Understanding Operations, Logistics and Supply Chain Management

This assignment discusses the importance of operations, logistics and supply chain management in an organization. It explores the concepts of managing quality and new product development. The case study of Nuffield Health is used to illustrate these concepts. Recommendations are provided for improving the quality of services and reaching a larger population.

Understanding
Operations, Logistics and
Supply Chain
Management

Table of Contents
Introduction .....................................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

Introduction
Operations management, logistics and supply chain management play an important role
in an organisation to plan, implement and control the flow and storage of goods, services and
related information so that they can be made available to customers from the point of their
production. This helps in efficiently dealing with customer needs and meeting company goals
and objectives. These functions help the organisation in managing, designing and controlling the
transformation of raw materials into finished products according to customer specification so that
value for customers can be created. If these functions work efficiently in an organisation it can
help it in gaining competitive advantage in the market and generating profits for the company.
Supply chain management includes planning and management of all the activities that are related
to sourcing, procurement, conversion of raw materials into finished goods along with managing
the logistics related activities. The suppliers, service providers, customers are to be coordinated
and collaborated so that supply can integrate with demand in the market. Logistics is related to
efficiently and effectively managing and regulating the flow and storage of goods and services so
that customer satisfaction can be achieved on time and within budget (Banks and Stanton, 2016).
MAIN BODY
Nuffield Health is a not for profit organisation which get established in year 1957 and has
its headquarter within Epsom, United kingdom. The main purpose of organisational working is
to make people available with the required heath and social care related services with an aim to
improve the overall condition of society. It work toward providing number of health and care
related services such as medical centres, fitness and rehabilitation, hospitals, health clinics, well
being gyms nutritional therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy etc. The main focus of this
report is based on two main topics which are very crucial to organisation i.e. managing
relationship with people covered in supply chain management and managing quality (Hugos,
2018).
Managing quality is a concept which focuses toward ensuring the continuous
improvement in quality of services which support organisation to provide satisfactory services in
term of fulfilling their need and want. Hence by performing regular evaluation of its services
Nuffield Health will be able to determine its weaknesses in order to determine the area that lack
efficiency so that timely actions can be taken to improve performance.

Supply chain management consists of several parties such as customer, wholesaler,
retailer and many more through which the product or services get flow and on which the
organisational profitability depends. Therefore, by maintaining good relation and proper
management with these people it become easier for the Nuffield Health to maintain its customer
base, proper deliver of services and accomplishment of its objective in effective manner
(Christopher, 2016).
Nuffield Health offers health and social care related services in order to provide its
customer with best services that help in developing the health and well being of people. But in
order to further improve its quality of services, Nuffield Health must make use of TQM approach
that support an organisation to maintain the continuous improvement. This is because it is a
customer oriented process which help in improving the operational efficiency that can satisfy
customer need. The Nuffield Health is more focuses toward providing access to the heath and
care related services to its patients in effective manner. But currently company is facing issues in
term of its quality of services and their timely access to the patients which is required to be
rectified in order to ensure that the goodwill of organisation can be maintained within the
marketplace. For this Nuffield Health must focuses toward implementing TQM which is a
overall concept which consider each and every aspect of organisation in order to improve the
efficiency of its operations. For its application, principles of TQM approach are required to be
considered such as Total Employee Involvement for improving the quality of services and
ensuring its timely delivery Nuffield Health must focuses toward considering its employees in
decision making process or regular meeting must be organised. This will support in determining
the issues that are prevailing in organisation and main cause behind decreasing quality of
services (Ziebart and Rover, 2014). Hence involvement of employees support in brining new
ideas and solutions to issue in effective manner. Customer Focused services within the
organisation must be arrange as per the patient's requirement as when the heath care practitioner
provide services that are customer centric then it become more easier to get positive outcome.
For this the authorities of Nuffield Health may arrange meetings on regular basis for each
service department in order to guide them kind of treatment they have to perform in particular
situation so that their must not be any error in service providing process which help in increasing
the quality of services. Strategic and Systematic Approach under which the management team
of Nuffield Health must focuses toward delegation of duties and responsibility in right manner

and more clearly. So that any kind of issue must not be presented in front of employees in term
of confusion regarding a particular task, skipping of some actions or duplication of work which
leads to delay in work or may affect the quality of work. So by appropriately delegation and
explaining the responsibility to staff members it become easier to perform work in a strategic and
systematic manner which also contribute toward improving the performance and quality of
services. Communication principle suggest that in order to improve the performance or
operational efficiency an organisation must ensure regular interaction with its staff members so
that proper assurance will be there regarding effective implementation of work. Hence,
management team of Nuffield Health must focuses toward maintain regular interaction with
employees so that there must be proper coordination and cooperation among staff members. This
support in aligning the work as per the pre specified objectives so that appropriate outcomes can
be extract out of efforts implemented by employees (Kumar, 2017).
Hence, Nuffield Health can perform market analysis for determining the customer health
issues and type of services they want. By gathering information Nuffield Health can
communicate its along with new policies of work to its employees so that best possible solution
or treatment to the illness of people can be provided. Example: Another example of Hospital
that can be consider is about Arnold Palmer Hospital which had applied similar approach for
their work context in order to achieve great success and improving the quality of services. So
that the application of this approach by Nuffield Health will be fruitful as it help company in
receiving positive results from the work (Operation management .2016).
The TQM approach will support Nuffield Health in ensuring the overall improvement of
its operation that help in improving its efficiency and quality of services. But along with these
benefits that TQM will provide to Nuffield Health, it also have certain limitations i.e. it is time
consuming process as it involve each and every aspect of operations along with staff members.
In addition to this it is to be perform with due care as a single mistake may spoil the final
outcome. Hence for performing this approach effectively and get positive outcome, it must be
ensure that every minor progress must be evaluated and gaps must be rectified on timely manner
for achieving the positive outcomes (Mangan, Lalwani and Lalwani, 2016).
The second concept is related to new product development through which new and
effective services can be provided by the companies to their customers. It is important so that
they can remain competitive in the market by attracting more customers by providing them with

products or services with new an unique features so that customer satisfaction level can be
enhanced. In the context of Nuffield Health which is a not for profit organisation and aims at
providing health and social care services to people so that the condition of society can be
improved. This concept can help the organisation to introduce new services in the market so that
the health ailments of people can be appropriately dealt with. For example the company is
aiming at introducing acupressure spa techniques so that the problems of knee pain in old age
people, pain in back and shoulders among the younger class of people can be eliminated through
their services. Under this people who are having pain in their backs, shoulders, knees can be
treated with the use of pressure and micro-massage pressure at specific points that helps in
providing relief to patients and improve their health conditions (Meindl, 2016).
Lean production can be efficiently used by the company to manage its operations,
logistics and supply chain management. The very first aspect related to this principle is
determination of value it creates for the customers by analysing the perception of customers.
Then the stream mapping is done in order to determine the steps that are to be taken for
development of new service. This will help in analysing the resources that are to be used for
introducing new service in the market. After this a flow of these resources is created by
appropriately managing, controlling, designing and directing the operations of the company so
that all these resources can be integrated and collaborated together to introduce new service in
the market. After this a pull is to be created in the market so that the services can be made
available to target audience. This can be done through advertising about their new type of
services so that more customers can be given provided with the new services. Last step is pursuit
perfection so that continuous improvement can be made in their services so that more social care
and health care services can be given to customers (Nemet and Brand, 2015).
The company is ineffective in implementing the lean principles in introducing the service
in the market. This is because the though the services provided by the company can help in
dealing with health problems but the costs for acupressure spa is more which is more in
comparison to the value it provides to its customers. Further the human resources required for
this service need to be highly skilled and professional as if wrong pressure points are pressed by
them it can lead to pain to customers for life. This will bring the company in legal pursuit.
Further the company is unable to create a pull for their service in the market because it was
unable to attract customers on a large scale as was intended by the company. Also it did not

conduct surveys which could have given feedbacks to the company about customer experience
that could have ben used to improve their services.
Thus in terms of developing new services the company need to be effective in terms of
implementing lean principles so that desired goals and objectives can be achieved. Certain areas
such as employees, investment in advertisements etc. need to be done so that customers can be
attracted towards their services. Also regular surveys should be conducted which will help their
company in improving their services and dealing with health issues efficiently. The managers of
the company needs to effectively implement the lean principles so that the new services can
benefit maximum people in improving their health issues and providing social care services to
them (Pugh, 2015).
The overall process of application of lean principles can be compared with Arnold
Palmer Hospital which applied similar approach and introduced the same new service so as to
give relief to their patients with pain in their knees, back and shoulders. Arnold Palmer Hospital
was able to effectively able to apply lean principles so as to provide acupressure spa to their
patients. This not only increased their patients for regular diseases but patients with pain
problems also increased which helped it in enhancing its profits. Hence, Nuffield Health lags
behind in comparison with Arnold Palmer Hospital in application of lean principles effectively.
Certain considerations are required to be included by the organisations in terms of
operations, logistics and supply chain management. The first one is economic factors that helps
the company in being economically stable and sound in the so that it can be sustainable in the
competitive market. The operations of a company depend on the economic factors that are
prevailing in the country which will affect the way in which goals and objectives are attained.
Nuffield Health needs to consider these factors so that appropriate techniques can be used by the
company to improve their services so as to provide health and social care services (Rebolledo-
Mendez and et. al., 2014).
Another factor is environmental factor which includes weather, climate, water etc.
available in the country in which the company operates. Nuffield Health needs to consider these
factors so that the demand of people requiring their services can be analysed. For example
changing weather conditions will increase health related diseases among the population which
will increase the opportunity to Nuffield Health to provide health care services to them. This will

also help them in forecasting the medicines they need to keep and maintain enough supply of
resources to give health care services to people.
Social factor also plays an important role as the demographics of the country will
determine the need for healthcare and social care services that are to be given to the population.
For example people belonging to poor class and old age will require more of health care services.
This will help Nuffield Health in formulating strategies and policies that will help in reaching to
maximum number of people so that the condition of society can be improved (Turner, Aitken
and Bozarth, 2018).
As per the above analysis certain recommendations can be give to Nuffield Health so that
their quality of services can be improved and their services can be made available to a large
number of population. The operations of the company need to be improved so that better
haethcare facilities can be given to customers. Logistics management can help in maintaining
flow of resources in such a way that medicines, doctors, personnels that deal in providing social
services are directed and managed in such a way that they can be made available to customers on
time and within budget so that the condition of society can be improved. Supply chain
management can help the company in improving its supply chain i.e. collaboration and
integration of suppliers, customers, processes etc. so that the services can reach to targeted
customers which can help in uplifting the conditions of customers and improving the status of
their health (Xu and et. al., 2015).
CONCLUSION
From this assignment it can be concluded that effective management of operations,
logistics and supply chain management can help the company in managing and controlling the
direction in which the company proceeds to achieve its goals and objectives. The quality of
services and products provided to customers can be improved by implementing TQM technique
effectively that will improve the quality of their services. Also for effectively introducing a new
product or services ion the market lean principles should be efficiently used so that customer
satisfaction can be achieved. Along with this factors affecting the business needs to be
considered so that efficient strategies and policies can be formulated.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Christopher, M., 2016. Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson UK.
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Governance & Management Explorer (e ISSN 2456-9461). 1(1). pp.26-32.
Mangan, J., Lalwani, C. and Lalwani, C. L., 2016. Global logistics and supply chain
management. John Wiley & Sons.
Meindl, S.C.P., 2016. Supply Chain Management--Strategy, Planning and Operation. Tsinghua
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