University Operations Management Report: Article Analysis and Lessons

This report provides an analysis of operations management practices based on articles from reputable news sources. The report examines five key areas: project management/forecasting, quality management/design of goods and services, process strategy, layout strategies, and inventory management. Each section identifies a business challenge, the operational management practice involved, and the impact of the strategies used to address the issue. The analysis includes examples from diverse companies such as the Federal Reserve, Mercedes-Benz, Amazon, and oil and gas companies, illustrating how these organizations tackled problems like economic slowdowns, battery development, competition in the grocery market, and oil price fluctuations. The report concludes with lessons learned and potential risk mitigation strategies for the student's own organization, emphasizing the importance of forecasting, quality control, efficient processes, and strategic layouts to improve productivity, manage financial risks, and maintain a competitive edge. The report also highlights the impact of technological advancements like quantum computing and e-commerce on operational efficiency.

Running head: OPERATION MANAGEMENT
Operation Management
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:

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1. Project management/ Forecasting
The operations management practice in the article is associated with “Federal Reserve
rate projections which would show greater confidences into extended pause”. In this article, the
operation management problem which is identified is slowdown of the economic growth. Federal
Reserve Officials are expected to raise their interest rates in this particular year, and this strategy
will design to reduce the risks of slowdown into the global economic growth. The impact of this
strategy at conclusion of this meeting is stop shrinking $4 trillion asset portfolio, based on the
public statements as well as interviews (Timiraos, 2019). The challenge of chairman of Fed is
how much there is pausing towards signal without leaving the public convinced about the current
cycle of Fed to raise the interest rate has come to stop. The issues are related to US-China trade
spat which is required to be resolving soon. There is required to improve outlook of Fed.
According to the economists, the central bank will lead to lose its monetary policies by
cutting its interest rate and slowing down of monthly rundown of the balance sheet of Fed. It
leads to tighten the economic conditions each month. Due to financial crisis, there is drawdown
of balance sheet by $50 billion (Timiraos, 2019). There is an increase in pressure from the
markets for the central bank to slow processes in addition to stop altogether. Fed will signal new
plans by change in balance sheet program at meeting, and then it forces to cut rates later within
this same year.
In my business organization if the financial risk raises, then through this lesson learnt
from forecasting, we found that the forecast is fair to 15-20% of deviations from the planned
figures. Forecasting will help to provide our business with precious information that the business
uses to make decisions about future of organization. The organization is used qualitative data for

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judging of the experts. I had learnt that forecasting helps the business management to take
correct decisions regarding rising the interest rate so that the organization can resolve its
financial risks in addition to achieve productivity and profit. It is required to make marketing
plans so that there is concern with the budget and cash flow. Decisions are made by the business
organization which will affect the future business outcomes.
2. Quality Management/ Design of Goods and Services
The operations management practice in the article is associated with “Mercedes enlists
quantum computing to build a better electric vehicle battery”. The company is researching how
the quantum computers are used to discover the materials for making advanced batteries into the
electric cars. It is to be done in next decades. Discovering of the new battery materials can
unlock a billion dollar opportunities for the company in field of operation management.
Mercedes Benz could stimulate actual behavior of the battery with the quantum computer so that
it is not possible with the existing power of computer. The problem is that traditional computer
store of Mercedes is consisted information as ether 0 and 1 while the quantum computers is used
quantum bits in addition to qubits (Castellanos, 2019). It can represent 0 and 1 as store
information. By the year 2023, the organizations are budgeting quantum computing projects as
compared to less than 1 percentage in the year 2018. The impact of quantum computer on the car
industry is to meet goal for deploying next generation computing power in use cases. The size of
investment is not disclosed in this year.
The automotive company is experimenting with the quantum computing potential
applications. Ford Motor Company is in its way to research how the technology can optimize
routes as well as improve structure of the batteries for the electric vehicles. The benefits of

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quantum computer are that there are features of battery development as well as testing which are
physical processes which require experts to build the prototypes as there is no such simulation
software (Castellanos, 2019). From the concept of operation management, it is analyzed that the
quantum computer could utilize for the company to find new materials as well as combinations
of materials which could result in long life cycle plus better performance of electrochemical.
From the quality management and design of goods and services, it is learnt that quality
management is the system which is used to manage quality of the products and processes
required for implementing quantum computer in the automotive industry. The quality
management activities are required to design, plan and implement high quality of products in
addition to services. I had learnt that quality management helps to produce proper processes to
make an effective product for the business.
3. Process strategy
The operations management practice in the article is associated with “quantum computers
in our future”. The companies such as Google, Microsoft as well as IBM are the biggest players
in field of quantum computers. The quantum computers are various sizes, shapes as well as
suited for various purposes (Wilczek, 2019). Smartphone would be ultimate computing wizards,
just as the classical computers are inconceivable to the previous computers. Now-a-days, it faces
birth of new type of the computation; therefore there is a change in quantum computing. This is a
technology which is based on principles of the quantum theory. The companies should 100-300
qubits in the year 2019. There are billions of dollar funded existing and there is also new
quantum computing efforts in USA as well as China (Wilczek, 2019). The power of the quantum
computers is such that most of people are not having use of the quantum computers.

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The compute power for regular businesses and customer went in production of video,
digital editing, simulations as well as advanced video game graphics as well as engines of game.
The quantum computers are gaining paired with the supercomputers and data centers also
accessed via the cloud computing systems. There are complex problems which would impossible
and taken years to be worked out on the supercomputers (Wilczek, 2019). The problems related
to quantum computing is solved which is used as corrected inputs for daily software programs.
People are limited by existing supercomputers which could require quantum computers. The
quantum computers are different in two new ways such as superposition.
I had learnt from the traditional computers is that it operates with the bits, and then the
quantum computers are operated with qubits. The impact of quantum computer is operated
efficiently as compared to traditional computers. Second advantage is entanglement. It is an
innovative quantum physics behaviour which can bind destiny of the quantities of various
particles, therefore it affects others. When it is applied to the quantum computers, it means that it
can manipulate qubits simultaneously, instead it does set of the calculations, and then the
quantum computer could perform them at similar time. Most of the companies are in race to
build first quantum computer so that there can gain productivity and achieve higher brand
reputations.
4. Layout strategies
The operations management practice in the article is associated with “Grocers Brace for
another blow from Amazon”. The issues related to operation management in Amazon are that the
company has challenged the grocers by means of pushing them to the lower prices as well as
expand in the delivery options (Fung, 2019). The latest plan of company is threatened to steal the

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sales of the profitable products of the retail industry which is an issue in the marketplace. The e-
commerce plan is launched grocery stores which would offer spectrum of the goods included
beauty products and food. The company is aimed to open various locations in major cities such
as Chicago, Los Angeles as well as Washington. It can explore idea behind purchasing of the
grocery stores. This grocery company can experiment with the online delivery of the groceries
for decades, got on brick as well as motor food retails. The company is expanding in Amazon
Go, therefore it can contain cashier less convenience store concepts (Fung, 2019). The company
is planned to open 3,000 of small format stores, included upto 50 in the year 2019.
Amazon is dominated the e-commerce and therefore the company is changing retail as it
is required to make improvement in the layout strategies. The success of company is based on
higher efficiency achieved in the operations management, which can determine productivity. The
company is required to concern on the decision areas of the operation management for
optimization of productivity (Fung, 2019). The company is considered as example of
significance of the technological support for the optimal service efficiency, which leads to
increase in profit and revenue of the company.
It was learnt from this article is that the design of organization’s output is being covered
into the strategic decision areas of the operation management. The concern of my organization is
addressed through the technology. The organization is used advanced ICT to make sure that the
online retail services are effective and also opportune for targeting the customers. The advanced
technologies are being used for supporting maximum efficiency of e-commerce operations. The
objective of strategic decisions are to maximize quality of operational output in order to satisfy
the customer’s expectations. The operation management approach is based on continuous
improvement in e-commerce businesses.

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5. Inventory management
The operations management practice in the article is associated with “Oil prices hit 2019
high as US sanctions bite”. For past two sessions, there is high in price of crude oil. The oil
prices of US is a high level as US sanctions on Venezuela and Iran for tight squeezing on the
worldwide supplies of oil. The crude oil futures is climbed to 2019 a higher of $63.37 per barrel
around 0800 GMT after rise by approximately 3% from the previous sessions. The inventory
management solutions in oil and gas industry can monitor offshore operations, offer safe
workplaces for the site personnel as well as track movements of assets (Alessi, 2019). US energy
firms had cut down oil rigs which are operating at lower in last 8 months to 847, as some of the
drillers are followed through plans for spending less on new wells in this specific year. The issue
is suddenly collapse in the prices of oil which is resulted in cautious spending by the US oil
explorers (Alessi, 2019). Fitch solutions said that the oil markets are bullish outlook because of
supply cuts which lead to increase in demand of oil despite there is slowdown of the economic
growth.
The impact of inventory management in oil and gas industry is that it presents
opportunity to improve collaboration and processes such that the stock can rationalized for
reducing the cost and enable access to the items which are required at shorter notice (Alessi,
2019). The business can launch online platform for purpose of trading stock for reduction of cost
of inventory and shorten the lead times for accessing equipment. It leads to decrease the
production downtime.
I had learn that inventory management is designed for helping in collaboration by means
of maintaining the information on inventory with proper certification as well as lessen

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unnecessary duplication of information from the side of suppliers. Oil price is also under control
and there is reduction of economic downtime of the oil as well as gas industry (Alessi, 2019).
Most common in increasing productivity leads to measure efficiency of the inventory
management. Inventory management is easy-to-use interface as well as it has configurable
features which make it a complete system for tracking requirements such as oil barrels.

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References
Alessi, D. (2019). Oil Prices Hit 2019 High as U.S. Sanctions Bite. Retrieved from
https://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-climbs-on-u-s-inventory-decline-11552558323?
mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=5
Castellanos, S. (2019). Mercedes Enlists Quantum Computing to Build a Better Electric Vehicle
Battery. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/mercedes-enlists-quantum-
computing-to-build-a-better-electric-vehicle-battery-11551134576?
mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=3
Fung, H. (2019). Grocers Brace for Another Blow From Amazon. Retrieved from
https://www.wsj.com/articles/grocers-brace-for-another-blow-from-amazon-
11551660645?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1
Timiraos, N. (2019). Federal Reserve Rate Projections Could Show Greater Confidence in
Extended Pause. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-reserve-rate-
projections-could-show-greater-confidence-in-extended-pause-11552820400?
mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=5
Wilczek, F. (2019). The Quantum Computers in Our Future. Retrieved from
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-quantum-computers-in-our-future-11552579161?
mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=11