Table of Contents

Table of Contents.............................................................................................................................1 Highstone Electronics Inc................................................................................................................2 Importance of effective operations management in achieving organizational objectives...........2 Evaluation of the success of existing operations management processes in meeting an organizations overall strategic management objectives.............................................................4 Gold Coast Advertising....................................................................................................................6 Explain the importance of effective quality management in achieving organizational objectives ......................................................................................................................................................6 Plan a Strategic Quality change to improve organization performance......................................7 Define resources, tools and systems to support business processes in a strategic quality change ......................................................................................................................................................8 Evaluate the wider implications of planned strategic quality change in an organization............9 Implement a Strategic Quality Change at GCA.........................................................................10 Embed a quality culture in an organization to ensure continuous monitoring and development ....................................................................................................................................................11 Outcomes of Strategic Quality Change......................................................................................12 Recommend areas for improvement to a strategic quality change that align with organizational objectives...................................................................................................................................12 References .....................................................................................................................................14

Highstone Electronics Inc.

Importance of effective operations management in achieving organizational objectives
Operations management forms the heart of the organization as it controls the system of operations. According to Lowson (2002) operations management is concerned with the design, operation and improvement of the internal and external systems, resources and technologies that create and deliver the firms primary product and service combinations. The activities included within operations management are purchasing, distribution, product and process design and other external activities such as management of supply network. Operations management involves managing equipment, information, people, technology and other such resources of an organization. The main role of operations management is to orchestrate all the resources required to produce the final product. The responsibilities include designing the product, managing resources and deciding what resources are required, arranging schedules, equipment and facilities. Moreover, it includes management of inventory, controlling quality and designing the tasks required to produce the final product. To sum up, operations management is responsible for all aspects of the process of transforming inputs into outputs (Hillier, 2004). Operations management is critical to any organization as efficient operations management can lead a company to success whereas inefficient management could lead one to failure.

In order for operations management to be successful, the process must be able to add value during the transformation process of inputs to outputs. The term value added is defined as the difference between the final value of the product and the values of all the inputs. The higher the value added for a product the more productive and successful a business is said to be. Activities that fail to add value to organizations products are considered to be a waste. Operations management includes recognizing these wasteful activities and culling them in order to save costs. In addition to, adding value organizational processes must also be efficient. Efficiency means performing operations well and at the lowest possible cost. Operations management must analyze all activities improving efficiency and eliminating ones that dont add value. Efficiency can be improved by restricting processes, tasks and jobs in order to achieve the objectives with lower costs. Todays business environment is more competitive than ever, and the role of operations management has become the focal point ofefforts to increase competitiveness by improving value added and efficiency. Highstone Electronics Inc. (HEL) makes effective use of its operations management by successfully managing its products. Product management includes a wide variety of management activities, for HEL this includes effectively managing its product line and inventory in order to process orders in the most efficient manner. The organization initially sold products through catalogues and maintained an inventory, processing orders within 48 hours. The organization is now planning on moving its operations online as well and has widened its product line. An increasing product line for the organization means that the organization will be catering to wider variety of customers. Moreover, online operations would mean that the organization would be serving customers world over. The internet provides business with viable opportunities to expand allowing flexibility and a wide market. However, delivering to that market within the promised

time requires the organization to manage its operations effectively. Ensuring that orders are delivered to the consumers within the promised time is the job of operations management and this task is much more complicated than just catering to a local clientele.

Evaluation of the success of existing operations management processes in meeting an organizations overall strategic management objectives.
Strategic Management is concerned with answering questions relating to the long term direction of the organization, the markets and scope, the environment, resources, stakeholders and which strategy to adopt to obtain competitive advantage. Strategic management includes thinking and implementing strategies (Finlay, 2000). According to Thomson and Martin (2010) strategic management includes designing, implementing and executing an organizations strategy. The process of strategic management includes the following stages: The Development of a Vision and Mission. The Setting of Goals and Objectives. The Crafting Of Strategies. The Implementation and Execution of Planned Strategies. The Evaluation of Implemented Strategies.

Operations management assist in meeting the objectives of strategic management by assisting with executing the strategies set out. Operations management, in transforming inputs to outputs,

carry out strategies and ensure that through effective management of resources the objectives of the strategies set out by the strategic management unit of the organization are met (Daft, 2003) Strategic management sets the overall long term direction of the company and operational management focuses on the short term goals, achievement of which will help achieve the long term goals of the organization. The survival of an organization is directly linked with its strategic management process as it involves managing critical success factors of the organization. It identifies the factors that are directly linked to the survival of an organization. Operational management is concerned with managing these factors and optimizing them so that they are efficient, add value and are cost effective. Operational management drives the strategies formulated by the strategic management of the organization. It literally puts into action the organizational tools and resources in order to implement and achieve the long term strategies of the organization. In doing so, operational management ensures that it is done in an effective, efficient and timely manner.

Gold Coast Advertising

Explain the importance of effective quality management in achieving organizational objectives
Quality management is defined as a process to provide products and services that either meet or exceed the expectation of an organizations customer. An organization can achieve this through systematically planning and improving the quality standards of its products and introducing quality improvements. (Tilo, 2002) Quality Control is the ongoing effort to maintain the integrity of a process to maintain the reliability of achieving an outcome. It is an important element of operations management within organization. It is a crucial aspect of effective operations management. It involves continuously improving the processes and products of an organization in order to match the taste and preferences of its consumers. Recent advancements within quality management, such as outsourcing, business process re-engineering and total quality management assist an organization improve its operations management which in turn, assists an organization in achieving its objectives. Quality management ensures that all processes of an organization work together in order to provide a product or service of the utmost quality, this helps improve customer satisfaction and consistently increases the quality of work of all organizational employees.

Quality management can assist an organization in achieving its objectives by increasing the production of processes, decreasing the risk of client commitments not being met and by providing a foundation which allows an organization to improve upon its internal processes. Implementation of a quality management system can assist an organization by helping measure the performance of the organization and assisting in taking action where improvements are required. It ensures that all the processes and the final product which is delivered to the client meet a certain standard and thus achieves customer satisfaction. Moreover, effective quality management can help identify non-conformances and provide corrective action to rectify those and also introduce preventive measures to ensure that non-conformances do not happen again. An important aspect of quality management systems is monitoring and measuring. This assists an organization is measuring its performance against customer requirements and company objectives. The organization can then identify its weaknesses and also evaluate options for improvements in order to steer the organization in the direction of its goals by not only efficiently managing its resources but also by ensuring that customer expectations are met.

Plan a Strategic Quality change to improve organization performance

Implementation of quality management reshapes the entire business practice. Quality management systems such as Totally Quality Management (TQM) help organizations achieve few of the common strategic goals such as continuous improvement in quality of goods and services, responsiveness and flexibility of internal and supplier processes, and waste and cost elimination. TQM helps link daily activities with the strategic objectives of an organization.

Implementation of quality management systems assist an organization in meeting its overall strategic objectives by a Administering a proper analysis of the business strategy, incorporating strategic analysis in the Business Excellence Model and employing means of quality management. TQM provides a shift in management philosophy for improving overall organizational effectiveness. The focus is laid upon all members of the organization in order to continuously improve the processes of the organization and increase value to customers. Implementation of such a quality management system provides the organization with an environment of support which has a synergic effect on the company as a whole and helps in improving the organizational performance. Within a context of ever increasing competition among rms, implementation of TQM will provide managers with the means of sustaining a competitive advantage within their industry.

Define resources, tools and systems to support business processes in a strategic quality change
Business Process Reengineering involves the radical redesign of core business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in productivity, cycle times and quality. In Business Process Reengineering, companies start with a blank sheet of paper and rethink existing processes to deliver more value to the customer. They typically adopt a new value system that places increased emphasis on customer needs. Companies reduce organizational layers and eliminate unproductive activities in two key areas. First, they redesign functional organizations into crossfunctional teams. Second, they use technology to improve data dissemination and decision making.

Business Process Reengineering is a dramatic change initiative that contains five major steps. Managers should: Refocus company values on customer needs; Redesign core processes, often using information technology to enable improvements; Reorganize a business into cross-functional teams with end-to-end responsibility for a process; Rethink basic organizational and people issues; Improve business processes across the organization.

Companies use Business Process Reengineering to improve performance substantially on key processes that impact customers. Business Process Reengineering can:
Reduce

costs and cycle time. Business Process Reengineering reduces costs and cycle times by eliminating unproductive activities and the employees who perform them. Reorganization by teams decreases the need for management layers, accelerates information flows, and eliminates the errors and rework caused by multiple handoffs; Improve quality. Business Process Reengineering improves quality by reducing the fragmentation of work and establishing clear ownership of processes. Workers gain responsibility for their output and can measure their performance based on prompt feedback.

Evaluate the wider implications of planned strategic quality change in an organization

Any change has implications for an organization across the spectrum of the value chain. The adjustments that will result from a strategic plan need to be considered systemically. The possible impact throughout the organization requires consideration. The changes must be planned for, made, and monitored. The idea is to minimize surprises and increase the proactive handling of intended changes.

A planned strategic quality change could affect the strategic goals of the organization. The introduction of strategic quality change could impact the entire vision of the organization and thus every aspect of the organizations process. Changes could also affect the personnel and managers within the organization. Change can create confusion throughout the organization. Change alters the clarity and stability of roles and relationships, often creating chaos. This requires realigning and renegotiating formal patterns of relationships and policies. By definition, change creates loss and therefore generates interpersonal conflict. Change can create loss of meaning and purpose. People form attachments to symbols and in symbolic activity. When the attachments are severed, people experience difficulty in letting go of old attachments. Avoiding or smoothing over these issues drives conflict underground, where it can fester and boil over. The psychological wounds that come with change require the creation of arenas where issues can be dealt with that may require symbolic healing.

Implement a Strategic Quality Change at GCA

The strategic quality change implemented at GCA will be the introduction of benchmarking. Benchmarking is the process of identifying "best practice" in relation to both products and the processes by which those products are created and delivered. The search for "best practice" can take place both inside a particular industry, and also in other industries. The objective of benchmarking is to understand and evaluate the current position of a business or organisation in relation to "best practice" and to identify areas and means of performance improvement. Benchmarking involves looking outward to examine how others achieve their performance levels and to understand the processes they use. In this way benchmarking helps explain the processes

behind excellent performance. When the lessons learnt from a benchmarking exercise are applied appropriately, they facilitate improved performance in critical functions within an organisation or in key areas of the business environment. Application of benchmarking involves four key steps: (1) Understand in detail existing business processes (2) Analyse the business processes of others (3) Compare own business performance with that of others analysed (4) Implement the steps necessary to close the performance gap

Embed

quality

culture

in

an

organization

to

ensure

continuous monitoring and development

Continuous improvement culture helps organizations to develop committed employees, delighted customers and build value added products and services. Building a continuous improvement requires a quality culture. Culture is defined as the way we do things around here. The way employees actually behave, think and believe determines the culture. Culture is the personality of the organization. Culture is what employees do when no one is watching. It is a walk the talk. Consistent talking and actions matters much. Culture is the basic pattern of shared beliefs, behaviors, attitudes and assumptions acquired over time by members of an organization. Attitude shows the outlook and thoughts from which the work habits emerge. It reflects attitudes and practices related to quality systems application. Formal policies, procedures, behaviors and habits operate as the ground rules and guidelines.

Vision, mission, values, goals and strategy are the guiding principles of a corporation and culture culminates from them. Corporate culture is changing fast. Everyone is expected to move at much faster speed. Operational principles for the corporations are Slim, Speed and Simple. Corporate culture is people in action. Quality culture refers to the degree of awareness, commitment, collective attitude, and behavior of the organization with respect to quality.

Outcomes of Strategic Quality Change

Strategic quality change aligns the goals of the organization with the need to improve quality and customer satisfaction. The processes of the organization are re-defined to include efficiency and effectiveness at each step so as to ensure that quality is maintained throughout all the processes of the organization before the final product is produced. Strategic quality change assists in increasing efficiency within an organization and eliminating wasteful tasks. It helps an organization better manage its resources by implementing a system of quality control that ensures cost effectiveness and expects that each of its products meet or exceed customer requirements. Overall, this helps make an organization competitive and implementation of such a system will help sustain this competitive advantage as the organization satisfies the customer while efficiently managing its resources in order to eliminate tasks which either dont add value or are not cost effective.

Recommend areas for improvement to a strategic quality change that align with organizational objectives.
An organization can implement a balanced scorecard in order to ensure that areas requiring improvement are dealt with. The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management

system that aligns business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals. The balances scorecard provides a framework that not only provides performance measurements, but helps planners identify what should be done and measured. It enables executives to truly execute their strategies.

References

Lowson H. R, (2002). Strategic Operations Management: The New Competitive Advantage. 1st Edition. Routledge.

Hillier F., (2004). Introduction to Operations Research. 8th Edition. Mcgraw Finlay P., (2000). Strategic Management: An Introduction to Business and Corporate Strategy.. 1st Edition. London: Financial Times.

Thompson and Martin, (2010). Strategic Management. 6th Revised edition Edition. Cl Excl Vocatn

Daft, R L (2003) Management Sixth Edition. Ohio, USA: Thomson Learning - South Western (p) 313.

Tilo Pfeifer, (2002). Quality Management. Strategies, Methods, Techniques.1st Edition. Hanser Fachbuchverlag