Operations Management Assignment †Free Sample & Example

Question: Identify and describe any three (3) operational issues/challenges facing the organisation and how these issues may impact on the organisation and the supply chain. You are also required to critically review the identified issues and suggest recommendations to overcome these issues. Answer: Introduction: The whole world runs on different information systems. The functionality of information system is elevating and becoming a necessity rather than an option. Robustness and security of a structure are equally significant to make sure the systems confidentiality, availability and also integrity. The two most significant challenges faced by an organization in the present days are the operational challenges and the technical challenges. These issues should be addressed from the first in order to ensure that the software projects turn to be victorious. Operational Excellence is defined as a philosophy of teamwork, leadership and problem solving leading to continuous up gradation throughout the business by targeting on the requirements of the client, optimizing the business activities and empowering employees. There are barriers or challenges that limit an organization from achieving such operational excellence. The main challenges related to operations that an organization faces are the lack of collaboration, poor planning of the process execution, lack of quality, poor product designing, outdated technology, human resource, scheduling and maintenance, inventory resources, location selection, etc (Ageron et al. 2012). Samsung is a South Korean multinational company and the head quarter is situated in the Seoul. This company comprises of a number of subsidiaries and other affiliated business which comprises the tag of the Samsung brand. Samsung involves eight companies with extremely diversified operational actions in areas such as consumer electronics, construction, shipbuilding, financial services and also medical services. With the rise of the new organizations such as Micromax and existing organizations such as Motorola and Apple, there are certain challenges in that needs to be identified by Samsung and the operational challenges needs to be addressed properly in order to compete in the market. In this report, the various challenges experienced by Samsung and recommendations would be discussed in order to progress in the long run (Beamon 1998). Challenge 1: Goods and Service Design The mobile division of Samsung has proved to be a great success in the last few decades. This sector of the organization has also tried to resolve the adverse trade environment that was faced by the organization. Around forty percentage of the profit revenue of the organization comes from this sector. Despite the strong performance in the recent past the mobile division has experienced challenges in the operational segment. The most significant issue is the good designing challenge. According to Henzer, the design of products and design relates a great deal of the transformation procedure. The factors of cost, human resources, and quality must be made at some point in the stage. Operation management of goods and services is also diverse since unlike feature and tangible or intangible characteristic (Bititci et al. 1997). Although the organization has shown a strong performance in the technological sector, there are problems that the company might face due to increasing in the completion in the Chinese local market. There is a rise in the manufacturing cost with regards to the goods designing. For example, the Galaxy S5 that was more of an iterative improvement, although with striking hardware components like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and few new sensors. Conversely, the hardware stipulations race comes at a noteworthy cost. As regarded by IHS, the S5 has an invoice of materials esteemed at approximately $256, involving built-up costs, while Apples flagship iPhone 5S price an anticipated $207 to manufacture. Higher expenses in the crest end of the market United with the chance of declining standard selling prices would be probable pressure the organizations gross margins moving forward. Such operational decisions can be a big challenge for the company (Gunasekaran and Ngai 2012). Industry observers have stated that the achievement of the S4 might pivot on a supply back up plan meant at preventing a repeat of costly problems encountered in the launch of its premium smart phone last year. Supply shortages often plague the global launches of popular smart phones. I-Phone buyers once routinely waited weeks or even months to receive their purchases (Hill and Hill 2012). Some analysts predict the new Galaxy could top 10 million unit sales in the first month after its launch, so any hiccups in the smooth delivery of core components could be disastrous. The risks are high. A simple manufacturing error involving the unsatisfactory design of handset cases cost Samsung 2 million units of lost sales in just a month after it launched the S III in May last year. There are three things to know for the producers of the phones of Samsung in order to meet the challenges regarding the goods and service design. The first and the foremost thing is to make the understanding of the social and the cultural trends of people in order to make the development of the proper strategy of the mobile device. The producers of devices of Samsung have to keep in mind that the device plan should be subject to change and alteration in different forms of market in different countries. The requirement and the demand of people may differ and vary in different parts of the world. Hence, the plan to produce device should also subject to differ in many countries (Houlihan 1985). The next element of consideration in order to meet the challenge of goods and service design is that the researchers of Samsung Company must engage themselves in conducting the interviews that are contextual to make the understanding of the local culture and making the observation of activities of the user of mobile. The developers of the Samsung mobile device must also produce different types of phones for different part of the countries in accordance with the requirement of the customers, and such requirement is available through the produce strategy that has to be c conducted by the developers of the Samsung device (Johnston et al. 2004). For instance, the example of the fact of giving Experientia the right to conduct the research of the requirement can be taken into context. There has been the research conducted to make the assessment regarding the requirements of users and their cultural trends by the Samsung Company in Senegal and South Africa. The primary motive and objective of conducting such research are to develop the mobile device strategy of Samsung and also make the capture of the market. In making the research, a team was sent on the behalf of the Samsung group to Senegal and South Africa. The primary challenge in making any device of mobile and service is relating to the production of the device according to the requirement of the customers and the giving of a reasonable cost to such product. The term reasonable cost refers to giving of that cost to the devices that falls within the purchasing capacity of the buyers in those areas where the product is aiming to do the market. Hence, for making attaching the proper cost to the devices there is the requirement of making the assessment of purchasing capacity of the people of that area where the produced and subject to the market (Kennerley and Neely 2002). Challenge 2: Quality There are several challenges that are faced by the producers of Samsung that are related to the quality of the products. For making the assessment of the challenges that are posed by the issues of quality, there is the need of making the discussion of the term quality products. The term quality products refer to those products that make the fulfillment of the expectations of the customers. In case any product makes the fulfillment of the expectations of the customers, the customers would be pleased and make the consideration that such product is of very high quality and is acceptable by them. In case, the expectations of the customers are not fulfilled; the customer would make the consideration that the product is of low quality. Hence, from the discussion it can be said that the term quality of any product may be defined as the ability of any product to make the fulfillment of the expectations and the needs of any customer (Krajewski et al. 2013). There is a requirement that the term quality must be first defined in the terms of feature or parameters that is subject to vary from one product to another. For instance, in the case of electronics and mechanical products the parameters are reliability, performance, appearance, and safety. In the case of the pharmaceutical products the products the parameters are chemical and physical characteristics, toxicity, medicinal affect. For the foods product, the parameters of judging the quality are properties relating to nutrition, taste, and texture (Melny et al. 2004). In this report, we are dealing with the challenges relating to the quality of electronic devices of the Samsung Company. Since, the devices that are produced by the Company are electronic in nature, the qualities of the products are to judged from the parameters of reliability, safety, appearance and performance. The primary task that has to be performed by the employees of Samsung for the improvement of quality is to make the fixation of the specifications of the products. The term specification refers to the minimal requirement in accordance to which any producer makes the delivery of the service or product to its customers. In making the fixation of the specifications, the following elements are to be taken into consideration: The needs of the customers or the users The requirements that are related with the safety of the product and the health hazards that can emerge from the usage of the electronic products of Samsung in the form of regulatory and statutory requirements The requirement that is given in the international and the national standard of producing electronic products are to be followed by the Samsung Company. There is also the requirement to make the consideration of the specification of the products of the competitors for getting the advantages regarding the marketing of such products. For example, the producers of the Samsung Company must keep a track of the specifications of its competitors such as Nokia Company in order to get the benefits relating to marketing (Oke 2013). The next step that is involved in improving the quality of the products of the Samsung Company is to make the preparation for the manufacture of their products. The important factors of manufacture of any product depend on several elements. The primary element is making the decision of the method that is to be involved in making the manufacture. In making the manufacture of the products of the Samsung Company, that method of production is to be taken into consideration that enables that the product to emerge in the easiest, quickest form, without making the comprise of the factor of quality. Hence, it is to be said that the Samsung Company must indulge into any process of making the manufacture of their products and device but at no cost shall the quality is to be comprised. The primary importance of the manufacture is to be given to quality (Otley 1999). The next step that is attached in producing the quality products by the Samsung Company is making the corrections that are attached with the deficiency of quality. It is often seen that despite making all the efforts of involving that procedure that are involved in the manufacture of best quality devices by the Samsung Company, the desired quality is not reached. This would denote and mean there is something that is not reached and attained that was required to maintain the quality. It also denotes that are certain deficiencies regarding the planning of the quality. The primary concern for the developers of the producers of the devices of the Samsung Company is to make sure that the quality deficiencies are not repeated in the future (Peng and Lai 2012). The last step that is involved in improving the quality of the devices by the producers of Samsung Company is enhancing the level of coordination between the employees. It is the obvious fact that every employee starting from the sales clerk, designers to the staff of production are responsible for the quality of the product of the Samsung Company. It is also regarded that the maintaining the quality is the responsibility of every member of the Samsung Company. Challenge 3: Process and Capacity Planning The third challenge that is involved in making the production of the devices of the Samsung Company is the manufacturing process and the planning of capacity that is involved in such production. The challenges regarding the process and capacity planning in the Samsung Company can be redressed in the following ways: Making the decision on the process of manufacture: the methods of manufacture must be devised in such manner that enhances the Company to make the product involving he easiest and the quickest methods of production by making the compliance to the standards of quality. For instance the Samsung Company must make the involvement of such techniques and steps that will consider the production of the best quality electronic devices that is will be in accordance to the expectations of the people and the needs of the customers (Renwick et al. 2013). Making the provision of those machineries, tools, and equipment: it is a common factor that the things that are required for the manufacture of the best quality devices must be selected by keeping in mind all those elements that is required by the customers. The process of manufacturing the electronic devices must conform to all the requirements of the customers that is obtained from the said researches. Getting the satisfactory materials for production: if the Samsung Company makes the usage of unsatisfactory raw material in the manufacture of the electronic devices then the product that is produced shall not be a good one. Hence, the material that is required for the manufacture of a good device, the Samsung Company must make the specification in writing the requirement of the particular goods that would be used by them in the manufacture process of such devices (Renwick et al. 2013). Training and obtaining the operators that are suitable: the Samsung Company must obtain those operators that are willing and are capable to doing their work in a manner that is regarded as satisfactory. Such operators are also to be given the amount of adequate training do that they comply with the quality and the requirements of the Samsung Company. The training is given to the staff in order to making them adjust to the work environment (Slack 1994). Making the planning for the inspection and the controlling the shop floor quality: the higher authorities of the Samsung Company must make the planning for conducting the activities of inspection. The plans for the activities of inspection must be made and the appropriate workplaces must be provided for the staff that is related with the inspection. The procedures of inspection must be made in writing. The inspection must be conducted on the equipments and the products that are used for the manufacture of the devices. By the act of making more inspection, the authorities of the Samsung Company should never make the assumption that the problem relating to the quality shall never be redressed by that. The next step that is to be involved by the Samsung Company in redressing the challenge relating to the process and the capacity planning is regarding the factors of human in the production. It is a common belief that the major problems of quality and other problems of manufacture of the devices of the Samsung Company can be directly attached with the care and interest on the part of their workers that is involved at the time of making the production. However, in several instances it is not the worker that is regarded the sole cause for the failure to meet the requirements of manufacture. It is because most often the conditions that are required for the workers of the Samsung Company do not exist. For instance, there may be inadequate instructions relating to manufacturing process, there may be defective materials that are incoming for the use in production. It is evident that these conditions are not in the control of the worker. These factors can also lead to the faulty production of devices by the Company (Slack 2015). In the Samsung Company, the maximum portion of the problems of production and the quality of the devices of the Company are due to the poor and faulty design of product and the use of wrongful or defective raw materials in the manufacture process. The problems of the faulty production of devices of the Samsung Company are also based on the errors that are made at the time of manufacture (Slack et al. 2013). Conclusion and Recommendations In the conclusion, it can be said that the Samsung Company must follow the procedure of producing their devices in the most ethical manner. The sole objective of the Company must besides, the factor of profit maximization be the satisfaction of the consumers. The needs and the preferences of the customers must be given the top priority. The employees of the Samsung Company must indulge themselves in producing those devices are in demand and are required by the customers (Stone 2013). The Company should not indulge into unethical competition with their competitors and by engaging into unethical competition should not indulge themselves in the manufacture of those products that lack the quality. The primary objective of the Company should be to maintain the quality of the products. The maintenance of the quality by the Company would result in the keeping the good name of the Company in the market of electronic products intact (Subramanian and Ramanathan 2012). The goodwill of the Compa ny is of immense importance as the Samsung Company is an electronics Company. The last recommendation for the Company shall be that the Company must make the use of proper raw materials and the proper method of manufacture of their devices (Taghavi et al. 2014). Reference List Ageron, B., Gunasekaran, A. and Spalanzani, A., 2012. Sustainable supply management: An empirical study.International Journal of Production Economics,140(1), pp.168-182. Beamon, B.M., 1998. Supply chain design and analysis:: Models and methods.International journal of production economics,55(3), pp.281-294. Bititci, U.S., Carrie, A.S. and McDevitt, L., 1997. Integrated performance measurement systems: a development guide.International journal of operations production management,17(5), pp.522-534. 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