OPERATION MANAGEMENT

ASSIGNMENT.

BY

SUBHAS KAR

MBA(IB)

SECTION-B

REG NO.- 1226110238

NATHMULLS TEA
 NATHMULLS TEA
About the company

This company is a pioneer and probably the only one in India which has successfully
established the concept and business of Tea by Mail Order at an International scale.

Teas from over 25 renowned plantations are available at their showroom, by far the largest
variety of Darjeeling Teas available under one roof anywhere in the country.

Nathmulls is the "Ultimate in Tea" and their word of mouth publicity has worked wonders
for our organization and has given us the capacity to be able to procure the best of teas
from the finest of plantations, season after season, year after year.

Besides Teas, Nathmulls also market exquisite Tea Accessories like Fancy Tea Cosys, Chinese
Tea Cups, Ornamental Tea Strainers, Tea Sets and Tea Pots, exclusively designed and
sourced from leading manufacturers and suppliers.

The Lonely Planet (the most popular tourist guide book) and other high circulation guide
books in various languages, unanimously recommend Nathmulls of Darjeeling.

Tea Manufacturing Process:

Tea plants favor temperate, wet climates with rainfall of approx. 8 inches per year and daily
sunshine of about 5 hrs. on an average. Long bright days should be followed by rainy nights
amid the fresh winds and the loose, deep, acidic soil of high altitudes.

The First Flush Teas (March / April) are light, floral and aromatic. The Second Flush Teas
(May / June) are smooth, full bodied and fruity. The Autumnal Teas (Nov / Dec) are slightly
dark and have a deep complex aroma.
PLUCKING:

During quality periods i.e. First Flush or Second Flush, two leaves and a bud are picked - this
is called fine plucking, resulting in high quality teas. At other times, even three or four leaves
and a bud are plucked - this is called coarse plucking. The plucking cycle is maintained at
about 7 day intervals. The plucked leaves are collected in bamboo baskets, taking care that
they are not crushed by overloading the baskets.

WEIGHMENT:

The plucked leaves are delivered to the factory for weighment. Each plucker is paid against
the quantity (weight) of green leaf that he/she brings in.

WITHERING:

The green leaf, after eradication of any foreign matter, is spread on "withering troughs",
loosely, to a depth of 6 inches. Fans are installed to pass air over the green leaf while it
withers. The object of the withering process is to get rid of the moisture content in the
green leaf and prepare the leaf to withstand the strain of rolling without breaking up. Period
of withering can vary from 18 to 24 hrs depending on the moisture content. The leaf, when
properly withered, gives off a fragrant odor.

ROLLING:

The withered leaves are rolled under mild-pressure between metal plates which results in
twisting of the leaves. Due to the pressure, the cells in the leaves rupture, thereby releasing
the juices in the leaves, rendering te rolled leaves to moisten.

FERMENTATION:

The rolled leaves are spread on fermenting beds and left to ferment for a period of 3 to 4
hrs. The leaves are loosely spread to a thickness of 1 or 1.5. inches. Good fermentation
results in the colour of the leaf to change to reddish brown giving off the characteristic
aroma after the juices in the rolled leaves react with each other and the air. The
Fermentation process is conducted at 80-90% humidity and the temperature is maintained
at 70-80° Fahrenheit. A slight rise in temperature gives the tea a burnt taste whereas a slight
fall in temperature stops the fermentation. During fermentation the leaves first heat up due
to the chemical reactions and subsequently begin to cool down. A correct assessment of the
timing, when the leaves start cooling, is needed to determine when to halt the process of
fermentation.

FIRING:
 The fermented leaves are then fired (i.e. heated) in a drier machine. The object of this
process is to arrest fermentation and slowly dessicate the leaf in such a way so as to extract
the moisture without scorching the tea and at the same time, preserving its quality and
other characteristics to the optimum level. The leaves are passed through the drier and
remain within the drier for a period of approx. 20 mins, at a temperature of around 240 to
250° F. This results in the leaves moisture content to come down to 20 - 25% from 60 - 70%
before it enters the drier. A second firing is also given shortly thereafter.

SORTING:

Sorting of different grades is done by sorting machines which are fitted with wire mesh trays
that revolve or vibrate. The tea is passed over wire mesh of varying sizes so that the whole
leaf, broken leaf, fannings and dust grades fall at different places. These sorted teas
comprise the different grades.

PACKING:

The different grades of tea are then packed into plywood chests / paper sacks lined with
aluminium foil inside. Each lot is generally packed in a minimum of 5 chests / sacks or more.
The chests / sacks are sealed and the grade name, garden name, lot number (called an
invoice), chest number, gross and net weight, year of manufacture etc. are printed on the
chests / sacks with stencils. Lastly, Darjeeling CTM user license number and Darjeeling
"CTM-applied for" are also stenciled onto the tea chests / sacks.

Process Flow Diagram Of Nathmulls Tea

Plucking Weightment Withering Rolling Fermentation Firing Sorting Packing

TATA STEEL
 TATA STEEL
About the company

The Tata Steel Group has always believed that mutual benefit of countries, corporations and
communities is the most effective route to growth. Tata Steel has not limited its operations
and businesses within India but has built an imposing presence around the globe as well.
With the acquisition of Corus in 2007 leading to commencement of Tata Steel's European
operations, the Company today is the tenth largest steel producer in the world with an
employee strength of above 81,000 across five continents. During the financial year 2009-
10, the Group recorded deliveries of 24 million tonnes against 28 million tonnes in the
previous year, the decline being a reflection of the global economic slowdown mainly in the
UK and European operations. The Group recorded a turnover of Rs.102, 393 Crores in 2009 -
2010. The Company has always had significant impact on the economic development in
India and now seeks to strengthen its position of pre-eminence in international domain by
continuing to lead by example of responsibility and trust.

Tata Steel’s overseas ventures and investments in global companies have helped the
Company create a manufacturing and marketing network in Europe, South East Asia and the
Pacific-rim countries. The Group’s South East Asian operations comprise Tata Steel Thailand,
in which it has 67.1% equity and Nat Steel Holdings, which is one of the largest steel
producers in the Asia Pacific with presence across seven countries.

Given below is an outline of Tata Steel's operations in Europe and South East Asia.
Process flow diagram.

Steel is manufactured by the chemical reduction of iron ore, using an integrated steel
manufacturing process or a direct reduction process. In the conventional integrated steel
manufacturing process, the iron from the blast furnace is converted to steel in a basic
oxygen furnace (BOF). steel can also be made in an electric arc furnace(EAF) from scrap steel
and, in some cases, from direct reduced iron. BOF is typically used for high-tonnage
production of carbon steels, while the EAF is used to produce carbon steels and low tonnage
specialty steels. An emerging technology, direct steel manufacturing, produces steel directly
from iron ore. This document deals only with integrated iron and steel manufacturing; that
on Mini Steel Mills addresses the electric arc steel process and steel finishing processes.
Steel manufacturing and finishing processes discussed in that document are also employed
in integrated steel plants. See also Coke Manufacturing. In the BOF process, coke making
and iron making precede steel making; these steps are not necessary with an EAF. Pig iron is
manufactured from sintered, pelletized, or lump iron ores using coke and limestone in a
blast furnace. It is then fed to a BOF in molten form along with scrap metal, fluxes, alloys,
and high-purity oxygen to manufacture steel. In some integrated steel mills, sintering
(heating without melting) is used to agglomerate fines and so recycle iron-rich material such
as mill scale.
Improvement Initiative
Over the years, Tata Steel has placed continuous emphasis on improving processes, with a
view to consistently increasing efficiencies, enhancing quality and thereby achieving better
performance benchmarks in all areas. The various initiatives taken in its operations across
the world have gradually evolved to become recognized models of improvement and
growth.

Tata Steel has maintained the confidence to improve performance globally even in the face
of a challenging economic climate in which the steel industry happens to be severely
affected. One factor that contributes to this confidence is the Company’s adherence to Total
Quality Management (TQM) to achieve its goals. Since the formal incorporation of TQM for
Business Excellence in the late 1980’s Tata Steel has adopted a number of improvement
initiatives popular around the world.

At Tata Steel’s European operations, Continuous Improvement activities are focused on

providing Business Units with the ability to drive business through Lean Management, a
common strategy deployment process, training of CI coaches and knowledge sharing
through operations.

NatSteel maintains a systematic approach towards improving productivity and enhancing

quality while reducing cost at the same time. The Singapore operations concentrated on
yield improvement, reduction in power consumption and a significant bottom line benefit.
The Xiamen operations have also adopted measures to reduce vulnerability caused by price
fluctuations.

A Customer Centric Approach

With the Company’s better understanding of TQM and the Theory of Constraints (TOC) on
the Deming Application Prize journey, its customer focus and market orientation have
undergone a sea-change.

Tata Steel has initiated a culture of value creation with customers and suppliers. Specific
approaches focus on the ‘needs’ of the customer as opposed to ‘wants’. Programmes
include those on Customer Value Management, Retail Value Management, Solution for
Sales and Supplier Value Management. The Company emphasises effective daily work
management practices, a clean and safe work environment and consistency and stability of
processes as important factors in sustaining development and growth.
 Tata Steel Europe seeks to create a single, global and strategic marketing team with a goal
to become the “best supplier to best customer” and deliver profitable growth. To this end,
around 100 people across TSE’s sales & marketing team worked on the first phase, which
was completed in February 2010. Subsequent phases are now in progress, which include
developing three to five year plans for each of eleven industry-focused sectors, identifying
initiatives for executing these plans, identifying quick wins and developing a customer
satisfaction tool. Product catalogues have been developed and high-level metrics have been
defined.

The activities included:

Categorizing customers to ensure the right level of focus and developing account plans for
the highest opportunity customers.

Creating group-wide key performance indicators for marketing & sales, implementing
across-Tata Steel Europe (TSE) customer satisfaction programme and developing a single
products and services catalogue.

The Improvement Philosophy

Keeping up pace with the different changes in the global business arena, Tata Steel believes
that to be prepared for the future it needs to ‘plan’ improvements with three main areas of
focus.

 Increasing the pace of standardization to strengthen the base.

 Improve quickly on existing operations.
 Innovate continuously in order to be differentiated from others.

Tata Steel’s TQM journey has encompassed in its fold all the people down the line, so that
process and performance improvement becomes a way of life. Ensuring value creation for
the system as a whole is the only means of achieving success in the long run.
In the face of high raw materials price volatility and an overall trend of rapidly increasing
prices, in 2009-2010 the Procurement Division of Tata Steel India focused its efforts on
keeping these trends in check by leveraging long-term contracts and relationships, and on
minimizing risk by hedging and through various other strategic sourcing tools, including
innovations and improvement initiatives using Total Quality Management precepts.
RED BUS.in
 RED BUS.in

About the company

Like all innovations, RedBus too has a very interesting story.

All the founders used to work in Bangalore at the time (sometime in 2005) - all with top IT
MNCs - IBM, Texas Instruments and Honeywell. They were friends from BITS Pilani, one of
India's finest engineering colleges.

During Diwali that year, one of them wanted to spend the festival in his home town. Since
he didn't know his schedule till the end, taking a bus was the only choice.

He ran around town hunting for a ticket, but they were all sold out minutes before he
reached the travel agents. Bangalore traffic is notorious and can grip you at the wrong time.

That's exactly what happened that day. That's when he thought of the possibility of
providing consumers the convenience of booking a bus ticket over the internet. The
objective was two-fold - to ensure that they don't have to leave the confines of their
comfort to book a ticket, and to help them get a ticket when they need it the most.

The idea was compelling. And why not? The internet was being voted as a medium people
couldn't do without. PC and net penetration was increasing not only in urban areas, but also
in rural India with innovative concepts like Shakti and e-Choupal. Also, people were getting
used to booking tickets for travel using IRCTC and private airline websites. So, why not
buses?

However, the most compelling reason was that no body in India had done this!

So, with these thoughts running through his mind, he bounced initial thoughts off his friends
from college. They were excited about the concept too.

However, they didn't want to take the plunge without understanding the feasibility of such
an undertaking. They met with various people - bus operators, consumers and venture
capitalists - to gauge how well the concept could do.

As expected, they got a favorable response. They started writing the code for the software
that would be required to run the operations. Once this was ready, they put together a
business plan and presented it to TiE, Bangalore Chapter.

TiE - The Indus Entrepreneurs - are mentors, to say the very least. They breathe lives and
hope in to young entrepreneurs who have a working concept. The idea didn't need much
selling to TiE members either. That was the beginning of a seemingly long journey. All the
founders quit their well-paying, secure jobs and started redBus.

Since those days there have been many ups and downs. It wasn't simple to change the
mindset of bus operators who are used to dealing with their traditional brick-and-mortar
travel agents. It wasn't easy to market the concept. It needed time and money. It took a few
months for things to fall in place.

All that was needed were a few people who used the website. Once that would happen, the
user interface was bound to generate word-of-mouth. That's exactly what happened. Those
who used it liked it, told others and the dominos started to fall in place.

To cut a long story short, redBus has come a very long way from days of struggle to days of
growth. It has the largest number of tie-ups (and growing) with bus operators and a large
and satisfied customer base.

Being run by a team of young people, the culture is informal and everyone is ambitious and
charged to make it larger than imagined. What started as a team of three grew into a team
of 50 within 9 months.

Process Flow

Ticketing

Provide alternative options and schedule → Schedule selected → Seat Selection

Check-in and Boarding

Obtain ticket → Check-in for travel → Wait in the waiting hall → Board the bus

Key challenges to Operation Management

1. Over-staffing vis-à-vis the runner vehicle position.

2. Un-economic fare structure, which failed to keep pace with the increase in the
price of the essential inputs like HSD, Tyres and Spare-parts.

3. Numerous agitations and Bandhs which not only caused economic losses but
contributed to the decline in the work-culture of the employees as well.

Status of current Operation Management

1. Reduction in the number of employees and bus-staff ratio from 1:40 to 1:7 by way
of implementation of the Voluntary Retirement Scheme.

2. Increased passenger and cargo volume.

3. Online