Operations and Quality Management of Marks and Spencer

This report evaluates the operations and quality management of Marks and Spencer, including the challenges faced by the company. It discusses the application of appropriate operations and quality management theory, the purpose of its theory, and the approaches for managing quality and continuous improvement within organizations.

Operations
Management

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Operations and quality management......................................................................................3
Background of Marks and Spencer........................................................................................4
Identify and evaluate the application of appropriate operations and quality management theory
Operations and quality management challenges facing by Marks and Spencer....................4
The scope and purpose of operations and quality management theory..................................6
Demonstrate an understanding of the approaches for managing quality and the application of
continuous improvement within organizations......................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
Books and Journals...............................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
The report aims to present an understanding about operations and quality management within an
organisation. Operations management is all about undertaking major activities such as
production, inventory, quality control, risk association and many more. Operations management
is a crucial function to carry out all the product , price and sales related activities. A company's
operations department carry out the process of creating new products and services and make
changes in existing ones to make improvements for better growth. Operations management is an
important activity which focuses on planning organising controlling the resources which are
required for product creation. This report is going to focus on operations and quality
management of marks and Spencer (Miller, Jayaram, and Xu, 2018). The company was
established in 1884 first in Landon UK. It is a famous brand which deals in fashionable clothes,
online food delivery. The report will produce the concept about operations and quality
management. Also, it will provide understanding about quality management theory and
challenges which faced by company. There will be evaluation of the purpose of its theory and
how Improvement strategy works within marks and spencer continues.
MAIN BODY
Operations and quality management
Operations management undertakes all the procedure and activities which is used to to
produce an effective product and services to deliver in-market. This process involves all the
planning and organising the resources to meet with the quality of products. An organisation is
required to produce goods by focusing on many factors such as quality, price , cost , environment
. these are the main factors which influence on managing company's resources that must be
utilise effectively. Therefore quality management is an essential part of operations as managers
required being quality focused while producing goods and services. It is the most required thing
that required by every customer at priority as they can never sacrifice in quality and value of
products. It is a continuous process reforms in agribusiness to maintain effectiveness and
efficiency ( Zylfijaj, and Pira, 2017). The targets of profitability depends on how companies
operate there is sources in less cost and high value. Therefore, operations and quality
management assure inventory control management in monitoring the techniques used in
production activities. The role of operations management is to N sure the aims and objective

organisation in terms equality which is being served by-products. Marks and Spencer perform
these important activities which helps them to make a huge brand into the market. as their
products are highly quality focused which gives long-term durability and cost effective
satisfaction.
Background of Marks and Spencer
Marks and Spencer is one of the largest brands of British retail industry which established
their position since 137 years back. The company has its main products in clothing food and
home Furnishing. The company operates first within in UK which has grown a most
recognisable brand of London. Marks and Spencer has approx 959 stores in all over the UK in
which mainly known for selling food products and online deliveries. The company has took
much growth in the last few years and currently covers world wide area by selling high quality
products and services which meet with the satisfaction and demand of consumers. Marks and
Spencer also collaborate with many brands and undertake the advantage of digitalization to
ensure large customer engagement (Khalaf, and Salem, 2018). It is known for providing good
quality clothes at a reasonable price range but due to covid-19, there are many from problems
and challenges arise in managing cost efficient quality and making continuous improvement in
delivering products and services. The organisation is performing best practices for making
improvements in all over the operational department through adopting new technique and ways
of working. The impact of covid-19 drastically creating hurdles for Retail Industry so that it is
the high opportunity for Marks and Spencer to gain customer attention in this crucial time.
Identify and evaluate the application of appropriate operations and quality management theory
Operations and quality management challenges facing by Marks and Spencer
The theories of operation management are a great set of important elements which the
organisation needs to utilise for better productivity and quality control. As operation
management used to monitor and control the resources and focus on creating effective goods and
services. These theories help in analysing a perfect process in order to manage operations
effectively.
Six Sigma theories:
It is one of the crucial methodologies for operations management. It is kind of tools
which organisation use for better profitability and productivity. There are mainly 5 steps under

this theory which can be utilised by Marks and Spencer in improving the quality of cloth and
their food products.
Define: it is one of the first stage of Six Sigma that focuses on the goals and objective of
company and what problems they are facing in achieving the same. Defining the issues and
problems will help the company to find its root call that will be improvised in further production
process. The Marks and Spencer needs to define and analyse the problems . the goal of the
company is to be sustainable and quality focused in the market so that they need to identify the
problems there causing for environment.
Measure: this stage of Six Sigma , the organisation needs to identify all the process of
evaporation activities in a detailed version. Marks and Spencer next look for their internal
operation activities so that the manager would identify each key point which needs to be changed
or improvise.
Analyse: after the whole description and measuring the process of operations in organisation, it
is required to analyse each and every root cause present in the process which impact on the other
functions also. Marks and Spencer need to identify how covid-19 has affected on the production
of their clothes and food so that and improvisation will be done.
Improve: once all the problems and issues will be identified the company needs to improve the
process as soon as possible (DengWu,. and Liu, 2017). This improvisation needs to be done in
effective manner which will eliminate all the past mistakes and enhance the quality of products.
Control: a new process and improvisation will be made, there is need to put a regular control
over the process so that there will be no chances of further inefficiency. Marks and Spencer need
to control through keeping an eye on each activity anonymously.
Total quality management:
Total quality management helps in improving profitability and productivity of an
organisation. These theories help in motivating the employees and create an environment of
quality focus production which will be maintained by the staff of company. Is it become essential
in the time of covid-19 to provide quality e enriched products which gives value to customer
purchase?
Continuous improvement: it is the most important process of TQM to continuously
improve production process. Continuous improvement will lead to eliminate any obstacles and
defects from production so that the final outcome will be highly satisfactory for customers.

Customer focus: it is also an approach of TQM in which the business needs to focus on
customers demand. Marks and Spencer need to highly look at customer trends and improvise the
production procedure by giving change in resources and cost of production.
Challenges facing by marks and Spencer in terms of quality management
 The Marks and Spencer facing challenge of quality is their products get out of Trend and
get expire. The company does not provide much discounted offers to clear out their stock
which reduce the quality of products.
 The company faced challenges of covid-19 in order to provide the level of quality which
customer bonds in their product in terms of durability and comfort.
 There are many challenges of ineffective store operations as people need to wait in long
waiting areas to shop products from stores.
The scope and purpose of operations and quality management theory
Operations management can be defined as a field of management where the administration
works to involve best practices. Aim is to achieve maximum level of effectiveness by using
resources in an optimal manner(Pambreni and et.al., 2019). Due to covid-19, Marks and Spencer
is facing certain issues of inventory management. The companies unable to arrange the inventory
and convert the same in time. It is important to note that the challenge causes issues in the
organisation as they are not able to provide finished goods to the customers on time. There is
need to adopt the operations management as it has wide scope in will help the company to
achieve success. The scope of operations management in relation to solve the problem of marks
and Spencer is discussed below:
Material design: It can be defined as the process of moving material from the store room to the
place of manufacturing. By following operations management in proper manner marks and
Spencer will be able to get raw materials in time at the manufacturing destination. It will also
help the organisation to use effective methods of modern manufacturing. The task is to convert
the raw material into finished goods within time. Along with that the use of latest machinery will
also help the company to achieve their tasks effectively.
Product design: Each and every company must focus on designing the product in an appropriate
manner. It is analysed that marks and Spencer faces the issue of not following the trend. The use
of product design will help them to overcome their biggest challenge and providing best and

designer products to their customers. It will help to enhance their image in the mind of customers
and they will be attracted towards the products that are being offered by the company(Abbas,
2020). The use of latest trends and involving operations management in the process of
manufacturing will be helpful for marks and Spencer to overcome their challenge.
Process design: For creating product in time there is need of effective process design. There
must be a connection between marketing department and the product department so that they are
able to work effectively. Marks and Spencer should involve a good communication with the
marketing team so that they are able to launch the final product that is preferred by the customers
and it's launched within time frame.
Quality control: At the time of covid-19 the customers are spending money only on quality
products. Marks and Spencer must also have a systematic control on their quality so that they are
able to provide best products to the customers. The aim is to reduce the defects in the products
launched so that the standards of quality of maintain and customers are satisfied.
Demand forecasting: It is one of the major tool that helps to control the inventory and manage it
in an effective manner. It is necessary for marks and Spencer to analyse the demand in the
market(Farrington, Antony and O’Gorman, 2018). Due to covid-19 there are changes in the
pattern of demand of the customers. It is necessary for the company to forecast the needs and
wants of customers and then launch the products accordingly. They must fulfil the need of
customers at the time they want.
There are various benefits of inventory management that are discussed below:
 Satisfies the customers and make them loyal towards the company.
 It helps to improve the cash flows of the business.
 It assists the company to save money and use it in other places where ever required
Demonstrate an understanding of the approaches for managing quality and the application of
continuous improvement within organizations
Quality management is the act of checking different activities of an organisation so that
they are able to offer the product and services effectively. It assists the complete to achieve
desired level of quality that satisfied the needs and wants of customers(Butler, Szwejczewski and
Sweeney, 2018). It is necessary for marks and Spencer to understand the importance of quality
management and follow its approaches that are discussed below:

Just in time: The use of this approach helps the business organisation to provide the quality
products to the customers on time. For that reason, they have to take care of managing their raw
materials. There was their relationship with suppliers so that they are able to get raw materials on
time and then convert the same in finished goods within time limits.
Quality circles: It can be defined as group of workers that do the same work. The marks and
Spencer will be able to get solution of the problems by using quality circles. The company will
able to analyse the best way to complete the work within time limit. It will help to check the
mistakes that are done and will ask others to solve the same.
Total quality management: The use of total quality management will also help to achieve goals
and objectives. Marks and Spencer’s must focus on quality planning quality assurance quality
control as well as quality improvement. It will help the company to provide best products to the
customers and established position in the market(Kurpjuweit and et.al., 2019). To achieve the
success over other competitors in the market total quality management must be used so that the
customers are satisfied with the products offered by the company. Marks and Spencer will use
total quality management in order to enhance their performance on regular basis and achieve the
standards of quality said by the company.
Continuous improvement plan
Continuous management plays a vital role in success of a company. It is important to
manage the quality on regular basis. By analysing the performance on regular basis the
companies able to achieve the standards that are set by them. A continuous improvement plan
will help marks and Spencer to overcome the issues that are faced by them and provide best to
the customers. By achieving the standard performance, a company is able to enhance its
effectiveness in the market. The steps followed for continuous improvement are as follows:
Plan: planning is one of the most important function in continuous process. Identify the areas of
change and set objectives that they want to achieve in long run. There was then set short term
objective and what according to them. Marks and Spencer plans to provide zero defect goods to
the customers.

Do: It is the step in which implementation process takes place. Implement the change by
providing proper training to the employees so that they perform better(Carnerud, Jaca and
Bäckström, 2018). They use new technology so that the employees are able to perform good and
able to achieve the standards set by the company.
Check: In this stage the company check the performance. The standard performance with the
actual performance and find out the deviations that have arrived. It is important to know the
change and the differences that have arising so that the mistake can be identified.
Act: It is the largest state in which the actions are taken to reduce the deviations. Corrective
measures are taken by the company in order to enhance their performance and achieve the goals
and objectives successful.
CONCLUSION
The report has concluded that operations management is an effective process focus on all the
product related activities. It ensures control in organising resources for meta positioning of
organisation. The report has identified tools and technique of operations and quality
management. Also how theories work purposefully in order to continuously improve
organisation products and services. The Report has also identified many challenges and issues
which needs to be address by the organisation properly through following Six Sigma technique
and prepare a continuous improvement plan.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Pambreni and et.al., 2019. The influence of total quality management toward organization
performance. Management Science Letters, 9(9), pp.1397-1406.
Abbas, J., 2020. Impact of total quality management on corporate green performance through the
mediating role of corporate social responsibility. Journal of Cleaner Production, 242,
p.118458.
Farrington, T., Antony, J. and O’Gorman, K.D., 2018. Continuous improvement methodologies
and practices in hospitality and tourism. International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management.
Butler, M., Szwejczewski, M. and Sweeney, M., 2018. A model of continuous improvement
programme management. Production Planning & Control, 29(5), pp.386-402.
Kurpjuweitand et.al., 2019. Implementing visual management for continuous improvement:
barriers, success factors and best practices. International Journal of Production
Research, 57(17), pp.5574-5588.
Carnerud, D., Jaca, C. and Bäckström, I., 2018. Kaizen and continuous improvement–trends and
patterns over 30 years. The TQM Journal.
Miller, S., Jayaram, J. and Xu, K., 2018. Obtaining global certification: Analysis of ownership
structures and TQM commitment in emerging markets by adapting the theory of
planned behavior. International Journal of Operations & Production Management.
Zylfijaj, R. and Pira, B., 2017. Assessment of critical success factors of TQM culture in
hospitality sector in Kosovo. International Journal of Research in Business and Social
Science (2147-4478), 6(1), pp.65-77.
Khalaf, M.A. and Salem, T.S.M., 2018. The moderating effect of structural barriers on TQM-
performance relationship in Egyptian service organizations. International Journal of
Quality and Service Sciences.
Deng, J., Wu, S. and Liu, Y., 2017, November. Investigating the TQM practice of enterprises
winning China quality award: A grounded theory perspective. In 2017 European
Modelling Symposium (EMS) (pp. 115-120). IEEE.