Operations Management Analysis: Nissan Motor Company Case Study

This case study analyzes the operations management of Nissan Motor Company, a Japanese multinational automaker. The analysis begins by describing the nature of operations management within Nissan, including its production processes, such as the Just-in-Time approach and assembly line. It identifies key operations decisions and responsibilities, such as product design, quality control, and capacity planning. The study then evaluates Nissan's operations strategy objectives, identifying order qualifiers (e.g., diverse car models) and order winners (e.g., continuous innovation). The role of operations in product design is discussed, highlighting the integration of raw materials, human resources, and equipment. The study also addresses challenges such as demand uncertainty, globalization, and ethical conduct. The assembly line process is evaluated, considering its impact on investment, cost reduction, human resources, accounting, marketing, and information systems. The analysis uses secondary information and APA style references, providing a comprehensive overview of Nissan's operations management practices and strategic considerations.

Introduction to Operation Management

Contents
Contents...........................................................................................................................................2
Nature of operation management...........................................................................................3
Operation strategy objectives.................................................................................................3
Role of operation in product design.......................................................................................3
Manage production and operation issue.................................................................................4
Assembly line process............................................................................................................4
REFERENCE...................................................................................................................................5

Nature of operation management
Operation management process is an amalgamation of activities like planning, organising,
controlling and monitoring the manufacturing process of goods (Heizer, Render and Munson,
2017). There are various operation decision taken by Nissan Motors employees like designing of
product according to external trends, maintain quality of product according to set standards,
designing of capacity so that business operations would be done according to pre-set goals.
Besides this, Nissan main responsibilities is utilisation of available resources like finance, human
resources, materials handling etc so that company’s overall productivity and efficiency would
increase to a certain level.
Nissan mainly uses Just in Time approach in their business operations which align raw
materials availability and production of product at the same time (Bendoly, van Wezel and
Bachrach, 2015). Main aim of using this approach is to eliminate inventory cost which leads to
reduction in cost price. Raw material is only received by Nissan when they need it for product
which increases their efficiency. Main challenges faced by company and operation unit is
globalisation due to which competitions for the same customer share has increase immensely
resulting in high cost. Ethical conduct also works as challenges as management needs to work
very hard on eliminating illegal activities within company.
Operation strategy objectives
As mentioned in the case study, Nissan revenue was 90 billion dollars in 2007 which
shows potential customers attraction towards the company. Main strategic objectives of Nissan
are to deliver high quality of product in different price range to every customer so that they can
satisfy their needs and wants accordingly. Nissan order qualifier is different variety of models in
cars, with different price range with highest quality. Like company have models like Qashqai,
Micra, Micra C+C and Note in different price range and quality. Order winner for Nissan is
continuous innovation in their product and increasing quality.
Role of operation in product design
Product design means making new products for potential customers according to their need
and external forces. Operation function is to make the best combination out of raw materials,
human resource, equipment, engineering etc which leads to higher and better product design as
compare to others.

Manage production and operation issue
To manage demand uncertainty and fluctuation of product creates negative environment in
company as company’s chances of getting loss or decrease in profitability is higher. To tackle
this, Nissan uses Just in Time technique in which raw materials are ordered at the time of
production only so that company could avoid expenses like labour cost, inventory cost, material
handling cost etc (Swink and et. al., 2017)
Assembly line process
Assembly line in Nissan will bring high investment in the starting as training, new
resources, equipment’s is required. But in a long term, it will reduce the overall cost price of the
product (Hill and Hill, 2017). Human resource have to get proper training for it as new skills and
capabilities is required to work on assembly line. Accounting becomes simpler as work and
expenses become monotonous which makes it easier for company. Marketing becomes complex
as product operations does not changes regularly due to which aligning of external requirements
on a regular basis is hard. At last, information system becomes easier for company as time to
time reporting will be done to the manager resulting in better monitoring.

REFERENCE
Books and Journals
Bendoly, E., van Wezel, W., & Bachrach, D. G. (Eds.). (2015). The handbook of behavioral
operations management: Social and psychological dynamics in production and service
settings. Oxford University Press.
Heizer, J., Render, B., & Munson, C. (2017). Operations management. Pearson Education
Limited.
Hill, A., & Hill, T. (2017). Essential operations management. Macmillan International Higher
Education. He, L., Mak, H. Y., & Rong, Y. (2019). Operations Management of Vehicle
Sharing Systems. In Sharing Economy (pp. 461-484). Springer, Cham.
Swink, M., Melnyk, S. A., Hartley, J. L., & Cooper, M. B. (2017). Managing operations across
the supply chain. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.