ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE OPERATIONS
- What are the reasons for formulating and implementing an operations and supply chain strategy?
- Describe a possible operations mission that fits the following business situations:
- Ambulance service.
- Production of hybrid automobile batteries.
- Production of electronics products that have a short product life cycle.
- An operations manager was heard complaining, “The boss never listens to me—all the boss wants from me is to avoid making waves. I rarely get any capital to improve operations.”
- Does the business have an operations strategy?
- What should be done about the situation?
- Define the following terms in your own words: operations mission, order winner, order qualifier, and distinctive competence.
- How would you determine whether a company has an operations and supply chain strategy? What specific questions would you ask, and what information would you gather?
- Evaluate a couple of local hospitals in terms of itsemphasis on the four operations objectives: cost, quality, delivery, and flexibility. Are all departments focused on the same objectives? What are the orderwinners and the order qualifiers?
- Define some of the strategic decisions that might berequired in a grocery store’s operation and its supply chain depending on whether the strategy was emphasizing imitation or innovation.
- Find examples of operations and supply chain strategies. Write a few paragraphs describing the strategies being pursued.
- Describe an operation where higher quality will cost more. What is your definition of quality? Why does higher quality cost more? If you use a different definition of quality, will higher quality cost less?
- What is the distinctive competence of the following companies?
- Starbucks Coffee Company
- Hewlett Packard
- Burger King
- Explain how a distinctive competence in operations can be the basis for competition in the company.
- Give two examples of a distinctive competence that can be sustained and not easily duplicated. Explain why it is hard to copy these distinctive competencies.
- Give an example of a global business with which you are familiar. How has globalization affected its operations and its supply chain?
- What are the practical consequences of a lack of strategic linkage between the business and the operations function
