In all businesses, designing operations play a pivotal role in ensuring that the products and services being offered remain competitive, profitable and ideal despite numerous challenges that characterize different markets.
As such, having thorough knowledge on operation management principles and concepts may give a business entity the competitive advantage it needs to guarantee its success in a highly competitive marketing arena. This paper shall set out to summarize a chapter of a book discussing the design of goods and services, and provide a case study analysis using the concepts discussed in this chapter.
Summary
Throughout this chapter, the authors emphasize on the importance of understanding the production process of goods and services. To foster clarity, the authors state that a business should develop a production strategy that facilitates efficient product and service selection, creation of new products and services, product development and competition strategies.
Using credible sources, the authors support their statements and arguments with facts and real life examples, which enable the readers to understand, define and apply product design concepts appropriately.
In the same chapter, the authors discuss the documentation for production, production decision-making processes and total quality management (tqm) as core factors in ensuring customer satisfaction. Overall, this chapter seeks to educate readers on the factors that contribute to total customer satisfaction throughout the production process and operations management. The authors have successfully articulated their ideas in a concise and understandable manner.
Case study analysis: De Mar´s product strategy
Identification of De Mar’s product: the tangible and intangible (service) components of De Mar’s product
Located in Fresno, California, De Mar is a company that repairs and installs plumbing systems, heaters and air-conditioners to clients within this region. The tangible parts of their products consist of the physical parts (spares and new equipments) handled during the repair and installation of the selected system.
On the other hand, the service components include same day service, no extra charges and a one year guarantee for services rendered. By defining its product and services, de mar has successfully set itself apart from its competitors by developing a strong reputation and philosophy based on total customer satisfaction. The company’s product strategy focuses on solving customers’ problems in a timely, reliable and quality manner.
How should other areas of De Mar (marketing, finance, personnel) support its product strategy?
De Mar prides itself in having interlinked systems that work together to achieve set goals and strategies. As such, the marketing section of de mar should intensify its promotional efforts and seek to inform and remind current and potential customers that the company’s products are designed to satisfy their needs to the maximum.
In addition, the marketing section should foster consumer and brand loyalty by ensuring the clients that the slight difference in pricing is well compensated by the intangible services the company offers to its clients (the value/price ratio is worth it for the clients).
In regard to the personnel section, employees should be handpicked to ensure that they agree with the company’s philosophy and strategy. In addition, new employees should undergo special education to ensure that they are oriented with the systems, strategies and policies adopted by De Mar.
Existing employees should attend training and retraining programs in a bid to improve and/or maintain efficiency in their performance. In addition, good working conditions, payment packages and bonuses should be offered to employees so that they can be motivated to perform better.
Finally, the financial section can play its role by developing cost effective marketing, pricing and production budgets. This can be achieved by consistently doing market research, which will provide valuable financial information regarding the factors that affect the pricing, marketing and production trends within a given market.
Management techniques based on the 10 operations management decisions that can be used by De Mar to ensure the success of the product
Competitive advantage can be achieved and maintained by guaranteeing customer satisfaction. This can be done by ensuring that they provide fast services, consistent prices and guarantees to clients. The human resource must come up with a recruitment and selection process that matches the employee’s skills to the organizational goals. For example, the job design may consider flexibility, friendliness and expertise as pertinent towards the hiring process.
Similarly, ongoing training and education will ensure that employees have the necessary skills needed to handle any problem easily and professionally within a given time frame. This is important because it enables employees to be confident in an individual or group setting. In addition, aggressive promotion can increase product awareness thereby giving de mar strong publicity that ensures consumer loyalty and an ever expanding market base.
From the text, an increase in productivity can be evidenced from the dramatic rise from $200, 000 to $3.3 million within the past eight years. This is a clear indication that the strategies implemented by de mar are efficient. As such, the performance level should be maintained, if not improved.
Conclusion
The production process plays a pivotal role in ensuring that products are developed and distributed in a quality and efficient manner. The discussion presented herein provides valuable information that can be applied to guarantee total customer satisfaction