Evaluation of Operations Management Model - Term Paper Example

Operation management Introduction Operation management involves all activities that help in production of goods and services through the processes that transform inputs to output. All organization, regardless of their size, ownership and the type of goods or services they provide must practices operation management (Slack at el 2010). Operation management have a direct impact of the company’s profitability since it affect the cost of production of goods or services offered, effectiveness of the production and distribution process and the therefore the company’s income. A good operation managements helps the organization to produce goods or services that satisfies customer’s needs while the organization is still profitable (Slack at el 2010). Resources found in most organizations are similar and may include the raw materials, facilities and staff. Operations is a key function of any company since it helps in the production of goods and services that satisfies the customer’s needs but it also depends on other key departments of organizations such as finance, marketing and human resources. In a service industry provide intangible output in form of time, satisfaction, location and psychological needs. Due to their intangible nature, Services must be flexible to satisfy the customer’s needs (Collins 2013). Organization that provide services such as event management, catering, provision of venues the most important resources are facilities, technology and the staff. These resources affect how an event can be organized, the services offered, number of people that can be accommodated and customer services. These services are consumed with direct contact with the customer and therefore every company should strive to maximize their efficiency. Performance Hub has modern facilities and they should ensure efficiency through operation management. This paper will critically Evaluate The Networking Event That Was Held At Performance Hub, Black Box Theater in relation to the responses from the attendants. The report will evaluate the event design, service design, risk assessment, capacity, customer service and performances measurement of this event. Summary Performance hub Performance hub is a milestone building at Walsall campus of University of Wolverhampton that brings together learning, teaching and performance of drama, music and dance (University of Wolverhampto n.d). It has various sections that include Black Box Theater, performance studios, dance studios, drama studios, recording studios, rehearsal studios seminar rooms and board rooms. All studios are linked so that they can be used at same event that requires more than one room or studio. The performance hub is a modern facility that is flexible and can be modified for different occasions such as drama performances, seminars, conferences, dances and corporate events. Additional services such as catering and technological support are offered at an extra cost. The networking event was held at the black box theater which is one of the most equipped tiny theater can accommodate 108 guests. Its equipment’s are modern to support a high class performance. The event The event was a networking session for individual from different segment of the creative arts industry. It was organized by the performance hub management as one of the method to market their facilities to different stakeholders in the creative and art industry. The attendants had an opportunity to interact with different people from different location such as West Bromwich, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Sutton Coldfield, and Walsall among other areas in West midlands. Most people who attended the session work in music and art industries as well as business executives. The aim of the event was to bring together different stakeholders in the art and creative industry so that the management could show cases their facilities to the prospective customers. Guests were issued with questioners which were used by the management to collect data in regard to their facilities, services, venue accessibility and how they can improve their services. Data collection method This a data sampling method used when the target respondents are literate and are required to answer open ended or close end questions (Duval 2005, P. 7). This method is appropriate for Performance Hub because the satisfaction from the services and facilities offered vary from one individual to another depending on personal characteristics and preferences. The questionnaires were later analyzed into graphs and tables and variables such as standard deviations, mean and variance calculated. The information collected was treated with confidential and the information collected will only be used to help improve the service delivery. Operation management Operation management involves use of management plans and strategy in production process in order to achieve efficiency and effectiveness thus ensuring customer satisfaction and organizational profitability. Service organization must offer quality services to its customers while good producing companies offers goods that match the customer’s needs (Collins 2013). The performance Hub offers both goods and services that vary depending on their customers need. In the networking event, offered both goods and services in their facilities. The major challenge was therefore to offer high quality goods as well as highly satisfactory services to their customers in order to achieve their objectives of getting future business directly from them or through referrals. Event design The event was designed to benefit both the attendants and the management. The attendants had the opportunity to interact with other stakeholders in the industries while Performance hub was able to market their facilities. Managers in organizations that offers services such as restaurants, hotels, event organizations among others must plan their staff and allocate resources that satisfy customer’s needs since there is direct contact of the customers and the services providers (Collins 2013). In most cases the demands of customers vary from one customer to another in an organized group where as in some cases individual preferences may vary over a period of time and therefore their staff must be flexible to understand individual customers need at the time of services delivery (Abdullah at el 2013, P. 64). The service design must be able to meet the demands of the customers in relation to a combination of different factors that ranges from the location, accessibility and capacity (Collins 2013). The target attendants was appropriate for the event since most of them are in art industry while the others are in business and can still use this venue for their corporate events. The event was held for a short period of time. The organizer allocated more time to the touring of the facilities. This strategic for the Performance Hub management who their main objective was to market their facilities however they could have incorporated other session such a talk from an invited guest so that the attendants can leap more benefits from the event. The services providers must strive to show concern for their customers and in return the customers becomes loyal to them. The design and concept of the event should be to meet the attendants’ needs as well as meeting the organizational goals (Abdullah at el 2013, P. 64). Service design Service delivery is an important aspect of any service providing organization. The superiority of the services offered is affected by the operation function of the company and leads to customer satisfaction and company profitability. A Quality services is the ability of an organization to offer the assured services truthfully and consistently (Abdullah at el 2013, P. 65). The factors that contribute to quality services include ability of the staff to interact with the customers and solve their problems, polite staff and how the customers are served. According to Abdullah at el (2013, P. 64) there is a strong relationship between customer contentment, customer loyalty and staff kindliness, excellence services, fast services and politeness. In the networking event held at performance Hub was an excellent opportunity for the organization to showcase the effectiveness and efficiency in their service delivery. According to the responses from the attendants, most services were excellent while there a few instances where customers felt their needs were not properly met. For example several customers did not respond on ‘how to improve service’ sections of the questioners while others pointed several areas that needs improvement. The management should comprehensively analyze the data from this section and take the appropriate actions to improve their services. In operational management, quality services delivery is affected by other process which may include production process, supply chain, use of technology and quality management (Bendoly at el 2005, P. 2). The Performance Hub management should therefore integrate the available resources such as excellent connection of its studios and technological advancement with excellent staff who can deliver the additional services on the customer’s request. Since the management is still in the initial stages of establishing its customer’s base is main objective should be to meet the customer’s needs to ensure repeat business from same customer and referrals from their associates. Risk assessment Risk assessment and management helps an organization prevent business failure in a dynamic business environment. In service industry organizations operatives in a dynamic external environment and the customer’s needs also vary from one customer to another over a period of time (Abdullah at el 2013, P. 64). Risk management involves identification of the risk, evaluating the possibility of the risk occurring and the magnitude of the loss the risk can cause and developing a strategy to minimize the risk. The risk may cause financial loss, loss of customers and reputation loss. In order to effectively manage operational risk the company must be able to classify all the risk and the magnitude on the business and develop a strategy to minimize the risks with greater magnitude (Weller 2008, P. 35). A company may opt to take an insurance cover for the risk with greater magnitude. For an organization such as Performance hub a major risk could be cancellation of an event. In the case of the organized event the risk was low turnout especially for the people in the target industry. According to the responses some respondent complained about low turnout of industry players and indicated that the session was like a business meeting. Most of the respondents indicated that they were referred to the event and that could be the reason most attendants were business people who are always seeking for networking opportunities to expand their business. For risk management and assessment to be successful the management needs to establish a committee to evaluate and analysis business risks (Weller 2008, P. 35). Risk assessment helps the management in planning of the similar future activities. The management may opt to adopted different strategy of inviting their target attendants. Events capacity When selecting the venue of the event the organizer considers the accessibility and the capacity of the venue. The venue of the event was the BlackBox Theater which has a sitting capacity of 108 people (University of Wolverhampto n.d). This is an indication that the organizers expected more people but the turnout was relatively low as only fifteen forms were returned for analysis and evaluation. Organizations providing services must consider various factors before setting out the capacity (Collins 2013). Staffs are important resources in the management of capacity (Slack at el 2010 P xvi). This is because services are perishable and cannot be kept for future use as compared to manufacture goods which can be stored until demand arises (Collins 2013). During the event the Performance Hub managers also offered light snacks to the attendant and in such case over estimation can lead to financial loss. The management should have considered other factors such as the time of the event, communication channels and other external factors that affect demand and supply such as weather. Estimating the capacity is a complex undertaking for new organizations and services providers such as Performance Hub (Collins 2013). According to the responses the venue of the event was easily accessible by road and therefore the low turnout can be associate with factors such as the marketing strategy of the specific event since the Hub is located in an area that host the school of arts and creative which has many individuals who are in creative industry. In future the organizer should plan events with consideration of different factors that affect demand and supply. Despite the events capacity, the managements achieved its objectives of marketing their facilities since most respondents indicated that they would consider hiring the venue in future and most probably also refer people in their business circle. Customer service In the current business and economic trend, organization should aim at exceeding the customers’ expectations by providing excellent services and products in a satisfactory way. Successful organizations should identify a specific aspect of their products or services that increases customer satisfaction as well as an attribute which its competitors are weakest. According to Abdullah at el (2013, P. 66) there is a strong relationship between customer satisfaction and the success of any organization in regard to profitability. Most satisfied customers always return purchase to purchase products and services from same provider and this helps to boost profitability of the company as well as increasing its competitive advantages over its competitors. From the responses given by the attendant the event was successful and all customers indicated that they would be interested in attending a similar event in the future. This is a reflection that they offered excellent services to the attendants and both the host and the attendants benefitted from the event. The respondents indicated that the event was well organized and the staffs as well as the students were helpful. The management needs to address the few concerns raised by the respondent to ensure that they increase their competitive advantages. An excellent customer service approach should be reliable, fair and provide surprise to the customers. A successful organization should determine their strongest aspect that helps to satisfy their customer and also identify their competitors’ weakness. This will help in the improvement of their services according to the university’s website, the Performance Hub is one of the most technologically developed theaters and studios among the small theaters in the country and this is one of their strong points coupled with effective and supportive staff. This will help create customer loyalty which is the commitment of the customers to purchase their services in the future regardless of the prevailing competition and marketing from other facilities offering similar services (Abdullah at el 2013, P. 64). Customer loyalty is a crucial aspect of marketing as well as operation management. Performance measurement Performance management helps to determine the progress of an organization towards a specific objective (US department of transport n.d). The performance of an organization is measured in relation to the customer satisfaction. According to the survey on the all the event’s attendants responded that they would attend a similar event in future while 6 respondents out of 15 respondents indicated that they would hire the facilities in case they have an event. Most models available for measuring performance of an organization are based on the tangible products while less study has been done on measuring performance in the service industry (Baard and Watts n.d., P. 6). Performance measuring tools include total quality management, balanced scorecard and result and determinants concepts for the product providers while service providers can only measure their performance using result and determinants concepts (Baard and Watts n.d., P. 6). The performance measurements of the Performance Hub can be measure in both financial and non-financial aspect. The networking event and the attendants responses show that the, impacts of the event can only be measured in the long term trough the customer survey. Measurement of production performance in the service industry is also complicated since most services are sold as a package therefore it’s had to determine the production cost and price of a single unit. Measurement of performance errors is also a complex process due to the unit price (Gordon 1996, P 3). The process should evaluate all the production process that includes procurement, production, distribution and sales(Lang 2010, P. 10). The event was a marketing strategy therefore the cost of the event is factored out in the marketing cost. Its effectiveness can only be estimated with the response from the respondent which was positive and they impact has shorter and long term effects. Recommendation The event was a great step towards the marketing of the Performance Hub. According to the respondents from the questioners most of the attendant indicated that the event was successful and also cited several areas that needs improvement. For the management to be able to organize successful events in future, appropriate methods of marketing the event must be used to reach the target customers such as personal marketing, social media marketing among other methods. There is also need to come up with a comprehensive itinerary for the event and invite an influential speaker from the art and creative industry. This will benefit the respondents and most of them will encourage new attendants. This will show that the management is interested in benefiting the attendants not marketing their facilities. Conclusion Operation management is an important aspect in an organization. Every organization regardless of whether they produce goods or services must have operation management. In small organization, the role of the operation manager might not be clear due to the limited number of number of employees and in some cases the chief executive officer is the operation manager. Operation process includes production, distribution, transport and any other process in the supply chain that helps to convert the inputs into outputs. Operations processes are supported by other activities such as marketing and finance(Jayasingh n.d., P. 4). For an organization to achieve effectiveness and efficiency in delivering goods and services that satisfy their customers’ needs and meets its objective, the management must embrace operation management. Operation management involves reduction of production cost, effective customer services, product and services development, management of operation and strategic risks, performances measurements, strategic planning and staff development. Operation management is therefore an important function or any organization. However for any company to be successful it must develop a structure that integrates its operations and other supportive departments. References Abdullah, F, Abdurahman, A and Hamali, J 2013. 'The Dimensions of Customer Preference in the Foodservice Industry', Business: Theory & Practice, 14, 1, pp. 64-73, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost. Baard, V and Watts, T (n.d).’ The design of a performance measurement model for small firms within the service sector’. Viewed 20 June 2013. Bendoly,E.A, Donohue, K.B, Kenneth, L and Schult, Z 2005. ‘Behavior in operations management: Assessing recent findings and revisiting old assumptions’.Journal of Operations Management. Collins, K 2013. ‘Operations Management for Service Providers’. Exploring Business, v.1.0Viewed 20 June 2013 Duval, Y 2005. ‘Primary Data Collection Methods: Survey Design’. ARTNeTCapacity Building Workshop on Trade Research. 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