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Operations Management

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Section A: Short Answers
1) It is difficult to improve service productivity because services cannot be stored on shelves for sale at a later date. Also, in the service sector, it is not always possible to increase output given the same number of input, as the input is usually people and the service experienced by them contains many variables, each of which can lead to a different outcome for the consumer. For example, whenever I visit my hairdresser in Jades Hair Salon, I come back very happy knowing that my hair will look neat and perfect. However, recently, my hairdresser seemed very rough while combing and trimming my hair and even at the end, my hair setup did not turn out quite well, and thus it made me very unhappy about it. Another example is my favorite restaurant Wishbone, recently the service quality seemed very poor to me as the staffs do not greet in a friendly manner plus the food takes so much time to get served which makes us even more frustrated. As with manufacturing firms, successful service businesses use marketing as a tool to strongly position themselves to selected target markets. These firms develop their positions by using marketing mix activities. Since services are different from tangible products, they need additional marketing approaches. For example, products of Pure Fiji are manufactured to the premier American Quality Control Criteria with the use of the proper manufacturing guidelines. Pure Fiji produces in bulk, stocks their outputs and sells them as orders pour in. Even procedures and tests of the products are tested on a person’s skin to check for allergies or to see if it is suitable for their skin type. Thus, at the end of the day, the buyer is fully satisfied purchasing the product due to good internal quality service or greater service value. Another example is Rewa Co-Operative Dairy Company. It adds value to local raw milk and imports bulk dairy stuffs for repacking and making it accessible to domestic market. In addition, it also provides hygienic processing and packaging, manufacture lines as well as functions a modern packaging facility.
2) Four people who have contributed to theories of operations management are Frederick W. Taylor, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth and Charles Babbage.
• Frederick Winslow Taylor: was called the father of “scientific management” as he applied his engineering and scientific knowledge to management and established a theory named “scientific management theory”. He introduced scientific management which was the numerical measurement and analysis of the way work should be done. He started the process of systematizing all the elements that are part of the manufacturing system. For example, the same industrial engineering techniques developed by Taylor are still used in banks, insurance corporations and investment houses as well as truckers, airlines, and manufacturers. They are well suited for repetitive operations such as those that are characterize fast-food chains and information processing.
• Frank and Lillian Gilbreth: they developed and refined “motion study”. An example of the motion study is observing the amount of distinctive motions essential to shovel coal into a kiln. After that, the task is shared into its distinct components, for instance taking up the shovel to dig the charcoal, walking to the kiln, and manipulating the shovel to deposit the charcoal. Moreover, in the past, time and motion studies were used in the manufacturing industry to develop pay or reimbursement measures using the assumption that money was the only motivation for work. However, today, time and motion studies can be used to disclose problems and generate solutions. It can also be used for planning resolutions in order to forecast the level of output that may be achieved and for time cost analysis. In addition, it can be effective for performance evaluations. Their management theory was linked to dropping the number of motions in a task to rise productivity, converging on the incremental study of motions and time to comprehend an entire task and the objective of improved productivity is mutually increased profit and better worker satisfaction.
• Charles Babbage: he advocated the concept of profit sharing and believed in the benefits or advantages of division of labor. He considered specialization in tasks by means of a very essential advantage of the division of labor. In other words, he exhibited the method of reducing the tasks of manufacturing to their modest undertakings which rises the amount of labors who know how to do the tasks, hence, it diminishes the average wage rate which needs to be paid. Thus, Babbage emphasized the importance of division of labor, signifying that larger profit may perhaps be made by specializing. He also emphasized the prominence of the stability in processes as well as the principle of optimum size of the manufacturing unit for each class of product.
3) Large projects in management, take for example, road construction project or project on constructing a new bridge requires three important phases that is planning, scheduling and controlling resources to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria. Thus, project planning of either constructing a road or bridge involves setting goals or establishing objectives; creating hierarchical structure that describes in what way project work is prepared; determining what and how many capitals are needed to carry out the construction; and recognizing teams or how many workers or laborers will be carrying out the specific tasks in construction of roads or bridges. In other words, the planning phase, is where the project resolution is more developed in a much detail manner as well as the steps essential to meet the project’s objectives are planned well with the intention of providing the project on time and on budget. In addition, the project’s tasks as well as resource supplies are identified, together with the strategy for creating them. Project scheduling encompasses recognizing precedency relation; sequencing or determining activity times and costs involved in constructing the road or bridge; estimating materials needed and necessities of workers for carrying out their task; and determining critical activities. In project controlling, reports need to be created that contain the information needed to form an exact depiction of how stuffs are proceeding such as it involves revising and changing plans if necessary; monitoring resources, costs quality and budgets; and shifts resources to meet time and cost demands. For example, a project engineer of Maximise (Fiji) Limited leads several projects and project teams. Also plans, develops, schedules, coordinates, controls as well as brings about onsite construction engineering undertakings designed for large plus extensive projects. One example of an organization running a large project is the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (it is an intergovernmental organization based in Samoa). One of their large project is to build and support Pacific Island countries capacity to respond to climate exchange risks.

Section B: Essay
Product Life Cycle
To begin with, product life-cycle like human beings, also have a similar pattern for example, from birth to death, human beings go through various stages e.g. birth, growth, maturity, decline and death (Product life cycle and Industry Life Cycle, 2014). A related life-cycle is understood in the case of products. Product life cycle deals regarding the lifecycle of a product in the market in regards to merchandisable or business costs and operation measures (Operations and Supply Chain, 2001). Thus, a firm’s products change from introduction, to growth, to maturity, and to decline.
Moreover, during the introduction stage, the highlight is on developing a product that is well accepted by the market, hence, issues like product design and development are critical (Reveliotis, 2006). In addition, the operation managers are concerned with new product development and the design and set-up of the processes that will manufacture the product (Sharma, 2013, p. 122). In the growth stage, the prominence shifts on establishing as well as sustaining a production process that is consistent plus approachable to the increasing demand and some further indications achieved from the market as regards to the desired product quality (Sharma, 2013, p. 122). The supply chain will need to be developed and attention paid to quality management to ensure that increasing the scale of production does not affect the product quality (Sharma, 2013, p. 123). At this stage also the main competitors will emerge, and hence, the business need to develop responding strategies that will permit it to preserve, and if possible, rise its market share. During the maturity phase, the operations should be operating at their maximum efficiency taking advantage of scale economies (Sharma, 2013, p. 123). Finally, in the decline stage, operation managers will have to decide which production capacity to close down or redeploy first (Jones & Robinson, 2003, p. 173).
In addition, introduction stage is the stage where the company has involvement of research for product development, pays more attention to quality and promotes the product in order to create awareness and increase market share (Sharma, 2013, p. 122). In the growth stage, the sales and profits increase. In the maturity stage, products design and quality standards stabilize; brand differentiation and feature diversification is also emphasized to maintain or increase market share (Jones & Robinson, 2003, p. 173). Hence, most of the profit is earned during this stage, competitors are established and costs becomes critical so continuing product improvement in long-term production runs plus applying cost-cutting method (Jones & Robinson, 2003, p. 173). In the decline stage the sales goes down and profits also decline. During this stage the company may choose to minimize the cost of the product. In addition, there is little product differentiation and overcapacity in the industry (Sharma, 2013, p. 123).
Take for example, the IPhone 5s which was one of the latest release in Vodafone Outlets, is currently in the maturity stage, however, there are various competition (such as Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and Xperia Z2) that the IPhone 5s has to outrun with right now. Thus, the market share is declining along with profits. This is because when it comes to technology, people would want to buy the latest item, thus if Apple phones does not come up with more unique features, then they are going to lose customers due to new technology and software on the other phones. However, when the IPhone came out for the first time in Vodafone Company, it was always in the growth stage because it did not have much competitors that time and the sales were always going up as everyone desired one. But that did not last because the main competitor Samsung phones were released as it was cheaper and had much better features than the IPhones. However, now the first IPhone is at the decline stage as there are no software updates available for it.
In conclusion, I agree that product life cycle contracts with the lifecycle of a product in the market in regards to merchandisable or commercial costs and operation measures (Reveliotis, 2006). In addition, the strategy of globalization contributes efficiencies, innovation, modern electronic systems in the domestic production (Product life cycle and Industry Life Cycle, 2014). It has improved quality products, variety, customization, convenience, timeliness and cost which add value to the product and services (Sharma, 2013, p. 122). Developing countries like Fiji, is now getting more modern technology, for example, Toshiba brand laptops, latest Samsung and apple phones and so forth. The result in growth of worldwide trade has increasing economic integration and independence. In organizations extending of operation management have globally innovative strategies for example, Fiji has sales and production worldwide. In the electronic products, so many suppliers are from all around the world, for example, most of the products of Fiji are imported from Thailand, Japanese and China.

Bibliography
Jones, P., & Robinson, P. (2003). Operations Management.
Operations and Supply Chain. (2001).
Operations Strategy in a Global Environment. (2014). Retrieved from Pearson Education: http://www.paperzz.com/doc/4515924/operations-strategy-in-a-global-environment
Product life cycle and Industry Life Cycle. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Or-Pr/Product-Life-Cycle-and-Industry-Life-Cycle.html
Reveliotis, S. (2006). Introduction to Supply Chain Modelling: Manufacturing and Warehousing. Retrieved from Doc88: http://www.doc88.com/p-24969373437.html
Sharma, N. (2013). Marketing Strategy On Different Stages PLC And Its Marketing Implications. International Journal of Marketing, Financial Services & Management Research, 2(3), 122-123. Retrieved from http://indianresearchjournals.com/pdf/IJMFSMR/2013/March/12.pdf

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