7.3 Operations decisions

Countless operations decisions that have both long-term and short-term impacts on the organization’s ability to produce goods and services that provide added value to customers must be made. If the organization has made mostly good operations decisions in designing and executing its transformation system to meet the needs of customers, its prospects for long-term survival are greatly enhanced. Major operations decisions areas include inventory, capacity, quality, scheduling, process type, technology, location, layout, and supply chain management. Each of these nine decision areas will be discussed in this section.

Inventory decisions

The key question that must be answered for inventory is “How much?” Understanding the best inventory levels to carry is critical to the organization because too much inventory and too little inventory are both costly to the organization. Inventory that exceeds what is needed to satisfy customer demand imposes unnecessary costs such as storage, deterioration, obsolescence, theft, and money tied up in inventory that cannot be used for other purposes. Too little inventory means the organization cannot meet 100 per cent of its customer demand and sales revenues are delayed or lost.

For example, a restaurant that specializes in serving fresh fish needs to make careful purchasing decisions so it has enough fresh fish each day to serve its customers, but not so much that unsold fish must be severely discounted or discarded at the end of the day. Computer companies such as Dell must carefully manage its computer chip inventory so it can meet current customer orders, but not be stuck with too much inventory if a new computer chip comes out or if vendors reduce prices.

Capacity decisions

The question managers must answer for the capacity decision area is the same as the question for inventory: “How much?” Determining the organization’s capacity to produce goods and services involves both long-term and short-term decisions. Long-term capacity decisions involve facilities and major equipment investments. In 2007, Airbus introduced its Super Jumbo Jet that carries up to 850 passengers and costs USD 3 billion. The Super Jumbo provides huge amounts of passenger carrying capacity, but before an airline purchases this jet, it needs to decide if it has enough passengers to generate the revenue to pay for the plane and earn profits for the airline. A large single airplane like the Super Jumbo may not be the right capacity decision for an airline that serves numerous medium sized cities. On the other hand, an airline that serves passengers traveling between New York City, USA and Shanghai, China might find the Super Jumbo to be a perfect choice for meeting demand because of the large populations in each city.