Question One: Identify and explain the different types of waste you might expect to find in the core Operations activities of each of your selected organisations.
Household electrical wastes can be classified into various categories. The first waste is defects. Household electrical are prone to wear and tear, and this attracts defects in most of electrical appliances. When electrical wear and tear, they lose their monetary value. A classic example is Television, laptops and batteries. Also, transportation is also termed as a waste when it comes to household appliances. The machines need to be transported from the place of purchase to their destination. When transport is not executed efficiently, waste results (Mayano-Fuentes & Sacristan, 2012). Also, waiting time is connected with household products. The time taken to process a household electrical determines whether efficiency has been put into consideration or not.
In the hotel industry, wastes can range from workforce, flexibility, speed and cost among others. Quality in the hotel involves developing the services in the case of hotel business to the best possible standards when compared to the competitors to reduce waste. The main task involved in this is ensuring that the customers get the expected value for their money. Manuj & Sahin (2011) shows that the determination as to whether first, the demand for the product is large enough to justify mass production or there is sufficient variety in the demands of the customer that it cannot support a dedicated production facility. Also, dependability is another waste connected with hotels. Dependability in the sense of a hotel business is whereby customers have the assurance that their needs will be met in the hotels. This is about the reliability of the hotel in terms of addressing the needs of the customers. A good example of this is expanding or contracting the hotel’s capacity to manage the changing demands reorganising the layout to improve the effectiveness. From this, the customers entering the facilities need to be assured that they will be served in a modern facility and whatever they need they will get from this place. Speed also is a form of waste in the hotel business. Manuj Sahin (2011) points out that the rate of service delivery in a hotel goes hand in hand with the organisation. In the hotels industry, organising involves creating different departments that are managed differently and which at the end of reduces waste and contribute to the success of the entire hotel. This ensures that there are many people to run the place hence reducing delays as much as possible (Mayano-Fuentes & Sacristan, 2012). Flexibility here means being able to adjust to the needs of the customers as fast as possible. Such decisions lie with the management team who should develop policies and provide an allowance for adjustments to be made to reduce time wastage. It is mainly to ensure that the customers can get what they need and that the services are delivered within the shortest time possible.
Question Two: Explain how the application of ‘Lean’ principles could help your selected organisations reduce or eliminate waste in their core value-adding processes. You should address each organisation separately, at this stage
Application of lean principles will help household electrical reduce wastes and add value to the core business processes. Lean principles is a technique that aims at minimising resources such as cost and time, and maximising profits such as quality, in a manufacturing organisation. As the term suggests, it is intended to ensure the product is always available on demand. The concept emphasises on eliminating costs at various stages of the supply chain by eliminating stock levels, storage space, insurance costs and material handling costs among other charges (Blanchard, 1992). Lean principles will help Household electrical reduce manpower which results in cost reduction. It will allow the firm to have a smaller human labour to handle most of its operations (Sandelands, 2007). Lean principles encompass features which make it unique in succeeding its tasks. One of the features is inventory management. This feature will enable household electrical track and manage raw materials, stock level as well as constituents needed for production. Also, it will make Household electrical track finished or completed products to accomplish open sales orders and spare parts required for field service and sustenance. This helps in minimising waste, storage costs and frees up the firm for other vital purposes
On the other hand, the hotel will also benefit from the principles of lean. Order management is a unique feature offered by lean processes. Order management will speed up the execution of the whole process of order to delivery cycle by making hotel businesses to produce productively and track sales orders of their customers. This facility will also create dynamism in scheduling supply delivery, to accomplish a demand and heighten a speedy generation of pricing and product alignment in the hotel.
Also centralization, a hallmark of lean processes will make supervision and follow-up easier with hotel employees. This will substantially increase time efficiency thus minimising the overall operational costs in the hotel business.
Question Three: Identify and explore any similarities and differences between the issues you might expect that each of your selected organisations would have to address in their ‘Lean’ implementation programmers
The hotel is a service industry; hence, its services are not directly connected with physical goods. Features that distinguish hotel from household electrical are intangibility, variability and inseparability (Sandelands, 2007). These features make lean principles in a hotel based industry complex.
On the hand other, Household electrical is not a service based industry. Thus, they already have a system which makes it easy to measure processes. This is unlike in the hotel industry where systems are not well established. For example, in a service oriented industry such as a hotel, different methods or standards need to use as criteria whether to dispense a given service or not. Moreover, in the hotel business, service is dependent on various parameters. Thus, this makes hard to reproduce the same service. On the other hand, the household electrical business, products are identical. This simplifies the process of using lean principles in improving efficiency.
Frazelle (2002) points out that human and cultural issue contributes to challenges when implementing lean principles in the hotel industry. The distinct nature of services offered in the hotel sector implies the consumption and production occur almost instantaneously. Hence, these challenges are complex to mitigate in the hotel industry compared to the household electrical sector.
Another problem faced with the hotel when considering lean principles is the service perishability. In the hotel industry, most processes are centred on services; hence, they cannot be stored. The production of service occurs at the same time so does the demand (Snee & Hoerl, 2009). Furthermore, services are more of work in progress, making lean principles in the hotel sector unique. On the other hand, in the Household electrical, similarities exist between services and manufacturing that simplifies applying lean principles (Shah & Ward, 2007). This is because service and manufacturing happen in tandem through processes that produce information and other data. The business can make use of information to improve manufacturing or service processes.
References List
Frazelle, E. 2002. Supply Chain Strategy: The Logistics of Supply Chain Management. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional
Manuj, I., Sahin, F., 2011. "A model of supply chain and supply chain decision-making complexity", International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 41 (5), pp.511 – 549
Maurer, R. 2013. Will lean work in your organization? Journal for Quality and Participation, 12 (1), 27- 31Mayano-Fuentes, J. & Sacristan-Diaz, M. 2012. Learning on Lean- a review of thinking and research. IJOPM, 32(5), pp.551-582
Sandelands, E., 1997. "Strategic logistics management", International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 27, (2), pp.73 – 142
Shah, R. & Ward, P. 2007. Defining and developing measures of lean production. Journal of Operations Management. 25 (1), pp.785- 805Snee, R. & Hoerl, R. 2009. Turning to service. Industrial Engineer, 9 (1), pp. 37- 40
