Operation Managent

1.How would operations strategy for a service industry be different if any from that for a manufacturing industry? Give an example and explain ?

ANS1

Operations strategy for a manufacturing operation should include factors such as low-cost labor and capital expenditure. Return on investment must be considered for any capital purchases such as machinery and tooling. Finding the lowest cost resources to operate equipment and perform any assembly duties is a critical input to the opps strategy. At the same time, manufacturing/operations strategy should include location as it relates to the location of the customer to ensure delivery efficiencies.

Drawing on the differences - In a service industry, your main capital resources are typically people. In the case of critical human capital, you must assign a value to the time spent on a project being mindful of the fixed and variable costs associated with the operation. Strategic location may not be as important depending on the type of service performed as frequent customer contact may not need to be as frequent and delivery is often determined on a per-service basis as opposed to a “just-in-time” model or sequencing in the manufacturing scenario.

ANS2

There are many differences but from my experience, here are a couple I would focus on.

A manufcturing Industry company needs its operations to focus on making stuff optimally no matter what. Problem solving day to day problems, with a bias for getting thngs fixed so that the capital assets are churning out the best quality maximum productivity they can is the key. There must also be gret focus on managing cash and making sure that the righ sku's are bieng made at the right time, and so sales and market feedback loops are critical to optimally running the operations strategy. Finally, the strategy must include time for development and improvment activities, but again optimally sit in, so that tommorrow you will continue to make something people want to buy....