Production Management

PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT

ASSIGNMENT – I

How did the original call centre structure result in delays and how did the company redesign its layout to reduce delays?

The original call centre structure consisted of three tiers of support groups which were highly differentiated and this caused the customer calls being transferred between the tiers to and forth.

When a customer made a call no tier was efficient enough to resolve his problems. If the first tier received the calls, it would be transferred to the next tier. When they could not resolve the issue the call was transferred back to the first tier. This shuttling of the calls between the two tiers highly delayed the process. This is very indicative of the low level of efficiency of the workers in the call centre.

This forced the company to redesign its call centre. The new structure consists of many cells. Each cell consisted of two or more tiers. The cells handled specified group of customers. Thus in simple words, the need of transferring calls between tiers were eliminated as all the cells had representation from all tiers, this reduced time wastage. Each cell had a cell team leader. The working of the cell completely lay in his control. The cell team leader was ultimately responsible for ensuring that every customer query is followed through to a satisfactory conclusion and over 90% of customer queries were resolved likewise.

What is the type of manufacturing system layout similar to the redesigned layout in the case? Explain its working with reference to the case.

The redesigning of the call centre was done according to the Group Technology Layout (Cellular Manufacturing). ). In cellular manufacturing, the available components are grouped into part families. In the given case, the same has been done by creating cells, wherein all the available components based on functions like sales, technical support, payment collection etc. have been included in every cell.

As an example of...