Strategic Operation Issues

STRATEGIC OPERATIONS ISSUES ASSIGNMENT TABLE OF FIGURES ABSTRACT5 classify A6 discontinue B8 PART C10 PART D11 PART E13 computer address LIST15 ABSTRACT federation A is a global come with and within it has several opposite business units, association A , is a work service supplier for the oil, gas and petrochemical industries throughout the adult male, this report focuses on Company A rear Field Service Pty Ltd, located in Australia.Operations and procedure management atomic number 18 vital functions for the hard-hitting effortning of successful businesses, they need to be strategic roundlyy planned and designed to prevent the bolshy of vital information, company measurements as advantageously as continually improve practises. These bear ones should be well document and understood by all employees of the company. The bolshie or relocation of individuals should non consent epoch-making impact on company functioning. This report shows how strategic operations functions can be use to improve memberes and therefore annex business in force(p)ness.Key concepts in strategic operations issues, such as process design and analysis, total part management and resource cooking and orchestrate hold need to be well documented for the trunk to remain effective and to resonate long term strategic goals. PART A force the organisation and the problem briefly, merely well enough for the assignment quizzer to understand what the organisation does and its relevance to this assignment Company A is a global company with many business units located around the world Company A is itself a division of Company B.Company A have extensive fellowship of all types of vessel and tower internals. Company A ar a specialist service provider supporting customers needs for all their internal equipment installation, shutdown, upkeep or revamp requirements in the petrochemical, and oil and gas industries all over the world. It is Company As strategy to streng then its ability to supply installation and maintenance services to its customers geographically leading to recent acquisitions, Oceania merging with APA creating APAC.This has giveed in the relocation of key force out, within the company, to run in the altogether locations, consequentially losing bring and twenty-four hour period to day usable knowledge. Due to an ill documented management system this knowledge and experience was non captured in processes & procedures resulting in a tornado in the operations of the business. This assignment focuses on Company A Pty Ltd, Australian Operations. PART B Briefly explain the background to this issue or problem by describing how it fits into the operations of the business.Its impact on the business could be demonstrated development a chart to show the functional relationships, and/or a process flow analysis to show how the operation or process that you be studying is integrated into the organisation Company As acidulate is vari ed and unpredictable, resulting in fluctuations and depressions in work oftenness and the great unwashed (Figure 2. 0). Speed, embody and dependability are the important operational factors operate Company As market strategy in fetching contracts. Whilst each project is different the process for quoting, receiving the contract and executing the line of merchandise are essentially the same (Figure 3. ) . This process was held by a tenuous number of experienced and long standing employees, when they were reallocated to run opposite locations, so was the knowledge of project, quoting requirements, Company A capabilities and experience. pic Figure 2. 0 Shows the variation and volume in work load throughout any given year. savoir-faire Reporting Figures (2009, 2010, 2011) pic Figure 3. 0 Process Flow chart of Company A inquiry through to Project Completion PART C Provide brief specific dilate of the operational issue, problem or process that needs to be addressed.For example, this might includes Key objectives, success factors and cognitive process of the issue in question Opportunities or implications for changes to the process or techniques cosmos used now Resource implications or constraints Technologies and/or workforce issues mixed in the process etc. Company As bosom business revolves around winning contracts these contracts are establish upon man-hours that is, the condemnation it would take to complete the scope of work provided by the guest. Any deviation from the budgeted man-hours results in reduced profit margins, poor on sentence delivery, customer dissatisfaction and loss of reputation.Therefore it is vital when quoting for a project all quality, comprises, man-hours and materials are factored in. The relocation of personnel and subsequent lose of experience and personnel knowledge outlined a gap between assumed knowledge and documented procedures, as whilst the process to quote and win projects was essentially the same, it was not well documented and new employees were unable to successfully quote for a project. This not hardly impart affect Company As bottom line but will result in inconsistent quotations and impact on employee course satisfaction.This has brought forward the need for a documented, maintained and reviewed Quality Management System, whereby, procedures, standard documents and templates can be used which capture all associated costs, project, client and company requirements. PART D Analyse the problem using concepts covered in the appropriate part of this subject (this should be the major part of your work and your report). In analysing the problem, you should consider the five main objectives of operations management changes to mathematical process or outcomes (such as quality, productivity etc. potential improvements relevant scheme calculations where possible and any information about the costs involved. As speed, cost and on time delivery are the key to being awarded contracts, high gear importance needs to be placed on these factors and would be where strategic planning would be focused. Whilst quality and flexibility play a significant role in Company As application, quality is commonly fixed by the client as they know what they want achieved, as is flexibility, what they want and when they want it is usually not negotiable, especially as they are working to deadlines for their customers.The quotes that are presented to the client not only need to meet the operations objectives of cost and speed, but too dependability that is, is what they have quoted an unblemished reflection of what can be practically achieved, have they over estimated the man-hours or underestimated the man hours? This is vital to get right as an overestimation results in an incr tranquillized cost, making us less competitive, and therefore losing the contract. An underestimate would result in scrimpy time to complete the project and the extra cost would be worn by Company A.Not only would cost be an issue, but that would affect our reputation as a specialist provider, precipitate customer satisfaction and therefore be less considered by the client when submitting a quote next time. The number and variety of different manpower needed is based on specification of output as well as aggregated susceptibility that is the number of man hours is then used to calculate how many men/days it would take to complete the excogitate based on a ten hour day. The data for estimating an enquiry has been developed over time, using past experience, company expectations and feedback from the contractors required to do the work.The man-hours required to complete standardised services have been established using the top down and bottom up approach, this knowledge til now has not been transcribed to a standard document, in order for consistency in quotations, this should be developed. This will increase productivity, the time taken to complete the quotes and would withal f acilitate improvement. The structure of Company A having high variation in the demand for services, along with the volume and variety of when and where these services are kill makes capacity management and scheduling difficult, thus reducing capacity (Slack et al, 2010).Being a highly variable business according to Slack et al, 2010, process variability results in simultaneous waiting and resource underutilisations, Company A has managed this capacity demand in off peak times of the year with only hiring a core set of permanent employees, responsible for key operational issues, such as planning, customer liaison and information integration. When a seam is awarded short term contracts are issued to trades personnel to complete the core chemical mechanism of the project, once the project is completed the personnel are terminated, thus preventing underutilisation of resources.This however brings with it another problem that is the approachability of obtaining the competent personn el for that project and also the lack of consistency with staff working for Company A . The availability of staff, location of the project and type of work, needs to be factored into the resource planning and quoting for the client. As stated in Slack et al, 2010, resource planning, is concerned with managing tryst of resources and activities for process efficiency and effectiveness in satisfying customer demand. The implications are seen in the three main operations objectives that is quality, speed and cost.If there is insufficient man power available to complete the work, the job will run over time, resulting in cost of poor quality, and reputation with the client. This can also affect the quality of work conducted, as personnel could be stretched, or there may be insufficient trades to complete the job to quality requirements. The variety of different staff used, results again in loss of experience and knowledge in the work that we do, being a highly specialised service, it is important to maintain highly skilled individuals.This variety could impact on the man hours budgeted as you would have to account for learning new skills, other variables such as a work ethic, availability of resources etc The use of lucubrate work instructions, inductions or retention periods could be a viable solution. PART E Provide brief recommendations for improving the process including comparisons of your recommendations against the current system, and details of changes needed to correct the problem or improve the situation. You should include a rudimentary action plan or relevant time redact for implementation of your recommendations.Bear in mind that your recommendations should be potentially cost effective i. e. you must argue the changes from the point of view of their potential to improve cost, quality, output, productivity etc. In order to overcome the operational issue of loss of resources and valuable information, a well implemented quality management system, base d on ISO 9001 2008 should be implemented, with detailed work instructions, procedures and processes. The current system as it stands is inconsistent, highly variable and not well documented.Creating documented processes and procedures, consistency, application and ease of use will be beneficial to new/old employees with all assumed knowledge being captured and alter with succession planning. The implementation of a quality system would be a time consuming process involving a number of resources as the time to collate, document, review and approve procedures and processes would be lengthy. The application of designated individual would cut down the time needed to complete this project.The impacts of introducing a recognised Quality Management System such as ISO90012008 would be far more beneficial than the initial cost/time taken to implement it. Not only would quality of projects be increased, due to standardisation of the processes, but costs would be seen in the reduction of pa radigm handling and waste. As all facets of the company would be documented the knowledge of what is presented to the client would increase and therefore cost, time to complete projects, quality of quotations and time to complete these would be reduced.The continuous review process would also enable consistent improvements and company growth. (Figure 5. 0) Having an externally certified system, which is not a essential for winning contracts with clients, would see us as a better expectation against other competitors without certification and could increase our chances of winning contracts. pic Figure 5. 0 consolidation of Quality Management System into Business operations. Reference. Company A IMS REFERENCE LIST Slack, N. , Chambers, S. , Johnston, R. and Betts, A. , 2009, Operations andProcess Management, 2nd ed, Prentice Hall Company A (2011), http//ctnet. Company A . com/desktopdefault. aspx, International Direct Contact Resources Business unit Power Point, , April 2011 OFF ER REJECTED LOSS OF WORK PROJECT mean PROJECT EXECUTED NO QUOTATION? SIGN contract CONTRACT REVIEW GENERATE PROPOSAL REVIEW OFFER RETURN TO lymph gland WITH A SUITABLE LETTER DECLINING QUOTATION ACCEPTANCE OF OFFER (CONTRACT) evaluate ISSUE TO CLIENT REGISTER ENQUIRY AND QUOTE FOR JOB veritable REQUEST TO BID FOR CONTRACT FROM CLIENT