraded specification within an extended product range, whilst continuing production for its customers at established outlets.

The responsibilities of the operations manager cover production operations, purchasing, inventory, quality and distribution through Departmental Managers. All products are presently produced at the company's on-site factory which is operating to near capacity and with limited space for increasing inventory. Components are sourced from home and overseas suppliers, labor relations with unions and employees are good, with established modes of communication and a task centered working culture embracing flexible working practices. Your role is to ensure the company can fulfill its production and quality commitments for a new branded product range while maintaining existing production should the Board approve a move to on-line business. This is a briefing paper for the company's Board of Directors which examines the implications for operations of expanding output to provide for internet sales whilst maintaining the company's good reputation and satisfying the needs of internal and external customers.

Activities involving operations management and their relationship to other business functions

Planning

The professionals of operations management hold the responsibility for coordinating with different other executives and managers for determining the way operational planning may make a contribution to the long standing strategies of the business. They impart the functional components of the strategic operations carried out in the organization by arranging the activities which make a contribution to the inclusive organizational goals. This arrangement may encompass the determination of policies and goals for budget management, logistics management and maintain services management. The operations manager, in short, ascertains that every department is harmonized with the others regarding the path headed by the organization (Slack, et.al, 2004, pp. 24-26).

Direction

For ensuring that operational activities are planned out, the professionals of operations management also hold the responsibility for directing the numerous managers under their supervision. The operations managers ascertain that every department is accomplishing their essential tasks inside the organization by fulfilling the budgetary guidelines and productivity goals. The operations manager might require making modifications or corrections when the objectives are not being carried out or fulfilled or in a way coherent with the organizational policies.

Coordination

Also, operations manager assists in the accomplishment of the goals specified in organizational strategies by synchronizing the activities amongst different departments in their ...