Operation Management: Process Design - Essay Example

Operation Management: Process Design By Element Unger, D., & Eppinger, S. . Improving Product Development Process Design. Journal of Engineering Design Vol.22 , 689-699. The Authors of this paper are renowned professors within the field of engineering and business management. The intended audience of this paper are the professionals and students within the field of product development. This paper has slight similarity to Hogget and Martin’s (2014) paper whereby it involves the investigation of experts working within an industrial setting involving decision-making as a tool. On the other hand, this paper is about managing flow of information and risks. The content of the paper is reliable. Reason being, it has been prepared with authors who are qualified professionals in matters involving process design. The unique thing about this paper is the fact that it involves the use of various cases studies and reviews of literature in drawing its conclusion about processes involving product development. Furthermore, it offers the appropriate way through which a company could use in reshaping their product development procedure. The authors work relates to the theme topic, in the sense that it talks about factors that contribute to the success of process design. The advantage of this paper is that it uses the findings from previous studies and literature reviews in formulating efficient solutions. In my opinion, the paper is reliable. Hodgett, R. E., Martin, E. B., & Montague, G. (2014). Handling Uncertain Decisions in whole Process Design. Production Planning and Control: The Managemnet of Operations , 1028-1038. The authors of this paper present the findings of two questionnaires. Whereby, they were investigating the requirements of two experts working within industries that use chemistry with regard to aspects dealing with decision-making sustainability tool. The results of their findings led to the proposition of a necessary methodology, whereby the outcome required the key decision makers to interpret the findings of their decisions with a certain level of uncertainty. The use of the chemical course assortment case study is used to effectively demonstrate and verify applications associated with the anticipated methodology. Although the paper talks about an interesting topic, it is mostly descriptive and has less to do with further options related to this field. On the other hand, the findings of this study are relevant and dependable. Reason being; they are in-line with the information through the questionnaires. The use of recent sources of information makes the study both accurate and appropriate. This paper is useful since it improves ones understanding on matters dealing with managing uncertain decisions related to the process of design. In addition, reading through it is easy. Furthermore, the findings of this paper could be of great benefit to other research in the related field. Sibalji, T. V., Majstorovic, V. D., & Miljkovic, Z. D. (2010). An Intelligent Approach to Robust Multi-response Process Design. International Journal of Production Research , 5079-5097. This paper is about an integrative, all-purpose and smart approach to matters dealing with multi-response process design, by use of Taguchi’s method, artificial intelligence procedure, and multivariate statistical technique. The anticipated model deems process design in form of a general case, whereby interdependency and analytical relationships within a process are unfamiliar. Consequently, this makes it relevant to different processes. Furthermore, it integrates customer demands to numerous product characteristics. Importantly, the execution of the proposed approach reflects on the study that thoroughly discusses the design related to the study. The findings of this study, clearly reveals the efficiency associated with the approach in relation to various related product quality distinctiveness. The text of this study is analytical in nature. The authors support their claims by conducting a study, which is in agreement with the initial proposition. Consequently, this makes the study relevant and accurate. Similarly, the use of recent sources of reference also makes the paper relevant. This source was useful in the following manner; it created more understanding of matters to do with process design with regard to robust multi-response approach. Due to this study being relevant, its findings will be of great benefit to other studies. Hilgart, M., Ritterband, L. M., Thorndike, F. P., & Kinzie, M. B. (2012). Using Instructional Design Process to Improve Design and Development of Internet Interventions. JMIR Vol 14 . The Authors of this paper are experienced experts within the field of design process. They both possess academic qualifications related to design process. The intended audience are the experts in the field associated internet developers. In addition, students in the sector of information technology are also the audience. This paper relates to Unger and Eppinger (2011) in the sense that both articles are about better product development by the use of process design. The text is reliable. Reason being, it is the work of experts within the given topic of the study. Consequently, this makes their work reliable. Evidently, the unique feature about this paper is that it involves instructional form of design process in improving the design and formulating of necessary internet interventions. The paper relates to the theme of operational management since it revolves around process design as a way of improving aspects to do with the internet. The strengths of this paper is that it reveals how process design could also be utilised win the internet sector to enable better services. From my point of view, this paper has clearly revealed how process design could be important in improving service delivery. Therefore, the paper is relevant and reliable. Wooley, R., Ruth, M., & Glassner, D. (2009). Process Design and Costing of Bioethanol Technology: A Tool for Determining the Status and Direction of Research and Development. Biotechnology Progress , 794-803. The author sof this paper are famous scholars in the fieldof Bio-Technology. According to their work, the intended audience are the plant engineers, governments and non-governmental organization who might have an interest in dealing with the energy industry. The authors work is different from all the above authors in the sense that it talks about process design and costing related to bioethanol technology. This source is reliable because it offers comprehensive information regarding bioethanol fuel that acts as a guide to engineers to learn more about process design within the energy sector. The authors work relates to concept of process design by taking advantage of the previously exisiting tools in biotechnology that will be of great benefit in improving performance and yield during the conservation course of action. The strength of this source is that it revolves around the matters to do with process design in relation to bioethanol technology. However, its limitation is that it has not process design concept has not been addressed in other industrial sectors. From a personal point of view, the source is not entirely relevant but could be of great value to future research related to the processes of design in the energy sector. Element 2 Background Maritime Transport came into existence in 1974. The company is classified under the transportation companies. Thereafter, Maritime Transport Services Limited bought it, which was at the time owners of the Thamesport. Maritime Transport was sold with the aim of drawing shipping lines to the newly established container port. Consequently, this brought about the rapid growth of the company. Presently, Maritime Transport is among the few successful transport corporations within the United Kingdom. In addition, it is recognized as the largest transport company that is privately owned in the United Kingdom. Maritime Transport provides a wide-range of transport and other related services. Their primary goal is to support their clients and their supply chain within the United Kingdom. There are various branches of Maritime Transport Company; some are located in Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Northampton and many more. Some of the services offered are container transport, railway services, warehousing and distribution, container services, and truck sales (Maritime Transport, 2014). Being a largest container transport corporation, they positioned strategically to meet almost all the traffic demands of their customers. The company is dedicated to providing rail-based and road transport. In addition, they provide container transportation services to the international shipping lines, logistics businesses and freight forwards. For this reason, they are considered as being critical role players in the global supply chain between seaports and the customers and manufacturing centres all over the United Kingdom (Maritime Transport, 2014). From the essential container warehouse services to multifaceted reefer repairs and container switching, they offer various container-linked services. The container section is equipped with a team of skilled experts purposely deliver (Maritime Transport: Services, 2014). Furthermore, they offer their services for a period of six days per week. Importantly, since they highly value their customers they are ready to work for extra hours on request of the client. Within their container, services there are other range of services that include the storage and lifting, refer services, and export preparation (Maritime Transport, 2014). The railway service offers an efficient mode transport that is cheap not vulnerable to changes in weather conditions. The Maritime Transport Company plays the role of a terminal operator, by providing services that are competitively priced are of exceptional quality (Martime Transport: Railport Services, 2014). Their continued success in this sector is based on the fact that, they do possess modern equipment and skilled employees (Maritime Transport, 2014). They also offer warehousing and distribution services as an extension of their normal operations. What makes their distribution unique is the fact that they are straightforward, designed to improve business, and uncomplicated. It is evidently seen in services such as customer-shared distribution, whereby customers are only charged for a loaded distance (Maritime Transport: Warehousing & Distribution, 2014). Consequently, this plays a significant role towards minimizing carbon footprint and transport expenses. Of great value is the fact that Maritime Transportation Company offers peak support on such a short notice. It is attributed to the availability of transport vehicles and workforce (Maritime Transport, 2014). Finally, the company offers truck sale services. The prices of these vehicles are always small making them affordable (Maritime Transport: Truck Sales, 2014). Apart from selling second-hand cars they also provide a variety of services this includes doing installations on the vehicles and personalizing ones livery. The advantage associated with buying a car from Maritime is that one’s vehicle will be hired in case of increased workload (Maritime Transport, 2014). Operation Transformation Transformation activity refers to any activity or a set of activities that incorporates a single or more inputs, changes by improving value for them, thereafter providing products for a certain group of customers. Transformational process can take various forms. One of the useful ways of classifying transformation is in manufacture and transport. The main purpose of the transformational process is to create services and products that will meet the consumer demands. For the success of the transformation process there must be both the macro and microeconomic transformation (OpenLearn , 2010). The most evident transformation associated with Maritime Transportation Company is transformational transformation. The change for this company was of great significance since most of the operations of the enterprise entirely revolved around transportation. By making changes in various sectors of transformation, the company was able to perform remarkably. Consequently, it became one among the top transformational businesses in the United Kingdom (Maritime Transport, 2014). Transformation process related to transportation in Maritime Transportation Company takes various forms. To begin with, the incorporation of railway transport has made their service unique. Reason being, rail transport are cheap when used and are not easily affected by weather conditions. Furthermore, for boosting their clients trust regarding the security of their goods, a team of security personnel is always at the terminals 24-hours (Maritime Transport, 2014). Secondly, the company resorted to selling of their trucks after certain duration (Maritime Transport: Truck Sales, 2014). The aim of this was to prepare for future fleets with great ease. Through this, they were able to minimize cases of truck breakdowns during transportation. In addition, increased investment on transport facilities and workforce in the road, sea, and rail improved on service delivery. Whereby, in the event of any breakdown there will still be enough transportation resources (Maritime Transport, 2014). Thirdly, the company was ready to offer services to their customers beyond the regular working hours. It only if the client had requested for that (Maritime Transport: Container Transport, 2014). Consequently, it led to a significant motivation for their customers (Maritime Transport, 2014). Finally, reshaping of their management services saw Maritime Transportation Company being fully accountable to their clients inland transport necessities. They consisted of staffing, resourcing, efficiency benchmarking, and guarantees on the quality of services (Maritime Transport: Management Services, 2014). The company resorted to only charging their employees load per miles instead of the general charge of hiring a truck (Maritime Transport, 2014). An Evaluation of the Company’s Operations in Terms of the Performance Imperatives The services offered by Maritime Transport Company are of exceptional quality. It is because they have invested in modern technology and skilled workforce. For illustration, some of the technology includes the use of advanced container handlers. Using trucks and selling them after a certain period. In addition, the use of computer systems in managing costs associated with refurbishment and repairs (Maritime Transport, 2014). Transport services conducted by Maritime Corporation are speedy. It is due to the following factors; availability of a well and able management, availability of transportation facilities that are in good condition, and presence of the companies branches all over the United Kingdom (Maritime Transport, 2014). The speedy and quality nature of the service offered by Maritime Transport Company has made it dependable to all its clients. Because of this kind, they are one among the best transportation companies (Maritime Transport, 2014). The company is flexible in all its operations. Reason being; they have effectively invested in the sufficient transport facilities such that in the event of excessive workload they can manage their activities with great ease. Furthermore, the company is flexible in that they can customers during off-pick hours at his/her request (Maritime Transport, 2014). The charges of the enterprise are manageable. For instance, customers’ charges for the service of truck are based on loaded hours, which is cheaper. Furthermore, the company sells used vehicles cheaply (Maritime Transport, 2014). Process Design Process design refers to a method whereby an organization understands and clearly defines the business activities that are necessary for its functioning. The process of design involves elaborately developing a business process that is efficient and able to meet clients’ demands. At Maritime Transport Company, various initiatives were behind the current business process model. Just to mention a few they included supply chain and customer management, performance improvement, automation of commercial activities, and minimizing costs (Cousins & Stewart, 2012). First, Maritime Transport Company possesses a management team that dedicated to serving their customers effectively. Some of the responsibility that the management plays consists of ensuring that the inland transportation requirement is achieved, resourcing and ensuring their services are efficiently running. Second, automation business activity within the company enabled speedy service delivery by reducing the amount of paperwork. Third, performance improvement is seen by the incorporation of state of art systems that allowed quick service delivery. In addition, the annual sale of the company’s vehicle was to ensure the company purchases a new truck that will be efficient in the provision of services (Maritime Transport, 2014). Analysis of the Complex Operational Issues in the Company and Development of Viable Courses of Action Adequate analysis of the operation involved in Maritime Transport Company begins with the analysis of customer results. Thereafter follows the strategic and business performance results. Later on is the analysis of financial performance and finally assessing the performance of previous innovations. Consequently, follows the making of both short and long run decisions. The ultimate stage is where the all the decisions made in long and short run are combined to come up with a top- operations (Summer, 2011). Reference List Cousins, J., & Stewart, T. (2012). What is Business Process Design and Why Should I care. New York: Rivcom. Hilgart, M., Ritterband, L. M., Thorndike, F. P., & Kinzie, M. B. (2012). Using Instructional Design Process to Improve Design and Development of Internet Interventions. JMIR Vol 14 . Hodgett, R. E., Martin, E. B., & Montague, G. (2014). Handling Uncertain Decisions in whole Process Design. Production Planning and Control: The Managemnet of Operations , 1028-1038. Maritime Transport. (2014). Retrieved December Teusday, 2014, from About Martime: http://www.maritimetransport.com/about/history.cfm OpenLearn . (2010). Retrieved December Teusday, 2014, from UnderstandingOperations Management : http://www.open.edu/openlearn/money-management/management/leadership-and-management/understanding-operations-management/content-section-5.4 Sibalji, T. V., Majstorovic, V. D., & Miljkovic, Z. D. (2010). An Intelligent Approach to Robust Multi-response Process Design. International Journal of Production Research , 5079-5097. Summer, M. R. (2011). Analyzing Operations in Business: Issues, Tools, and Techniques. Quorum. Unger, D., & Eppinger, S. (2011). Improving Product Development Process Design. Journal of Engineering Design Vol.22 , 689-699. Wooley, R., Ruth, M., & Glassner, D. (2009). Process Design and Costing of Bioethanol Technology: A Tool for Determining the Status and Direction of Research and Development. Biotechnology Progress , 794-803. Read More