Operations Management in the Mall - Coursework Example

Report On Operations Management Table of Contents Part I: Operations Management in the Mall 2 Part II: Management Operations at the London Zoo 10 Part II: Comparison of the London Zoo with the mall 11 Conclusion 13 Bibliography 15 Part I: Operations Management in the Mall Section a: Introduction The services that visitors to this mall can get include banking services, clothing stores, restaurants, a supermarket, electronics shops, a modern movie theater and a grocery of many other shopping facilities. The shopping mall also features a parking lot both at the ground and at the top of the shopping all. It has four different floors and each floor is dedicated to certain types of businesses. The ground floor has a restaurant and electronic shops. Just outside the shopping mall is a parking lot for about 80 to 100 cars. An extra parking lot is available at the very top floor of the mall where more cars can be parked. The first floor also has a big supermarket where people can shop for groceries as well as other types of goods. The second floor has a variety of shops ranging from restaurants, electronics shops sports shops etc. The third floor also features the same types of shops. It also contains a banking lobby and the other peculiar shops offering special products. There is an electronic massage parlor located in a public place (not enclosed). The shopping mall has two wings, with an expansive area between the wings. In this area are the elevators and lifts that can be used to reach the various floors. The users also have an option to use the stairs. Every floor has modern toilets. Layout and flow of the mall Above, Fig. 1.1, ground floor plan Above, Figure 1.2, 1st floor plan Above figure 1.3, 2nd floor plan Above, figure 1.4, 3rd floor plan Part I section b: Inputs Output and inputs: The 4 Vs of operations management The input output Process Resources Transformation by Merchandise Customer Staff Facilities Figure 2.1 the input output Process for the mall Volume With regard to operations management, volume refers to the volume of productivity in relation to the amount of resources such as labor that are needed for the production. High volume refers to a high ratio of production versus resources needed. Supermarkets such as Tesco have high volume of operation throughput due to use of automation. In the Mall, there are various factors that have made it possible to increase the volume in its operations management. The factors have to look at the following; Volume of human traffic The shopping mall has to be able to allow for a smooth flow of people in and out of the shopping mall twenty 24 of the day. The guards at the entrance of the mall have to know how to enforce security to deal with any insecurity threat that may be coming into mall and at the same time be able to allow for the smooth flow of human traffic. Goods and services There are various businesses that are present in this area who need to continually bring in merchandise into the mall. Supermarket The supermarket in the mall is not just a small grocery store but is a fully fledged supermarket selling all types of merchandise. The supermarket needs to bring in merchandise into the mall and at the same time, be able to release merchandise after customers have bought the merchandise. The submarket has its own loading area and therefore does not interfere with the traffic flowing into the mall. The shops The other shops also have a designated area for offloading the merchandise. However, the area is relatively small and sometimes clouded if too many of the other shops bring in their merchandise at the same time. Banks Banks have their own designated area for loading and offloading. Banks have a greater risk with regard to loading and offloading. The fact that the banks are at the second-last floor of the shopping mall makes the access point for them to be at the very top of the floor. As already identified, the top of the shopping mall is a parking lot. The second V of operations management: Variety Variety refers to the level of service to the customer. For instance, a restaurant offering customized food offers food just like any other restaurant but gives the customer the choice to have customized service. With regard to the mall, the level of service to each customer is dependent on which service the customer is seeking to access in the mall. However, the fact that the mall has very many services that complement each other increase the level of variety in that the customer can access a number of services at a single point. Third V of operations management: Variation Variation refers to the level of customization of the service to the customer. Given the nature of the shopping mall, the level of service customization is low. The customers who access the service are given a standard service. With regard to the supermarket, customers get custom service when they buy from the supermarket. However, for those people who buy bulky goods such as big consumer electronics, they get a home delivery and unpacking service. Some banks in the mall offer customer focused services while others offer generic services. Fourth V of operations management: Visibility With regard to operations management, visibility refers to the amount of the operations management process that the customer can see in process. Manufacturing processes are hidden from the customer and the customer only receives the end product. However, a service such a training program is highly visible to the consumer as it is being implemented. With regard to the mall, the level of visibility of the operations management is high. This is because the customer is able to access the services directly and decides which services he wants to access. Part I Section c: Quality of service People traffic With regard to the traffic of people who flock into the shopping mall on a daily basis, quality refers to the following aspects Smooth flow of human traffic People want to move easily into and out of the shopping mall. If there are too many hurdles that will slow the seed of traffic into the shopping mall, people may refrain from going into the shopping mall and this may affect the business operation at the shopping mall because these are the customers who bring in business. Additionally, there needs to be adequate security measures that must be recognized and solved in order to ensure that the people at the shopping mall every day are protected. In a world full of terrorists who target such crowded areas, it is absolutely necessary to make sure that the mall is well secured and that no threats are coming in (Loader, 2007). However, this need to prevent any threats coming into the shopping mall conflicts with the need to allow for a smooth flow of human traffic. Quality for this particular operation means the ability to have smooth flow of human traffic while at the same time mitigating any security threat (Lewis, 2003). This is hard to do. However, with technology this has been achieved. Technology allows for scanners that can be installed at the entrance to make sure that any security threat coming such as weapons or explosives can be detected at the entrance and handled effectively. People do not have to be stopped for frisking and this makes traffic flow smooth. Loading and offloading for supermarket Quality for this operation means three major issues to be addressed Security For the supermarket, although there are no threats that may be involved, the loading and offloading area of the supermarket can act as a risk factor to the shopping mall. As already established, the loading area of the supermarket in the mall is separate from the entrance of the building. Goods handling to avoid damage The loading area for the supermarket is also designed to avoid damage to the goods as they are being loaded and offloaded from the supermarket. This is absolutely necessary in that it helps in avoiding loses to the supermarket. Most goods being brought into the supermarket are goods that the supermarket has already paid for. Any damage will mean a loss for the supermarket and this is definitely a quality issue. Ease of access It is definitely necessary to make sure that this area is easy to access in order to make the process of loading and offloading easier. Due to the design of the mall and the location, this cannot be said to be true for the loading area of the supermarket. The loading area of the supermarket also lies on the way to the upper parking lot at the top of the supermarket and this make it less convenient. Loading offloading area for the banks Quality for this operation refers to the ease of access and the security issues. Banks deal with a lot of hard cash which has to be loaded into and out of armored cars. This must be accomplished in a secure way. In this regard, the loading and offloading area for the banks at this mall requires that the security issues be taken into consideration. Part II: Management Operations at the London Zoo The input output Process Product Resources Information Staffs Staffs Service 4 Vs and the London Zoo Volume With regard to volume, the London zoo is having issues from two main perspectives. The first perspective is the issue of the car parking availability. The London Zoo has a problem with the volume of cars it is able to accommodate. The other perspective is even more important as it related direly to the way the Zoo is able to operate and make money. This regards its ability to gain enough volume of customers to meet its revenue threshold. Variety The Zoo has a low level of variety since the services the customers are given at the Zoo are generic. Variation This is another issue that has affected the ability of the Zoo to be able to have high volumes in its operation management processes. The services at the London Zoo are such that they cannot be customized and thus the customers are given the generic services. This makes it hard for the zoo to be able to have high levels of variation with regard to the services it offers to the customers. Visibility The London Zoo also has a low visibility. The customers are not able to see the service or product until the point where they visit the service. This can be solved by using the available technology such as the internet to give customers a preview of the Zoo before they visit. Part II: Comparison of the London Zoo with the mall Figure 2.2 input output process for London Zoo Car parking space As identified in the case study, it is imminent that car ownership was a major issue affecting the operations within the zoo. Increased car ownership means that many people could not get a place to park at the zoo and this affected the ways in which the zoo was able to meet the needs of the customers. The London Zoo is a very old facility and this means that by the time it was founded, there were not a lot of people with personal cars. The visitors of the Zoo traveled by public means to the zoo and there was no need to have a large parking lot at the zoo. However, as time moved on, more people started owning their own mode of transportation and this meant that they did not need a place to park. This was not planned for in the original plan of the zoo and therefore there was a problem with finding enough parking spaces for people with their own cars. As Bamford (2010) says, there is always a need for operations management planers to be able to see far into the future. This relates somehow with the case at the shopping mall. Although the shopping mall that was visited cannot be said to have exactly the same problem, the issue of a parking lot was an important issue that had to be addressed. The shopping mall is in a suburb and attracts a lot of visitors most of whom have a personal car. Most of these people are people who either come to the mall for shopping or to spend some social time such as watch a movie at the mall’s theater. Despite there being a large area for parking both at the lower floor and at the top floor of the mall, there were still too many cars in the two parking lots and only a handful of free (available) ones. The other issue that can be seen to be happening at both the mall and the London Zoo is the issue of smooth service delivery. As the case identifies, one of the other issues that the London Zoo was facing was the issue of the customers not being satisfied with the Zoo in terms of the quality of service they were getting from the Zoo. Service deliver is very important in any facility whether it is a Zoo like the London Zoo or a Mall like the one visited. It is not just the service that is important but actually also the way this service is delivered to the customers (Brown, 2013). In the case of the Mall, it was identified that the customers wanted to smoothly enter and exit the mall and easily access the service they come for at the mall. In the case of the mall, the customers have to be allowed to smoothly enter and exit the mall without at the same time leaving any security breach to slip into the mail. In the case of the Zoo, the visitors want to know that if they pay to visit the mall, they will be able to access the various services easily and without a problem. Anything that does not meet this threshold will mean that the customers will not be motivated to visit the facility. Moreover, they want to know that they can access the services in a secure way and that they will get the value of the money they pay for. In the case of the mall, the challenge that the management of the mall may face in the process of giving the customers what they want is the issue of making sure that the customers are not humiliated by being frisked at the entrance for any security threat and still not allow it to be easy for people with ill intentions (such as terrorists) to get a chance. In the case study of the London Zoo, the problem is to add the services that the customers expect but at the same time not increase the cost of operation. As the director says in the case study, they had to increase the level of service to the minimum acceptable level which the customer expects. However, as the director said, increasing the service level to this minimum required by the customer would only help them break even, that is, only cover their costs and avoid losses. To be able to make any profits, they have to be extra creative in a way that they will make the customer happy but without necessarily increasing the cost. This is an operations management hurdle the management will have to deal with. They have to know the best way to manage their costs and still make sure that the service level is at a level that the customer is comfortable with. Conclusion Being able to provide an optimum operation model for any process is necessary in ensuring that the costs are kept at a minimum while being able to make sure that the service delivery is not affected negatively. In the case of the London Zoo for instance, they must be able to go far and beyond the generic strategy development so as to develop a solution that can help the zoo to serve the customer well while minimizing the cost of operation at a minimum. Using technology and other modern resources may help in doing this. Although technology may not help a lot in a Zoo, there are still some ways it can be used to minimize the costs and to significantly augment the quality of service the Zoo give to the people who visit. The director of the Zoo also suggests some minimum improvements to the Zoo in order to help the Zoo’s financials to break even. Bibliography Brown, S. (2013). Operations Management: Policy, Practice and Performance Improvement. London, UK: Routledge. McCrie, R. (2011). Security Operations ManagementSecurity Operations Management. London, Uk: Butterworth-Heinemann. Bamford, J. (2010). Essential Guide to Operations Management: Concepts and Case Notes. London, UK: Cengene Learning. Boyer, K. (2009). Operations and Supply Chain Management for the 21st Century. London, UK: Cengage Learning. Lewis, M. (2003). Operations Management: Critical Perspectives on Business and Management, Volume 4. London, UK: Taylor & Francis. Loader, M. (2007). Advanced Operations Management. lonodon, UK: Taylor & Francis . Parker, D. (2012). Service Operations Management: The Total Experience. London, NY: Edward Elgar Publishing. Read More