Phase 5 Discussion Board - Assignment Example

Management Capstone Introduction For a production manager, management decisions have to be made with regards to meet thetargets of the organization ensuring low wastage of resources and optimization in the production process. Automation of business services in a company enhanced production of quality products on time, as well as, reduces operational costs. In essence, automation ensures that organizations and companies develop and maximize the use of information technology to augment productivity.

In essence, this is essential in managing and reducing unnecessary cost in businesses such as operational cost. Notably, reduction of operational cost is critical in enhancing competitiveness and improving relation with clients. Arguably, it can be restated that competitive ideas in automation will require inventive ideas, skilled workforce, and operational capabilities. This paper responds to questions based on the third round competition results with regards to optimization and use of the broad differentiation strategy.

Automation of facilities Automation is important for most organization as it increases the use of machines and reduces dependency on human labor or activities in the production process. As the production manager I, did initiate for the purchase of machines in order to automate the production facilities. The rationale behind this decision is the benefits that are termed to be yielded from this action. Although purchase of machinery, may require much capital for initiation the vast Long-Run benefits outweigh the initial reduction of profit in the short run.

Some of the benefits that are expected from this initiation include; i. Cost cutting: this will reduce the operation cost of the firm by reducing the staff required to work at the production process ii. Faster productivity: machines can produce faster compared to the speed of manual labor production. Thus this is able to increase the production capacity through increase in production speed and prolonged time iii. Optimal performance: once equipped with settings for optimal production automation ensures that products produced are within the range of optimality and minimal errors are made in the process.

Product line Product line production involves producing products that have a linking relationship with each other. These products may be completely different or just complementary to each others use, for example, a toothpaste production firm may produce toothbrushes for use with their main product. In other cases product line production will involve the production of items that are almost similar with only slight differentiation (Pride, Hughes, & Kapoor, 2013). This result in the production of the same product; but, with varieties for customers with different requirements and taste.

In this case, we settle on the sale capacity of product line to determine the production level. The sale capacity enabled the production of adequate amount products to meet the market requirement. Sale capacity of product line is advantageous because in the cases where clients are loyal to the products they are likely to consume along the brand line. This is present an advantage to our firm as it will be able to make more sales due to client loyalty to the brand. Essentially, automation of business processes helps in developing processes that are simple, alleviate inadequacies, and overlap jobs Establishment of production schedule The production schedule is a very important tool for the achievement of optimality in the production process.

Having a production schedule enables the production manager to develop a system where there is less wastage of resources such as time and underutilization of machines during production hours (Goldblatt, 2005). Production schedule enables one to determine what and the order in which tasks will be handled. This will optimize on time as less time will be wasted. For each product line there had to be a production schedule for the purpose of optimization. Some of the factors that had to be considered in order to establish a production schedule that would ensure maximum utilization of resources are; i.

Determining the resources needed for each production in the production line. ii. Establish the time taken for the production of each product and the number of units needed per product. Identify the timeline given for production An optimal production schedule is then created making sure that the maximum utilization of sources is achieved within the time frame given and above all meeting the production number requirement per product line. Establishing a proper production schedule will ensure efficiency in the production operation with least confusion in the process (Carmody, 2004).

Management of majority of company fixed assets Fixed assets of the company are assets that the company owns have a very high unlikely hood of being liquefied when the company is still running (Siebert, 2011). The fixed assets are mostly used in the production process. The assets may include; production plant, machinery, or the production site. As a production manager, I have to say I managed the fixed assets company quite well by keeping in check of their status and ensuring that any possible upgrade of the assets established with regards to the optimization in production.

Establishment of a work force complement For our company, the work force complement is established through automation and mechanization of various sections of the company. The workforce of the company is complemented through mechanization. Usage of additional machines in the process of production ensures that there is elevated production which leads to optimal utilization of facilities. The combination of automation and manual labor ensures that the production process can be monitored using the human eye but runs by an elevated speed of an automated process.

This is a positive contribution to ensure quality production Reference Carmody, B. (2004). Online Promotions: Winning Strategies and Tactics. London: Dahk Knox. Goldblatt, J. (2005). Special Events: Event Leadership for a New World. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons Inc. Pride, W., Hughes, R., & Kapoor, J. (2013). Foundations of Business. Stamford : Cengage Learning . Siebert, J. (2011). SAP Fixed Assets Accounting (FI-AA). Gleichen: Galileo Press.