In: Operations Management
Identify the three major pricing strategies and discuss the importance of understanding these strategies when setting prices.?
short answer
In: Operations Management
Describe the various categories of consumer products with examples.?
In: Operations Management
Organizational Theory:
How are physical structure, organizational identity, and corporate image related?
What are examples of well-known corporate images and how are they constructed?
In: Operations Management
Transforming a pharmacy together: the Charlotte Maxeke
Johannesburg Academic hospital.
Before 2015, the patient experience at the Charlotte Maxeke
Johannesburg Academic Hospital pharmacy went something like this:
take the day off work to have your prescription filled; line up at
dawn before the pharmacy opens in hopes of beating the rush; once
inside, wait up to several hours for your prescription to be
filled; or worse, wait only to experience a “false stock out”—a
phenomenon in which a medication appears out of stock but is in
fact available in pharmacy storerooms—and go home
empty-handed.
Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic is one of the largest
central hospitals in South Africa, which sits in the province of
Gauteng. The hospital pharmacy dispenses almost a quarter of a
million prescriptions each year—yet it had a reputation for poor
service and facilities. For example, patients discharged from the
hospital with prescriptions—a patient category known as “to take
outs”—spent on average six hours waiting for prescription
medication to be delivered to the ward after discharge. Every day,
an average of 20 percent of out-patients visiting the pharmacy
experienced false stock-outs.
In September 2014, the Gauteng Department of Health began a
province-wide project to provide pharmacy customers with more
professional and efficient visits. The department wanted to prove
that it could offer better service wherever needed, and the
troublesome situation at the Charlotte Maxeke pharmacy made it an
excellent place to make its case.
With so much ground to cover, the leadership at Charlotte Maxeke
needed a step-by-step plan for the pharmacy transformation.
The consultants began by working with managers to narrow their
focus to improving the physical environment, prescription-filling
process, and stock management, the main factor behind lengthy
waiting times. To kick off the project, the consultants focused on
making the physical premises more welcoming and attractive to
patients and staff. One Saturday, Department of Health officials,
including a member of the executive council, the pharmacy manager
and CEO of the hospital, infrastructure-department representatives,
and the consultants, all pitched in for a day-long cleaning. The
idea was to show staff how committed leadership was to turning
around the pharmacy. The volunteers painted and decorated walls;
added amenities like water coolers, TVs, and coffee machines in the
waiting room; and supplied pharmacists with monogrammed lab coats.
Patients and staff immediately appreciated the more cheerful and
professional atmosphere.
Then the consultants turned to improving the process of
prescription filling. A consulting team mapped the existing process
and studied each step to identify bottlenecks and areas of wasted
activity. They then devised a streamlined approach using three
principles of lean production.
The first was called “first time right” and aimed to stop invalid
prescriptions from entering the filling process. A senior
pharmacist became the first point of contact for each patient. The
pharmacist would filter out patients whose prescriptions were
invalid (because they were not yet due for refills) or could not be
filled because of stock shortages. Second, they removed the batch
system, which meant prescriptions were no longer dispensed in
batches of ten, but were made available to be dispensed as soon as
each one was ready. Finally, the team introduced a “demand-pull”
system, which enabled staff actually to dispense these
prescriptions to patients in a timely fashion. The existing process
began with taking in scripts as fast as possible, and then filling
them. The result was a huge buildup of filled scripts that were
waiting to be labelled and dispensed to patients (in other words, a
“push” approach). The team shifted the focus to the end of the
process—dispensing—and ensuring that there was sufficient staff to
distribute prepared scripts, thus “pulling” prescriptions through
the process more efficiently.
Relatedly, the team addressed false stock-outs, another important
factor behind long wait times. These were resolved by implementing
a two-bin system on the pharmacy shelves with pre-defined refill
levels. Essentially, when one bin of medications was empty,
pharmacists would begin retrieving medications from a second bin.
The refill levels for a bin—how many medications to place
inside—were calculated for each medication based on dispensing
frequency. The consultants also revised each staff member’s role in
the process and adjusted the layout of the pharmacy to make it more
orderly. This included outfitting each workstation with laminated
posters that displayed the new process rules. They also designed
management tools—for example, a daily roster with role allocation
and a performance dashboard—that the pharmacy manager was then
responsible for implementing.
Under the new system, pharmacy staff rotated between duties to
ensure that there was no build-up of scripts. This required knowing
how many people to assign to each stage of the process and shifting
staff when someone was absent, at lunch, or when there was a
backlog. The team initially oversaw these shifts, but then coached
the pharmacy staff on identifying and resolving bottlenecks
quickly, with the senior pharmacist on the floor ultimately
responsible for managing the workflow.
In conclusion, the teamwork and process review that was provided
helped staff to work smart and not hard. Improving the working
environment of staff, listening to their concerns and supporting
them through change management has definitely improved the quality
of care and the experience that the patients and communities
received from the hospital.
QUESTION 1.2
Provide a critical account of how the total quality management
(TQM) concept could have been used in the case study? (30)
In: Operations Management
Thermos is the company made famous by its Thermos bottles and lunch boxes. Thermos also manufactures cookout grills. Its competitors include Sunbeam and Weber. To become a world‑class competitor, Thermos completely reinvented the way it conducted its marketing operations. By reviewing what Thermos did, you can see how new marketing concepts affect organizations.
First, Thermos modified its corporate culture. It had become a bureaucratic firm organized by function: design, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and so on. That organizational structure was replaced by flexible, cross‑functional, self‑managed teams. The idea was to focus on a customer group—for example, buyers of outdoor grills—and build a product development team to create a product for that market.
The product development team for grills consisted of six middle managers from various disciplines, including engineering, manufacturing, finance, and marketing. They called themselves the Lifestyle Team because their job was to study grill users to see how they lived and what they were looking for in an outdoor grill. To get a fresh perspective, the company hired Fitch, Inc., an outside consulting firm, to help with design and marketing research. Team leadership was rotated based on needs of the moment. For example, the marketing person took the lead in doing field research, but the R&D person took over when technical developments became the issue.
The team’s first step was to analyze the market. Together, team members spent about a month on the road talking with people, videotaping barbecues, conducting focus groups, and learning what people wanted in an outdoor grill. The company found that people wanted a nice‑looking grill that didn’t pollute the air and was easy to use. It also had to be safe enough for apartment dwellers, which meant it had to be electric.
As the research results came in, engineering began playing with ways to improve electric grills. Manufacturing kept in touch to make sure that any new ideas could be produced economically. Design people were already building models of the new product. R&D people relied heavily on Thermos’s core strength—the vacuum technology it had developed to keep hot things hot and cold things cold in Thermos bottles. Drawing on that technology, the engineers developed a domed lid that contained the heat inside the grill.
Once a prototype was developed, the company showed the model to potential customers, who suggested several changes. Employees also took sample grills home and tried to find weaknesses. Using the input from potential customers and employees, the company used continuous improvement to manufacture what became a world‑class outdoor grill.
No product can become a success without communicating with the market. The team took the grill on the road, showing it at trade shows and in retail stores. The product was such a success that Thermos is now using self‑managed, customer‑oriented teams to develop all its product lines.
In: Operations Management
Types of change
Planned
Emergent
Incremental
Transformationa
Q Critically analyze an explanation of these types and how does it affect on COVID-19 with the application any of these types?
(200-300 )WORDS Minimum
In: Operations Management
Korean Organizations Management
What do you think were the reasons why Korea’s economy did not develop?
What challenges did Korea face?
How could South Korea overcome these challenges?
What were some of South Korea’s first exports?
In: Operations Management
How will a hospitality and travel business respond to negative reviews through social media on sites like Yelp! and Trip Advisor? Please choose two negative online reviews of a hospitality or tourism business service that you know well. First, formulate a strategy for responding to a negative review of that business if you believe the comment you have chosen is factually true, but negative. Next, reflect and create a response on a comment if you know the comment is factually incorrect and negative as well. What are the different strategies to responding to comments that are negative about service but in one case you know true and in another false?
In: Operations Management
Discuss three ways in which a company can protect it's
Intellectual Property internationally
In: Operations Management
Comparison of Tetris to what you already know about Project Management (be sure to compare each item to your experience with playing Tetris)
What is your initial strategy in terms of balancing the triple constraint, i.e. scope (goals and what is to be accomplished), time (or schedule to get things done), and resources (money, people, and being provided the resources WHEN you need them)?
We have all worked with folks who are afraid of making the wrong decision, so they either drag out their decision or make NO decision. How does that compare here?
As time goes by (and you get closer to your ‘deadline’) and parts of your ‘project’ are not getting completed as you would have liked, what do you now see happening?
What may affect your decision-making (generally) in project management?
How might you adjust the project if you don’t have resources when you need them?
Tetris does have one major difference from project management: by definition, a project is unique; it has an achievable goal, and it has an end. How might we ‘redefine’ the game Tetris (or more specifically, the ‘game over’) so that it IS more inline with the attributes of a project? m. How might you incorporate lessons-learned from project management into future projects?
In: Operations Management
Recommend ethical approaches to HR management?
In: Operations Management
Westchester Teaching Hospital System is not-profit
organization that owns and operates six hospital campuses and a
variety of off-campus ambulatory services. The organization has
revenues of over $1 billion. They are affiliated with 3 medical
schools with over 400 residents. You are the new manager for the
ambulatory care department. You have been bought onboard to develop
and implement strategies to expand the department. Here are some
facts you need to know:
1. Inpatient services represent 65 percent of the operating
revenues.
2. Outpatient services represent 35 percent.
3. Resources for the department are scarce.
4. His department has been underfunded for a while now.
5. Meaningful financial and statistical data does not exist.
6. He has a staff of 50 people (administrative and clinical)
7. There has been some open hostility between the 2 groups.
8. The supervisors do not take direction well.
9. Staff don't follow the rules (come in late, call out a lot, miss
due dates, rude to patients and staff).
10. The ambulatory care area is outdated and not very
appealing.
QUESTION: How will you achieve the goals you've been given while acclimating to the new unit? You will need to address the issues listed above in your evaluation.
In: Operations Management
Indicate whether you think the following situations describe an employee relationship or an independent contractor? What factors do you base your decision on?
Sara work as a clerk in Ann’s Dress Shop. Ann withholds federal taxes from her pay, and controls the methods and details of the performance of her work.
1. Sara is an:
Why?
Ann hires Krupp Carpet Company to clean the carpets of her shop. Ann gives Krupp instructions as to what needs to be cleaned and when.
2. Krupp is an:
Why?
Janet and Rob work at ABC Interiors. Janet is a designer who works with clients of ABC on interior design projects. ABC closely supervises all of its designers, and dictates their work schedules. Rob works part-time in the evenings maintaining the computer equipment.
3. Janet is an:
Why?
4. Rob is an:
Why?
In: Operations Management
An advantage of a centralized organization is that it:
a. tends to have a uniform customer approach across the front lines.
b. typically has a high level of employee morale.
c. gives decision-making power to employees at all levels of the organization.
d. is highly responsive to customer needs.
In: Operations Management