Analyzing the Operation Management

Operation Management

What should your competitive priorities be and what capabilities do you want to develop in your own core and support processes?

To begin with, so as to establish an online grocery delivery business, there are a number of factors (both internal and external) that need to be taken into account so as to ensure success of the business. Prominent among them is partnership with the grocery stores. In this instance, there will be the partnership between two brick and mortar grocery stores that presently are not engaged in any kind of grocery delivery business. In addition, we must be assured that we will have consumers who are ready and prepared to pay the additional dollars for the service. Taking this into consideration, the ideal consumer for this service is an individual who leads a considerably busy and chaotic life, barely has the time to visit the grocery store, and has medium to high ranging income (Collier and Evans, 2009).

The second aspect is ascertaining the competitive priorities. In accordance to Ward et al. (1998), competitive priorities are important scopes that any business supply chain ought to satisfy for its consumers. Some of them include the following:

1. Quality importance

Manufacturing, marketing, and production functions have been depicted as possessing various definitions of quality. These consist of durability, reliability, features, and perceived quality.

2. Cost importance

Companies and manufacturers are apprehensive with how much particular procedures will cost because this can be the factor of making a difference with the competition. Classifications related to manufacturing expenses consist of production costs, inventory reduction, productivity and also utilization of capacity.

3. Delivery time importance

In delineation, on-time delivery is the capacity to make deliveries in accordance to a guaranteed and already ledged schedule. This particular factor is imperative for sustaining competitiveness. In particular, the business unit might not have the most economical product or highest quality products, but it has the capacity to compete on the foundation of dependably making product deliveries as initially promised (Ward et al., 1998).

Is it possible for a project to have more than one critical path?

Yes, it is possible to have more than one critical path in a project. It is without doubt not the perfect setting but it may take place. In particular, if there is more than one critical path, then this implies that there might be less resources and greater diversion for the project manager, along with that for the team.

Discuss the implications of such a situation with respect to each of the following aspects:

a. Project risk

Having more than one critical path implies that there will be a rise in the project's risks. A project with more than one critical path owing to the similar duration, there is an increase in the level of the project risk. The completion of the whole project could be hindered by postponing activities along any one of the critical paths.

b. Total available slack

The implication of having more than one critical path is that there will be a greater total available slack. This is because the free time of every activity within the ESS and LSS will be much greater.

c. Resource dependencies

With more than one critical path, tasks can be accomplished in lesser time or days with adequate staffing.

d. Responsibilities of the project manager

Having more than one critical path implies that the manager will have more responsibilities owing to the several sequences of project network activities to deal with (Collier and Evans, 2009).

Question 2: What are some of the Quality Control (QC) processes that you envision employing? Why? Provide examples of potential metrics. Justify your choices

As pointed out, a program for quality assurance is imperative and crucial for any business to succeed and be effective in its operations. Quality is a vital and indispensable variable attested to any item or organization. Taking into consideration the high rivalry in the market, quality has come to be the aspect for setting apart businesses with regard to all items and organizations. In this way, all manufacturers and organizational suppliers always seek to upgrade their product items or the quality of the organization. The justification for this is that, in order to sustain or enhance the nature of the product offerings, the producers make the most of two processes, which include quality certification and quality control. In particular, these two practices substantiate and confirm that the end-user product item or the organization meets the quality prerequisites and benchmarks characterized for the product item or organization (Collier and Evans, 2009).

Question 3: As the loan officer is not overly familiar with either model, a request has been made of you to provide a description of each model and an explanation of why partnering with these companies would or would not create a conflict within your operations. Provide a detailed analysis of the situation in your business model

Just-in-time model (JIT) is an inventory technique that companies use to increase efficiency and diminish waste by receiving goods only as they are necessitated in the process of production. As a result, this decreases the costs of inventory. In particular, this strategy necessitates producers are capable to correctly project demand. At the point of requesting for stock, the two major challenges are costs and quality. At the instance where everything else is equal, selecting one supplier over another supplier is determined by which supplier offers the best value break for the largest request. At any given point when the inventory runs low, the process of restocking begins once more and is reproduced by the quantity in demand. This strategy is purposed to facilitate streamlining of the business operation, assure predictable quality and decrease in-house inventory.