Assignment Questions. Management Case Study Assignment.

Assignment Questions
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Assignment Questions
Q#1 Michael Porter’s strategies: cost leadership, differentiation, and focus
Operation management gains from the application of Michael Porter’s strategies of cost leadership, differentiation, and focus. The three approaches are applicable in both product and service industries and organizations with varying sizes. Porter’s generic strategies are aimed at gaining a competitive advantage over rivals.
As one of these approaches, cost leadership seeks to increase profit and reducing the cost of running a business while maintaining industry-average prices (Slack, Brandon-Jones, & Johnston, 2010). It also ensures that the market share is increased through reducing prices, but at the same time, making a profit per sale due to a reduced cost of business operation. In operation management, leadership is important in terms of cost in the market or industry. To achieve cost leadership, operation managers should ensure efficient logistics, invest in technology to drive down the costs, and maintain a low-cost base such as workforce, facilities, and materials. Since cost leadership strategy is not unique to one organization, the Kaizen philosophy of ensuring continuous improvement in products and services is a great tool of differentiation. Slack, Brandon-Jones, and Johnston (2010) assert that differentiation by providing high-quality products and services is achievable at no extra expense.
Strategic cost leadership will be achieved through differentiation as Porter conceptualizes. Differentiation is when a firm produces goods and services that are different and attractive than those of their rivals. As noted earlier, improving quality does not necessarily involve an increase in the cost of production (Slack, Brandon-Jones, & Johnston, 2010). Operation management requires the use of Kaizen philosophy to continuously improve quality by conducting effective research and development (R&D) and innovation and deliver exceptional quality goods and services. An operation manager should adopt lean production where continuous inspection of processes is done to improve quality. According to Tseng (2016) lean principle aims to reduce waste and develop faster, dependable, and quality processes at reduced costs.
The last generic approach is a focus where companies concentrate on a specific market niche, and by doing so, they master the dynamics of a given market and serve unique customer needs. Since these firms can offer unique products at low cost, they ultimately build a robust brand making their market segment less competitive (Slack, Brandon-Jones, & Johnston, 2010). Through the focus strategy, firms can control the costs of quality such as failure to customers, internal failure, prevention, and monitoring costs which make their clients more attracted to their products and services.
Q#2 Merits of the quality management approaches and product characteristicsCompanies A and B have differing quality management philosophies with company A specializing in the production of gadgets X believing that quality should not be inspected into a product but rather built into it. Contrary, company B that produces gadgets Y maintains that before building quality into a product, it is critical to inspect quality first. Both philosophies are aimed at improving the quality of products and services to increase customer satisfaction but follow different processes or routes. Slack, Brandon-Jones, and Johnston (2010) define quality inspection as a process of checking, measuring, and testing products to ensure compliance. However, this is not the responsibility of production workers but specialized personnel. Quality control, an aspect of inspection in quality management seeks to ensure improved product quality.
Company A believes that the ability of products to pass any inspection does not necessarily mean that they are of high quality. Therefore, in gadgets X are built with quality rather than inspected later for quality. This approach seeks to prevent defects before products are built as it is less costly to assure quality before production than having faulty products that will not pass quality tests. The second approach of inspecting quality before building it into a product serves a long-term purpose. Unlike the first philosophy, company B applies long-term quality techniques such as building gadgets Y to become robust and achieve incredible quality regardless of fluctuations in production, training personnel and developing an environment of quality control in the future. Although both philosophies apply to quality control, company A focuses on short-term approaches such as assuring quality consistency by fine-tuning the production equipment.
Company A’s approach is suited for short-term products and fast-moving consumer goods. However, if a product is to be used for the long-term, then it is necessary to inspect quality before building it in. For instance, the manufacture of military equipment undergoes rigorous testing processes and specific firms with long-term experience in the production of such equipment win the tender of supplying them. The tender-winning companies have invested in thinking about quality inspection before production.
Q#3 Steps operation manager should take for the successful transition of ABC
The acquisition of ABC by a multinational implies several changes in its operations. These changes include a shift from a 4-day standard week on a 2 X 10-hour shift arrangement to a 24-hour, 7 days per week operations to increase its output....