Process Strategy - Research Paper Example

Process Strategy Which process design strategy does each use? Comparing the nature of business undertaken by Andorsia and Hershey, it is clear that Andorsia uses the process focus design strategy for its manufacturing. This is because, just as with process focus strategy where facilities are well organized around a specific process (Lodrige-Kover, 2006), Andorsia operates its manufacturing by organizing its facilities around the production of batiks. What is more, in process focus strategy, general purpose equipment is used, just as in the case of Andorsia.

At Andorsia, there is a strict organization of equipment with a wax room, dye room, cutting room, and sewing room, each having its own set of equipment for undertaking production. On the part of Hershey, its design strategy follows the product focus strategy. This is because the product focus has a particular product in focus, which in this case is the chocolate, produced by the company. More importantly, product focus conforms to high volume but low variety of product (Park, 2009), which is the exact case of Hershey.

Why would the two processes be configured differently? In the two processes used by the two companies, it cannot possibly be that the two processes will be configured in exactly the same way. This is because the process focus and product focus are alternating design strategies and do not cross in vision in any way. For example while the process focus will be paying so much attention to adherence to process monitoring so as to achieve high degree of product flexibility, product focus design strategy deals with long, continuous production, which runs to enable efficient processes.

Consequently, process focus seeks to achieve product flexibility while product focus seeks to achieve efficient processes. Using the same configuration would therefore lead to a system failure whereby it will not be possible to achieve the endorsed strategies for the two processes. What is more, for the processes to use the same configurations, it would mean that the same cost type would have to be considered. Meanwhile, product focus works with a high fixed cost with low variable cost when process focus does not (Jones and Lockwood, 2004).

What process management issues in one facility not be a problem in the other? Comparing the design strategies used by the two companies, it can be said that in the case of Andorsia, which uses a process focus design strategy, employee turnover in the course of production would not pose as much problem to process management as it would to Hershey, which uses a product focus design strategy. The reason for this argument is that, in a process focus design strategy, it is only general purpose equipment that is used.

What this means to process management is that it is easier to swap equipment operators from one equipment to the other because he equipment are often generalized (Krippendorff, 2004). But in the case of product focus design strategies, only special purpose equipment is used. In such as situation, what happens is that process managers always require the services of highly skilled labor to operate this equipment. Therefore if these operators leave in the middle of production, the whole manufacturing process becomes affected.

What competitive priorities are important for each? The competitive priorities that would be important for these two companies will be judged from the kind of products they manufacture. This is because competitive priority is directly related to the creation of competitive advantage, which also has so much to do with the kind of products that competitors are producing and how to gained advantages of these competitors though they produce the same kind of products. Having said this, it would be said that Andorsia would need a focus strategy, which often pays attention to fewer targeted market segments (Kasim, 2009).

The reason why this would be perfect for Andorsia is that the batiks that they produce have specified designated market segments where it has better sales. Examples of such markets are culturally indigenous markets such as Africa and Asia. It would therefore better that it looks at focus strategy to identify such as designated market for operation. On the part of Hershey, the differentiation strategy is the most prescribed. The reason for this prescription is that with the differentiation strategy, products that are created are expected to be unique and different among what other competitors produce.

Noting that the chocolate market is a very competitive one and that the choice of selection of chocolate by consumers is often judged by the quality in taste of the chocolate, it would be very important that the company adapts the differentiation strategy to help it focus on creating unique brands of chocolate to win competitive advantage. How does the way they configure facilities allow them to be competitive? The way these two companies configure their facilities would help them to be competitive in the sense that each of them have a different need of facility configuration to ensure success in production.

In the case of the product focus design strategy where special purpose facilities are needed, configuration of facility ought to be done in such a way that it guarantees high volume and high quality. Such virtues would be the only way to rise above competitive and does cause the company to be competitive. On the part of Andorsia, which uses the process focus design strategy, configuration of facility would have to be made in such a way that it can guarantee and assure the production of variety of products.

This is because on the clothing market, next to quality, variety is the most concerned factor in the choice of customer preference (Jones and Lockwood, 2004 ). REFERENCE LIST Jones, P & Lockwood, A (2004). The Management of Hotel Operations: An Innovative Approach to the Study of Hotel Management. Thomson Learning: London Krippendorff, K. (2004). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology 2nd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kasim, A (2009). Managerial attitudes towards environmental management among small and medium hotels in Kuala Lumpur.

Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 17(6):709-725 Lodrige-Kover, D (2006). Launching a strategic account management program at Hilton Hotels Corp. Velocity. Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 27-30 Park, J (2009). The Relationship Between Top Managers’ Environmental Attitudes and Environmental Management in Hotel Companies. Masteral thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.