Sandwiches Production and Operation Management - Book Report/Review Example

Affiliation: Sandwiches Production and Operation Management Project Small-scale sandwich production The firstimportant aspect that one has to recognize is to understand the job description and roles of the director of operations. It is a matter of great significance to understand how every other activity involved in the production process fits together from an operational point of view. In the book Production and Operations Management by Martin Starr, the author is explaining production and management (P/OM) helps in fulfilling the entire strategic mission and the entire responsibility process. The author explains how important P/OM students need to be conversant with the new product planning hence being able to pursue P/OM goals through partnership with marketing, finance, and many other business functions. With the aid of systems approach, P/OM is subject to indicate as being crucial to the strategic goal planning (Starr 53). This is an area whereby strategies and tactics are subject to evaluate together in learning their combined contribution in the productivity, low costs, high quality, timelines, and total capability required for reaching efficient and effective control of the supply chain activities. Through enlarging on the importance of the cultural perspectives and the global literacy, this book provides more insights of tomorrow’s operational strategies. As forward-looking teacher and a good leader through the field of Production and Operations Management, Martin K. Starr’s book provides a reflection on a sea of change that occurs in the current working places. In this regard, the new role of the P/OM is to engage in partnership with the company executives into influencing on the integration of the decisions involving all functional areas within an organization (Starr 69). A production manager in the sandwiches production at home serves the similar role of running a small-scale business operation. In this case, the manager’s role would involve filling the pivotal role of the business that entails planning, overseeing operations, and coordination through smooth communications. The first role as a director of operations when making sandwiches at home is managing of the resources. An operation manager will lead the role of managing the raw materials and the personnel. This will involve overseeing of inventory, with purchasing and supplies being the central job, with human resource tasks being hiring and overseeing their tasks and planning of staff development. The second role will include the logistics management, whereby the operations manager will ensure that all machinery and the equipment that will be in use have the ability of producing goods and services that meet the standards required by the client. While engaging in home baking of sandwiches with the pre-flavored bread, the operations manager will play the role of budget management, process that may involve obtaining the requirements of logistics and coordinating them with the finance department in order to obtain the necessary budget approval. It is the role of the manager to ensure that quality equipment is subject to produce within the budget. The other role is operational strategizing, whereby an operations manager will design the operating system, manage on the operating system, and improve on the operations system. Production of Sandwiches with pre-flavored bread The kinds of decisions involved in the production of sandwiches at home will entail making decision on the process of which the goods and services are subject to produce, and making decision on the quality of goods and services. Other decisions entails making the quantity of goods or services, decision on the stock of materials (inventory) required for producing the sandwiches, and finally the decision on the management of human resources. The process approach is the best way to understand the task management in any production activity. The figure below explains the simple manner of explaining process approach involved in the production; Any task involved in the production can be subject to analyze by breaking into smaller parts with the aid of a process approach. The fist step is identifying all the neccesary inputs and the required final outputs, followed by examining on the activities that will result to the transformation from one step to another. All of these activities go throuh the sub-processes. Doing analysis in this manner helps in understanding how an individual might improve on the performance of a certain task through a different and efficient manner. With the aid of a process approach, one can analyze sandwich production to be having inputs, sub-processes, and the outputs. List of inputs - The flavors such as curry, thai flavours. There will be need of labor who has the approapriate skills of making sandwiches. Equipment required are knife, cooking pans, source of heat, and plates. Ingredients for making 4-5 sandwiches will include (16-inch) soft pretzel loaf, split lengthwise, 2 tablespoons of curried appale jam, 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise, one ounce crushed spiced pecans, six ounces roasted pork loin, slice thin. Other ingreidnts are 12 slices of bread-and-butter picles, together with 1.5 ounces of baby swiss cheese that are sliced thin. Another input may be time and skills of the sandwich maker. Process of production – start by spreading on one side of the loaf in a generious manner with curried apple jam, and then spread on the second side with mayo. Then sprinkle the pecans over mayo. Next, on the side that contains jam, lay the roasted pork (or any other meat) and picles. Follow by lating cheese over the picles and the put the sandwich together. The next step, use a panini press for warming the sandwich. As an alternative, heat the heavy skillet on top and if poosible, add a large can in case an extra weight will be a requirement. Next, heat the sandwich for for 3 to 5 minutes until it is warm enough and that all cheese has melted. Then cut crooswise into sandwich portions of four to five pieces. The sandwich is ready to serve. Output – the only output in the entire process is a cheese salad sandwich of brown bread but with different flavors. The input outflow diagram is as shown below; Control points such as quality, numbers, timing Even upon completing the task of analyzing on the production task to the output end, there is still more details that require analyzing, more than what meets the eye. In this case, the sandwiches were prepared for a few visiting friends in a normal kitchen. However, as a production and operations manager, there is need to look at more issues surrounding the output, such as looking at the quality, the size of production, the time consumed, labor consumed, and the possibility of expanding this production in case an extended business opportunity emerges. One requires doing evaluation on the quality, timing, and costs of production from a customer’s point of view as a means of coming to terms of whether the production was able to meet the desired target. In case one makes a decision to cater for many people or making a decision to run the lunchtime business, there will be need for producing a larger number of sandwiches, which will often require a short timescale. One may measure the quality by looking at the satisfaction of close friends in relation to the sandwich served to them, thus follow their genuine recommendation in making a decision of expanding on this production. An operations and production manager may make a decision of employing extra staff or volunteers in the specialist roles as measures of speeding on the production time. For example, one person will be applying butter to bread, another person doing the grating of cheese, another person in preparation of salad, and another person doing the assembling of the final sandwich. Another important step that should not be subject to forget in the control point is the packaging and storing of the sandwiches in appropriate manner so that they may stay fresh until the time of consumption by the customer. Specialization in job roles when dealing with sub-processes of production is essential for enhancing maximum control points for the final output. However, there also remains another potential difficulty when dealing with various control points in production. The question here is, “what if no one is interested in eating the cheese salad sandwich on brown bread with a specific flavor?” It always becomes irritating to figure out that people do not like the sandwiches produced and thus leave them unattended or just eat them halfway. For the sandwich making business, the unsold sandwiches will thus translate to losses, thus becoming expensive waste on their inputs. There is need to devise very efficient measures for producing the required number of sandwiches, through a given time, and be able to satisfy on the hunger of the customer. In this case, any sandwich selling business need to understand the needs of the prospective customers at the time of planning on the production of the required outputs. Project 2: The Case of making the production to the industrial level When there is room for moving to the industrial level of production, four levels of business operations exist that any production manager needs to consider before expanding from a local-based sandwich production to a large-scale production. A typical customer will most likely evaluate on a business basing on the four basic levels of performance, namely the cost, the quality, time/responsiveness, and variety. At the cost aspect, the operations manager needs to evaluate on how efficient the business operation will be able to deliver goods or services. On the aspect of variety, the production manager will evaluate on the ability of the business in fulfilling specific wishes of the heterogeneous customer base. On quality, the production manager needs to evaluate on how good the product or service offered is by means of performance. Finally, the time aspect looks at how fast the business will be able to fulfill the wishes of customers. When moving the business operation to the industrial level, many things happen through the operations of the business. At first, there will be need to assess the market and understand the preferences of the prospective customers. The production of sandwiches will be of more quantity, thus requiring addition labor, resources, and additional capital, marketing strategies, among other things that will make the business grow and cope with the industrial market. By starting to produce sandwiches on an industrial capacity, the production firm will require maintaining the local market base, hence calling for multitasking. The labor force will also have to multitask in their capacities as the firm tries to gain strength in the new industrial market. In return, the business will expect to make more sales if it works well or experience some losses from the beginning, but eventually gain pace with time. There are related positives and outcomes of both going industrial and multitasking. The positives of going industrial are that the business is expanding and gaining more popularity, hence creating the opportunities of reaching an expanded market. Upon establishing a good market, the business will start making more sales than when it was producing few sandwiches, hence more profits to the company. As the companies integrate well into the industrial market, there will be many sources of finances, as it would attract more investors. However, the negatives of going industrial is that the company will end up making loses at the beginning of operations, encounter tight competition from already established firms, challenges of raising expansion capital, challenges with hiring enough labor, and challenges of meeting operational costs. The positives of multitasking are that it saves on the extra cost of labor and reaches or serves diversified customers. However, its negatives are that it reduces on the productivity of the labor force and reduces the possibility of reaching maximum productivity through quality output. Imagining that one has moved from producing sandwiches for friends, now gained popularity, and now producing more sandwiches for catering, one will require doing a number of things. For instance, supplying two clients with 100 sandwiches each on weekly basis will require more resources in form of inputs, more labor in form of skilled sandwich makers, and more capital for covering on the costs of production. There will be need to come up with a timeframe and dividing the production capacity on weekly basis, basing on the time the specific client will require delivery of the certain number of sandwiches. There will be need to have a plan for obtaining the ingredients from the specific supplies in time of need to allow the smooth operations of the business. Finally, one also requires communicating regularly with clients for update on their preferences and the specific time of delivery. Through the entire paper, one is able to learn that an operations and production manager plays a key role in ensuring successful operations of the business. In this case, one needs to understand all the insights required to serve well as an operations and production manager, hence leading to the successful operations of the business. In any kind of business, there is need to have an operations or production manager, who will engage in tasks that will help the business in fulfilling the entire strategic mission and the entire responsibility process as set by the organizational goals. Finally, there is need to apply all rational measures when dealing with any form or production, and all of this depends on the positive feedback from the customers. When there is dissatisfaction from customers, then it would be hard for the business to grow and hence leads to loses or closure in the end. Works Cited Starr, Martin K. Production and Operations Management. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning, 2008. Print. Read More