To what extent can improvements in productive flow and product quality lead to an increase in sales and profit - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages product flow and quality, and determine how their association can be harnessed to promote sales as well as profits. Business organisations exist with a goal of maintaining continuous improvement and productivity; a goal that can only be achieved if high sales and profits are maintained. Enhanced sales and profits provide adequate opportunities and resources to the manufacturers that they apply for innovation and growth. Enhanced innovation enables manufacturers to provide superior and lean quality products that attract customers. Most companies strive to leverage operational improvements into strategies that transform the company (Williams, Haslam and Williams, 1992). Production flow defines the concept of mass production. It is the idea of producing large quantities that are manufactured through application of high standardised methods. Production flow is applied by many companies because it promotes the production process; it is easier and quicker. The introduction bit of the process is cumbersome and difficult although it becomes easier once the production flow attains momentum. Owing to its emphasis on production of large quantities of commodities, production flow relies on the machinery for most of its roles. This implies that surmountable resources require to be allocated in the purchase, training and maintenance for the strategy to be efficient. Machines involved in this process should be selected and handled carefully to ensure that they are not vulnerable to wear and tear. This may lead to loss in terms of maintenance and replacement costs (Womack, Jones and Roos, 1990). According to Oulton (1987), mass production has its merits as well as demerits. Installation of the machinery required for production requires abundant financial resources. However, once the machinery has been installed, organisations save considerable financial resources, especially the money required in hiring and maintenance of human labour (Gilchrist, 1971). The work output is normally high. The accuracy levels are also high provided the machines are maintained in a superb working form. Machines are also capable of abiding to the set deadlines with no requirement for extensions. Abiding to the performance deadline is enhanced by the presence of assembly lines that allows continuous and consistent flow of manufactured products. This enhances output as well as the quality of the products produced in the long term, leading to increased sales and profits. Investing in production flow process benefits the manufacturer due to improved sales, leading to the increase in profits. Quality can be defined as the ability of a product or service to fulfil the client needs or expectations. Therefore, it can be measured depending on the level that the quality of a product satisfies the expectations of a consumer. High quality products have superior features that satisfy the consumer needs while the features of low quality products do not correspond to the needs of the consumer. For instance, the features that determine the quality of mechanical products include appearance, safety and reliability. Product quality improvement should consider the customer’s needs and expectations, extent of fulfilment of both national and international regulations and the competitiveness of the product (Williams, Haslam and Williams, 1993). Improving the product quality will not only satisfy the consumer needs; more customers will be attracted leading to increa ...Download file to see next pagesRead More