Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Business None Provided10 None Provided10 Production and Operations Management 1. The product process I chose was Outbound Telemarketing. The two operations management problems that I chose were timely calling and quality sales. Timely calling is very important to Outbound Telemarketing, therefor calls are monitored to ensure that they are being placed in a timely manner. Telemarketing is a numbers game. This means that the more people you talk to, the higher your selling potential. Here is an example. There are 100 agents on the sales floor making calls during an 8-hour period. We will say that each of those 100 people are on the phones 8 full hours and that each of them did not proceed calls for 5 minutes for each hour they worked. This would mean that during that 8-hour period of business there was a total of 4000 minutes or approximately 67 hours of non-calling time. On the average an individual can make at least one sale per hour. Which means that potentially 67 sales were lost. This hopefully demonstrates the importance of this problem for Outbound Telemarketing. The bottom line is that timely calling is a must. When agents are not making calls as they needed, it can cost the company. The company is financially paying the agents to be making calls when there not, the company is billing clients for non-productive times, the company loses the time that has been wasted and will have to make up for it at a later time, and there is also the lost sales. The other is Quality Sales. Quality Sales are very important to Outbound Telemarketing. There is a Quality Assurance Department that is responsible for listening to the majority of the sales. By listening to the sales the company ensures that the agents are making sales that are quality sales. A quality sale is a sale in which the customer wanted the product; in which the agent gave the customer all the correct information, in which the agent did not mislead the customer, and in which the agent was polite and professional throughout the whole call. A poor sale is one that the agent gave misinformation too, was impolite, was not professional, or was just processed on accident. Getting quality sales can be a problem if an agent lacks the proper knowledge of a program, or the agent needs help with selling skills, or if the agent needs to sound more professional. The Quality Assurance Department works with these agents to improve these things, as well as working with the rest of the company to ensure these things, and also works with the clients to make sure everything is being done to their expectations. By having quality sales the company can continue to provide great service to its clients. 2. A job that I held before, was that of Facility New Hire Trainer. One example of an operations management responsibility I had in the job was to train the new hires. My inputs (resources): Company handbook, training book, product knowledge packet, computers, overhead, copy machine, and people. The transformation process entails: H.R. hiring the new hire and introducing them to the trainer and to go over the handbook the first day of class. From that point the trainer then goes through the training book and product knowledge package from the help and use of the copy machine & overhead projector. After the basic knowledge is learned the computer training begins. Then the people come in to play. The manager, Q.A. Supervisor, and the Night Verifications Supervisor come in to visit the new hires to welcome them and to explain their job. They also talk to them about what their expectations will be. The output is good sales people that know the product and service of the company. They in turn will provide the company with outputs (sales) and (hours on the phone) which are billed to the client. These individuals' outputs are of extreme importance because if clients are not happy with the end results they will go elsewhere with their business. Indirect outputs would be wages, salaries, taxes, and new or better training techniques. Better equipment to be used for training. The responsibility of New Hire Trainer fit very much into the overall company picture. With telemarketing, your key people are the employees that are on the phones dialing. Without those individuals, telemarketing by phones would not be possible and everyone in higher positions in the company would not have their jobs either. No money would be made for the Telemarketing Company or its clients. As new hire trainer the primary goal is to make sure that the new people feel comfortable, learn about all aspects of the company, and are knowledgeable about the program they will be running. All of these things then determine how the new hire performs. Which in turn determines how the company as a whole performs and how successful the company can be. 3. In the service sector the product is what you are providing to someone. Example: McDonalds intangible service is customer service. They provide quick and friendly service to the customer, by politely taking his/her order and then providing the food to him/her quickly. Where as in the manufacturing sector the product is tangible. Example: Exmark makes lawnmowers. There is an assembly line running continuously, producing a material item. As to inventory, in the service sector it really does not apply. Example: A beauty salon can not stock up on haircuts. Whereas a manufacturing company can stock up on the number of lawnmowers it makes and keeps on hand. Customer contact is extremely important with the service sector. It often may be the primary input for services. Example, with telemarketing a customer is contact is of utmost importance. It is important to verbally contact the customer and explain benefits to them. As to a manufacturing company, contact is little. Manufacturing companies do not need to have much contact with customers. Their primary concern is making the product. Example: Exmark makes lawnmowers, but they do not contact each customer. They would not know who the end customers were, because they wholesale to companies who then resale the product to the end customers. Lead-time in the service sector is usually short. For example, McDonalds lead-time might be the time that it takes to take a customer order, til the time the customer receives the order. This is hopefully a matter of seconds. Where as manufacturing companies lead-time is usually longer. For example, Exmark may receive an order for 5000 lawnmowers. When they receive the order there are many things that first need to be done before they may be able to start on it. They will need to see if they have all the products need to make the lawnmowers, and they will determine how long it will take to make and ship the product. This may be anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of months. Finances vary as well. In the service sector the financial cost is in paying for people and their labor. Example: A telemarketing company will pay out a lot of money for the people who make the calls. Whereas in the manufacturing sector, the majority of the money is spent on expensive equipment which does the majority of the work. The last area is that of quality determination. In the service sector, telemarketing for example, the service is subjective. This means that it is intangible and difficult to measure. How do you measure rather agent 1 or agent 2 is providing the best quality. Just because agent1 has more sales than agent2, it does not mean agent 1 has better quality. You would need to be take into consideration professionalism, is correct information being given, and overall knowledge of the product. As to the manufacturing sector, quality determination is objective. It is tangible and easy to measure. Example: Exmark produces lawnmowers and they can be checked over and evaluated on looks and tested to be sure it runs properly. 4. Using the minimizing cost of labor is not the best thing to do. Production is always concerned with cost. By minimizing the cost of labor a company may lose business, have poor customer service, and may not be focusing on the overall picture. Many things need to be taken into consideration and factored in. Just reducing labor costs will not solve problems or necessarily help matters. It can in fact cause a company to lose more money in the end. Effectiveness and efficiency are both important. It is important to do things effectively to get the job done and it is equally important to be efficient and to do things right. For example: A company may employ 35 people who are to make 35 chairs a day. Let us say that the company thinks that cost of labor is too high and want to lower that. Therefor the company lets 10 employees go. The now 25 people are pushed to get the chairs done but they make do. This allows the company to make more profit with lower labor costs. However, the job may be getting done and it may be effective, however it may not be efficient. If the remaining 25 people are pushed to hard and become upset to the point where they do not want to continue with their job or say the quality of chairs were sacrificed, then the company is not doing business in the right manner. Bibliography: Production & Operation Management; New York, 1999 Word Count: 1575
Copyright © 2005 College Term Papers, INC All Rights Reserved.