Visibility
Visibility is one of the five key aspects of operations management. The visibility dimension in operation management refers to the ability of a customer to track the operation or service through the operation services. It is the facility by which customers would be able to track their product/ service or the way the process of operation is visible to the consumer in the different stages of its life cycle. (The four V’s of operations management, n.d.)
The visibility can be of two types; high visibility and low visibility:
High Visibility refers to those processes where customers have a shorter waiting time and the product is more customized as per the customer’s need. Such products or services with high visibility are tailored to customers’ needs and have more variety.
Examples of high visibility
A high visibility product is the example of a courier company like TCS where a customer is exactly able to track the order the visibility of the company’s process is very clear and visible to the customer. In this case the service is customized as each parcel is delivered at a different address based on the customer’s need. (Gupta & Starr 2014, p.354)
Low visibility refers to those processes and services where the time-lag between the production and the consumption of the product. These products are more standardized and have less variety in terms of product range.
Examples of low visibility:
A low visibility dimension could be an online e-store that takes an order from the customer and then does the back end job and finally gets the delivery done to the customer. During the process the customer has no visibility of the processes that the e- retailer is going through and gets the final product delivered at the end of the process. (Mahadevan 2010, p.160)
Bibliography
Gupta, S, Starr, M 2014, Production and Operations Management System, CRC Press, New York, USA
Mahadevan, B 2010, Operations Management Theory and Practice, Pearson, Delhi, India
The four V’s of operations management n.d., Managers Door, retrieved 16 June 2016, <http://www.managersdoor.com/topic/top-5-the-four-vs-of-operations-management/>
