OPERATION and PRODUCTION STRATEGY Operations strategy is concerned with setting broad policies and plans for using the resources of a firm to best support its long-term competitive strategy. The strategy involves a long-term process that must foster inevitable change. An operations strategy involves decisions that relate to the design of a process and the infrastructure needed to support the process.

Continue Process design includes the selection of appropriate technology, sizing the process over time, the role of inventory in the process, and locating the process. The infrastructure decisions involve the logic associated with the planning and control systems, quality assurance and control approaches, work payment structures, and the organization of the operations function.

Operations competitive dimensions Operations strategy can be viewed as part of a planning process that coordinates operational goals with those of the larger organization. Different customers are attracted by different attributes. The major competitive dimensions that form the competitive position of a company include the following:

CostMake it Cheap Within every industry, there is usually a segment of the market that buys solely on the basis of low cost To successfully compete in this niche, a firm must be the low-cost producer, but even doing this does not always guarantee profitability and success. Product sold strictly on the basis of cost are typically commodity: in other words, customers cannot distinguish the products of one firm from those of another.

Product quality and reliability – Make it good Quality can be divided into two categories: product quality and process quality. The level of quality in a products design will vary with the market segment at which it is aimed. Process quality is critical because it relates directly to the reliability of the product. The goal of process quality is to produce error-free products.

Delivery speed Make it Fast In some markets, a companys ability to deliver more quickly than its competitors may be critical. Take, for example, a company that offers a repair service for computer-networking equipment. A company that can offer on-site repair in only 1 or 2 hours has a significant advantage over a competing firm that guarantees service only within 24 hours.

Delivery Reliability – Deliver it When Promised This dimension relates to the ability of the firm to supply the product or service on or before a promised delivery due date. For an automobile manufacturer, it is very important that their supplier of tires provide the needed quantity and types for each days car production. If the tires needed for a particular car are not available, the whole assembly line may have to be shut down until they arrive.

Coping with changes in Demand – Change its Volume In many markets, a companys ability to respond to increases and decreases in demand is an important factor in its ability to compete. When demand is strong and increasing, costs are continuously reduced due to economies of scale, and investments in new technologies can be justified.

Flexibility and New Product Introduction Speed – Change It Flexibility, from a strategic perspective, refers to the ability of a company to offer a wide variety of products to its customers. An important element of this ability to offer different products is the time required for a company to develop a new product and to convert its processes to offer the new product.

Other Product-Specific Criteria – Support It The competitive dimensions just described are certainly the most common. However, often other dimensions relate to specific products or situations, such as: 1.Technical liaison and support. A supplier may be expected to provide technical assistance for product development, particularly during the early stages of design and manufacturing.

Continue 2. Meeting a launch date. A firm may be required to coordinate with other firms on a complex project. Coordinating work between firms and working simultaneously on a project will reduce the total time required to complete the project. 3. Supplier after-sale support. This involves the availability of replacement parts, the modification of older, existing products to new performance levels.

Continue 4. These typically include such factors as colors available, size, weight, location of the fabrication site, customization available, and product mix options.

The Notion of Trade-Offs The underlying logic is that an operation cannot excel simultaneously on all competitive dimensions. Consequently, management has to decide which parameters of performance are critical to the firms success, and then concentrate or focus the resources of the firm on these particular characteristics.

Continue For example, if a company wants to focus on speed of delivery, then it cannot be very flexible in terms of its ability to offer a wide range of products. Similarly, a low- cost strategy is not compatible with either speed of delivery or flexibility. High quality is also viewed as a trade-off to low cost.

Plant-within-a plant (PWP) For firms with large existing manufacturing facilities, Skinner suggests the creation of a plant-within-a plant (PWP) concept, in which different locations within the facility are allocated to different product lines, each with their own operations strategy. Under the PWP concept, even the workers are separated to minimize the confusion associated with shifting from one type of strategy to another.

Straddling Straddling occurs when a company seeks to match the benefits of a successful position while maintaining its existing position. It adds new features, services, or technologies onto the activities it already performs.

Order Winner and Qualifiers An order winner is a criterion that differentiates the products or services of one firm from another. Depending on the situation, the order-winning criterion may be the cost of the product (price), product quality and reliability, or any of the other dimensions. An order qualifier is a screening criterion that permits a firms products to even be considered as possible candidates for purchase.

A Framework for Operations Strategy in Production Operations strategy cannot be designed in a vacuum. It must be linked vertically to the customer and horizontally to other parts of the enterprise. Exhibit shows these linkages between customer needs, their performance priorities and requirements for manufacturing operations, and the operations and related enterprise resource capabilities to satisfy those needs.

8 A Framework for Manufacturing Strategy Customer Needs New and Current Products Performance Priorities and Requirements Quality, Dependability, Speed, Flexibility, and Price Operations & Supplier Capabilities TechnologyPeopleSystemsR&DCIMJITTQMDistribution Support Platforms Financial Management Human Resource ManagementInformation Management Enterprise Capabilities Strategic Vision

Continue The vision identifies the target market, the firms product line, and its core enterprise and operations capabilities. Core capabilities (or competencies) are the skills that differentiate the manufacturing from its competitors.

Developing a Manufacturing Strategy The main objective of manufacturing strategy development are (a) to translate required competitive dimensions (typically obtained from marketing) into specific performance requirements for operations, and (b) to make the necessary plans to ensure that operations (and enterprise) capabilities are sufficient to accomplish them. The steps for prioritizing these dimensions are:

Continue 1. Segment the market according to the product group. 2. Identify the product requirements, demand patterns, and profit margins of each group. 3. Determine the order winners and order qualifiers for each group. 4. Convert order winners into specific performance requirements.

Productivity Measurement Productivity is a common measure of how well a country, industry, or business unit is using its resources (or factors of production). Productivity is what we call a relative measure. In other words, to be meaningful, it needs to be compared with something else.

17 Productivity Partial measures – output/(single input) Multi-factor measures – output/(multiple inputs) Total measure – output/(total inputs) © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1998 Irwin/McGraw-Hill

Productivity If we are concerned with the ratio of output to a single input, we have a partial productivity measure. If we want to look at the ratio of output to a group of inputs (but not all outputs), we have a multifactor productivity measure. If we want to express the ratio of all outputs to all inputs, we have a total factor measure of productivity.