Teams in production and operations management

Teamwork in the Production and Operations Management

Using Teams in Production and Operations Management

Teamwork in the production and operations management in Starbucks

A team is a group of two or more people who have a common goal or purpose. Each member of a team has their own role to play in the accomplishment of the overall goal of the team. Without a person completing their part, it is not possible for the team to achieve their goal. Teams are used widely in businesses, companies and organizations. In employee training and development programs, teams are the most frequently discussed issue Boone & Kurtz, 2010.

Additionally, when many organizations are searching for the perfect person to hire, most of the time they have the capability for teamwork as a requirement for the prospective candidates. A key reason why companies hire personnel who can work together as a team is because by pooling people with different talents, ideas and capabilities, the team can achieve more than if just one individual was working on the same task Hinds & Bailey, 2003()

Types of teams

There are five different species of teams which exist. One is the work team. The work team is a group of company employees who have complementary skills in the achievement of the daily activities of the company or organization. The teams are often led by team leaders in charge of motivating and supervising the individual team members Cohen & Levesque, 1991()

The second type of team is the problem-solving team. This is a temporary team of employees who are brought together to solve a particular problem after which the team is disbanded. The difference between the problem-solving team and the work team is that the former is a temporary unit while the former is permanent Cohen & Levesque, 1991.

Problem-solving teams can be brought together for various reasons. These reasons can be specifically stated or just be broad statements.

The third type of team is the self-managed team. This is a group of people who work in their own different ways but have a common goal. The team does its own work scheduling, workflow, training and rewarding. There are advantages and disadvantages of this type of team. One advantage is that it is easy to manage the short-term responsibility of each team member. This is done by liaising with each other unlike in other types of teams and setting targets for performance Griffin, Patterson, & West, 2001.

Another advantage is that it develops the individual in the team as well as motivating each individual separately. One drawback is that the team members have different work schedules which may be difficult to manage Yang & Guy, 2004()

The fourth type of team is the cross-functional team. This comprises of several people with different expertise in various fields but all with a common goal. It can include people with expertise in finance, sales and marketing, human resource and supply departments. It can also consist of consultants who stem from outside the organization itself Heywood & Jirjahn, 2004()

The last species of teams is the virtual team. This is a group of two or more people in different time zones, spaces or boundaries of organizations. Their work is majorly coordinated through electronic communication such as using computers over the internet or using mobile phones and tablet computers. This type of team can consist of people with different cultural backgrounds and technical expertise Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999()

Teams in Starbucks

This paper presents an analysis of the use of teams in the management of production and operations in Starbucks. Starbucks Corporation is the most popular retail coffee shops chain in the whole wide world. It benefits primarily from selling their own roast of coffee beans and tea. The company has over 4000 stores located in different countries around the world. Starbucks is best known for quality, superior consumer experience and the coziness provided by their store environments.

Starbucks has many activities conducted in the operations and production departments. These include the conversion of coffee beans to roasted coffee through processing. Also, there is the production of pastry through baking by using flour, baking powder, sugar and other raw materials. Starbucks uses heavy machinery for all this processing. Their machines are usually industry grade and are scheduled for monthly servicing to ensure the machines are always in good working order.

Starbucks has invested much time, effort and financial resources in their employees to make sure they are happy in their workstations and in return, they provide the unique customer experience that is recognized in the Starbucks brand. The company offers a distinctive blend for each employee. This unique combination includes medical, dental, life and disability insurance, a great salary, bonuses, overtime, paid off days, retirement plans, emergency financial assistance, free coffee and much more. All this coupled with the trainings, sabbaticals, internal recognition and reward programs, recreation facilities and employee discounts in partner stores make working at Starbucks fun and rewarding.

Starbucks pays a lot of attention to the dependability, ability and adaptability of the people hired to join the team. Starbucks, one of the first companies in the retail sector to invest heavily in employee development through trainings, part time and full time. At the time when they began this employee investment, many sneered at the efforts calling them unpredictable and lost but the fruits can be clearly tasted and seen in the financial strength of the company. The company claims to spend more on their employees than in advertising. This goes to show that employee satisfaction is a significant factor in Starbucks. In an employee survey conducted, about 82% of employees reported being immensely satisfied with their work while just a mere 15% claimed to be just satisfied Stuhl, 2011()

Starbucks prides itself in being an equal opportunity employer and has a career diversity program where they sign up employees of a different race, age groups, disability and ethnicity. Even though they have this career diversity program, applicants are not given any special consideration based on race or even disability. All of them are graded on a fair level after which the best person is selected. This fosters a sense of teamwork among the employees.

With the company having such a large number of stores, the store managers have to work as virtual teams in order to achieve the goals and objectives of the organization. Starbucks values itself in providing the same customer experience in terms of products and customer service in all its stores. Therefore, the managers have to work together to synchronize this across all stores in the world.

The company also has several work teams which are involved in the daily activities in terms of production and operations. A perfect example is the internal audit team which consists of 5 permanent employees who establish the risk of the business activities and control coverage. This team is also sometimes expanded to include external consultants who help them regularly.

In the fiscal year ending 2005, the company was implementing compliance with section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley. During this time, the company created an ad hoc team for this purpose. This was a team of the problem-solving type since they just had the role to work toward this specific purpose then it was disbanded Gilbert, 2008()

Starbucks values teams greatly and teams are an essential part of the company's production and operations departments. The company believes that the secret to a motivated employee is teamwork. Here, the company has effectively married teamwork together with the motivation of employees. Starbucks has established a favorable environment to establish a relationship between managers and their employees. The managers and employees have to work together to eliminate the line between their statuses in the organization. By there not being an enormous difference between the employee and management, the employees feel valued and are motivated to give 100% towards the success of the company.