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OM Chapter Two
OM Chapter Two
Operations Strategy
and Competitiveness
What is the use of running if you are not on the right track?
German proverb
Learning objectives
• Business strategy
• Mission vs vision
• Situational analysis
• Operations strategy
• Competitive priority
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Mind gymnastic
• Fails
• Strategy is a long term decisions that shape the direction of the organizations.
Introduction … Hierarchy of strategy
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…
• Business strategy is based on the strategic decisions of managers who are
responsible for considering many factors.
(3) identifying and developing the company’s core competencies which are also
called as the company’s strength –
Business strategy
• Defines the long-range
plan for the company
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Mission
• Is the reason or purpose of its existence
• Mission statement basically has to answer three basic questions which draw the
boundaries and focus of the organization
2. Who are the consumers and what are their known habits for buying?
• In the process of scanning the external environment, managers are monitoring the
trends in the market, industry, and society for opportunities and threats.
• Workers
• Facilities
• i.e. considering those factors that have both positive and negative impact
Operations strategy and the relationship between
operations strategy and business strategy
• Business strategy provides a broad scope for the entire organization which
provides an overall direction for the organization.
• Operations strategy has a narrow scope since it relates primarily to the operations
of an organization
• The term ‘operations strategy’ sounds at first like ‘operational’ which emphasize
day-to-day activities while ‘strategy’ is usually regarded as the opposite of daily
routine activities.
• But operations is not the same as ‘operational’, operations have a strategic role.
• But the Japanese companies began offering low-cost and high-quality products,
they more emphasized on operations strategy
• Operational efficiency and strategy must be linked; otherwise the company could
be very efficient but perform the wrong task.
• Operations strategy assures that all the tasks performed by the operations function
are the right tasks
.
The relationship between operations strategy and
business strategy
• Operations strategy will improve their operations performance over time
• if operations are not aligned with overall strategy, companies competitiveness will
be poor .
As good as Stage 2
competitors Adopt best practice
Stage 1
Holding the
orgns back Correct the worst
problems
Internally neutral Externally neutral Internally supportive Externally supportive
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• Suggests operations that
Top-down perspective Bottom-up perspective
operations strategy is
What the business want What d-2-d experience
developed for a operations to do suggests operations should do
company’s competitive
strategy and supporting
Operations
its business strategy strategy
• Aligns with stage 3 –
internally supportive . Operations resources Market requirement
perspective perspective
What operations resources can What the market requires
do operations to do
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Top-down perspective Bottom-up perspective • involves an organization
What the business want What d-2-d experience • learning from its experiences,
operations to do suggests operations should do • developing and enhancing its
operational capabilities, and
• incorporating ideas from daily
Operations
strategy operations.
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Top-down perspective Bottom-up perspective
What the business want What d-2-d experience
operations to do suggests operations should do
Operations
strategy
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Top-down perspective Bottom-up perspective
What the business want What d-2-d experience
operations to do suggests operations should do
Operations
strategy
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Developing an effective operations strategy
• Organizations assess operations strategy effectiveness based on customer value.
• quality,
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Competing on Cost
• Offering product at a low price relative to competition
• Typically high volume products
• Often limit product range & offer little customization
• May invest in automation to reduce unit costs
• Can use lower skill labor
• Probably uses product focused layouts
• Low cost does not mean low quality
Competing on Quality
• Quality is often subjective
• Quality is defined differently depending on who is defining it
• Two major quality dimensions include
• High performance design:
• Superior features, high durability, & excellent customer service
• Volume flexibility:
• Ability to ramp production up and down to match market demands
Trade-offs
• To achieve success, companies must prioritize their four
competitive priorities, allocate resources, and use the
"plant-within-a-plant" approach, allowing each plant to
focus on different priorities for different products.
• Productivity
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Example 1
Given
Labour hr. productivity = 800units
3 employees x 40 hrs./employees = 120 hrs
6.67 units/hr.
Example 2
• Determine the MFP for the combined input of labor and material
time using the following data:
Example 3
(70/chair x 35 chairs)/(480+200+250)
= (2450)/(930) or 2.63