Operations Management

Operations Management
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Operations Management
Introduction
The production strategies focus on transforming resources, which include the raw materials, labor, energy and machines into products and services. There are four renowned production strategies such as process focus, repetitive focus, product focus and mass customization. In process focus, an organization organizes its production process in an approach to realize low-volume and high-variety production. Repetitive focus entails the organization of a production facility around modules, and the modules comprise parts of the product, which an organization had initially prepared. On the other hand, when using the product focus strategy, an organization aligns its production processes around products in an effort to facilitate high-variety and low-variety production. In the same context, organizations use the mass-customization strategy to meet the dynamic nature of customer needs. Through the strategy, companies often utilize build-to-order systems, which work well in producing actual customer orders (Vallabhaneni, 2009).
American Organizations
Starbucks
Product Focus
As part of their business activities, Starbucks Corporation has focused on ways of improving its product portfolio. While coffee is the core product of the company, there has been the introduction of new products, for example, Tazo Tea. The strategy is also evident in the adoption of promotional strategies, which focused on the product, for example, the active participation on Web 2.0 applications (Cooke, 2010).
Process Focus
The strategy is evident, mainly in the supply chain of the company. Before the reorganization of the company’s supply chain activities, the company often incurred operational costs. After focusing on the supply-chain activities, the company managed to simplify the activities, and later realized cuts on the cost. For example, the manufacturing department developed an efficient approach, which was cost-effective to deliver coffee beans to the processing plants.
Repetitive Focus
Although Starbucks is not a fast food company, the company has consistently produced similar products over time. Therefore, the strategy has been useful as it has helped in identifying ways of reducing costs, reducing inefficiencies and improving quality. Nonetheless, the company is slowly doing away with the strategy due to the development of new products (Green, 2012).
Mass Customization
It is arguable, whether Starbuck’s products are modified to serve particular customers; however, it is important to note that, Starbucks holds a significant US market share. As such, and considering the price of the company’s products the company targets men and women aged 25-40 who have high income and are in professional careers (Cooke, 2010).
Microsoft
Product Focus
Microsoft Corporation recognizes the importance of research and product development, and this is why the company has a variety of products. As such, the company has been successful in developing new products through promotion, or integrating them into their existing products, and an example is the Windows Operating System. In addition, the company has not only developed new software, but also developed smart phones, such as Windows Phone (Ballmer, 2013).
Process Focus
The competition in the technology firms is stiff and to survive the competition, Microsoft Corporation, through its CEO, has reshaped the core strategy of the company, and focused on the processes, such as engineering the company’s processes and the various product teams. As such, the company has focused on processes such as customer-oriented, data driven and quality-focused, which was an effort to do away with processes that did not yield much (Fill, 2002).
Repetitive Focus
The company invests significantly in the production or development of new products, in terms of software. Importantly, the company is renowned for the development of the Windows Operating System, which it has repeatedly developed. In the process, the company has managed to identify areas of improvement, and developed software, which has few or no errors. In addition, the same has resulted to the initiation of upgrading options in the software, including other lines of software, such as Windows 8, Windows 7 and many others.
Mass Customization
In the wake of technology across the world, the globe is continuously consuming products from Microsoft. Considering the strong brand and loyalty the company enjoys in the US and the globe, the company develops software products, which suit a variety of market needs. In the same context, the company has targeted a young audience, characterized or rather described as technology or well informed, through the development of a smart windows phone (Ballmer, 2013).
General Motors
Product Focus
Being a car manufacturing company makes it clear that, the company greatly employs the product-focus strategy. In addition, because the company has managed to develop a variety of car models, since its inception, supports the notion. Similarly, the company has shown interest in other car mo...