Operations Management - Assignment Example

Management, Assignment. Topic:  Operations Management. Introduction: McDonald’s is one of the top and popular fast-food restaurant chains in the world. They have served above 46 million consumers in about 59 countries and presently have over 30,000 locations worldwide. The fast food industry is growing at a rapid pace, especially among health aware food choices. McDonald’s strategic policies enable them to surpass their competitors by providing customers with great service, reasonable prices, and healthy food choices in hygienic settings. Their competitive edge also transcends to other areas including quality employee training and management. This study intends to analyze the operations management and strategic planning that are fundamental to McDonald’s success. It also identifies various stages of operations management and strategic planning process. 1.1. Explain the importance of Operations management to the success of a business, using McDonalds as an example. Operation management is the one of the core functions of every business organization. It help to increase value of the products and efficient transformation of services. Operation management in McDonald's enables their overall success. The organizations, thus, attains and sustain efficiency in customer service, relies on JIT system. The do not begin to cook their orders until a consumer places the order. Due to sophisticated technology used in the making of a burger, McDonald’s is capable to serve its customer without much wastage of time other placing on order. Thus, by aligning their operations through efficient operational management strategies the company currently sustains a large market store in the F&B industry globally. Globalization and the consequent liberalization of polices have also enable them to expand their operation bases across the world, including Asian countries and Middle East. 1.2. Explain the need for an MsDonalds to produce goods/services to time, cost and quality/specification and with reference to legal requirements. Need for a McDonalds to produce goods/services to time, cost and quality/specification and with reference to legal requirements is that higher quality, lower cost and quality specification products help to provide the customers with fresh food items and also to attract more customers. Besides, the trendy outlook and hygienic setting also have helped in making them a favorite among all segments of the population across the world. JIT technique eliminates delivery delays while saving the customer with fresh food strait from the order. This higher quality consumer service remains one of their major strengths. Through the efficient coordinating of order delivery and operation management, they are capable of reducing cost. Lower Costs or holding expenses for burger is a main reason for retention and expansion of customer base. Frozen ground beef that's good nowadays might not be so superior and good in a few months. 1.3. Explain the link between operations management and strategic planning with specific reference to McDonalds. Every organization has objectives and goals and operation management also encompasses short term plans to accomplish these goals and objectives. Operation Management Plans are crucial to accomplish strategic aims by tactical implementation. These tactical plans of the business establishment are for routine issues and are extremely frequent e.g. for the manufacture operation management is quantity of output produced in particular time and machinery and HR requirement. The manger of the McDonald’s gather information by talking to their consumers and offer best services. It is the best way to solve consumer problems and develop a high level of satisfaction of consumers. This encourages workers and managers of McDonald to be responsive and communicative with regulars. McDonald’s maintains balance among the consumer satisfaction and operations in restaurant. “From the statement of McDonald’s operations strategy, it is clear that both consistency and high product quality are considered order winners, while speed, cost, and innovation are considered order qualifiers” (MD 021- Operations Management n.d). One of their main strategies is personnel based, oriented towards customer relationship by providing excellent service with a personal touch. Developing customer relationship skills through training is an extremely challenging call, unless the personnel selected have a pleasing demeanour and flair for interpersonal relationships. Thus, McDonald’s select their personnel “for their warm and winning smiles” and “screen out those applicants with bland, unexpressive countenances” (Bossett, 1992). 1.4. Produce a systems diagram to illustrate how a McDonald’s restaurant operates. MacDonald food ordering system (Chapter 8 Stracturing System Requierements: Process Modeling). 2.1. Economy, Efficiency, Effectiveness of Mc Donald in the area of operations Economy includes a decision about how actual costs evaluate with estimated or planned costs. The economy of Mc Donald depended on the manager's capacity to meet predetermined purposes of labor costs, paper and food costs, volume projections and QSC. Efficiency means the reduction of the unit cost required to produce a service. A regular McDonald's restaurant employs regarding 60 people. Most workers are paid by the hour and are referred to as team members. Their main duty is to arrange the food, serve consumers and perform tasks for the efficient administration of the restaurants. McDonald’s enjoys an efficient supply chain for the reason that they included an electronic Foodservice Network. In an efficiencies Network, an industry which operates an independent Business to Business marketplace services purchases and sales to the food industry. It helps to increase Internet based efficiencies and keeps its members money across the whole supply chain. “Effectiveness refers to the extent to which the stated aims and objectives were actually achieved” (Lymbery, 2001). 2.2. Trade - off (or tension) between time, cost and quality using McDonalds as the example. An industry may have difficulty being both a retailer of low cost goods, whereas simultaneously food preparation to the needs of wealthy customers. A company, which prides itself on awareness to detail, must frequently give up the speed of production. An investments bank contained of highly trained workers, does not wish to offer both high end consulting in addition to free economic consulting. These situations show tradeoffs a company has to make to continue a consistent strategy. At McDonald’s tradeoffs has helped the head in the fast food industry for over half a decade. “Tradeoffs occur for three main reasons: inconsistencies in image or reputation, from the inability to change activities, and due to the limits on internal coordination and control” (Mc Donald’s Tradeoffs n.d). For example is that as the fast food industry experiences high-turnover rates, at McDonald’s have learned to work with the system. It make the trade off of an higher training program, with that of a simplified, pictographic, which insures consistency and quality by narrowing workers task scope, and consequently their necessary training. Such performs have permissible McDonald’s to beat out competition, which would set their costs of business on the consumers using their product, rather than create internal tradeoffs. 2.3 Cost, quality, speed, dependability, flexibility to McDonald’s restaurant. The cost of McDonald’s giving a salary to the workers, providing tools and maintaining the organizational surroundings have to remain in the organization’s facilities. Quality in McDonald restaurant is extremely important because of two causes. Firstly because of the legal needs of the value of food served. Secondly, to maintain up the good status which McDonalds restaurants have made over the years. “Quick-service restaurants like McDonald’s may buy less expensive meat, but its conformance must be high” (The Strategic Role and Objectives of Operations n.d). In McDonalds the operations manager develops the process of cooking food items with the intention that food is arranged using that process which helps them to keep the quality and speed of the food. Flexibility has several different meanings but is always connected with an operation’s capacity to change. Conclusion The operations management is very significant for any industries as they have a connection with the overall plan of the organisation. McDonald’s is competitive in a lot of groups including quality, price, employee training and management McDonald's considers that the achievement of the restaurants and the firm is achieved throughout the people it employs. McDonald’s likes an efficient supply chain for the cause that they consist of an electronic Foodservice Network. It helps to raise Internet based efficiencies and keeps its members funds across the total supply chain. Reference List Bossett, G. (1992). Operations Management for Service Industries: Competing in the Service Era. Guorum Books, Westport, USA. Chapter 8 Stracturing System Requierements: Process Modeling. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 21 July 2012]. Lymbery, M. (2001). Research Policy and Planning Vol 18 (3) 2001. Scie Social care online. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 21 July 2012]. Mc Donald’s Tradeoffs (n.d). Mc Donald’s Franchise Strategy. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 21 July 2012]. MD 021- Operations Management (n.d). BC. Edu. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 21 July 2012]. The Strategic Role and Objectives of Operations (n.d). Mindran.com. [Online] Available at [Accessed on 21 July 2012]. Read More