Ikea Case Study

Operations Management

Assignment 1: IKEA

Introduction:

IKEA is a well-known largest furniture retailer in the world. It was found in 1943 and its mission is to offer home furniture and accessories of good design and function at low prices, so the majority of the people can afford them. In this report, there are 4 questions will be addressed and analyzed in regard to the business case of IKEA as following. 1. What do you understand as Operation Management in the case of IKEA? 2. How is the operation of IKEA different from that of the other traditional furniture retailer? 3. What do you identify as the “Operations Function” of IKEA and how is this different from the “Sales Function” of the other furniture retailer? 4. What do you think might be the advantages and the possible difficulties in running an operation like IKEA?

1. What do you understand as Operations Management in the case of IKEA?

Operations Management is the set of activities that create goods and services through the ‘input-transformation-output’ process. It is also the activity of managing the resources, which are applied to the production and delivery of products and services.

In the case of IKEA, the company mission as mentioned previously is to offer wide variety of functional furniture for the house, of a quality and at a price affordable by a majority of people. Therefore, IKEA’s operations management plays a significant role in order to achieve the company mission.

IKEA’s operations management can be found as the following:

a. Design of store’s layout to ensure a smooth flow can be delivered and presented to the customers in a more effective and convenience way.

b. Adapt flat-packed design so that the products can be transport with greater efficiency. In addition, by minimizing the ‘wasted space’ it is possible to transport and store more package at a time. For example, some products can be stacked upside down, and therefore make it possible to fit ten into a box instead...