The Operation of Bidgeclimb and Powerhouse - Coursework Example

The Operation of Bidgeclimb and Powerhouse a) V chart for the operation of Bidgeclimb and powerhouse. Bridgeclimb PowerHouse Low High High Low High Low High Low b) The v chart for the operations of bridgeclimb and powerhouse are as given above. They are explained as follows: Volume: In this scenario, it refers to the number of customers who visit each of the locations in a given period of time. The number of people visiting the bridgeclimb is considerably lower than those visiting the powerhouse museum although both systems have a very professional system in place that allows smooth operation. Variety: In this case, it refers to the range of experiences that can be offered by both operations. The bridgeclimb has a number of climbs which make provisions for people with a number of disabilities. Moreover, the enjoyable views and experiences offered by the operation makes the variety available, moderately high. Powerhouse on the other hand has a limited number of fields in which works are displayed; however the number of events, etc makes the variety, moderate to high. Variation in demand: It refers to the seasonal variation in demand for the two operations. As expected, bridgeclimb has high variation in demand due to changing weather conditions, however, due to systems such as advanced booking, low – off season rates and operation during all weathers except lightning, it has been able to lessen the variation in demand. Powerhouse also has variations in demand due to high attendance during holidays, etc; however it is much lower than bridgeclimb. Events organized on a weekly basis increase the customer base of the museum. Visibility: It refers to the operational visibility among customers. Although both operations have a number of activities that are carried out behind the scenes, the visibility for the bridgeclimb is considerably higher than for the government run museum. This is because of the uniqueness of the operation which attracts customers from a number of places. c) Although both operations are considerably different from one another, it is possible to identify common issues between the two. They are as follows: Common Issues: 1) Since both the operations are related to the tourism market, they will need to continually look at operations such that customers are attracted and since all of the new initiatives might not work out, there is a certain amount of risk associated with both operations. 2) The issue of variation in demand is a challenge that both of the operations need to deal with although in different ways. Bridgeclimb has to deal with a reduced customer base during the winter months and has to continually deal with unpredictable weather. Powerhouse, on the other hand has to deal with the issue of stagnation and introduce new initiatives to counter it so that it has repeat customers. 3) Another common challenge for the two operations is dealing with the operation and maintenance of the complete activity. Optimizing maintenance is extremely important for such operations since the number of customers visiting a place can never be exactly predicted. This will allow in meeting unexpected demand for both operations. Distinct Challenges: 1) One of the most distinctive challenges between the two organizations is the fact that one of the operations is privately owned (bridgeclimb), while the other is supported by the government. Therein lays the major difference. The two operations are driven by different motives and styles of operation. 2) The other important challenge that is distinct is the amount of training required for the employees and the customers. For bridgeclimb, it is considerably higher than that for powerhouse because of the higher safety concerns associated with the former. 3) The third varying challenge related to the fact that powerhouse is supported by the government is that the operations for bridgeclimb need to be much more closely monitored when compared to those of the museum. It is sufficient if the museum is able to sustain itself and even losses can be gradually corrected. However, for bridgeclimb, it is only though profits that operational costs, employee salaries and other expenses are met. Question 2 a) Cycle time may be simply defined as the time required for the completion a given process. The exact cycle time for a customer would be the time required to complete a process and the lead time that is used up to start the process. In this case, cycle time would be the time required to process an application plus the time required for the application to reach the concerned personnel. Since the time required to completely process an application is 30 minutes, the cycle time would be 30 minutes plus the time required for an application to reach a worker (Slack et al, 2009). b) The number of employees required for processing the demand can be calculated by equating the demand to supply. The demand is for 3200 applications to be processed in the week. Therefore, time required to process 3200 application is = 3200 * 30 minutes Demand = 96000 minutes. Supply required = Demand = = 96000 minutes Number of people * 40 hours per week * 60 minutes per hour = 96000 minutes Therefore number of people required = 96000/ (40*60) Number of people required = 40. c) Explain some of the additional measurements that should be made on this process in order to assess current productivity and throughput time. Productivity may be simply defined as the amount of work achieved within a given period of time. Depending on situations and circumstances the definition may be altered to suit the need. For example, productivity in this case can be defined as the number of applications processed by a person in one hour which would be 2. Similar to productivity, throughput time would be the amount of time required to complete a certain task, in this case 30 minutes which in most cases is the inverse of productivity. There are several other factors that help in improving the productivity of people in an organization. Within the purview of the available data, productivity per individual needs to be calculated as opposed to the productivity of the entire organization so that those individuals who are not meeting the average can improve. The number of tasks per hour can also be calculated so that the least productive hours of the day can be identified and improved on. The amount of time for each task can also be calculated so that the possibility of assigning time consuming tasks to skilled individuals can be looked at. Therefore, depending on the requirement of the task at hand, such and other complex measurements can be made that will help improve productivity and decrease throughput time (Yu-Lee, 2002). Question 3 a) Jaguar started producing cars from the year 1935 when William Walmsley, one of the founders of the company retired and William Lyons, the other founder who was keen in automobiles, took charge. Since then, Jaguar has been famous for fast and luxurious cars. Their first one, release in the year 1935, named the SS Jaguar had a top speed of 100 miles an hour (Whyte & Wood, 2008). Subsequently they produced similar cars that would go fast and were meant for the wealthy because of the price tag. In fact, the XJ 220 which started production in 1989 had a sticker price of $ 600,000 which was more than any of it competitors in the segment. However, the fact that 350 buyers agreed to pay an advance of $75,000 speaks of the appeal that Jaguar has. Jaguar is also known for its unique design, something that Ford has tried to maintain after buying the company. As popular Jaguar is for its speed and style, equally notorious is its reputation for the quality of the parts in the car (Ulrich, 2009). J.D. Power & Associates conducted a survey in 1993 survey to measure the quality of new cars of Jaguar, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz and found that Jaguar had an average of 1.67 defects per car vs. 0.66 for Lexus, the industry leader, and 0.95 for Mercedes-Benz (Taylor & Woods, 1993). Therefore, quality for a luxury car maker such as Jaguar is not only the quality of the products that it makes; it is a summation of the performance, speed, design and features of its cars. b) How did the changes which Jaguar made to its operations practice affect the quality of its products? Ford took over Jaguar in the year 1989 for $ 2.5 billion, at a time when the latter was close to bankruptcy. Ford introduced a lot of changes in the manufacture of the cars while trying to maintain the identity of the brand which was synonymous with style and speed. They had to put in $700 million to keep the company running. In 1992, Jaguar lost $400 million, nearly $18,000 on every car it sold. However, these investments have led to notable improvements in the quality of the cars produced (Taylor & Woods, 1993). The Ford Company itself conducted a quality assessment program where they found that defects had been cut by 77% on its XJ6 model and 87% on its XJS (Taylor & Woods, 1993). New quality tests were introduced that would identify the defects well before a car was introduced in the market. Squads of inspectors were introduced whose mission was to fix assembly problems before introducing an engineering change. The number of man-hours required to assemble a car also reduced significantly at the same time reducing the inventory period from 21 days to 14 in 1993. Further such improvements have led to increase in production efficiency that has led cars to be manufactured faster while costing lesser to the company. By doing this, Jaguar has once again started to compete with companies such as Mercedes – Benz and BMW. References Bridgecimb, (2010). Company [Online] Available at: http://www.bridgeclimb.com/About-Us/Company/ [Accessed 7th Sep 2010]. Kossiakoff, A. & Sweet, W.N, (2003). Systems engineering: principles and practice, Wiley-IEEE. Powerhousemuseum, (2004). About the Powerhouse Museum [Online] Available at: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/about/ [Accessed 7th Sep 2010]. Slack, N, Chambers, S, Johnston, R & Betts, A. (2009). Operations and Process Management: Principles and Practice for Strategic Impact, Prentice Hall. Taylor, A & Woods, W. (1993). SHAKING UP JAGUAR. Fortune; 9/6/93, Vol. 128 Issue 5, p65-67 ULRICH, L. (2009). From Strays to Supercats. New York Times; 9/13/2009, p1. Whyte, A & Wood, J. (2008). The Jaguar. Osprey Publishing. Yu-Lee, R. T. (2002). Essentials of capacity management. John Wiley and Sons Read More