CASE STUDY ANALYSIS Learning Outcomes: LO-1: Demonstrate an understanding of the principles of operations management and achieving competitive capabilities in an organization. LO-2: Explain the basic tools and techniques used in managing the operations LO-3: Analyze organization's operational system to run the process efficiently LO-4: Evaluate the operational strategies to enhance the productivity TITLE: "HOW UPS MAINTAINS ITS DEPENDABILITY" What do you do when it is coming up to the biggest gift-giving time of the year, you are responsible for delivery and your aircraft that are vital for dependable delivery are grounded by a freak snowstorm a continent away, or mechanical problems, or an air traffic controllers dispute in France, or whatever? That is the problem facing all global parcel delivery companies, and it is made worse when customers blame you for any non-delivery. Generally, freight operators have to absorb the cost when a delivery does not arrive on time, so weather, and other disruptions, directly affect their customer service, reputation and, ultimately, profitability. UPS, the largest express carrier and package Delivery Company in the world, reckons that each late shipment will cost it between 5 dollars and 30 dollars in revenue. And with almost 16 million packages and documents delivered worldwide every day it only takes a fraction of a percentage point to be late for the total cost of any lack of dependability to be huge. So what does UPS do to minimize disruption to its delivery network when it is coming up to a peak demand time like Christmas and there is a possibility of bad weather? The obvious thing is to keep a constant watch very carefully on the weather forecast, and indeed UPS does have meteorologists and other staff who do this. But it also builds in a buffer of extra operational capacity. At UPS headquarters a 'hot status board' on the wall identifies cities and regions where the company has spare pilots and aircraft whose task is to rescue volume': that is, the spare resources are used to come to the aid of package stuck somewhere. UPS says that this 'hot spares program' rescues more than 1 million packages annually and saves the company more than 20 million US dollars in revenue. Answer the following Questions: 1. What strategies UPS follows to achieve the Operations Performance Objective of Dependability? 2. Suggest any other approach to maintain dependability to UPS? 3. Mention your experience with any other company which maintains the dependability objective CASE STUDY ANALYSIS Learning Outcomes: LO-1: Demonstrate an understanding of the principles of operations management and achieving competitive capabilities in an organization LO-2: Explain the basic tools and techniques used in managing the operations LO-3: Analyze organization's operational system to run the process efficiently L0-4: Evaluate the operational strategies to enhance the productivity TITLE: "How McDonald's achieves its Operations Performance Objectives?" McDonald's achieved many of its objectives like reducing costs, improving product quality, punctual delivery, and speed of response, product flexibility in adapting to individual customer requirements, resistance to fluctuations in demand, advanced technology and excellent customer service by implementing many operations strategies. It focused on its Performance Objectives related to Operations Management to achieve its objectives. The company provided with the customers a variety of high quality food products which contains items made from fruits, vegetables and milk. It also provided a professional training to all its employees (customer care, restaurant employees, employees in kitchen, marketing, billing and other operations) on preparation of all food items through a systematic process, adhering to standards. The company focuses on meeting all the international specifications related to hygiene focusing on hand and dish washing by using latest technology. It continuously collected feedback from customers and took steps to improve its quality from time to time based on their feedback. It also implemented Total Quality Management (TQM) technique to improve its quality from time to time. McDonald's minimized the speed of delivering its items to the customers by designing its operations using an 'assembly line' in which each employee performs his/her operation quickly and sending it to the next person in the line. This reduced the waiting time for the customer. Most of the operations are also carried out in parallel to minimize the service time. The company set standard times for preparation, packing and delivering of each food item. This increased the productivity of the company. The other performance objective of dependability was achieved by maintaining consistency in its operations, repeated performance of trained employees through standard set of processes, and adhering to the standard operating procedures. The company also trained all the employees on how to handle the customers during peak and non-peak hours and serve them quickly It achieved the other performance objective of flexibility by quickly changing the items in the menu, by catering to the sudden rise in the demand, by offering balance of items in the menu depending on different tastes of adults and children, by training the staff on how to handle multiple tasks and jobs. The assembly line was also made flexible enough so that it can be changed from time to time. The flexibility in its operations is also achieved through its flexible organization structure and allotting shifts to employees for their continuous availability to the customers. McDonald's achieved the performance objective of cost reduction by minimizing the waste in its operations, eliminating rework, and by training employees on how to use all the available resources optimally. The raw material items are purchased only when they are required using the Just-in-Time technique. Thus, all the performance objectives of McDonald's are interconnected with each other. When the quality is improved, cost is reduced; delivery time reduced and flexibility improved which finally increases the dependability of customers on the company. This was achieved by McDonald's through continuous improvement efforts since it was established Questions: 1. What are the five Performance Objectives of Operations Management? 2. How McDonald's achieved these performance objectives