Operations Management

Assignment 1

Date: 25th November, 2020

Submitted by

Q1) Describe Retail Operations management. Why did Kishore Biyani left retail business?
A1) Retail is the process where good and services are sold to consumers through different channels
e.g. Stores and the entire operational tasks which are necessary keep these channels running efficiently
and effectively. In retail business, Customer shopping experience is important and operations
management ensures customer satisfaction level from customer’s entry to exit. Retail business
operations include all the procedures to be performed to run the stores smoothly. It involves
preparations for enhancing the customer’s shopping experience beforehand. The shopping experience of
a customer is planned before the customer enters, shops, and leaves the store with a smile or with agony by
carrying a perception about the store. This experience drives the customer’s decision of visiting the store in
future. It involves : a)Sourcing b)Storing c)Manage stocks d)Staffing e)Serving

Kishore Biyani left the retail business because:

a) Due to covid pandemic the demand fell down as well as malls and big stores were shut down, so there
flow of cash stopped.
b) The Future Group was under a lot of debt and was under a lot of difficulty to pay. And the pandemic
made it worse for them and they were under a lot of debt i.e., INR 7000 Cr.
c) Many people started pulling out from the company as the company had huge loan on them.

Q2. What do understand by Operations Strategy? What is the importance of Business Collaboration in
strategy? Why did Vodafone and Idea merge to become VI?

A2) Operation strategy is a process by which key operation decisions are made that are consistent
with the overall objective of the firm. All the key decisions such as the location, types and numbers of
the capacities to be laid, the segment of the customers to be targeted, the products to be made, the
strategy to be opted to meet the needs of the selected customer segment, the types of transportations
and the routes to be followed, collaboration with firms and acquiring other business, competitive
strategy and order wining and order qualifier attributes. Operations strategy plays a pivotal role as all
the succeeding strategies and operations depends on it and accordingly further plans are being made
keeping the constraints that has been defined by the chosen operations strategy.

Importance of business collaboration: Collaborate with other business to solve problem. This can be
done when different people use their knowledge and skills and expertise which leads to the potential
solutions to the projects which were stopped and will start on a faster pace. The successful partnership leads
organizations to work on each other’s strength and increase the revenue of both the organizations quickly
and effectively. Mostly profit is maintained by partnering with each other which will lead to rapid growth
and meet market demand. The firms can be successful by following certain strategies such as
communication. Communication is important for working in collaboration and making sure that everyone
understands the objectives and goals of the organization.

Merge between Vodafone and Idea: Before introduction of JIO the scenarios were different. All telecom
companies enjoyed a hefty profit as there was no big player. But after the introduction of JIO it all changed.
As the people now had a better option to choose. JIO was favorable as they provided free voice calls, net
packs, high speed net and many other features at low cost. This led to the loss of other telecom companies.
This all led to the merger of Vodafone and Idea, which led to the formation of VI. This was done to give a
tough competition to JIO and again gain their customer base.

Q3) Describe the disruption due to COVID 19 in Operations and Supply Chain Management. How stimulus
package announced by our FM Sitaraman will help in overcoming the present decline in economy?
A3) Covid-19 has created ruckus in every part of the world. Due to this virus, so many people lost their
livelihoods, some businesses closed their shutters, some businesses realigned their strategies, and few start-
ups took birth. China is called “World’s factory”, any disruptions in China, will severely impact the supply
chain of the world. Since the spread of Covid-19 started in China, factories have shut down which in turn
has impacted the Supply chain. Many companies are very much reliant on China, they produce, distribute, or
source from there. This impacted heavily and they had to look for an alternative. Cash flow got hampered,
since many companies operate or have a very good relationships with China or other impacted countries
such as India etc.
Affect:
1. Travel restrictions have severely impacted Tourism, Aviation & Hospitality sectors
2. Disruption caused due to supply chain breakdown in USA, UK, and France etc.
3. Closing of Theatres and Shopping complexes has affected retail sector
4. Drop in consumption due to job losses.
5. An impact on import of essential raw materials has been observed. Also, due to slowdown in major
economies of the world, the India’s exports to many countries has been affected.
6. Financial markets have become extremely volatile due to uncertainty of future and repercussions of
Covid-19, leading to huge money loss which is affecting the consumption ratio
7. Further loss of money is on the cards for future as well due to volatile condition of equity markets
unlikely to change.
Q4. What is location strategy? What are the advantages of locating manufacturing facility within country? What
action should Indian Government take to bring investment in India to overtake from China as “Manufacturing Hub
of the World “?

A location strategy refers to finding a best suited location after understanding the needs and the objectives it
seeks to accomplish. The location shall be compatible with these goals of the organization. The organization
looks for such a location with contributes towards maximizing the opportunities along with reducing the
costs and the risks.
Example- If a company wants to lead the telecommunications equipment market on a global level, then it
should choose location for its establishments which are optimal with respect to providing service to
customers globally and also conforms with organization’s business strategies.
The various factors which can be considered while making location strategies can be monetary, risks
involved, qualitative factors etc.
Diminished transportation costs ,Unfamiliar exchange zones — greater adaptability, less cost, improved
consistence ,More effective creation lines ,More market adaptability ,Security of your property rights ,Quality control
and item marking ,Item wellbeing ,Concede or diminish costs ,Improved correspondence ,Investment funds from
decreased blunders, diminished breakage and dealing with item returns.

Indeed, even before the flare-up of the Covid, a few enterprises have been moving out of China and hoping to set up
assembling plants somewhere else. Industry specialists anticipated that the Samsung processing plant set up in
Noida will do what Maruti did to the Indian vehicle industry during the 1990s. During the 90s, when Maruti teamed
up with Suzuki, the vehicle producing industry saw a gigantic change. It's normal that this new arrangement by
Samsung will make a comparable upward direction for hardware producing.While a few components are working in
support of ourselves, the Indian government, alongside the private area, needs to work in helping us become the
following assembling superpower. Motivations for organizations hoping to set up assembling plants in India will
likewise help. The following stage is to zero in our endeavors on expanding the size of assembling in India. To do
these, we need a powerful assembling strategy that offers different impetuses for assembling firms. The simplicity of
working together is another pivotal factor that will assume an enormous part in making India another assembling
center.

Another territory where we have to improve is implementing contracts. Right now, India positions 164 among 190
nations on upholding contracts. To give a correlation, it takes almost four years to determine a question in India.
Interestingly, in Singapore, issues are settled inside a half year. In the event that we are to make the best out of this
progressing emergency and arise as another assembling center point for China, we have to zero in on these zones.
Furthermore, by quickening development, driving cost-intensity, we can draw in worldwide assembling firms.

At Alok Instruments, one of the main producer and exporter of devices in India, we are prepared to address this
difficulty. Our items are made to worldwide norms, and we trade our devices to a few nations over the globe.

Q5) Differentiate between Lean, TOC, Agile and JIT. How to use these tools to bring
Operations of the Business on track which had been disrupted due to lockdown

JIT- Just In Time Lean Agile TOC

With respect to With respect to Theory of constraints
manufacturing, JIT manufacturing, lean uses It serves the need for a focuses on reducing
concentrates on JIT’s efficiency as one of system to continuously the throughput time by
improvement of Efficiency many steps involved in its adapt to dynamic and exploiting the
implementation to add value constantly unpredictable bottlenecks or
With respect to inventory, to customer. environment. constraints to their
JIT is a strategy applied to maximum level as
reduce cost of inventory by Carries out work to reduce thereby improving
ordering materials as and wastage (cost cutting) to It is applied within a team efficiency.
when required and used up such an extent so that final which comprises of no
in production. product comes out to be more than a dozen people. It is majorly used in
produced as maximally medium sized
With respect to lean, JIT is efficient manufacturing
one of the parts of the lean It concentrates on industries which have
method which helps in Lean is an ideal system responding and changing strong grip on their
successful lean having applicability across according to market supply chain
implementation by reducing various processes viz demands
or removing waste arising production, marketing,
from excessive inventory. distribution, etc.

Lean can be used to build a

JIT process

Lean uses pull and flow to

find & eliminate problems
 
When compared only with
Agile,

Agile is concerned with

Lean is concerned with maximization &
maximization & enhancement of
enhancement of production development process as it
process as it took birth in took birth in an innovative
industrial sector and software development
environment.

Q6. How does a product’s profile change over its life cycle? How can a manufacturer adopt suitable
process technologies to adapt to the changes? Discuss with respect to a specific industry.

“A product life cycle is the set of commonly identified phases in the life of all kinds of products be it
tangible or intangible. The various phases that these kinds of products go through can be defined as
1. Product Development
2. Introduction of the idea
 3. Growth stage
4. Maturity stage
5. Decline over a specific period of time

All of these stages have a major factor of time to be taken into consideration for the purpose of
assessing as to which stage does the product really belongs and thereby providing us the basis
to take decisions such as forecasting and launching of our products into small iterations but
carrying out continuous innovations throughout the stages to obtain best results in-order to
succeed. A typical product portfolio includes writing product description and describing all the
aspects of our products that are essentially to be evaluated before the launch of any product
the processes are such as defining a target audience, defining a benchmark and carrying out
extensive research about the competitors and other factors such as type of market the product
lies in and complete market analysis, etc.
Now, aligning the design of a product’s profile with the changes in these stages stated can be
explained as, when the product’s life cycle moves from development stage to the decline stage
the determination of tactical moves and critical choices can be made more effective as the cycle
grows towards maturity side. The competitive advantage increases with the changing life cycle
as more rational choices come into the picture as we move up the ladder.
For a manufacturer willing to adapt to the changing market dynamics the will be certain
setbacks and mistakes at first which will be frequently encountered during the implementation
process but when there are some events that unintentionally trigger the need for innovation
there is a technology push throughout the process cycle which lead to the decision of adapting
to a certain change in process with the advancements in technology.”
If we consider Automobile industry, the manufacturers in this sector are using technology to
knock the perennial challenges such as zero stock outs at retailers’ side and designing a network
to push the goods from the pipeline. When a product is launched it is in the introduction stage,
the demand is uncertain and the supply is so uncertain because of the unstable process and
faults in design. The next stage is the growth stage and in this stage the automobile sales is
quite stable and the brand is well known, so there is constant growth in the value of product.
Constant changes are made to maintain its competitiveness. After sometime the brand product
makes its place in market and the sales become constant. The organization focus more on its
cost and gain cost efficiency, the demand becomes stable and less chances of modifications are
considered. Innovation is a key to success and with new car getting introduced with new
features and attributes then the value of the previous cars decreases, its sales and demand
decreases and therefore the product comes into its decline phase ,here the demand is less for
the car and the company prefers to invest less in this phase.

Q7. What are the ways in which a product or service development effort goes wrong leading to
a failure at various stages in the development life cycle? Discuss with respect to a specific
product or service.
Ans- Any product has to go through five stages of development cycle.
 1. Plan
2. Develop
3. Evaluate
4. Launch
5. Assess
6. Iterate and kill”

The product development life cycle is the series of all the must needed activities carried out by
a company to develop, manufacture, and sell a product. These activities contain marketing,
research, engineering design, quality assurance, manufacturing, and a whole chain of suppliers
and vendors. The process also encompasses all strategic planning, capital investments,
management decisions, and tasks essential to create a new product.

• Failure to identify or understand the needs

• Establishing wrong product specifications

• Improper conceptual design

• Wrong cost estimation

• Prototype failures

• Marketing failures

• Poor timing

• Spare parts unavailability and unsatisfactory after-sale service

• Product imitation

“Contextual investigation of Tata nano in car area and motivation behind why it fizzled in its
different life cycle stages

 PRODUCTION DELAY CAUSED DELAYED LAUNCH INTO MARKET

The early promotion expanded early interest. On the other, enormous beginning
interest required the organization to manufacture the vehicle at scale from the start,
which demonstrated freely hazardous when the organization ran into issues buying
land for another production line in West Bengal.
  WRONG LOCATION STRATEGY

Singur is a little town in rustic West Bengal. The land here is incredibly ripe and the
jobs of several ranchers and their families rely on the farming creation from the fields.
Policy driven issues banned the creations. Goodbye Motors at that point moved the
creation of the Tata Nano from Singur to Sanand in Gujarat

 DECEPTIVE PRICE IN MARKET

Notwithstanding, the subsequent postponements and expenses related with it

tremendously affected the end result. Goodbye Nano was at last delivered very nearly
two years behind its unique delivery date. However, not just that, the eventual
outcome was evaluated at Rs. 2.59 lakhs and not at Rs. 1 lakh that was guaranteed.
The last cost was more than twofold the first.

 FAULT IN MARKETING STRATEGY

Prior to dispatching another item, it is essential to comprehend the intended interest

group of that item. One requirement to comprehend their brain research, their needs
and wants. The advertising technique depends on causing the item to appear to be
alluring to that crowd. The item gets fruitful if the organization can create a feeling of
aching towards that item so that individuals get it when it is dispatched.”

 SAFETY CONCERN
“Goodbye Motors expected the Nano to score profoundly in the Euro New Car
Assessment Program (NCAP) crash test. Nonetheless, when it was tried by a German
vehicle club in 2014, it flopped wretchedly. True to form, it was uncovered that the Tata
Nano's low market cost came at the expense of a few significant security highlights. The
Nano didn't have any airbags. Further, on the grounds that the vehicle was so
lightweight and accompanied thin tires, it needed steadiness which was basic on Indian
streets. Further, reports fired coming up of Tata Nanos bursting into flames for puzzling
reasons. A few clients griped that the Nano burst into flames in the street for no genuine
explanation. This sharp consideration towards broken creation and imperfections in the
plan of the Nano. Goodbye Motors guaranteed that the purpose behind the fire was
identified with the unfamiliar electrical gear utilized in the fumes.”