Supply Chain and Logistics Management: A Volvo Case Study Analysis

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments. This report analyzes Volvo's operations, logistics, and supply chain.

Understanding Operations, Logistics and Supply Chain
Management
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference List................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction
Operation management can be described as an administration of different business practices in
order to create a diverse value in organizational efficiency. It is mainly concentrated towards
converting labor and materials into proper goods and services in order to maximize their
efficiency at a far greater extension. On the other hand, logistics are mainly used in a broad
manner for referring the prefabricated process of moving and coordinating different resources
like materials, people, equipment, inventory and many more. In this specific study, an analysis of
both operation management and logistics will be conducted through analyzing location and
quality in addition to managing quality. The analysis will be based into VOLVO Cars, which is a
luxury vehicle organization based into Sweden.
Volvo Cars, generally known as VOLVO is a Swedish-owned manufacturing company. They are
involved into constructing buses, trucks and other vehicles. Additionally, they also make
different mechanical parts of different cars and vehicles. It was initially founded back at 1921
and its headquarters are located into Gothenburg. Despite the fact that at early days their business
was entirely based into Sweden, after some time they decided to spread their business
worldwide.
In this study, managing quality in addition to location and layout will be assessed with respect
with VOLVO. Through assessing managing quality, the way of improving product quality from
the perspective of VOLVO will be assessed. Additionally, how location and layout affects the
overall performance of VOLVO will also be assessed in this specific study.
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Discussion
Managing quality is closely associated with quality control at certain extension from the
perspective of different automotive company (O’Neill et al., 2016). From the diverse aspects of
different industries, managing quality can be described as a process of ensuring that products do
not contain any form of errors. In automotive sectors like VOLVO, through the help of managing
quality or quality management, it is possible to reproduce comfortable and safe cars. However,
continuous testing of new cars is closely associated with managing quality at a far greater
extension.
From the perspective of VOLVO, their process of managing quality generally starts even before
their vehicle has been rolled off from the assembly line. Whenever VOLVO releases a new car
into their market, they build different prototypes in order to find out any possible weakness of
that car (Siva et al., 2016). VOLVO can also identify any form of mechanical problem when
they test the quality of their newest production. Problem regarding assembling different cars has
also been identified and solved through those prototypes of quality management (Dasgupta et al.,
2017). However, from the perspective of Toyota, which is also a competitor of VOLVO take
diverse steps towards managing their quality at a far greater extension. Toyota generally tests the
quality of their products through the help of conducting some different test. Engineers belonging
from Toyota are generally associated with their quality management at a far greater extension.
Toyota generally builds their finished products before starting testing, which is entirely different
from the perspective of Volvo. Volvo on the other side creates a demo of their actual finished
products, which has been tested further to find out any form of problem or defect. However,
from the perspective of both VOLVO and Toyota, their product testing process is closely
associated with testing the smoothness and suspension durability of their cars at far greater
extensions.
Volvo generally exposes their demo cars into extreme heat and cold conditions in order to test
the capability of their cars into different weather conditions (Jiménez-Jiménez et al., 2015). They
mainly conduct this quality management test in order to make sure that their cars will function in
any form of weather condition. In addition to that, they conduct a smoke test for their cars as a
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process of quality management. They fill up their cars with smokes to test the seals of their doors
and windows.
On the other hand, Toyota is not actually associated with any form of smoke test. They mainly
conduct crash test as a part of their quality management and quality monitoring (Van Dooren et
al., 2015). However, in recent context it has been come to know that even VOLVO is going
through a prefabricated form of crash test, as it becomes a prefabricated part of government rules
and regulations regarding managing quality at certain extension. The malfunctions of safety
system have been examined through this crash test of managing quality.
From the perspective of any automotive organization, managing quality usually helps at driving
down the cost of vehicles at a far greater extension. In addition to that, managing quality is also
very essential at increasing the quality of different vehicles at a far greater extension (Sanz-
Calcedo et al., 2015). Managing quality from the aspects of different automotive companies also
ensures that their certification is compliance. VOLVO generally enables a real time data
collection process in order to detect any form of problem and defect into their cars and vehicles
sp that they can solve those problems without wasting a lot of time and resource at certain
extension. Their early quality management and prevention technique generally help that
company to reduce their scraps, downtime, recall, warranty claims and many more from their
bottom line.
Managing quality also helps VOLVO at reducing the risks associated with their cars and vehicles
at a far greater extension. From the perspective of other automotive company such as Toyota,
they are also closely associated with managing quality since it will help them to compare the
capability of their production line with their competitors and they can ensure to provide
consistent and safe products through the help of their quality management (Nemet et al., 2018).
Improvement of different cars and vehicles are also closely associated with the diverse effect of
quality management at certain extension. Despite the fact that VOLVO and Toyota has some
difference in between their quality management techniques, the basics of their quality
management technique is almost identical.
Location from the perspective of VOLVO can be described as a very important decision
regarding entrepreneurial since it directly affects the performance of the company (Behera and
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Mishra, 2017). Location from the perspective of VOLVO also has some diverse effect since it
has direct connection with the financial performance of that company. Prefabricated location of
VOLVO helps them to access easily different economic, social and physical endowments. A
company cannot change their location suddenly since it will directly affect their production and
pricing at certain extension. The affect into production and pricing can be both positive and
negative.
On the other hand, layout mainly involves into determining the required space for arranging and
managing the different facilities of an organization in order to ensure a very steady flow at their
operational management at certain extension (Shin and Kim, 2017). In simple ways, layout is a
prefabricated floor plan in order to arrange machinery, facility and equipment at their optimum
location. Layout generally helps any organization to flow quickly their materials and work force
in a cost effective way (Jian, 2015). Handling different aspects of production line can also be
accessed through the help of location and layout at far greater extension. It is not possible to
change prefabricated layout with the help of simple meaning. Changing any form of layout is
very challenging and it directly disrupt any form of operation, which will ultimately direct an
organization towards losing their financial assets at a far greater extension
The location and layout of VOLVO are in Sweden. The prefabricated location of VOLVO
enables them the opportunity of running their business smoothly and efficiently without even
maximizing the total initial cost at a far greater extension. In addition to that, the location of
VOLVO also helps them to control their wastes as low as possible. Additionally, they can also
use the talents of their enterprises in a more effective and efficient manner through the help of
their prefabricated location at certain extension (Demirtas et al., 2016). VOVLO can also reduce
the level of uncertainty at several aspect s through the help of their location into Sweden. From
the perspective of automotive industry like VOVLO, their location generally encourage at
mobilizing their labor, raw materials in addition with potential consumers at a far greater
extension. Different economical, social and physical variables can be attracted by the physical
location of VOLVO in order to make development into certain areas.
From the perspective of VOLVO, location is mainly concentrated towards a particular site,
which can establish an enterprise capable of completing the primary objectives of VOLVO
without relying into a heavy cost structure (Tayal and Singh, 2017). Since Sweden has a very
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good economical condition and the people belonging from Sweden has lots of interest into
Vehicles, VOLVO can very easily maintain their business objectives while establishing their
primary location into that country. Additionally, Sweden itself has a great opportunity to expand
further their business related with supply chain logistics, which defines the need of having lots of
high quality trucks and vehicles. VOLVO easily measured the need of their potential consumer
base, which help them to become a successful vehicle company (Lefferts, 2017). It describes the
fact that location of any organization is very important from the perspective of their expansion.
However, it is also needed to be taken into consideration that there are some other factors that
directly affects the location of an organization at certain extension. As an instance, VOLVO was
able to construct successfully their location into Sweden since that country has large amount of
lands. Raw materials for building a car are also easily available into Sweden. These big factors
affect VOLVO to make their primary location into Sweden.
In addition to that, VOLVO also utilized their layout quite impressively. They maximize their
use of spacing. Their layout is compatible with latest production mix and production
technologies. They usually do not move their materials in order to maximize their efficiency into
car production. They have a huge inventory, which help them to conduct inventory management
without facing much problem (Menon et al., 2015). They have an excellent production system in
addition with an effective supervision system, which effectively helps them to maintain their
entire production system.
Triple bottom line is a growth concept, which has been associated with different forms of
business. Triple bottom line is mainly concentrated towards the improvement of social,
economical and environmental approaches of any organization. It has a direct impact into
company performance of VOLVO. Triple bottom line generally helps different organizations in
order to expand further their business procedures to a greater extension. It is also closely
associated with leadership approaches, which helps VOLVO to be a successful organization.
For further expanding their business in a successful way, VOLVO can create a culture of quality
into their workplace. It will also help VOLVO to improve the quality of their vehicles to a far
greater extension. In addition to that, they should make some pool in between their entire
employee base so that they can take effective suggestions from their employees. It will also
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maintain a prefabricated work culture, which will be helpful at stabilizing employee motivation.
It has also been recommended for VOLVO to only use latest technologies into supply chain
management. Additionally, it has also been recommended for VOLVO to make good
relationship with their supplier base.
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Conclusion
From this entire assignment, it can be concluded that both managing quality in addition with
location and layout are very important components of supply chain and logistics. In context with
VOLVO, they efficiently use quality management in addition with location and layout to
maximize their potential towards a far greater extension. They generally maintain the quality of
their different vehicles through the help of different tests and procedures. Additionally, they have
excellent locations and layouts, which further help them to expand their business procedures at a
far greater extension. Lastly, it has been recommended for VOLVO to consider the vice of their
employees in order to move up the efficiency of their operation management.
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Reference List
Behera, M.P. and Mishra, V., 2017. Impact of Store Location and Layout on Consumer Purchase
Behavior in Organized Retail. Anvesha, 10(1), pp.10-21.
Dasgupta, N., Ranjan, S. and Ramalingam, C., 2017. Applications of nanotechnology in
agriculture and water quality management. Environmental chemistry letters, 15(4), pp.591-605.
Demirtas, N., Tuzkaya, U.R. and Tanyaş, M., 2016. Layout of Urban Distribution Center Using
Possibilistic Programming. International Journal of Computational Intelligence Systems, 9(6),
pp.1068-1081.
Jian, J., Beijing Hefengxin Keji Co. Ltd., 2015. Selecting and updating location of virtual
keyboard in a GUI layout in response to orientation change of a portable device. U.S. Patent
8,928,593.
Jiménez-Jiménez, D., Martinez-Costa, M., Martínez-Lorente, A.R. and Rabeh, H.A.D., 2015.
Total quality management performance in multinational companies: A learning perspective. The
TQM Journal, 27(3), pp.328-340.
Lefferts, R.B., Synopsys Inc, 2017. Custom layout of integrated circuit (ic) designs. U.S. Patent
Application 15/084,094.
Menon, D., Zwimpfer, C., Hanne, T. and Dornberger, R., 2015, December. Facility Layout
Planning Using Fuzzy Closeness Computation and a Genetic Algorithm. In Computational and
Business Intelligence (ISCBI), 2015 3rd International Symposium on (pp. 13-20). IEEE.
Nemet, Y., Eshedkaner, R. and Brand, E., Varcode Ltd, 2018. Barcoded indicators for quality
management. U.S. Patent Application 10/049,314.
O’Neill, P., Sohal, A. and Teng, C.W., 2016. Quality management approaches and their impact
on firms׳ financial performance–An Australian study. International Journal of Production
Economics, 171, pp.381-393.
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Sanz-Calcedo, J.G., González, A.G., López, O., Salgado, D.R., Cambero, I. and Herrera, J.M.,
2015. Analysis on integrated management of the quality, environment and safety on the
industrial projects. Procedia Engineering, 132, pp.140-145.
Shin, J.S. and Kim, J.O., 2017. Optimal design for offshore wind farm considering inner grid
layout and offshore substation location. IEEE Trans. Power Syst., 32(3), pp.2041-2048.
Siva, V., Gremyr, I., Bergquist, B., Garvare, R., Zobel, T. and Isaksson, R., 2016. The support of
Quality Management to sustainable development: a literature review. Journal of Cleaner
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Tayal, A. and Singh, S.P., 2017. Formulating multi-objective stochastic dynamic facility layout
problem for disaster relief. Annals of Operations Research, pp.1-27.
Van Dooren, W., Thijs, N. and Bouckaert, G., 2017. Quality management and the management
of quality in European public administrations. In Improving the quality of east and west
European public services (pp. 91-106). Routledge.
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