Introduction
Looking to remain relevant for its customers and to propose products that meet their needs due to cutting edge incorporated technology, ABC Shoe Company is on working on creating a new type of shoe beneficial for the running athletes. While designing revolutionary products to meet the customers’ needs is significant for the company, it is also stringently important to effectively manage the capacity planning for achieving optimized profits.
Body
Capacity planning refers to the available organizational resources, which need to be organized for “determining the production capacity which are needed by an organization to meet changing demands for its products” (Virender, 2010, p. 142). Strategic capacity planning represents the organizational efforts oriented toward achieving optimal efficiency at each phase of the production process, meaning minimal costs and waste and an effective production of goods, accurately reflecting the consumer demands (Visner, Tan & Leong, 2011).
The strategic capacity planning is a practical managerial tool, used in manufacturing for understanding the market. For ABS Shoe Company it is useful to apply the strategic capacity planning for understanding the consumers, the market trends, learning how much costumers would be willing to spend on the new product or when it would be the best time to buy running shoes. Such information can be found by using strategic capacity planning, which can further generate a forecast of the planning stages in the manufacturing process.
In the process of implementing strategic capacity planning, a key to visualizing how the organizational goals can be aligned with the consumer needs is to apply the business design strategy (Avore, 2010).
Through business design strategy ABC Shoe Company can plan and identify how to innovate, for previsioning the short-term and the long-term success. It is beneficial to use the business design strategy in the manufacturing of business shows for achieving clarity on how to translate business objectives in business strategies, using the design model. Designing for people while including innovative technology in the manufacturing process are fundamental aspects that need to be linked to the business strategies and the business design strategy allows a clear identification of these aspects across the manufacturing process. Another benefit of using the business design strategy is that it offers a holistic approach on the market, informing the company on what it needs to do for satisfying the customers’ needs, engaging them with the features of the proposed products (Virender, 2010). Moreover, the design strategy has the great advantage of identifying business opportunities by analyzing the market trends, the available or emerging technologies and the existent resources and capabilities.
An approach to business design strategy is to intertwine the design process with the organizational goals (Avore, 2010). Knowing that the business design strategy represents the design of what it will be designed (Avore, 2010), for ABC Shoe Company this approach implies clearly outlining the stages of the production schedule.
Starting from the business strategy of ABC Shoe Company of launching a new type of shoes beneficial for the runners that will bring increased market share and customer retention, the production scheduling will include separated stages that will lead to the distribution. After clearly defining the business strategy, the design will further incorporate consumer trends, taken from field research. Further, there should be integrated the design management, wherein the production process will be accurately described. Next, the internal capacities will be matched against the needs outlined in the production process and additional resources will be considered or the production process will be revised to meet the internal capacities. Agreeing on the production process and starting the production would be the next step, which will lead to distribution.
References
Virender, P. (2010) Production and operations management. Delhi: Gennext Publication.
Wisner, J., Tan, K.C. & Leong, G. (2011) Principles of supply chain management: a balanced approach. Mason: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Avore, C. (2010) Design strategy: aligning business goals and user needs. Available at http://www.slideshare.net/erova/design-strategy-aligning-business-goals-and-user-needs.
