Introduction
The business I envision will be in the manufacturing sector. It will be involved in the design and manufacturing of clothes and will focus on manufacturing clothes for various castings in the film industry. Sage Costuming will be the name of the company. My operations strategy for Sage Costuming will mainly focus on its entry in to the market, how to raise its capital, establishing useful contacts within the industry and the timeline it will take to implement the strategy. Also in my essay I will be focusing on the key components of supply chain for my business, total quality management as a strategy for my business, and lastly the elements of just in time and its impact on quality assurance for my business
Operation strategy
The starting capital of the business will be financed partly through grants offered by the government and partly through my personal savings. In future, I will enter into partnerships if additional funding for the capital is required. The main goal for Sage Costuming is to make the right contacts within the fashion industry. The company will subscribe to the industry’s trademark magazines such as the people and the weekly fashion magazine. The company will be attending the monthly-organized fashion exhibitions and also follow the castings of various films to come up with a portfolio of design ideas, which will help in the formulation of its own designs. Also, the company will build a long-term relationship with the movie industry; this will result in costuming directors in movies approaching the company for costumes.
The company will consist of three artists who will responsible for the drawings and also help in managing contractual artists and clothing designers if the demand of the products increases. The company will also use computer software to come up with images of both male and female models that are in 3-D so as to bring the drawings into reality (Chase et al., 2004). As a result, the company will have a full-time software designer who will help in the maintaining and designing of new computer software.
The company will handle its inventory through keeping the fabrics and colors up to date. It will involve keeping a large stock of materials with natural fiber that are generic in nature so as to use them in various design lines, this will be worked out by the purchasing section ( Chase et al., 2004). The location of the company will be in the central business district to allow for easy access by potential customers. In conclusion, the company targets to implement this strategy within the first year of its operation.
Effects of operation strategy on product design and process selection
The above operation strategy developed by Sage Costuming has the following effects on product design and the selection of the process selection of manufacturing these designs. It helps in coming up with the steps needed in designing a product, like in these case by attending the weekly fashion exhibitions and following various movie castings Sage costuming is planning to use reverse engineering to come up with its designs (Reid and Sanders, 2010).This will help Sage Costuming come up with an appropriate selection of a process that will be lower in cost to manufacture its designs. Through establishing a long-term relationship with the movie industry, Sage Costuming will be able to know the various specifications required by various costuming directors. This will help in coming up with appropriate product designs and processes to be used in manufacturing these designs.
By subscribing to the fashion magazine, the company will be able to know the latest designs in the market. This will allow it to come up with latest designs, thus selecting the appropriate manufacturing process. To finish by using the computer software, Sage costuming will be able to come up with precise designs, this will help in determining the exact cost of manufacturing it would prefer, hence selecting the right manufacturing process ( Reid and sanders, 2010).
Components of supply chain management
Sage Costuming will contain the following components in supply chain management. The structure of the supply chain will be made up of the supplies department. Under the supplies department there will be the purchasing, sourcing section, transport, logistics section and the warehousing section.
The purchasing and sourcing section will deal with all the non-critical purchases, leverage purchases, strategic purchases and bottleneck purchases. This will help the company in purchasing high quality products at relatively lower prices, thus enabling it to offer its customer fair prices on its commodities (Cooper, 1997, p.12). In addition, this section will enable the organization set a benchmark on its purchases in order to obtain competitive prices in purchasing the raw materials for its products. This section will be managed by permanent employee who will be under the supplies manager, and in case of an increase in demand, other contractual specialists in this area will be hired.
The logistics department will be responsible for coordinating all the transportation arrangements from the suppliers and also to the customers. Also the logistic section will coordinate with the supplies manager on how efficiently raw materials can be transported from the suppliers and finished products transported to the customer without incurring huge costs, hence ensuring lower costs for the final product (Simchi, 2007).
It will also be responsible for all the company’s delivery vehicles together with their maintenance. It will be managed by two permanent employees who will be under the supplies manager, one will be the overall manager of this section and the other will be the driver who will be making the deliveries. More workers will be employed on contractual terms in case of an increase in demand by the customers or increase in supply from the suppliers.
The warehousing section will be responsible for the storage of stock in form of raw materials as well as the storage of finished products. Also it will be responsible for the keeping of inventories to ensure that the right quantity of raw materials are purchased to avoid congestion in the warehouse as well as the delivery of the right quantity of finished products (Simchi, 2007).This section will be managed by a single permanent employee, while the extra will be employed on a contract basis when there is an increase in orders both from customers as well as from the suppliers.
The overall manager of the supply chain department will be the supplies manager who will be responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of the department. The supplies manager will ensure a smooth coordination of activities between the three supplies sections in order to come up with the best strategy on how to effectively carry out the supply of raw materials as well as finished products (Simchi, 2007). In conclusion, the manager will be responsible for communicating the customer’s requirements with regard to the finished products to other departments in the company. This will enable the company to come up with better strategies of satisfying customers, thus ensuring profitability through loyalty by the customer (Cooper, 1997, p.9).
Total quality management strategy
Total quality management is a very important strategy in the overall success of a business, as it offers the following advantages in the market place. Through the development of external orientation, it allows the business to develop a strategy that is concerned with the transaction with its customers. This allows the business to deal with the dynamics in the market very effectively (Reed et al., 1996, p.173). It also allows a firm to develop control-oriented goals. This enables the firm to focus on increasing its internal efficiency, thus allowing it to control and reduce both its production and marketing costs (Reed et al., 1996, p.173).
Also total quality management allows firms to develop learning-oriented goals. This helps the firm to not only focus on increasing its internal efficiency but also focus on learning, exploration and adapting to the ever-changing business environment (Sitkin et al., 1994, p.550). It also enables firms to develop market orientation, thus gaining the market advantage through responding to the ever-changing needs of the customer much faster and efficiently than its competitors (Reed et al., 1996, p.173). To finish, by gaining a higher market advantage over their competitors firms are able to generate massive profits through acquiring more customers and charging higher prices for those products that are on high demand in the market (Reed et al., 1996, p.173).
Just-In-Time manufacturing
Just-in-time is defined as a philosophy in manufacturing aimed at removing all the waste while focusing on improving productivity in the manufacturing process.
The key components of just-in-time manufacturing are determined as follows. Stabilize and level the MPS with uniform plant loading, reducing or eliminating setup times by aiming at a single digit time, minimizing lot sizes in manufacturing and purchase, minimizing lead times in production and delivery through moving work stations closer together and improving the coordination between various process, preventive maintenance through the use of spare time to maintain the equipments used in order to prevent machine breakdown, ensuring a flexible workforce by training workers to perform several tasks, demanding quality product from a supplier and maintaining a zero defects quality program, (Alawode and Ojo, 2008).
Since just-in-time emphasizes on reducing waste. First, it allows for a leaner management, this will help in reducing confusion in the coordination of activities thus ensuring a high quality. Also through emphasizing on a leaner supply chain, Sage Costuming will be able to deliver its product to the customer at the right time, hence ensuring high quality (Gupta, 2000, p.30). By having a leaner workforce Sage will be able to ensure that there is no wastage of time or laxity by a worker, this will ensure the production of high quality products (Howleg, 2007, p.425). In conclusion, by emphasizing on leaner operations machinery, Sage Costuming will be able to eliminate chances of obtaining defects on its products thus assuring high quality.
References
Alawode, A. J. and Ojo, A. O. (2008). Just-In-Time Manufacturing: A Panacea for Productivity and Idle Inventory in Nigerian Industries. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 10, 742-747.
Chase, R. B., Jacobs, R. F. and Aquilano, N. J. (2004). Operations Management for Competitive Advantage. 10th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Cooper, M. C. and Lambert, D. M. (1997). Supply Chain Management: More than a New Name for logistic. The Intenational Journal of Logistic Management, 8, 1-14.
Gupta, M., Holladay, H. and Mahoney, M. J. (2000). The Human Factor in JIT Implementation a Case Study of Ambrake Corporation. Production and Inventory Management Journal, 4, 29-33.
Howleg, M. (2007). The geneology of lean production. Journal of Operations Management, 25(2), 420-437.
Reed, R. L., David, J. and Montgomery, J. C. (1996). Beyond process: TQM content and firm performance, The Academy of Management Journal, 21, 173.
Reid, R. D, and Sanders, N. R. (2010). Operations management: An integrated approach, 4th ed, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Simchi, L. D., Kaminsky, P. and Simchi, L. E. (2007). Designing and Managing the Supply-Chain, 3rd ed, New York: McGraw-Hill.
Sitkin, S. B., Sutclife, K. M. and Schroeder, R. G. (1994). Distinguishing control from learning in total quality management: A contingency perspective, Academy of Management Journal, 19, 537-564.