Operational Management: Strategies for Quality and Efficiency

This document discusses the strategies and approaches used by Wesfarmers to ensure quality and efficiency in operational management. It explores theories like Business Process Redesign (BPR), Six Sigma, and Kaizen, and their implications for the organization. The document also provides recommendations for improving operations.

Operational Management
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Part 1
Answer 1
Wesfarmers meet the requirements of its customers by producing safe quality products. It
consistently meet all the obligations related to safety of the product. The firm also continuously
improve the durability as well as performance of the product. It adopt an active approach for
ensuring the safety standards of the product to successfully meet the expectations of the
customers. A quality strategy has been undertaken to focus on the production process. The main
objective of the firm is to maintain high-quality products as well as deliver a satisfactory return
to the shareholders (Nadarajah, Syed and Kadir, 2016).
Answer 2
Quality is managed by undertaking various activities by Wesfarmers which are as follows –
 The company formalized a new customer feedback for analyzing the process of ensuring
quality products
 It also implemented a customer quality report for capturing the feedback of the
consumers which involves both high and low priority feedback
 It also launch a supplier scorecard that based on the measurement of quality
 Improve the performance of quality
 Continuously make improvements in the quality
A logical and proactive approach used by the company to manage quality within the
organization (Bouranta, Psomas & Pantouvakis, 2017). It helps in increasing the level of
product quality conformance as well as decrease the costs. Wesfarmers maintain quality
management system for auditing the process of quality production and streamline the
requirements by using quality assurance services.
Quality flow throughout the organization and the external stakeholders such as customers or
investors, by adopting the practices of TQM which includes the following –
- Engagement of the stakeholders, customers, and employees
- Effective way of communication between all the staffs
- Achieving feedback from the customers and suppliers and the shareholder groups

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These practices of TQM help in managing the quality and make the external stakeholders
to maintain the quality of the products by providing feedback to the organization.
Answer 3
There are three levels of conformance, such as level A (lowest), level AA (mid-range), and level
AAA (highest). Level A sets a minimum level of accessibility, and thus, level AA is
recommended for all information based on the web. The conformance level of Wesfarmers is
level AA, which helps the company in implementing several accessibility features for making the
website of the firm accessible to the public (Lam, O'Donnell & Robertson, 2015). The
organization is consistently assessing the accessibility standards as per the conformance level.
Internal and external implications are the following –
- Regular audit of products is conducted by Bunnings for ensuring conformance with
mandatory standards as well as undertake safety test on the products for confirming
compliance to safety standards
- Supplier Standards for food products are relaunched to cover the quality as well as the
safety of the product like sustainability
- High conformance level help in designing the websites which enable the disabled person
to make use of the web pages
Part 2
Answer 1
Operation management is crucial for the success of every organization. It is essential for
improving the overall productivity of Wesfarmers as it plays a vital role in handling the issues
related to operations and design of the system that is used for the production of the products (Hill
& Hill, 2017). Hence, the operation of Wesfarmers needs to improve by using various
approaches or tools. There are various tools, theories, or methods that can be used for improving
the operations of Wesfarmers. Business process redesign (BPR) is one of the theories of
operations management that mainly focus on designing as well as analyzing the business
processes of the organization. BPR could provide various benefits to Wesfarmers such as it
facilitates the flexible design of processes, help in reducing risks, provide an opportunity to work
efficiently, increase productivity and enable the company to focus more on customers (Huang,

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Lee, Chiu & Yen, 2015). It can be re-engineered by eliminating waste, mapping the process, and
repeating the cycle.
Six Sigma is another approach or theory that primarily focuses on the quality of operations
management (Chugani, Kumar, Garza-Reyes, Rocha-Lona & Upadhyay, 2017). This approach
only works when the quality managers or engineers are supported by senior executives. Its focus
on detecting and reducing the errors for maintaining the quality of the product. It is expensive to
implement, but if it would be done properly, then Wesfarmers could be the centers of excellence
and an industry leader. The benefit of this approach is that it adopt statistical thinking towards
quality.
A lean production is also an approach used to eliminate waste to ensure quality operations of the
firm (Jasti & Kodali, 2015). The theory of lean production aims to find out resources that do not
create value and seems as waste and cut those wasteful expenses from the operations of the
company (Coccia, 2018). Wesfarmers could benefit from this approach in many ways, such as by
doing things better and improve the quality of the operations. The approach cut the waste costs
by making the firm more responsive as well as efficient to the needs of the market. It can be
applied to all features of the business from production to distribution.
Answer 2
Wesfarmers could use the Kaizen approach to improve the operations of the business. The
approach aims to increase the productivity, safety, efficiency, and competence of the operations.
The approach provides a lot of benefits to the company. Kaizen is also a philosophy which helps
in improving the quality of the product by identifying defects, build and strengthen the team, and
enhance competitiveness by producing high-quality products (Marin-Garcia, Juarez-Tarraga &
Santandreu-Mascarell, 2018).
The company may also use a six sigma approach as it enhances the quality of operation
management by reducing errors as well as defects. It is costly to implement but provides a
significant return after implementing. It involves various principles for improving the operations
such as support of senior executives, top-down training, clear methodology, and focus on the
improvement of the process and develop an infrastructure to support success (Piercy & Rich,
2015).

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Answer 3
Strategical implications of six sigma approach for operations management is the DMAIC model
used for quality improvement. The operations management of Wesfarmers could be improved by
applying the framework of DMAIC, which means define, measure, analyze, improve, and
control. It will help the company in defining the problems as well as objectives, analyze the
process of operations, measure the quality improvement, identifying and implementing the
improvements, and control the processes (Sunder, 2016). Wesfarmers could adopt the philosophy
of six sigma approach, which would help in improving the operations consistently. Several
quality tools help in managing the quality of operations of the business included under the six
sigma approach. The strategic tools are cause & effect diagram, flow chart, histogram, Pareto
chart, control chart, scatter plot, and check sheet (Chen, Zi & Zou, 2016). Commitment is the
primary factor that evaluates the success of the six sigma approach. It is useful for the
organization to road map the customized approach towards the objectives of Wesfarmers. The
firm could strive on constant enhancement through the use of six sigma approach.
With the use of the philosophy of Kaizen, Wesfarmers can develop an active culture where all
the workers will take an active part in improving the operations of the firm. By using the
approach as an action plan, Wesfarmers could improve the specific areas within the workplace.
Under the kaizen approach, Wesfarmers can adopt the continuous improvement strategy which
helps in achieving regular improvement of the production process of the business. The company
could implement the cycle of continuous improvement strategy which helps in identifying the
areas needed for improvement and create solutions to address the issues. The strategy helps in
increasing the morale of the employees by creating a sense of value among them and motivates
an analysis of the processes for eliminating the waste and identifying the mistakes.
Answer 4
It is strongly recommended to Wesfarmers to use six sigma approach as it would be the best
approach for improving quality as well as the efficiency of the operations management. The key
objective of the six sigma approach is to enhance the level of quality through measurement of
statistical data in order to eliminate causes of defects in the process of production or operations.
It is also recommended to the firm to implement Kaizen approach to improve the quality of
operation management as it uses the scientific measurement for monitoring the process of

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production. The main aim of this approach is to eliminate waste by improving the flow of
information throughout the organization. It can also be recommended that Wesfarmers should
use the theory of BPR (business process redesign) as it provides several benefits to the company
in various ways. The major advantage of this theory is that it provides an opportunity for the
management for understanding the system of the business and identify the costs or process that
are not needed for the organization. The company should adopt a proactive approach rather than
a passive approach to drive improvement. Operations should be improved to reduce costs,
expenses, and improve market support by the firm. Wesfarmers should improve its operations
through a combination of breakthrough and incremental changes.

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References
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