Operations Management Report: Watson Engineering Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Watson Engineering, a company specializing in metal machine manufacturing. It examines the role of operational management in enhancing efficiency, cost-cutting, and meeting customer demands within a competitive market. The report discusses Watson Engineering's challenges and opportunities, including competition from rivals and the desire for business expansion. It delves into operational management strategies, such as process design, standard management, and process improvement, highlighting the importance of managers and leaders in driving productivity and achieving organizational goals. The report also provides detailed recommendations for improving manufacturing operations, including selecting underperforming products for analysis, defining matrices for control, capturing machine-level data, and integrating systems. Furthermore, the report emphasizes the significance of senior management support, employee participation, and the development of a manufacturing intelligence strategy. Finally, it concludes with a timeline for implementing these strategies to enhance the company's overall productivity and competitive advantage. The report suggests how Watson Engineering can improve its operations and strategies for business expansion.

Introduction to operations and
services

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION...............................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Operation management is the practice of administrating the business practices so that a
company can create highest level of efficiency possible within an organization (Introduction to
operations and services. 2018). This type of management helps in cost cutting, delivering of
goods and services within time and thus results in overall cutting of cost. Operational
management has also linked with other departments such as financial, human resource,
production, manufacturing etc. This collaboration of such department helps the company to
increase its productivity and efficiency to meet the requirement of its customers. This report is
discussed on Watson Engineering Tooling Company which wants to stand among its rivals in a
competitive market. This company was established by a young entrepreneur Chunck Watson. It
has its headquarter in South-east Michigan and south Carolina. Apart from that, this company
has its offices in various places. These offices helps the company to meet market demand with its
philosophy. It is a small company having more than 400 employees (Tao, 2015). It deals in
manufacturing of metal machines like fabrication, laser cutting, turret punching, tube bending,
robotic welding, stamping, CNC machining, powder coating, tooling, fixture, build and vehicle
services. In this report, the competition of Watson Engineering along with its rivals is discussed.
Apart from that company also wants to expand its business. In this report, the effect of
operational management along with Watson Engineering is discussed here. Apart from that, the
role of manager and leader are discussed that how they help the company to stand in a
competitive market. In the end, future recommendations are also given to the company to
increase its business.
MAIN BODY
The organisation must innovate and produce new products on the regular basis so as to be stable
in the market. The organisation must prepare operations improvement strategies so that their
process of producing the product becomes more effective. Operation management is field that
can be misguided because of its useful nature. It is concerned with the planning, organising and
supervising the products and services. It is basically focused ensuring the an organisation
successfully turns their input into the output in an efficient manner. Two key terms for operations
management are supply chain management and logistics. The management has firm foundation
in both the areas.

For the effective operation management skills are required in managers and those who
are managing the organisation. The ability of the organisation is crucial in successfully
enhancing the efficiency and driving the productivity as an operation manager (Akpolat, 2014).
The operation manager should understand the series of the process that takes place while
producing the product. As in case of Watson engineering company there is the process which
enables them to produce the quality product at the efficient rate. The operation managers handles
the various strategic issues and determines the size of manufacturing plants and project
management methods and implementing the structure of information technology. The different
operational issues includes the management of the inventory level, quality control, material
handling and maintenance of policies. Watson engineering company was set in the early 1980's
in England by a young graduate and manufactures rules, engineering calipers and scribes.
The operation management system comprises of both technological element's and
organisational behaviour of the employee's and the consumers. The operation manager of the
organisation is responsible for different task that an company perform. The work of operational
manager includes the following:
 Process design: the steps required by the organisation so as to meets its business goals are
designed by the operations managers. This means the planning out of the procedures for
the repeatable work. In the case of Watson engineering company the operation manager
should form a policy that creates and designs the process for the work to be done. This
process should be designed in an efficient way. As the company is having problems in
recruiting the engineers as their number is declined so the process should be designed in
the manner recruiting efficient staff.
 Standard management: This process includes creation of optimized budget and
scheduling the equipments, maintenance and ensuring the employee's are following the
standard procedures etc. This should be implemented in the case of Watson engineering
company as they are manufacturing the equipments which should be standardised and
should provide quality to the consumers of the product (Glukhov, 2016).
 Process improvement and Optimization: Most of the business nowadays have the policy
of doing the things in traditional manner and they think that there is no need to fix the
things until they are not critical to the organisation. The operation manager of the

organisation should make sure that all the process are as efficient as they can be so that
there is no lag in the operations of the business.
In smaller companies operations are very simple and are straightforward towards the goal of the
organisation. Every employee of the organisation takes part in the management of the process so
that the manufacturing process go smoothly and efficiently. On the other hand if the company is
a large organisation then the management cannot just rely on the employees for the production
they have to employee a operational manager for this (GrzesikŻ, 2015). So the operational
manager will enable the organisation in :
 Providing the better output: The operation manager optimizes and improves the processes
that have huge impact on the product and the services. This leads to higher output and
lower the rate of defectives and also helps the company to maintain the cost of the
product.
 Providing the competitive advantage: The better the output is the better is the product or
the service. This allows the organisation to stand out from the competition and also help
them to gain the competitive advantage over others.
 Higher profits: with the operation manager working in the organisation this will finally
help in achieving the overall objective of the organisation which is to maximise the
profits and minimize the cost/expenses.
As the companies senior management has asked for establishing the report which will help the
company in introducing the strategies that will improve the overall productivity. building the
consumers trust, shipping the orders on time, providing the consumers with high quality products
and creating a optimum production schedule are all achievable with the operations management
strategies (Kiszka, 2014). So the strategies which will enable efficient productivity techniques
are:
 Selecting the products that are not performing up to the mark as the basis of pilot to
define the manufacturing operations framework: The products that are performing
worst are having various problems. These problems are lack of customer awareness about
the product, sales promotion techniques not implemented in a proper way, quality of the
product. With the management of this product this will become easier for the organisation
to capture the factors that are contributing to its failure.

 Defining the common set of matrices that will move across all the manufacturing
operations and creates a useful control panel: Operations managers should have the
tendency to establish the rules and regulations that will move across all the
manufacturing operations of the organisation. In the case of Watson engineering
company the operations of the company should include the delegation matrix and the
employees should work according to the appointed delegates. The company should
consider creating a roadmap of the most relevant matrix that need to be added in the
future once additional data collection systems and processes are in place.
 Define how to capture machine-level data including equipment utilization and key
process parameters: The goal in this step is to capture the market by implementing the
machine level data that can be used to calculate the overall effectiveness (Mohanty,
2015). The Watson engineering company should create a level that will help in utilizing
the full potential of the machines and the employee's. The process related parameters
should be set at all the machine levels. These will help the company to calculate the
utilization of the machines and the assets.
 Use of sensors and controllers on old machines: The company should use the
controllers and the sensors on the old machines so that they can control the operations of
the machines accordingly and can also gain the data of the old machines that if they are
working according to the requirements or not. This would provide the insights into how
the products can be potentially be redesigned for more efficient manufacturing.
 Define and test all the system integration: The operation managers create and test the
system integration links that will power the control panel. It is the better idea for the
company to think ahead the future requirements. In the case of Watson Engineering
company this will help in traceability, inspection and the measures that should be taken
by the organisation to make the implemented steps more effective.
 Gain senior management support for improving the manufacturing operations
strategy: The organisation should have the support of the senior managers so as to
achieve its organisational goals. The management removes the organisational and
technical issues that blocks its progress (Choppali, 2017). In Watson engineering
company their should be the support of the senior management so as to improve the

manufacturing process as the company wants to expand its business in the other market
segments.
 The members should participate in the organisational decisions and should provide
the data: The employees or the members of the organisation should provide the data on
the products that they are producing, they should provide the overview of the products
and the services to the management so that policies can be made accordingly. The
members of the finance departments can provide the plans that how they can shift from
the production policies that can result in better profit margins. In short the members of
the organisation should participate in the policies framing process so that the product
performance can be improved.
 Build an organisations manufacturing Intelligence strategy: The foundation for the
solid manufacturing strategy is real time, accurate and reliable data processing. Once
these are strategies are implemented then it is best to introduce the manufacturing
intelligence in the strategy framework. The management of the Watson engineering
company should build an intelligent strategy so that they can make the use of their
production line efficiently (Kougianos, 2016).
 Plan for integration between the employee's and the managers to provide financial
impact in the manufacturing operations: This includes that their should be financial
integration in the manufacturing process so that process is done in accordance with the
budget implemented to them. This integration helps the accounting and the
manufacturing process insights that can guide further strategies through which the
performance can be improved. In the case of Watson engineering company they should
integrate the functions of the financial management with the manufacturing department
so that they can develop new products art a efficient rate.
 Conclude the main strategy and define the timeline for the launch of a
manufacturing operations strategy: The members of the organisation should provide
the information to the members of the senior management so that they can build the final
strategy (Orzen, Bell, 2016). With the main policy implemented it would be easier for the
company to smoothly impose the strategies to every plant on the basis of lesson learned.
As discussed above the operations managers plays a vital role in implementing the rules
and regulations that defines the operation of the department. The strategies mentioned above if

adopted by the operations team will definitely increase the productivity of the organisation. As
the company has already signed the contract for delivering the hand held precision medical
equipments thus if these strategies implemented will enable them in reaching their goals and
achieving the overall objectives. As the company is has rapidly expanded and is gaining the
recognition worldwide they should now deliver their products to the customers directly. With the
help of these strategies they would be able to reach the retail market (YangKelton, 2014). The
operation manager should look into the process and should check the supply chain that is
delivering the product in the market.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Conclusion
From the above report, it can be concluded that operational management helps Watson
Engineering to expand its business and be able to stand among its rivals. Importance of this
management with different departments of Watson Engineering is also discussed that how they
interrelate with each other. Implementation of operational management is also discussed in this
report which tells about how it can be implemented in the company. Apart from that, future
recommendation to Watson Engineering are also given so that it can be able to stand itself in a
competitive market by fulfilling the requirements of its customers. To do that company has to
adopt new technologies and recent trends and company should keep an eye over the recent trends
adopted by its rivals. The different strategies are also explained to expand the business of
company. Such strategies include provide better goods and services to its customers so that they
can be attracted to the door of company. Improving the organizations supply chain also help
company to reduce the time taken in reaching of a raw material to a finished goods. To improve
the business company has to reduce the cost of its product by reducing the labour cost, tariffs,
taxes and more. In the end of this main body the benefits of implementing operational
management is also discussed.
Future Recommendation
To expand the business and be stable in competitive market the future recommendations
for Watson Engineering Company are as follows:
Reducing cost by operational management:
There are many ways to reduce cost by operational management such as reducing cost of
inventory, labour, tariffs etc. This reduced cost product when introduced in market it will attract

the customers. Because if same product with low quality is available then why the customers will
by expensive product. Therefore to increase the overall productivity and growth of Watson
Engineering, company has to reduce the cost of its product.
Employee train:
Training is the short term process for developing the skills and knowledge of an
employee. This process helps the an employee in achieving the targets. On the other hand,
development is a long term process in which an employee has to develop itself with the help of
its experience and adaptability. Training process is must for an employee or a manager and
leader by which they can increase their productivity and efficiency. This process directly impact
the positively on the development of company. Therefore Watson Engineering should train its
employees so as to cover all the knowledge and skills required in company.
Collaboration among department:
In every organization there are different departments which have their own work. But to
achieve the goal of organization these departments should focus on collaborating with each
other. Operational department provides blue print to all department so that they may be able to
predict the future strategies required for the company. In Watson Engineering, operational
department provides information about the production and manufacturing of products. These are
the basics of this company because without predicting what is required, company cannot make
its market among its rivals.
Focus on customers experience:
Customers are the end user of any product manufactured by the company. No one can
give right feedback than the customers because they have used that product. Watson Engineering
should focus on adopting the feedback given by customers because the company should sell their
product to its customers. If company focuses on adopting those requirements of its customer's
than the productivity growth and sustainability also increases.
Keep focus on strategies made by rivals:
The strategies which are made by the rivals of Watson Engineering should also be
focused by the company. Since the market trends and technologies which are in run should be
followed by the company. If rivals of Watson Engineering have used a new and advanced
technology than company has to adopt this technology to make its effective use. With the help of
this, company can also use those technologies and capture their customers.

Current trends and innovation:
Watson Engineering should try to adopt the new and recent technologies which are in
run. By adopting these technologies company can use advanced equipments to increase its
efficiency and productivity. Since company bis dealing in machine tools therefore it is must for
the company to adopt those technologies. This will help the company to make their customers
and they will also be benefited by using new technology.
Setting up of achievable targets:
The targets set by the leaders and managers should be like they can be achievable to its
customers. They can match the desires at every level of organization so that the target set by the
seniors should be achieved. This will enhance the productivity of its employees and therefore
increase the growth and sustainability of Watson Engineering.

REFERENCES
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Online
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