BUS 644 Discussion responses needed

Discussion 1 Responses

Productivity

Many times trade-offs are necessary to increase productivity. What are important trades-offs involving the inputs to productivity? Your initial post should include real life situations and be at least 200-250 words.

Guided Response: Respond to two of your classmates’ posts and identify specific trade-offs. Give additional advice and alternative ways to increase productivity for the future.

Respond to Alexis Weeks post

Productivity can be measured by inputs and outputs, the output divided by the total input determines the productivity level (Vonderembse & White, 2013). It is possible to increase productivity by keeping outputs the same and decreasing inputs or increasing outputs by not changing the inputs, it does take trade-offs of inputs and outputs to make this happen. This could mean that a company trades capital for labor or capital for energy, there are many different types of inputs that should be evaluated during a trade-off exercise (Vonderembse & White, 2013). 

A great example of a trade-off including capital and labor would be the automation of tasks using technology. There was this process in my company where hourly employees would submit a ticket saying they messed up on their time sheet and needed their time corrected for them to get paid the correct amount. That ticket would go to an individual and that individual would go into the time keeping system and correct the time as necessary. There were about 55,000 corrections submitted a month, which was a lot for those workers to process. The company ended up investing time and money into a bot to do those tasks. Now there is a bot that processes all correction tickets so that the employees can focus on more value-add activities. This allowed the company to increase productivity by decreasing the input of work that the employees were putting in. 

Reference 

Vonderembse, M. A., & White, G. P. (2013). Operations management [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/

Respond to Sierra Palush post

Productivity is measured by inputs and outputs in a manufacturing operation (productivity = output/input).  Input is the time and effort put in to get the output or goods and services. They are best measured over longer periods of time.  An increase in productivity would be increasing output while maintaining input or decreasing input while maintaining output. Trade-offs are necessary because productivity increases are both difficult to achieve (Vonderembse & White, 2013). As stated by Vonderembse and White (2013), "Companies must contend with trade-offs among the various inputs in order to achieve increases in overall productivity, called multiple-factor productivity. In this case, some individual factors of productivity may decrease while others increase" (Section 3.2). Capital has been traded for labor for thousands of years. This refers to investing in something that lessens the amount of labor that will need to go into completing a job and results in increased productivity. The risk is high in this trade off, but the benefits can also be very high (Vonderembse & White, 2013).  An example of this trade-off is the self-check out at the grocery store. Capital had to be invested into this technology but they decreased the need for cashiers and were able to use that money or labor elsewhere.  Another trade-off is trading capital for material or energy (Vonderembse & White, 2013).  An example of this would be investing money into new equipment that can put out more material or put out the same amount of material from less input. Another trade-off is trading materials for labor (Vonderembse & White, 2013). I see this trade-off at the dental clinic I work in.  We use disposable supplies when possible to avoid having to clean or sterilize certain items.  We spend more in materials but save in labor costs. Lastly, productivity can be improved through product maintenance (Vonderembse & White, 2013).  I also see this a lot at work. We want to maintain our equipment while it is working well in order to avoid high repair costs or loss of productivity in the future.  The same goes with our cars. We perform scheduled maintenance, like oil changes, to avoid hefty repair costs due to neglect. 

Reference

Vonderembse, M. A., & White, G. P. (2013). Operations management Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/

Discussion 2 Responses

Product Design and Quality

Read the Forbes article, “The Forces That Are Transforming How Products Are Made (Links to an external site.).” Based on the content presented in the article, what forces and important organizational activities enable a firm to build quality into its products? Explain each of these along with their benefits. Your initial post should include examples and be at least 200-250 words. Respond to at least two of your classmate’s posts.

Guided Response: Respond to two of your classmates’ posts and identify critical factors of building quality into products. Provide additional advice and benefits of building quality into products.

Respond to Jocelyn Witt Post

Dimensions of quality help transfer customer's needs into internal processes which helps exceed product/service quality. Quality is meeting or exceeding customer's needs and expectations on a consistent basis. Taking external processes and turns them into internal processes helps improve quality. There are five dimensions of quality that are used by customers to help judge the service quality and having an understanding of these helps define and improve quality depending on the good or service.  Reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles are all dimensions of quality. For force driving change, there are many factors that are influencing it. Digitization, personalization, "smart" products, connectivity, servitization, globalization and, regulation are a few key factors that are continuing to drive manufacturing business and building quality into products. 

Reliability is the ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately. Responsiveness is the willingness to help customers and provide prompt service. Assurance is the knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence. Empathy is the provision of caring, individualized attention to customers. Tangibles is the appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials, including access and effectiveness of Internet-based information (Vonderembse & White, 2013). Any company or organization must be able to utilize the five dimensions of service quality to help improve their customer satisfaction but, should also implement the factors that are changing the business manufacturing process all together! 

Thank you, 

Jocelyn Witt

 

References:

Ambruch, B. (2013, October 21). The forces that are transforming how products are made (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.). Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/ptc/2013/10/21/the-six-things-that-are-transforming-how-products-are-made/ (Links to an external site.)

Vonderembse, M. A., & White, G. P. (2013).  Operations management  [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/

Respond to Carrie Fullwood post

Producing a quality product is great way organizations differentiate themselves from their competition. According to the article in Forbes, entitled “The Forces That Are Transforming How Products Are Made,” there are serval forces that impact the production of quality products.  The first has to do with technology.  Smart products, along with connectivity encompasses the way technology has affected the way the world connects and communicates with each other, so much so that devices over 50 billion devices are expected to be connected to a global network (Ambruch, 2013).  The growing capability of devices we use every day to be able to identify themselves and communicate directly with other device enhance the user's experience, leading to the force of servitization (Ambruch, 2013).  Improving service is a crucial indicator to improve competitiveness even for manufacturers; as a result, there should be a focus on the relationship between themselves and the consumer implemented via a smart device (Ambruch, 2013).  The digitization brought by technology has been able to improve procedures in such a way add value to the customer experience, as consumer demand continues to evolve, manufacturers are forced to contend with the consumer preferences for more variety (Ambruch, 2013).  Because of the global market in which resources can be received from various parts of the world comes more regulation concerns (Ambruch, 2013).  Each force has its place in contributing to the development of a quality product.  Smart products are popular among consumers as a product helps to provide services that consumers value.  The insights and data the is gained by providing those services are valuable and useful to manufacturers.

References

Ambruch, B. (2013, October 21). The Forces That Are Transforming How Products Are Made. Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ptc/2013/10/21/the-six-things-that-are-transforming-how-products-are-made/#ee5da7949806