Operations Management Assignment: Competitive Priorities & Planning

This document presents solutions to an operations management assignment, addressing key concepts such as the similarities and differences between manufacturing and services in operations, the role of the operations manager in achieving competitive priorities, and the advantages and disadvantages of time-based competition. It delves into qualitative forecasting techniques like the Delphi method, sales-force polling, and consumer surveys, along with the criteria for material buying. The document also explores steps to improve organizational planning processes. The assignment covers topics from Unit 305 Operations Management, including strategy, forecasting, quality, and facility layout, offering a comprehensive overview of operations management principles.

Running head: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
Name of student
Name of university
Author’s note:

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Answer of question 1:
The manufacturing and the services in the terms of operations management has
several similarities and differences. The main similarity is that both these aspects creates the
mission statements as well as the vision for the process by which any organisation would
execute as well as perceived by the customers. Each of the providers or the manufactures
desires to lead market in any particular industry. The manufacturing and the service
operations both help in planning the environment where the work would take place but it
focusses on dissimilar elements. The operations of manufacturing for any example considers
the layout of the manufacturing. The layout of manufacturing could be easily fixed and,
product focussed or even process focussed like any assembly line factory. These underlying
issues mainly affects the workforce performance of the manufacturer as well as the overall
output. The service operations plans the environment as per the manner by which it affects all
the customers of the organisation. Both these aspects has the common issue of the cost
control. The manufacturing operations should discover the suppliers of the raw materials at
significantly lower cost as well as the higher quality. The indirect cost of offering the services
must be maintained at low by the service operations for allowing the organisation to offer
significant competitive prices to the customers along with earning profit.
Answer of question 3:
The time based competition could be described as strategic advantage, which is
derived from creation of the order to the delivery cycle significantly complex, effective and
immensely cost efficient for both customer as well as the supplier. The major advantage of
this strategy is that it allows the compression of time in the complete organisation, across the
decision flows, the engineering, the procurement, the manufacturing, the distribution, the
processing of order. The advantages of the time based competition rises from the conditions

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of the demand. When all the markets as well as the industries experiences swift technological
alterations, product life cycle of any product is significant short and the compression of the
overall profit earning horizon is done. The time based competition introduces significant
responsiveness, the cost cutting solutions and the quality in the products of the organisation.
The main disadvantage of this strategy is that it introduces significantly complex processes in
the organisation that could not be understood by the employees easily.
Answer of question 5:
The qualitative forecasting techniques that are deployed in the organisation helps in
the formulation of the short terms predictions and it could also supplement all the projection
on the basis of the use of the quantitative methods. The qualitative forecasting techniques that
are deployed in the organisation are the Delphi method, the sales-force polling as well as the
consumer surveys. The forecasting techniques is selected appropriately by the managers
according to the requirements of the market analysis. The forecasting techniques are used
appropriately in the organisation as the result of the analysis provide the accurate results that
helps in increasing the business
The Delphi method is considered as the group method where the panel of experts are
significantly questioned individually regarding the perceptions of the future events. It is
observed that the experts does not meet any group for reducing the possibility that consensus
has been reached due to the factors of dominant personality. Rather, the predictions and the
associated arguments are then summarised by any outside part and then returned to experts
accompanied with several questions.
The sales force polling is another method that is used in the organisation. The
company use as the prediction of the source salespeople who possess the recurrent contacts

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with the customers. It has been believed by them that the salespeople who are significantly
close to final customers might have the important insights as per state of the future market.
The company also deployed the consumer surveys for improving the functioning of
the organisation. The company conducts the market surveys for any particular consumer
purchases. The surveys might comprise of the telephone exchanges, the private interviews or
even the questionnaires as the main method of gaining any data. The expensive statistical
analysis has been commonly applied for the survey of the results for testing the hypothesis
for the customer behaviour.
Answer of question 7:
The criteria in the buying of the materials should reflect major competitive priorities.
As the firm is competing on the cost should provide precedence to the costs of purchasing. As
the firm is contending on the tractability should implement higher importance to the lead time
in the buying materials. When there is significant small lead times, company could be
significantly flexible and it possess the capability of responding to the altering situations
swiftly. The lead times are significantly significant in the accomplishing the higher customer
service. One more criteria that is employed is that the suppliers with the significantly short
lead times as well as significantly reliable in the meeting of the due dates helps in the
minimising the issues of the material shortages for manufacturer.
Answer of question 8:
The steps that could be followed for improving the planning process of the
organisation are Formalising the processes, Defining the criteria of decision making,
Engagement with the board in appropriate way, and Efficiently address the strategic issues.
The evaluation of the strategy option against the preset company priorities is the step by
which the processes could be improved significantly. One more method by which the

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planning process could be improved is with the engagement of the stakeholders during the
process of the development for gaining the buy-in for final strategy. The researches has
helped in discovering that the boards where the respondents are significantly satisfied with
the strategic planning have the increased ability of monitoring the progress of the company.
The method could be implemented by the organisation for improving the planning process.