Operations Security and Production Controls - Essay Example

“OPSEC is generally regarded as not only a methodology, but also a mindset, and has its roots in the Vietnam Conflict.” (Operations Security, 2007). Operations security involves five processes which are as follows: Production control, as the name specifies, involves the control of production activity of an organization in accordance with the stated standards. Production control is exercised in an organization for proper scheduling of the product, to incur minimum possible expenditure and to check over production as well as under production.

It also works for inter-linking the men, money, machine and materials through proper co-ordination techniques. “It refers only to the control or scheduling of production rather than the wider control of all business or enterprise resources.” (Production Control vs MRPII). The case can be better explained with the help of case study. The case deals with Reflex Mattresses, a company that produces mattresses, carpet and other textile items. The company, in the past, incurred heavy loss due to the leakage of information and ideas from the organization.

The company decided to launch water bed for the first time in the market. This information was gathered by a major competitor, Good Night Beds, and they produced and launched water beds in the market. Thus, they grabbed the major chunk of the market share for the product. Reflex was able to launch the product only two months after that. The company had now proposed an action plan to launch a new variant of the product called Aqua bed. The product is proposed to be an aquarium embedded water bed.

The analysis of the action plan is as follows. 1) Critical information identification: In the case, the core idea itself is critical information as this new idea can be easily copied by the competitors for their benefit. There are chances that the competitors may come up with the product before Reflex could. So