Unit 34 Assignment on Operation Management in Business

Introduction

Operations form an important part of the firm and firm needs to have a strong operations processes and control in the firm. Here example of a firm ‘Supercell’ is considered and all the relevant aspects of operations management have been discussed keeping in mind the firms operation. In Unit 34 Assignment on Operation Management Business there are different aspects and advantages of having a strong operations team. Firm also need to constantly maintain a balance between the cost and quality. Also implementation of any project requires planning and control. All these aspects have been discussed and their importance to firm like Supercell have also been highlighted.

Task 1

1.1 Explain the importance of Operations Management

Operation management involves managing the process which will help the firm deliver the firm the services. Here the Super cell is proving services to the users in the form of the game.
Thus the processes involves conceptualizing the game to coding the game and then making it available to the users. It also involves issuing the errors of the game. Given the revenue of two games one can judge that the games could be very popular. Hence there would be large number of customers who would be playing the games. The number of employees handling the game is merely 100 and thus this goes to show that work required to be done by the employees should be of top quality. Thus the process under the operations management should be of very good quality. Firm needs to focus of quality, speed, dependability and cost. Since large number of customers are playing the game the load on the servers would be high during throughout the days since it is being accessed globally. Thus the firm operations team should be on top of all the things and should ensure the no issues arises throughout the day. Also since it is being played through the internet if the game is providing bad service to the customers then the news can spread very easily. Thus the operations team need to be manage delivery of the game in a very perfect manner. Any issue arising due to the overloading or any another reason need to be resolved immediately.
Another important aspect is to new bring changes in the game and be innovative. There is a lot of competition in the market and many firms are in the market competing with similar games and hence the firm cannot be relaxed and need to be constantly innovating so that the customers remain loyal to the firm.

1.2 Explain the need to produce safely; on time; to cost; to quality and within the law in Supercell

Supercell is a small firm and thus the less number of employees are managing many tasks in the firm. Firm is proving 24 hour games and thus the firm needs to understand that it should provide safe environment to its employees and the location to where its servers are located. Any issue arising out of the safety would hit the firm badly and there would be large disruption of the services by the firm.  Also after an incident it would be take time to restore the services. Also since the number of employees are less each employee is valuable and carries out very critical task and thus if the firm does not take care of the employees then it could be a big issue for the firm and can cause significant loss of revenues.
Gaming industry is very competitive and there are many players proving similar services to the users. Also with the widespread of internet customers can instantly get to know if any firm is proving Game Design & Development with better features and services as reviews can be easily accessed. Hence the firm need to maintain their customer base and thus focus a lot on the quality of games. In this industry if any one game gains wide audience then many others follow and thus firm need to keep in mind that they can easily lose their customers if they do not give good quality services to the customers (Krajewski, Ritzman, & Malhotra, 2007).
Also the firm need to ensure that the cost at which provide services or provide quality goods to be optimal again because of the competition and also since it has started recently it needs to first establish more strong customer base and focus more on increasing the profits.

1.3 Explain the link between operations management and strategic management

Firm needs to make strategic decisions at the top level which is the top management and it is implemented by the operations team. This is an important aspect for Supercell. Supercell needs to constantly innovate and thus the strategic team should constantly think about the new things which the firm can implement on how the games can be improves and how can they make the game better. Also if the firm wants to bring out new games then the strategic management needs to visualize the game and then convey it to operations team who will implement the games. Thus for the firm to grow this relationship is important.
In every firm operations team is the one which executes the strategic plans. In Supercell the firm the management will decide on what games should the firm make, how can they market the games and what improvements are needed in the game. However this will get implemented by the operations teams. Hence there should be strong link between operations management as the strategy team should be able to communicate with the operations team.

1.4 Produce a systems diagram to illustrate diagram

Following can be a systems diagram for the firm

The above diagram shows the various steps. Strategic decisions are taken by the management on how to take the company and increase the revenue. Tactical decisions are taken how to implement the strategic decisions. These decisions are them told to the operations team to implement the decisions. Operations planning and control helps to implement the project. Thereafter the project is set to be released. Post the release the firm takes feedback from the users and tries to resolve the issues.

Task 2

2.1 Explain the ‘Three Es’ (economy, efficiency and effectiveness) in Supercell.

Firm is competing in a space where there have been already established players. For e.g. Zynga is a well-known firm for making games. Thus the firm need to be innovative and make products which sell so that the firm generate revenue. The game should be sellable and hence the firm need to think about the economics of the game and then make the game. 
Firm has less number of employees and given the large customer base of the firm and future customers the firm needs to be more efficient as the output required per customer needs to be more. As the firm scales up it needs to become more efficiency in terms of work. Firm needs to look at more projects and be efficiency in which firms need to assess and which projects to go ahead. Then they should be efficient in implementing the projects as they don’t have much resources so they cannot wasting resources in implementing projects
Lastly if the firm has planned anything then it needs to be effective since many customers daily access the game, if the firm is not effective then it can lead to bad reputation of the firm. After the initial success many firms in this industry have not been able to capitalize on the success and thus the firm needs to increase its effectiveness. Also firm does not have time to experiment. Since there are not much resources available if the firm is not able to capture on the market then it will lead to loss of revenue and reputation. Firm need to be effective in what they do.

2.2 Explain the tension between cost minimization and quality maximization at Supercell

There is always a conflict between the cost minimization and improving the quality of services. For the firm there are two main costs, first is the employee costs and the second is the server costs. The firm does not have any large assets and thus the firm does incur capital costs. Firm needs to hire the best employees available to remain competitive. The best people ask for more wages as compared to other employees. Thus the firm needs to understand what competence is required to grow further and what should be an appropriate level of compensation for the employees. Since the firm is competing with the firm across the globe firm need to hire the talent which can compete against the firms globally and thus the compensation can become a big cost as the employees can always get good offers from other competing firms. 
Another cost for the firm is the servers. Firm need to upload all the data on the servers. Firm needs to ensure that the data servers are of the best quality because if there is any issue with servers then the firm cannot provide the services to the customers. Frequent cases of outage can cause frustration among the customers and can cause loss of customer base. Thus the firm need to ensure that the servers are of good quality. However as the server quality increases the cost for the firm increases and there is always constant fight between the quality of services and the costs of the firm.
Thus the in order to increase the quality firm may need to spend more. Thus there will always be tussle on the increasing quality which can increase the costs. Thus the firm need to asses the increase in the quality and the cost increase due to that investment. If the marginal benefit is more, then the firm can think of increasing the quality.

2.3 Evaluate the significance of the five performance objectives that underpin operations management of Supercell.

The first objective is to provide the best quality services to the customers. Firm operations team needs to ensure that the firm that they provide the best services to the customers. Since the customers are accessing the game 24 hours and since they have started just two years ago they need to be ensure that they need to have best quality. Also there are similar players in the market which also competing in the same space and hence the firm need to ensure that they quality which they deliver should.
The firm also need to perform on the dependability. Firm needs to ensure that the quality of the services is maintained throughout. Firm cannot afford to give glitches in services in certain period and provide good services in another period. Firm need to ensure that the Customer Satisfaction. There should be consistency in the performance.
Firm needs to ensure flexibility and should try to more flexible. Here the firm can provide different services to the customers and take in their feedback to improvise themselves. Here the flexibility is more in terms of the improvising and bringing more updates to the firm.
Firm also needs to ensure that the cost at which they provide the services is also optimal and should not be more. Firm need to maintain quality also ensure that the costs do not shoot up too much (Krajewski, Ritzman, & Malhotra, 2007).
Firm also needs to ensure in case of any issue the firm should speedily resolve the error. Also firm needs to ensure that the services of the game are delivered in speedily manner. 
The firm is in a growing stage. It has grown very fast in the recent times however to maintain the growth firm should not become complacent and should try to provide the best of the services.

Task 4

4.1 Produce a clear set of operational outcomes

Management has asked its operation team to implement 5 changes in the game outlook in the next few months. However the operations need to decide on which of the tasks to implemented first or if any task is not worth implementing. Operations need to allocate resources in implementing the work and thus they need to allocate the resources optimally.
Thus the firm need to estimate the revenue or the advantage it will generate from each task. It then needs to estimate the time needed to implement the task.  This is the constraint for the firm as it has limited number of employee hours to finish the work.  Firm needs to estimate the cost required to implement each task there should be constraints on costs not exceeding the budget. For example a firm may require a new hardware of software for the task or the cost of using the old software should also be included in implementing the task (Voss, Tsikriktsis & Frohlic 2002).
So the objective function is: R1*X1 +R2*X2+…. R signifies revenue and X signifies the task. One needs to maximize the task.
Constraint of the function: T1*X1+T2*X2 < T, where T1 is the time required for each task and T is total employee hours.
Another constraint is C1*X1+C2*X2 < C, where C1 is the respective cost for the task and C is the total budget allocated to implemented to finish the tasks
Thus the firm needs to solve it and determine which of the tasks should be implemented and if any task is not required as it may not be feasible within the time or cost constraint or may be both. Linear programming will give the best possible solution to the answer. However the firm needs to understand the drawbacks of the linear programming and estimation of the parameters and thus should keep a margin in their calculations (Mollenkopf, Frankel & Russo, 2011).

4.2 Produce a network path and indicate critical path

Networking is a arrow representation of a project which represents consumption of time for each work and time taken by whole project along with cost to be incurred in each individual work of project. It enables management of Supercell to manipulate resources engaged in project or business plan. Supercell has to implement new strategies into its Business Environment and that investment at each stage of project can be changed by using networking. Some rules have to be follow in order to construct network of project. Supercell can use networking in its existing projects as well as in its proposed projects.

Critical Path Analysis is that path or process of project that take maximum time to complete. Critical path is the duration of project. Following steps should be followed to identify critical path:

• Identify all possible path
• Select the path which has maximum duration
• That maximum duration is known as critical path or project duration.

Supercell has to select that project that has least critical path or it has to use crashing technique to reduce project duration. 
In above diagram, possible paths are:
A= 30
B= 12
C= 30
In above case critical path will be A and C.
Critical path analysis will help manager in decision making regarding resource allocation and time management of operations or project.

4.3 Explain how quality can be defined and maintained

There are different ways to define the quality and maintain it. Firm needs to decide on the quality parameters and their standard values to which they should stick. Firm should know the acceptable deviation from the standard value which is acceptable. If the firm’s quality parameter value is within the acceptable deviation of the standard value then it can be concluded that the firm is maintain quality in its work, but if the values do not fall within the acceptable range then the firm needs to improvise on its quality parameters. Firm needs to investigate the cause for such issues and try to bring the firm values within the acceptable range. There should be at least monthly review of all these quality parameters and if it is found that the firms is not able to stick to the standard values then corrective action should be taken by the management.
For supercell there are different parameters which can define the quality. First quality can be lag parameter in executing the orders given by the customers while playing the game. If there is a significant lag while playing a game then people will not play the game. Thus the lag time can be quality parameters. Another parameter can be the time taken to resolve the issue.  Firm can face issues and the customer might not be able play the game. Firm may not be able to avoid it but it needs to set a time till which the issue can be resolved. If the firm cannot resolve the issue in time then it can look bad for the firm and the firm needs to set quality parameter for the time it takes to resolve the issues. If the game is not online for a considerable time then it can frustrate the customers. Also the frequency of such issues needs to be checked. Such issues cannot with high frequency (Schroeder, Goldstein, & Rungtusanatham, 2011).
Another quality parameter can be time it takes to process the payments or refund the payment in case of any cancellation. Buyers buy virtual goods online through Supercell to play the games. The firm should provide proper services in giving out the goods to the customers 
Quality control becomes a great issue for the firm to survive. Users can instantly give the feedback to the firm. Since the games are played online viewers can easily view the feedbacks of the customers. In this online world number of bad feedbacks can also become a quality parameter to judge the performance of the firm (Voss, Tsikriktsis & Frohlic 2002).
Thus the firm can keep such quality parameters and based on its performance and past data it can reflect and analyse whether the firm is maintaining its quality or not.

Conclusion

In Unit 34 Assignment on Operation Management Business we discuss every firm needs to have a strong operations team which implements all the processes and sorts out the issues which the firm as well as the customers are facing. Operations team forms the backbone of the firm. Firm has a strategic team at the top which thinks of what ideas to be implement, tactical team thinks how can be implemented and the operational team actually implements those projects. Thus the firm need to make strong operations team. If the operations team is not strong then the firm cannot implement the ideas thought by the team. Also if there are any issues then the firm needs to have a strong implementation team which resolves the issue else it can damage the reputation of the firm. Thus it is the operational team which actually implements the process and hence the firm need to focus on operations team quality and the Planning and Operation control else the firm will not be able to sustain the growth and would not be able to compete with the competitors.

References

Brown, S., Bessant, J. R., & Lamming, R. (2013). Strategic operations management. Routledge.
Flynn, B. B., Schroeder, R. G., & Sakakibara, S. (1995). The impact of quality management practices on performance and competitive advantage. Decision Sciences, 26(5), 659-691.
Gunasekaran, A., & Ngai, E. W. (2012). The future of operations management: an outlook and analysis. International Journal of Production Economics, 135(2), 687-701.

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