A case study of Miami Cleaning Express
1. Which crew size had the highest productivity? Which crew size had the lowest productivity? What are some of the possible reasons why these results occur?
The ideal way to determine the best and the lowest performing crew is to calculate the productivity index. Therefore, using the data collected by the management, there will be the computation of productivity index using various crew size and average meter per day for each of them per day (William, 2012).This will generate the results recorded in the productivity column in the table below through substitution of the data collected the formulae below.
Productivity = Output (average meter completed per day) / input (the size of the crew)
Additionally, to have a complete view of the output and aid in making the right decisions, it is important to compute the productivity growth (William, 2012). As such, there will be the application of the formulae below to obtain the results in the productivity growth column in the table below.
Productivity growth = (current output- previous output)/ previous output * 100
Where output is the average meters, square per day.
The results show that the two members’ crew was the most is the productive while the eight members ‘crew was the least productive since they had the highest and the lowest productivity index respectively. Impliedly, high productivity translates to high profit, and minimal costs while low productivity symbolizes low profit and high costs. Besides, high productivity gives the company an edge in the competitive cleaning market. However, several factors can lead to a decrease in the productivity as the work increases. Firstly, if the employees work for long hours they tend to be exhausted and as a result, their productivity goes down (William, 2012). Moreover, given less work, the employees become more motivated to finish as compared to situations where the work abundant. Still, with few workers it is easy to identify those that are not working at the recommended rate and make the appropriate plan; however, with a large workforce, it gets difficult, especially in the absence of productivity reports. Finally, with less work the scheduling of equipment is efficient while in the case of more work they may be insufficient for the allocation of all employees, hence, slowing their working pace.
2. The owner (Amy) received an emergency call from one of her clients requesting an emergency crew to clean a ballroom that the full time housekeeper forgot to clean and the event was in three hours. Amy sends a crew of 6 housekeepers although the job could have been easily completed with four? Explain the rationale for this decision?
3. How long do you believe this crew took to complete the job the entire three hours or was the job completed before three hours? Please elaborate using the concepts learned in the book.
The six members’ crew completed the job in less than three hours. This is due a number of factors. Firstly, since six members are more than four, they will share the job amongst themselves and each member will work on a smaller portion than would be the case with four members’ crew. It is evident that sharing duties will make work easier. Additionally, more members will finish the work earlier as compared when the number of the crew is limited. For instance, when a job is shared among members, the duration of the work done is significantly reduced. Therefore, the number factor is critical when an organization wants to save on time and increase the level of efficiency.
Furthermore, they have both higher productivity index and productivity growth than four members’ crew, which will cut the time required to perform the emergency cleaning. In situations where emergency cleaning is required, the chances of attaining time efficiency are higher than when few members are working on the same job. Additionally, the higher number of workers increases the productivity index implying that more work will be done within the shortest time possible.
Reference
William, J., S. (2012) 11th Ed. Operations Management: Theory and Practice. MacGraw-Hill Education
