Logistics and Operations Management - Roundal Wright Retirement Homes - Case Study Example

Lоgistiсs and Ореrаtiоns Маnаgеmеnt By student’s name Course code +name Professor’s name University name City, state Table of Contents Lоgistiсs and Ореrаtiоns Маnаgеmеnt 12 1 Lоgistiсs and Ореrаtiоns Маnаgеmеnt 1 Table of Contents 2 Lоgistiсs and Ореrаtiоns Маnаgеmеnt 3 Introduction 3 Findings and Analysis 4 Situation 5 Problem 5 Solution 6 Evaluation/Execution 8 Conclusions 10 All the problems identified are hard to implement and handle at once. However, there is a rise in customers or Roundal Wright Retirement Homes expectations to have intensity on competitions with other homes. This increase the pressure to have the quality of the house improved (Drucker, 1994.). Thus, it calls for introduction of quality management systems that are permanent within the premises. This makes it very clear that with the introduction of QMS in this residential home, the retirees will result into cost and service improvenment.This will be a key factor to the survival and propensity of these homes. All the quality improvement analysis undertaken in this process should act as an important lesson to the management of the homes in the basis of how to cultivate for a culture that is wide, firm, and continued in the achievement of performance results that are required in the quality improvement journey (Perret, 2007). 10 Recommendations 10 Lоgistiсs and Ореrаtiоns Маnаgеmеnt Introduction Roundal Wright Retirement Homes are homes for the retired people. According to the brief given there are a number of problems that have been raised to the management by the residents. Some of the concern issues that have been raised include, parking area that is not sufficient, very long queues in the dining halls, food that has been cooked, but there are no customers to buy it (Goetsch, Davis, & Goetsch, 2000). In addition, there is conflict in workers line of duties. All these issues are management concerns which require proper time, finance, and well defined duties and responsibility within the premises. In regard to the above concern issues the aspect of quality has been raised, which implies that the type of services that the residents of these homes are being offered requires modification in order to meet the right quality value. The entire system of the premises does not require modification, but through the research conducted by the housekeeper it is clear that the concern issues do not meet up to the expectations of the home occupants It is therefore important to define quality in regard to Roundal Wright Retirement Homes. Quality should meet the whole range of customer’s expectations whereby it is spoken and other times outspoken. This mean the quality of services that are offered in these premises is perceived by the premise residents. Therefore all the areas where these premise dwellers have raised complain it implies that those specific areas does not comply with the expected, right quality and requires improvements. Therefore the issue of quality is a complex aspect and should be addressed by the whole organization. This can be achieved once all the stakeholders join hands towards handling the issues. The first step towards achieving and attaining quality measures and services within the premises is by seeking the commitment of the management group in order to make the quality modifications efforts to be sustainable enough(Kok, & Graves, 2003). This is because lack of senior management commitment and concern in Roundal Wright Retirement Homes is the key factor towards the failure and cause of the problems identified. That is, they have failed to diagnose and focus on the quality deformities that the premises residents have raised. The entire problem has been left to the house keeper who acts as the senior manager of the premises. Findings and Analysis In order to analysis this area fully it is important to apply quality improvement models .The most applicable model is the FADE model. The model brings in the aspects of focusing, analysis, developing, and executing or evaluating. The model formation is as shown below Situation The first step in the model is focus on the situation of a certain problem. Initially this refers to the definition and verification process of the improvement process. There are a number of complains that have been identified by the residence which has been directed to the house keeper. These problems give clear focuses of the model. Some of the problems that have been indentified are shown in the next step of the model. Problem The problems identified includes; parking spaces that are not enough for all residents, long queues in the dining area, extortonating meal cost, lack of a variety of meals, and a possible duty conflict among the employees. The identified problems fall under the analysis section. The model in this case helps in collecting and data analysis to point out the root cause of the above indentified problems. Therefore, in order to point towards possible solutions the following points are clear as the root causes of the identified problems. The parking area has been built to accommodate the number of residents who were to occupy the flats. However, there are cases of double parking. This indicates that the whole process is not organized in the right way. Once there is double parking, it means that parking spaces are sufficiently enough, but some residents are taking advantage of the situation or are ignorant. In the case of long queues in the dining area is as a result of all the residents visiting the place at the same time. There is an indication that the personnel who serve all the residents in the dining area is only one person (Wysocki, 2004). This indicates that she has been burdened by so many responsibilities resulting into poor quality services being delivered. An evidence of this is presence of a limited variety of meals, and extortionate meals costs. There is also a possibility of employee’s duty conflict. A blame between Sandy the cook and the house keeper. The house keeper has taken up extra responsibilities of buying cooking ingredients which is a responsibility of the cook. This results into poor quality meals, due to lack of closely well defined responsibilities. Solution This section was based on developing the data, in order to come up with action plans to help in improvement procedures. It also includes implementation, communication, monitoring and measuring all the identified problems. The overall aim of this part of quality improvement model is to try and seek solution to the problems (Gitlow, Oppenheim, & Oppenheim, 1995). In line with the identified problems, increasing the size of the parking area to be sufficient enough is not the only solution to this problem, but the management should also come up with a training session to show the residents of the flats on how to adequately use the parking area. The problem lies on the double parking aspects that have been reported. Another solution to the problem is to employ security guards who will be directing people on the available parking spaces and to ensure that the parking spaces are used effectively. This will ensure maximum satisfaction of the home residents, which will result into attainment of quality services as far as parking is concerned. The other problem identified is on meals, it is a clear indication that there is a shortage of workers in the dining area and this can be attributed to long queues experienced in this place. There is evidence that Sandy is the only cook. Therefore, due to overworking, she is likely to deliver poor quality services in regard, for example poorly prepared meals. Another possible solution to this problem is developing strata’s among the residences. Then each stratum is allocated a certain time that it should visit the dining area. This approach will save the time wasted and extra energy used to serve a large group of people at the same time (Hubbard, 1993.). Finally, there is conflict in the line of duty among the employees in Roundal Wright Retirement Homes (Gitlow, Oppenheim, & Oppenheim, 1995). This may result from poor communication which results into misunderstanding between the Sandy the cook and the house keeper. Once there is conveying of the wrong information, there is a likelihood that projects will be done incorrectly and blames are directed to each other at the end of the end results. The Roundal Wright Retirement Homes residents are not satisfied services they receive in the dining area. This is a clear default in the quality of services offered. Evaluation/Execution The use of pilot process implies that the implementation process will be undertaken on small basis as a way of testing for quality attainment of the problems indentified. The idea is to asses and defines whether the idea works as it had been planned. The pilot basis also makes it possible to identified further problems and if the identified solutions can be ramped up to the full service delivery scale (Gitlow, & Gitlow, 2005). Therefore, once the quality improvement process is done on a pilot base less money will be spent compared to a full implementation of the recommended changes. In the case of full implementation process all the defect areas might not be dealt with 100%.The evaluation level will facilitate in forming an ongoing, measuring, and monitoring and control process(Gitlow, & Gitlow, 2005). This process will ensure that the quality of services offered in the areas addressed does not go down, but remains to be of the required high standard. The system also ensures that all the quality improvements recommended by the quality management team continues on being observed. This system is as indicated in the following diagram Conclusions All the problems identified are hard to implement and handle at once. However, there is a rise in customers or Roundal Wright Retirement Homes expectations to have intensity on competitions with other homes. This increase the pressure to have the quality of the house improved (Drucker, 1994.). Thus, it calls for introduction of quality management systems that are permanent within the premises. This makes it very clear that with the introduction of QMS in this residential home, the retirees will result into cost and service improvenment.This will be a key factor to the survival and propensity of these homes. All the quality improvement analysis undertaken in this process should act as an important lesson to the management of the homes in the basis of how to cultivate for a culture that is wide, firm, and continued in the achievement of performance results that are required in the quality improvement journey (Perret, 2007). Recommendations The following quality assessment steps can be applied in the quality assessment process. The first step is to ensure Roundal Wright Retirement Homes management team is committed in addressing the issues and concerns raised by residents. The main aim of this process is to get to pronounce where the management of the premises stands on the quality issues. After the definition of quality vision, a quality management team should be formed. The aim of the team would be to guide the entire Roundal Wright Retirement Homes in the formulation process of the set objectives and goals in regard to areas that have been identified by customers or Roundal Wright Retirement Homes residents. It is also important to ensure that the services are of the right standards (Grant, Trautrims, & Wong, 2013). Error removal and adapting in the corrective actions is the next very important step in concern to quality. The problems that have been highlighted by residents of Roundal Wright Retirement Homes results from some error somewhere. After identifying these errors, corrective actions should be applied to ensure that they do not recur. This will eventually result into full satisfaction of the customers which will be a clear indication of the right quality. The final process is ensuring a continued improvement of the services offered in the premises. This is achieved by maintaining a repeat cycle of continuous quality improvement. The whole issue is making the endurance of quality improvement as an action that never ends. All these recommendations when addressed from a financial point of view are that the operation cost of the premises will go down. The quality standards set will also be met effectively. The management of Roundal Wright Retirement Homes should focus more on collaboration rather than competition because this will result into its customers reduces the expenses. References Drucker, P. F. 1994. Management: tasks, responsibilities, practices. New York, Harper & Row. Gitlow, H. S., & Gitlow, H. S. 2005. Quality management. Boston, McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Gitlow, H. S., Oppenheim, A. V., & Oppenheim, R. 1995. Quality management: tools and methods for improvement. Burr Ridge, Ill, Irwin. Goetsch, D. L., Davis, S., & Goetsch, D. L. 2000. Quality management: introduction to total quality management for production, processing, and services. Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall. Grant, D. B., Trautrims, A., & Wong, C. Y. 2013. Sustainable logistics and supply chain management. London, Kogan Page http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=632729. Hubbard, D. L. 1993. Continuous quality improvement: making the transition to education. Maryville, MO, Prescott. Kok, A. G. D., & Graves, S. C. 2003. Supply chain management: design, coordination and operation. Amsterdam, Elsevier. Perret, F. L. 2007. Essentials of logistics and management. Lausanne, Switzerland, EPFL Roth, W. F. 1999. Quality improvement: a systems perspective. Boca Raton, FL, St. Lucie Press. Wysocki, R. K. 2004. Project management process improvement. Boston, Artech House. http://www.books24x7.com/marc.asp?bookid=10262. Read More