Management and Operation Essay 2022

Management and Operation

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Management and Operation
The intent of this essay is to demonstrate the role of leader and manager in different business
operations by taking into consideration the case of Home Bargains the discount store company of
the UK. To properly present this, the essay is analyzing the key operations of the company along
with its organizational structure. The essay is also highlighting the approaches to operation
management like Lean production and Six Sigma and their value to the business. The role of
manager and leader in the operation management and the implementation of approaches is being
highlighted. In addition to this, the essay is analyzing the way manager and leaders can enhance
the operation management efficiency for meeting the business objectives. In the end, it is
conducting the external analysis of the business environment with the use of PESTLE analysis to
identify the impact of different factors on business.
Home Bargains is the famous discount store chain established in the year 1976 in Liverpool by
Tom Morris as Home and Bargains. It has around 4000 branded product lines along with 22000
employees. The company is involved in offering a variety of products such as toys, clothing,
health and beauty, alcohol, sweets, household, food, seasonal, snacks, games, drinks, and other
range of home-style products at affordable prices (Home Bargains, 2020). The mission of the
company is to sell high-quality products at lower prices along with the best customer service.
Home Bargains is a family-owned business that is operated with family values. Tom Morris
owns 90% of the Home Bargains parent TJ Morris (Wood and Goodley, 2019). Joe Morris is the
younger brother of Tom and also the operation director in the company.
The theory of operations management is considered to be the set of practices that are used by the
businesses to augment the efficiency in production. It is related to the controlling of the
production procedure and operations of business properly. It is comprised of four theories that

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are lean manufacturing, business process redesign, six sigma, and reconfigurable manufacturing
systems (Mahadevan 2015). This section is discussing the two theories that are Six Sigma and
Lean Manufacturing.
Six Sigma – It is a quality program that helps in enhancing the experience of the customer, create
better leaders, and decrease the cost of the business. In many companies, Six Sigma means a
quality measure that helps in reaching to near perfection. It is also called as “Organizational
Excellence”, “Customer Perfection”, or “Zero Defects” (Gygi and Williams, 2012). In order to
attain Six Sigma, a procedure must not make more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities.
This strategy is valuable for the organization because with its implementation it helps in focusing
on the improvement of the procedure and reducing the variations.
Lean Manufacturing – It is a methodology that concentrates on decreasing the waste from the
manufacturing system at the same time increasing productivity. This is also called lean
production which is a sociotechnical approach depending on the production system of Toyota. It
is based on several principles like Kaizen, continuous improvement, etc. This methodology is
valuable to the organization because it helps in decreasing lead times, decreasing operating costs,
and enhancing the quality of the product (Wang, 2010).
The leader and manager of an organization are involved in the management of different
operations due to their responsibilities and accountability. In consideration of the operation
management, the role that a leader performs is to focus on individual elements of the business
the way they fit together and operate to make the huge outcomes. The main role of a leader is to
ensure that everything is being efficiently done inappropriate manner. The leader of the business
works for stability with the capability to make infrastructure that operates to meet the needs of

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others (Maxwell, 2004). The leader of Home Bargains devices the system in order to make
things operate smoothly and provide better solutions to the old problems in the business. On the
other hand, the role of the manager in operation management is to ensure that the business is
performing to its full potential. As the manager of the Home Bargains, he is accountable for the
overall well-being of the business, focus on connecting the group to operate for resolving the
issues. The managers have to be a critical thinker who can make an analysis of the circumstances
and take decisions for the best interest of the company. Besides this, the manager is also
accountable to oversee the administration of the budgets in every business segment. The manager
is also involved in supervising the procedure of supply chain and tracking of the inventory.
The successful implementation of the Six Sigma is comprised of some steps that are being
highlighted below:
The initial step of the implementation of Six Sigma is to determine the problem as well as
objectives. This approach is used to eliminate the defects from the system and therefore it is
important to specify the problem in the system and the objective.
In the second step, the company will identify what the company desire to improve and it is
measurable to set the standards (Patel, 2017).
The third step is to analyze the procedure and determine the factors that impact the procedure.
Here the business will highlight the factors that impact the business negatively such as internal
and external factors.
The fourth step is to identify and execute the improvement in the system. Here, the company
identifies the solution to the problem identified in the previous step.

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The fifth step is to control the procedure by evaluating the set standards with the actual
performance of the business in order to identify the deviations and defects in the system and
accordingly take proper steps.
The implementation of Lean Manufacturing is comprised of some steps that are discussed below:
Eliminate the waste – This is the main principle of the lean manufacturing approach. The
business can make use of value stream analysis for recognizing the wasteful activities that are
taking place in the business. Besides this, the business can also put effort to identify efficient
ways to add more value to the product line of the company.
Decrease unwanted inventory – The excess inventory maintenance cost generally overshadows
the possible benefits that businesses can get by avoiding it. Overstocking is many times an issue
for the business because many of the inventory becomes obsolete.
Shorten cycle of production – As per the disciple of lean manufacturing, there must be small
batches of the production in order to add bells and whistles to the later product version.
Increasing response time – It is important to make a system that can act swiftly such that the
business can capitalize on the market changes (Dudbridge, 2011).
Confirming the product component to be quality tested – Developing a process of testing and
control at different points in the procedure for detecting the issues at the earliest stage. The
proper testing system helps in identifying the issues and make the required improvements.
Employee autonomy – At this stage, the company needs to provide the authority to more
employees for taking decisions and offering them the methodology for doing so (Mueller, 2016).

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This is because there are more chances that the business finds better solutions from the
employees.
Solicit the feedback of the customer – After the core product feature development, the business
must use a systematic approach for getting the input from consumers. The system must be
defined to accept the changes in different time duration.
Reaching to the suppliers – At the appropriate time, the business must focus on making the
suppliers their partner in the procedure of lean manufacturing. By the supplier cooperation with
the implementation of this approach, the benefits can be gained by all the parties. This will also
help in strengthening the relationship with the suppliers.
The leaders and managers can improve the efficiencies of the operation management for
successfully meeting the objectives of the business in different ways that are discussed below.
The productivity of employees – The leaders of the company allow their team members to
manufacture high-quality products by allowing their flexible work environment. This approach
has enabled the employees to offer their best results through the use of their exceptional
capabilities. This improves the efficiency of the operation management as the employees are
provided with the flexibility to operate in their preferred location and time (Meister and
Willyerd, 2010). This supports maintaining product quality and enhance employee productivity.
However, managers and leader should confirm that they all the employees with the option of
operating remotely, this meet the organization objective related to the developing work
productivity such that the business can fulfill the customer demand.
Enhancing collaboration – This approach is used by the managers to improve the operation
management efficiency as its support in augmenting the interactions between every department

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by enabling better bonding and understanding. This will result in developing a healthier work
environment.
PESTLE Analysis is an external environment analysis tool that helps an organization to identify
the factors that can impact its operations (Perera, 2017). It is comprised of six factors that are
being discussed below about Home Bargains.
Political – The United Kingdom enjoys a stable political environment, but the Brexit movement
has raised some of the political debates and uncertainties. On the other side, the United Kingdom
maintains good relations of trade with the United States and with many other countries across the
world (The Global Economy, 2018). This reveals that Home Bargains enjoy the benefit of good
relations of the country with the US in terms of supply of different products but also getting
influenced by the Brexit movement.
Economic – UK is considered to be the 5th largest world economy in terms of nominal GDP,
which offers growth opportunities to the existing businesses to operate smoothly.
Social – the United Kingdom has a huge consumer market which reveals that Home Bargains
holds the opportunity to target huge potential customers by the use of its promotional strategies.
Besides this, the company is also offering a huge number of jobs for the citizens that allow them
to improve their living standards in the country (Home Bargains, 2019).
Technology – the United Kingdom is considered to be the most technically advanced country
which offers the opportunity to the businesses operates in the country to make use of those
facilities to make better products and services for the customers (Ismail, 2017). Besides this, the
increasing use of social media and the internet is majorly impacting the physical business and
stores in the market due to the available facility of online shopping. This is majorly impacting

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the business of Home Bargains due to increasing competition from the only retailers like
Amazon.
Legal – The government of the United Kingdome has introduced different rules and regulations
related to operating discount store chains in the country that is important to follow to smoothly
operate in the market. Some of the laws are related to employment, labor protection law,
customer protection law, human rights, etc. that are important to follow to offer the services in
the country.
Environment – The economic development is impacting the environment of the country due to
which the government has raised some of the strict norms to reduce it. The government and
different private organizations are getting involved to increase the awareness related to the
environment for decreasing the negative impact of rapid development such as changing weather
conditions (Blue Planet Prize, 2012). In order to smoothly operate in the country, Home Bargains
has to regularly focus on reducing its carbon emission by adopting renewable energy and other
activities related to environmental protection.
The above report has provided a detailed analysis of the Home Bargains and the role of leader
and manager in operation management. From the analysis, it has been identified that Home
Bargains is one of the famous family-owned discount store chains that is offering services in the
UK. In the conclusion, it can be said that the manager and leader of the company are accountable
in improving the operation management by ensuring collaboration among different employees,
team, and departments to ensure a friendly environment for the workforce such that they can
work effectively and improve the productivity of the business. Besides this, they also improve
operation management efficiency by allowing a flexible environment for the employees which

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contributes to improving their productivity. In the end, it has been identified that the exit of
Britain from the European Union has resulted in creating different debates in the country.

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References
Blue Planet Prize (2012) Environment and Development Challenges: The Imperative to Act
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