Operations and Information Management Assignment Report - Danem Group

This report provides an executive summary and critical discussion of the operations and information management practices within Danem Group, a company specializing in steel fabrication services in Qatar. The report analyzes the challenges associated with designing new products and services, emphasizing the importance of competitive advantage through innovative service design. It explores key factors influencing service and manufacturing process design, including cost, quality, flexibility, vertical integration, service demand, demand patterns, environmental sustainability, and external regulations. The report also discusses the implementation of lean manufacturing principles to optimize efficiencies, minimize costs, and improve customer service levels. The study focuses on meeting customer expectations, incorporating lean principles such as customer value identification, value stream mapping, waste elimination, customer pull, and the pursuit of perfection. The report is structured to provide a comprehensive understanding of the operations management challenges and strategies within the context of a real-world business environment.

Running head: OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Operations and Information Management – Assignment One
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:

1OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Executive Summary
Operations management is concerned with development of effective process which is applied to
issues related to production process of the company to improve its productivity. The selected
organization for this paper is Danem Group. Designing of new products/services and initiating it
into the market is big challenge faced by the organization based on size and complexity of
products. Each of the business develops and designs new products as a growth strategy. Danem
Group gains a competitive advantage by designing of their steel fabrication services that brings
new ideas to the market, satisfies the customer’s requirements into better way to manufacture
and change their existing offshore services. The report provides a critical discussion on the key
factors which influence selection of service along with manufacturing process designing. Lean
manufacturing is described to eliminate the wastes. Process design determines the workflow,
requirements and implements needs for specific process. The study is based on meeting with the
customer’s expectations. There is implementation of lean manufacturing principles by
minimizing the cost and improving the customer service levels. The used principles in this paper
are identification of customers and specification of customer’s value, identify and map the value
stream, create flow by elimination of waste, response to customer pull and pursue perfection.

2OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Background of the selected organization...............................................................................3
2.0 Discussion on the main factors influence the manufacturing or service process design...........4
3.0 Implementation of Lean Principles assists the Operations Manager in optimising efficiencies
while minimising cost and improving customer service levels.......................................................7
4.0 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

3OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
1.0 Introduction
Process design is termed as alignment of the processes for satisfying the requirements of
customers while at same time meet with set of objectives. Designing of new products and
services in the market is considered as biggest challenge which is faced by the organization
based on their size and complexity of products. The main focus of the organization is to meet
with customer’s expectations. The selected organization for this report is Danem Group, which is
operated in Qatar (Danem Group 2015). The services selected for this paper is steel fabrication
services. Each of the business organization has to design product and develop services as their
growth strategy. The selected organization can gain of competitive edge throughout their design.
The manufacturing or service process design is based on various variables and represents a
number of tradeoffs (Slack, Chambers and Johnson 2007). There are two types of design
approaches used in process design such as serial and parallel. Serial approach is involved of
alignment of activities in defined sequence while parallel approach is involved with execution of
two and more processes into simultaneous manner.
The report is aimed to provide a critical discussion on the key factors which influence
selection of service along with manufacturing process designing. It also discusses the principles
of lean manufacturing aids operation manager to introduce the changes to operational processes
and systems.
1.1 Background of the selected organization
Danem Group is established in the year 1998 which is a rapidly developed leading
company providing professional services into “Engineering, Construction and Project
Management Enterprise” with operated in Middle East region. The organization is involved into
expansion of oil as well as gas sector (Danem Group 2015). The main service of this
organization is steel fabrication. Danem Group has to design new services for some of the
reasons such as:
 To satisfy unfulfilled requirements of their clients
 To raise the existing product line of the company and declining sales
 To enter into new business throughout unrelated diversification

4OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
 To compete into existing product line
 To raise the declining profit
The operation of company is based on steel fabrication with combining engineering, quality
assurance and supplier management. The vision of Danem Group is to prefer world class service
solutions for the worldwide oil and gas industry. The mission of the organization is to provide
market solutions by effective project management and fabrication facilities to deliver proper
projects on time and budget. According to Zhang, Williams and Polychronakis (2012), the
section of process is based on nature of market, business along with their products and services.
2.0 Discussion on the main factors influence the manufacturing or service
process design
Before analyzing the factors influence manufacturing or service process design, it is
required to analyze types of process design as discussed below:
Products focus process design: This manufacturing and service process design is
arranged as per sequence of the operations that are required for production of product and service
(Martin et al. 2010). It is termed as production line.
Processes focus design: It is such a process design where the processes are being
arranged based on type of process which is undertaken. In this process, the products and services
are moved from one of the department to other to process the job requirements (Yuan and
Polychronakis 2012). It is termed as job shop.
Based on the process selection, Damen Group is carried out their work to fit with the
vision and mission of the organization. Forecasting from the sales as well as marketing on
offshore projects and reviewing of existing projects are in the ability of the company
(Polychronakis and Syntetos 2007). There are various factors deduce to influence manufacturing
as well as service design applied to produce particular services. Following are the factors which
influence the manufacturing or service process design of Danem Group as:
Cost: Bartis and Mitev (2008) stated that cost is the fundamental consideration into
selecting structural frame material in the design process. The selection is based on costing, and it

5OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
is the challenge of cost consultant to identify the fluctuations into materials prices. The key cost
drivers are identified to make steel frame rates projects properly. The key objective of Danem
Group is to maximize the profit and sale of their business and services by offering quality
services to them (Zhang, Williams and Polychronakis 2012). One of the strategies which are
used to meet the objective is that processes should be taken cost effective. At Damen Group, the
main services are steel fabrication, oil and gas production. The other oil and gas industry slightly
more expensive in production, therefore the company also raises throughout cutting cost of
production. Galliers and Leidner (2014) defined that cost of the process is required to incur into
the manufacturing processes. It comprises of expenditures incur with purchase of equipments,
raw materials along with capital cost. The cost of processes is cut by outsourcing as it helps to
reduce the manufacturing cost and designing of new products and services.
Quality: The operation manager plays a key role to make sure that services that are
offered by Danem Group to their clients are of optimum quality. After reduction of cost for
gaining profitability, the company selects to manufacture their process design based on service
quality (McArthur 2015). At Danem Group, there is higher level of quality services are provided
to the clients enable them to perform well among Qatar’s oil and gas industry with larger number
of clients are ready to purchase their produced products. In case of machine tools, the quality is
affected at the time of surface finish, dimensional tolerances. The steel fabrication is based on
quality of scrap. Therefore, fluctuations in scrap affect the quality of service. Kato et al. (2010)
argued that quality issues should be mitigated before services are provided to the clients. It will
become more productive when the production process is perfect. In order to ensure that the
company maintains quality in steel fabrication, the staff members are encouraged to become
innovative to come up with better quality services. By incurring extra cost to make sure that
manufacturing process is needed of better quality (Laudon and Laudon 2016). The company
satisfies the clients and builds strong brands in respective of industry operations. The company
adopts state-of-the-art technologies to perform steel production processes for making
improvement over service quality.
Flexibility: In order to maintain relevance, the organizational operations of Danem Group
should be flexible. Flexibility into steel fabrication is based on shape, used of raw materials to
produce the product and surface finish. Lack of flexibility into process of manufacturing is

6OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
difficult for the company to satisfy the clients (Reeves and Deimler 2015). It is expensive to
replace existent processes with new one. The supplier flexibility helps Danem Group to manage
their market volatility to survive dip into demand. It is analyzed that flexibility is tend to receive
more attention as compared to other factors such as cost and quality. Although steel is flexible,
therefore steel fabrication services meet with various needs of clients. Steel allows providing
design flexibility inherent of strength (Kalpakjian and Schmid 2014). It makes sure that the
architects introduce of long spans along with curves for structural design. Therefore, flexibility is
required by Danem Group concerned influences the process design it adopts. The manufacturing
process of the company is on line with product and service designing.
Degree of vertical integration: Jacobs, Chase and Lummus (2014) implied that extent to
which the production along with distribution chain is owned by same organization. This factor
provides a direct influence on which the products are produced and services are provided
internally. Sorrentino et al. (2016) argued that one of the reason that Danem Group adopts of line
production process design is higher vertical integration. It implies that the organization is
carrying manufacturing as well as distribution processes at own. Therefore, the company has
great control over their operations of oil production and steel fabrication. Turner, Strong and
Gold (2014) stated that there are two types of vertical integration such as forward and backward.
Kloepffer (2008) discussed that forward integration means expansion of production ownership to
distribution chain in the market. The backward integration is expansion towards the supplier’s
sources. Concerning on Danem Group, the company adopts of vertical integration for flexible in
manufacturing and service process. It results into raise into profit, sales, economics of scale
along with pooling of research and development (Ullman 2015). When there is lower degree of
integration, outsourcing is the process for performing the manufacturing activities.
Nature of service demand: Into the production process, the customers are playing a key
role. Danem Group is producing products as well as services with consideration of requirements
along with preferences of customers. The manufacturer should schedule and design production to
meet with both current plus future demands of their clients. The company structures their
production design in such a way that it should meet with customer’s demands and requirements.
Raoufi et al. (2017) illustrated that the methods which are used to meet with the current demand

7OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
of the client are growth trends as well as patterns of demands which provide an influence on
future.
Influence on demand patterns: According to Brandenburg et al. (2014), the demand of
the products as well as services fluctuates into different market based on the industry. There is
fall into demand and rise over period. It is influenced by means of seasonal fluctuations that
provide a significant influence on the process design applied for production process of the
service provided by Danem Group. The demand of products and services by clients experience
fluctuations which affects the price (Upadhyayula et al. 2018). Choice of process design meets
with capacity of volume of products required by the customers. The process design offers room
for expansion to keep into line by means of demand patterns.
Environmental sustainability: The operation manager also puts into consideration the
potential impact which the process design has on the environment (Zhang, Williams and
Polychronakis 2012). With focused on the international business community, the company
ensures that they select such a process which will not affect the environment.
External regulations: The organizational standards along with regulations set various
governing bodies which affect selection of manufacturing processes (Yuan and Polychronakis
2012). Regards to cost effective, flexibility of process design, the company has obligations to
adhere set to standards in order to avoid any issues.
FactorsaffectingserviceprocessdesignCostQualityFlexibilityDegreeofverticalintegrationNatureofservicedemandInfluenceofdemandpatternsEnvironmentalsustainabilityExternalregulations

8OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Figure 1: Factors influencing service process design
(Source: Yuan and Polychronakis 2012, pp-341)
3.0 Implementation of Lean Principles assists the Operations Manager in
optimising efficiencies while minimising cost and improving customer service
levels
Lean management is the approach to run the organization which supports concept of
improvement into the service design process of Danem Group. It is such an approach which
seeks to achieve and makes changes into the process to improve efficiency as well as quality.
Lean management seeks to eliminate of wastage of time, effort by identification of the steps into
the business process (Raoufi et al. 2017). The principles of lean manufacturing are referred to as
lean production which implies techniques to eliminate waste into the manufacturing system.
Those principles minimize the cost and improve customer service levels with minimizing of
waste. According to Zhou (2016), lean principles provide value to the customers throughout
value creation process that has zero waste. In order to meet with the organizational goals, the
operation manager focused on optimization of various assets, vertical departments along with
technologies for optimizing flow of manufacturer machines (Center 2015). The project
management principles ensure that the offshore projects in Danem Group are run confined. The
established criteria are budget, schedule and improvement of customer services. Danem Group
adopts and implements of five lean manufacturing principles which are discussed as below:
Identification of customers and specification of customer’s value: It is the starting point
of the company which incorporates recognition that accounts and adds value to end users. The
company should define their steel fabrication, oil production to their clients from the
perspectives of their clients. The company manages to target the customer and remove the wastes
to value their customer’s expectations. Jacobs, Chase and Lummus (2014) stated that the

9OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
company is required to evaluate expenditure of customers by analyzing their value to low cost.
The operation manager relies on taking interview of customers, their feedback and other survey
sources to determine their expectations and if the company is able to meet with requirements
(Reeves and Deimler 2015). The company is responsible to determine the cost along with waste
that is eliminated such that the product is delivered at that price the customers can pay.
Identify and map value stream: Zhang, Williams and Polychronakis (2012) illustrated
that value stream is ser of activities within the organization which involved with delivery of
product and services to the customers. It represents of comprehensive end-to-end processes
which incorporate to deliver services to the customers. The company should require
understanding preferences of the customers based on quality of services, economy and others.
This process is ranged from raw material to final use of product (Yuan and Polychronakis 2012).
This process consists of steps to add value to the customer’s requirements. One of the best ways
to identify value steam is departmentalisation which helps to choose staffs from various
functions.
Create flow by elimination of waste: Sorrentino et al. (2016) discussed that mapping of
value stream confirms that nearly 5 percent of the company’s activities should add value to the
customer’s requirements. Polychronakis and Syntetos (2007) indicated that waste elimination
ensures that products and services are produced into the organization which portrays significant
flow to the customers. This lean principle is most significant for Danem Group as the company is
mostly focused on elimination of waste and result into increase into value of customers. This
principle occurs regards the functional boundaries that the process is crossed. Lean improvement
is done to eliminate the batch processing and manage it to minimize the cost.
Response to customer pull: Danem Group concentrates on process to understand
demands of their customers to products and services. The company responds by design
manufacturing process and delivery of the services which satisfy and meet requirements of their
customers (Galliers and Leidner 2014). This principle is required to set the way which makes the
customers look for the product rather than push product. The pull system is responded to the
customer demand as well as produced what the customer requires when they require it. Pull
seeks to eliminate over production that magnifies the type of wastes.

10OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Pursue perfection: Yuan and Polychronakis (2012) represented that lean principle into
the company creates flow along with pull starts throughout radical organizations of individual
process systems. Adoption plus implementation of lean manufacturing principles assist the
operation manage to optimise efficiencies along with minimise cost furthermore improve
customer service levels (Raoufi et al. 2017). Removal of waste from this process provides a
better products and the products are also delivered within proper time.
IncreasedwaittimeOverproductionofmaterialTransportingInappropriateprocessingExcessinventoryOperationmotionDefects

11OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Figure 2: Various types of manufacturing waste in lean manufacturing
(Source: Reeves and Deimler 2015, pp-21)
Reeves and Deimler (2015) stated that lean principles help the operation manager to
introduce of changes into the processes of the organization. The operation manager requires
creating avenue throughout employees to provide feedback, elimination of barriers which exist to
hamper ease of flow of communication into the organization. The above five principles are
applied directly to steel fabrication to eliminate of waste. Nesting software prepares to reduce the
waste. Coupled with software tools track the steel inventory, program components help Danem
Group to optimize the materials usage (Zhang, Williams and Polychronakis 2012). With use of
automated approach, it eliminates waste of the defective parts as design information covers of
various fabrication processes. Fabrication of various sizes is benefited from application of lean
manufacturing principles. Upadhyayula et al. (2018) argued that the principles are difficult to
apply on machines as it is hard to balance processing time for various machines. At the end, the
company can automate structural steel processing system for elimination of waste.
Galliers and Leidner (2014) stated that lean manufacturing process is focused on
elimination of waste, excesses of the materials and streamlines the manufacturing system to
make it efficient, greater efficiency, lower the cost along with faster production time. The
research shows that the five principles of lean manufacturing leads to reduce lead time, floor
space requirements and increase into productivity (Kalpakjian and Schmid 2014). The benefits of
lean manufacturing into steel fabrication are optimal inventory, reduction of rejections, quick
changeover, and spare management in addition to high organized.
4.0 Conclusion
It is concluded that process design is implied of process to determine workflows,
equipment needed and implementation needs for process of production of the product and
process. There are two concepts of process design such as process and design. It is analyzed that
design is implied of process of orientation along with development of plan in order to develop
product and service. Process is analyzed of utilizing input resources required to transform the
output of services and products. From the report analysis, the factors which are taken into

12OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
account for influencing the process design are cost, quality, flexibility, and degree of vertical
integration, nature of service demand, influence on demand patterns, environmental
sustainability and external regulations. The strategies which are used to meet the objective
should be cost effective. It contains of expenditures acquire with acquire of equipments, raw
materials next to capital cost. Flexibility into steel fabrication is dependent on shape, utilization
of raw materials to make the product moreover surface finish. Lack of flexibility into procedure
of manufacturing is complicated for the company to convince the clients.
Implementation of lean principles assists operation manager to optimize efficiency while
minimize the cost and improve the customer service levels. It is achieved of value stream across
different technologies. Those five principles are consisted of identification of the customers in
addition to specify the value, response to customer pull, pursue of perfection. It also includes of
identify and map the value stream and create flow to eliminate the wastes. Danem Group
manages to maintain a brand reputation due to effective selection of manufacturing processes.
The future research should address the challenges that operation manager undergoes to select
manufacturing in addition to service process design. The operation manager relies on taking
discussion with the customers, their response and other review sources to conclude their
expectations. The company should need considerate preferences of the customers based on
excellence of services, and also economy. The organization is therefore focused on elimination
of waste plus resulted into raise into worth of customers.

13OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
References
Bartis, E. and Mitev, N., 2008. A multiple narrative approach to information systems failure: a
successful system that failed. European Journal of Information Systems, 17(2), pp.112-124.
Brandenburg, M., Govindan, K., Sarkis, J. and Seuring, S., 2014. Quantitative models for
sustainable supply chain management: Developments and directions. European Journal of
Operational Research, 233(2), pp.299-312.
Center, A.T., 2015. The Lean Construction Education Program (LCEP) is driven to develop and
apply better ways to manage the overall construction process. Apply Lean principles on every
pro-ject, to maximize value and minimize waste, time and costs. Compare, 12, pp.30pm-5pm.
Danem Group 2015 About Us | Danem Group [online] available from
<http://www.danemgroup.com/about-us/> [23 March 2018]
Galliers, R.D. and Leidner, D.E. eds., 2014. Strategic information management: challenges and
strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
Jacobs, F.R., Chase, R.B. and Lummus, R.R., 2014. Operations and supply chain
management (pp. 533-535). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Kalpakjian, S. and Schmid, S.R., 2014. Manufacturing engineering and technology (p. 913).
Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA: Pearson.
Kato, T., Nakajima, T., Saito, T., Okitsu, J., Shiga, Y. and Miki, Y., Hitachi Ltd,
2015. Operations management methods and devices thereof in information-processing systems.
U.S. Patent 9,128,704.
Kloepffer, W., 2008. Life cycle sustainability assessment of products. The International Journal
of Life Cycle Assessment, 13(2), p.89.
Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P., 2016. Management information system. Pearson Education
India.

14OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Martin, H., Syntetos, A.A., Parodi, A., Polychronakis, Y.E. and Pintelon, L., 2010. Integrating
the spare parts supply chain: an inter-disciplinary account. Journal of Manufacturing Technology
Management, 21(2), pp.226-245.
McArthur, J.J., 2015. A building information management (BIM) framework and supporting
case study for existing building operations, maintenance and sustainability. Procedia
engineering, 118, pp.1104-1111.
N. Turner, B., Strong, R. and A. Gold, S., 2014. A review of melt extrusion additive
manufacturing processes: I. Process design and modeling. Rapid Prototyping Journal, 20(3),
pp.192-204.
Polychronakis, Y.E. and Syntetos, A.A., 2007. ‘Soft’supplier management related issues: An
empirical investigation. International Journal of Production Economics, 106(2), pp.431-449.
Raoufi, K., Haapala, K.R., Jackson, K.L., Kim, K.Y., Kremer, G.E.O. and Psenka, C.E., 2017.
Enabling non-expert sustainable manufacturing process and supply chain analysis during the
early product design phase. Procedia Manufacturing, 10, pp.1097-1108.
Raoufi, K., Haapala, K.R., Kremer, G.E.O., Kim, K.Y., Psenka, C.E. and Jackson, K.L., 2017,
August. Enabling cyber-based learning of product sustainability assessment using unit
manufacturing process analysis. In ASME 2017 International Design Engineering Technical
Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (pp. V004T05A038-
V004T05A038). American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Reeves, M. and Deimler, M., 2015. Adaptability: The new competitive advantage. Own the
Future, 50, pp.19-26.
Slack, N., Chambers, S. and Johnson, R., 2007. Operations Management. Fifth Edition, Prentice
Hall.
Sorrentino, L., Marchetti, M., Bellini, C., Delfini, A. and Albano, M., 2016. Design and
manufacturing of an isogrid structure in composite material: Numerical and experimental
results. Composite Structures, 143, pp.189-201.
Ullman, D.G., 2015. The mechanical design process. McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math.

15OPERATIONS AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Upadhyayula, V.K., Gadhamshetty, V., Shanmugam, K., Souihi, N. and Tysklind, M., 2018.
Advancing game changing academic research concepts to commercialization: A Life Cycle
Assessment (LCA) based sustainability framework for making informed decisions in Technology
Valley of Death (TVD). Resources, Conservation and Recycling.
Yuan, Q. and Polychronakis, Y.E., 2012. The development of a robust resource constrained
project scheduling framework. International Journal of Project Organisation and Management
5, 4(4), pp.339-367.
Zhang, X., Williams, A. and Polychronakis, Y.E., 2012. A comparison of e-business models
from a value chain perspective. EuroMed Journal of Business, 7(1), pp.83-101.
Zhang, X., Williams, A. and Polychronakis, Y.E., 2012. A comparison of e-business models
from a value chain perspective. EuroMed Journal of Business, 7(1), pp.83-101.
Zhou, B., 2016. Lean principles, practices, and impacts: a study on small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs). Annals of Operations Research, 241(1-2), pp.457-474.