Operation Management - Essay Example

Indeed recognition of a modern telecommunication infrastructure is very much essential for boosting up the growth of the economy as well as its social well being (U. S. Industrial Outlook, 1994: Business Forecasts for 350 Industries, 1994, p.28). The report deals with a small US based Telecom Company and its application of operation management practices backed with diverse theoretical frameworks of operation management (discussed in the theoretical framework section). The company in application is basically a provider of telecom manufacturing services to various small scale technology companies.

The company has employee strength varying between 30 and 35 and is situated in the United States of America. The areas of specialization of the company are circuit cards manufacturing, system level assemblies and precision sheet metal. The company also receives funds from a big telecom company which provides products like metal chassis and assemblies. Coming to the development pattern of the company, the revenues of the company in the fourth quarter of the year 2012 increased by a small percentage compared to the fourth quarter of the fiscal year in 2011 but the net income of the company declined significantly as compared to the previous year.

The growth of the company taxed the current operational processes and a necessity for an automated solution was necessary for the purpose of processing as well as analyzing the telecom invoices. There was also an increase in the number of employees by the company for meeting the demands of the customers and also there were escalations in the number of services being purchased by the employees of the company. The cost per employee also increased because the employees used cell phones, pagers and other electronic gadgets without proper oversight.

There was also increase in the costs of internet access for the telecommuters. An urge for Total Quality Management procedure was highly felt. There was development in the information technology database along with the advancement in the tools. But the development in the IT tools was not properly engaged in streamlining the billing procedure of the company. Data collection in the United States is more or less straightforward but there is a great difference in the billing processes among various countries as various countries using different ledgers and various global solutions and also with respect to the knowledge of global currencies.

Variations in vendor commercial performances added layers of intricacies to the billing organization chore. It can be stated that the company’s financial strength is declining a bit but the company also has a potential market presence and directs towards maintaining a strong position for itself. 2. Outline of the purpose of the study The company encountered a bad phase of revenue decline from year 2004 to 2007 during which it served some of the big companies in the telecom industry as its client.

The problem was that these were all high volume but low margin accounts and pricing pressure adversely affected the company’s profit portfolio. After that it moved into the domain of military and aerospace industry which escalated the company’s growth to a certain level. But the military and the