case study design house partnerships at concept design services

Operations Management: The Case of Concept Design Services

Introduction.

Operations management is directly dependent on a company’s strategy, and this aspect needs to be taken into account when analyzing organizations’ strengths and weaknesses in planning and realising their operations. Thus, operations management is the approach to managing a range of resources that are used to manufacture certain products or propose specific services (Slack, Brandon-Jones & Johnston 2016). It is possible to formulate one of the goals of operations management: to guarantee the manufacturing of high-quality products while using minimal resources and referring to the least possible costs (Haksever & Render 2017; Slack, Brandon-Jones & Johnston 2016). In this context, it is important to focus on the operations strategy that can be defined as an approach to applying certain strategic decisions in the area of managing resources for manufacturing products (Slack, Brandon-Jones & Johnston 2016). Operations strategies are important to be analyzed when it is necessary to understand how certain organizations can use their available resources to compete in the market and win leading positions.

In the context of this report, the discussion of operations will be based on the analysis of the activities and strategic outcomes of Concept Design Services (CDS). The purpose of this report is to provide definitions for the types of strategies used at CDS and analyze operations supporting these strategies. Additionally, the report is aimed at analyzing the relationship between the three core functions of operations to assist in realising the company’s operational strategies. Certain strengths and weaknesses related to these processes will be defined. It is also important to evaluate the potential impacts of developing the design house partnerships and the collaboration with retailers. Finally, the recommendations for the management will be provided to improve weak manufacturing processes and address the identified challenges in operations.

Strategy Types Evidenced at CDS: Market Requirements

It is possible to identify four specific types of strategies influencing operations management that are based on top-down, bottom-up, market requirements, and operations resources perspectives. CDS’ operations significantly depend on following the strategy grounded in the market requirements perspective because strategic decisions and changes in operations are realised after the analysis of market demands and customers’ behaviors. According to Slack and Brandon-Jones (2018), managers cannot successfully plan operations without analyzing market requirements to determine customers’ demands and priorities for the product development and promotion. This strategy can be defined with reference to the fact that market requirements directly affect operations in terms of influencing quality standards, design and costs (Ávila, Amorim & Ferreira 2019). The analysis of customers’ needs related to price, quality, delivery, innovation, design, and differentiation determines a company’s operations to address these needs in the context of this particular strategy.

It is also necessary to analyze how CDS’ operations have been designed to address the strategy based on market requirements. Products under the Concept brand have innovative designs, respond to the market demand, and are produced within six style ranges and available in 12 colors. The order-winning objective for CDS is to produce innovative and fashionable items differing from competitors’ alternatives in terms of design and colors. Therefore, the manufacturing process is organized in a way to guarantee high-quality molds are used, and machines are standardized to ensure that molds fit all machines. This approach allows for speeding the process of manufacturing Concept products within a short time. Furthermore, to guarantee the production of goods in different colors, the work with molds starts with using light colors and moving to the darker ones not to prevent sequences of operations. Customers’ constant interest in new products and the competition in the market cause the promotion of new development processes, and the time required for testing new molds (24 hours) was added to schedules. Different variants of deliveries are proposed to various customers, including businesses and individuals.

Strategy Types Evidenced at CDS: Operations Resources

CDS is also focused on following the strategy based on analyzing its operations resources. This perspective on an operations strategy depends on the Resource-Based View (RBV) framework and allows for assessing available resources and competencies to form the competitive advantage depending on these aspects (Hitt, Xu & Carnes 2016). Thus, the management of operations directly affects the strategic success of a company in the market. Managers need to determine constraints influencing their strategy about operations as well as to evaluate available capabilities to focus on and use (Bromiley & Rau 2016). Furthermore, much attention should also be paid to formulating the strategy depending on the assessment of intangible resources, which usually include organizations’ relationships with partners and suppliers, customer loyalty, and reputation (Heizer, Render & Munson 2017). In addition, in the context of the operations resources strategy, it is also necessary to refer to the analysis of a company’s new product design, supply networks, job design, inventory, and process technology among other areas.

Certain operations at CDS have been designed to support the realization of this strategy in the organization. Currently, CDS managers assess equipment and machines as flexible in use and appropriate to increase volumes of manufactured products if required. Furthermore, the company has enough resources and capabilities to improve partnerships with Italian and German design houses depending on their design and manufacturing capabilities with the focus on producing fashionable products. CDS also works with high-quality molds made by specialists in South Korea that contribute to the overall quality of their products. Manufacturing and supply services are developed effectively to guarantee the simultaneous work on large orders to address customers’ expectations. However, there are also some constraints to pay attention to while focusing on operations: the lack of warehouse space and the lack of experience in developing products other than plastic ones for industries and households. Moreover, the pick rate assessed for the company is 92% about the availability of finished goods inventory.

Three Core Functions

Three core functions that manage critical processes in any company are marketing, product development, and operations. The marketing function is characterized by promoting a firm’s products to target consumers in a variety of markets with the focus on addressing customers’ needs and expectations (Slack, Brandon-Jones & Johnston 2016; Wilkinson, Armstrong & Lounsbury 2017). The purpose of this function is to attract the customer’s attention to the product and provoke their purchasing behaviour. The product development function includes developing and modifying products to stimulate customers’ interest in products and requests (Chikán & Sprague 2019; Slack, Brandon-Jones & Johnston 2016). The operations function is the most important one as it is associated with creating products attractive to customers depending on their demands (Hill & Hill 2017; Slack, Brandon-Jones & Johnston 2016).

At CDS, all three functions are closely related to each other. The marketing function was responsible for evaluating market trends and concluding that Focus products should have been replaced by Concept products that were more attractive to wider customers. Furthermore, marketers provided designers with tasks to develop stylish products to cooperate with design houses and formulated tasks regarding changes in products to manufacture for the operations function. Depending on the results of marketers’ analysis, specialists responsible for the product development function focused on creating Concept and “design house” products and began to order innovative molds from South Korea. Specialists from the operations function were provided with new molds to use and change their working processes to guarantee the production of high-quality Concepts products that vary in their forms and colors. Thus, the operations function directly depends on the marketing and product development function.

Potential Strengths and Weaknesses

Although the work of three core functions in their relation to each other guarantees the manufacturing of high-quality products, there are also both strengths and weaknesses in their cooperation. Marketers at CDS are effective and successful in analyzing market tendencies to focus on promoting products that are most fashionable and meeting consumers’ demands to increase the company’s profitability. Furthermore, specialists responsible for the product development function can be viewed as skilled and knowledgeable to develop innovative and attractive products to address customers’ needs (Slack, Brandon-Jones & Johnston 2016). Moreover, strong features include the ability of the manufacturing and operations functions to comparably quickly change the production process to address market trends, and the use of larger machines for multi-cavity molds allowed for increasing productivity.

However, there are also weaknesses in the communication and cooperation between the core functions at CDS. Firstly, marketing forecasts are often not accurate enough, and this aspect influences the scheduling of operations at CDS, leading to short-term unplanned changes that affect processes. Negative outcomes include effects on efficiency, utilization, and scrap rates (Slack, Brandon-Jones & Johnston 2016). Secondly, specialists from the product development and operations units need to agree on schedules to be able to test new product molds without affecting productivity. Thirdly, problems in forecasting orders and scheduling also influence deliveries of products and customers’ satisfaction levels (Ansoff et al. 2018; Khanna 2015). Finally, CDS suffers from the lack of warehouse space, however, while working with design houses, it is expected that CDS uses only their resources to create products, including their call-center, distribution, and warehouse resources. These weaknesses need to be addressed by improving the communication between different departments of CDS.

The Design House and Manufacturing Operations

The focus on strengthening CDS’ alliances with design houses can lead to significant changes in manufacturing processes and other activities in the company. The first change will include the growth of the company’s design unit and the focus on the product development function to design and develop innovative products to address new partners’ requirements (Slack, Brandon-Jones & Johnston 2016). The key challenge in this area is the necessity of hiring more skilled designers and specialists in product development (Harmsen, De Haan & Swinkels 2018). Manufacturing operations will be changed in terms of addressing the necessity of producing more goods (Luchs, Swan & Griffin 2015). It is possible to expect that new machines and new molding forms will be required. As a result, the used machines will be adapted to new molds or will be replaced with alternatives. Furthermore, it will be necessary to improve working processes to guarantee the production of the high number of goods for design houses along with Focus and Concept products.

There is also a risk that new products developed in the context of collaborating with design houses will be more complex than existing ones, and they will require more time to prepare machines for using molds according to new specific settings. The time required for testing and changing new molds needs to be taken into account when developing schedules related to manufacturing processes (Slack, Brandon-Jones & Johnston 2016). Additionally, despite CDS’ design and manufacturing competencies, the collaboration with design houses can lead to the necessity of developing and producing extremely new products that are not typical of CDS and not associated with the company’s core expertise. This situation can potentially lead to significant changes in manufacturing processes concerning replacing the currently used machines and molds, revising schedules, training, and educating employees (De Toni 2016). Such changes can lead to unexpected decreases in productivity levels and increases in defects in products.

Major Retailer Services and Manufacturing Operations

Another category of CDS’ collaborations includes the focus on major retailer services. Thus, CDS cooperates with supermarkets and retail chains as a partner that is responsible for providing products which address all possible customers’ expectations and needs. This practice influences manufacturing operations through changes in the activities of CDS’ marketing department (Karlsson 2016). Thus, marketers at CDS are responsible for analyzing the data presented by supermarkets to decide what products to manufacture and supply for a concrete case depending on customers’ interests (Slack, Brandon-Jones & Johnston 2016). Depending on marketers’ predictions, the manufacturing unit of the company receives the order for producing a certain number of required goods from the category of plastic household products.

It is stated by the managers of the company, that the product range to address this demand should not be extremely significant in comparison to other Concept products. Therefore, manufacturing processes can remain unmodified to address retailers’ orders. However, it can be a challenging task for the manufacturing department to prepare a great number of ordered products within a short period of time if these volumes were not reflected in the previously developed schedules (Starr & Gupta 2017). From this perspective, much attention should be paid to analysing the data given by retailers on their customers’ expectations and purchasing trends to make accurate forecasts and plan activities for the manufacturing department in the most efficient manner.

Recommendations

The first step in addressing the challenges faced by the management of CDS about developing new partnerships is the focus on overcoming weaknesses in operations and the communication between the core functions at CDS. The important primary step is the improvement of marketing forecasts depending on the data they receive from retailers in the context of supportive relationships with supermarkets. Marketers should also be trained regarding the analysis of regular market data to predict customers’ demand for Concept products within a short period of time (Fredendall & Hill 2016). As a result, the scheduling of operations at CDS will be improved. The second step is the improvement of communication and data exchange between the specialists from the product development and operations units. The company’s interest in developing new innovative products will lead to testing more new moulds and other tools for production, affecting schedules and employees’ productivity (Slack, Brandon-Jones & Johnston 2016). Therefore, much attention should be paid to planning the use of machines by operations and product development units for their purposes during weekdays and weekends.

It is also recommended to improve CDS’ approach to delivering their products as they are responsible for on-time deliveries in relation to different types of customers. Thus, more resources should be invested in supporting this function to guarantee customers’ and businesses’ satisfaction (Anand & Gray 2017). Additionally, it is possible to recommend expanding areas and building new facilities for CDS to address their problem of the lack of warehouse space. While cooperating with design houses and collaborating with retailers, CDS will potentially increase their production levels, and limited warehouse spaces will affect this progress negatively (Slack & Brandon-Jones 2018). The efforts made to address these specific weaknesses in CDS’ operations will contribute to the further development and growth of the company to increase its profitability and influence its reputation in the market.

Recommendations (cont.)

To support certain changes in CDS’ activities and strategies that are caused by cooperating with design houses and retailers, it is necessary to recommend alterations for manufacturing operations in the company. The purpose of this activity is to contribute to productivity and high production levels meeting the market demands (De Boer 2018). The first recommendation to consider is to increase the number of large moulding machines that are currently used in the company and can be viewed as flexible for manufacturing different types of innovative products (Slack & Brandon-Jones 2018). In addition, it is also important to analyse the cooperation with design houses in order to decide on purchasing other modern machines that can be used for the production of the most advanced goods to address customers’ needs.

The next recommendation is associated with changes in planning and scheduling production processes to guarantee the availability of inventory. The exchange of reports between the Marketing Department and the Supply Services Planning Manager should be on-time and regular to ensure all processes are planned concerning the current marketing goals (Slack, Brandon-Jones & Johnston 2016). The planning and production of Focus products are effectively organized at the current stage, however, additional improvements are required for the category of Concept products. Besides, more specialists should be added to the team responsible for planning and production operations for ensuring the completion of orders for design houses and retailers.

The expansion of the range of proposed products will also be associated with selecting more specialists to work as managers responsible for the planning and production of specific groups of goods. Furthermore, it is also recommended to extend the team of designers working in the company to guarantee their work will address the expectations of CDS’ partners from design houses. As a result, the provision of educational education and training for specialists working in different departments of CDS is also recommended as one of the important steps to follow.

Operations management can be viewed as critical to make sure that all resources in a company are used to their maximum extent to achieve its strategic goals and objectives. At CDS, its core functions, including marketing, product development, and operations, are closely connected and directly influencing each other. On the one hand, this approach allows for collaboration between departments and units to reach the targets. On the other hand, if the work in one of the departments is affected or has weaknesses, this situation negatively influences planning and procedures related to the work of other departments. CDS needs to pay much attention to improving the exchange of data and resources between the functions to achieve strategic goals.

Design house collaborations, as well as the focus on major retailer services, provide CDS with a range of opportunities to increase the volume of products they manufacture and improve their position in the European market while affecting customers’ loyalty. However, the current resource base available at CDS can be discussed as not enough to change its operations according to the needs related to these collaborations. Therefore, it has been recommended to focus on expanding material resources and assets of the company to become prepared for increased production volumes and more strict quality requirements. From this perspective, to act according to the company’s growth strategy and goals, it is necessary to improve inventory, facilities, planning, scheduling, and data exchange at CDS. These steps are essential to guarantee that the company will reach its goals without decreasing the quality of products or increasing the number of possible defects because of the lack of available resources.

Reference List

Anand, G & Gray, JV 2017, ‘Strategy and organization research in operations management’, Journal of Operations Management , vol. 53, pp. 1-8.

Ansoff, HI, Kipley, D, Lewis, AO, Helm-Stevens, R & Ansoff, R 2018, Implanting strategic management , Springer, Cham.

Ávila, L, Amorim, M & Ferreira, L 2019, ‘Strategies adopted by social enterprises to overcome operations resources constraints: the case of Vintage for a cause’, in J Mula, R Barbastefano & M Díaz-Madroñero (eds), New global perspectives on industrial engineering and management , Springer, Cham, pp. 31-38.

Bromiley, P & Rau, D 2016, ‘Operations management and the resource based view: another view,’ Journal of Operations Management , vol. 41, pp. 95-106.

Chikán, A & Sprague, LG 2019, ‘A life cycle model of major innovations in operations management’, International Journal of Quality Innovation , vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 5-12.

De Boer, L 2018, Operations management and sustainability: new research perspectives , Springer, Cham.

De Toni, AF 2016, International operations management: lessons in global business , CRC Press, New York, NY.

Fredendall, LD & Hill, E 2016, Basics of supply chain management , CRC Press, New York, NY.

Haksever, C & Render, B 2017, Service and operations management , World Scientific Publishing Company, London.

Harmsen, J, De Haan, AB & Swinkels, PL 2018, Product and process design: driving innovation , Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, New York, NY.

Heizer, J, Render, B & Munson, C 2017, Operations management , Pearson Education, London.

Hill, A & Hill, T 2017, Essential operations management , Macmillan International Higher Education, London.

Hitt, MA, Xu, K & Carnes, CM 2016, ‘Resource Based Theory in operations management research’, Journal of Operations Management , vol. 41, pp. 77-94.

Karlsson, C (ed.) 2016, Research methods for operations management , 2nd edn, Routledge, London.

Khanna, RB 2015, Production and operations management , PHI Learning Pvt, Delhi.

Luchs, MG, Swan, S & Griffin, A 2015, Design thinking: new product development essentials from the PDMA , John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY.

Slack, N & Brandon-Jones, A 2018, Operations and process management: principles and practice for strategic impact , Pearson UK, London.

Slack, N, Brandon-Jones, A & Johnston, R 2016, Operations management , 8th edn, Pearson Education Australia, Sydney.

Starr, MK & Gupta, SK (eds.) 2017, The Routledge companion to production and operations management , Routledge, London.

Wilkinson, A, Armstrong, SJ & Lounsbury, M (eds.) 2017, The Oxford handbook of management , Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Cite this paper

• Chicago (N-B)
• Chicago (A-D)

StudyCorgi. (2021, August 5). Operations Management: The Case of Concept Design Services. https://studycorgi.com/operations-management-the-case-of-concept-design-services/

"Operations Management: The Case of Concept Design Services." StudyCorgi , 5 Aug. 2021, studycorgi.com/operations-management-the-case-of-concept-design-services/.

StudyCorgi . (2021) 'Operations Management: The Case of Concept Design Services'. 5 August.

1. StudyCorgi . "Operations Management: The Case of Concept Design Services." August 5, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/operations-management-the-case-of-concept-design-services/.

Bibliography

StudyCorgi . "Operations Management: The Case of Concept Design Services." August 5, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/operations-management-the-case-of-concept-design-services/.

StudyCorgi . 2021. "Operations Management: The Case of Concept Design Services." August 5, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/operations-management-the-case-of-concept-design-services/.

This paper, “Operations Management: The Case of Concept Design Services”, was written and voluntary submitted to our free essay database by a straight-A student. Please ensure you properly reference the paper if you're using it to write your assignment.

Before publication, the StudyCorgi editorial team proofread and checked the paper to make sure it meets the highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, fact accuracy, copyright issues, and inclusive language. Last updated: August 5, 2021 .

If you are the author of this paper and no longer wish to have it published on StudyCorgi, request the removal . Please use the “ Donate your paper ” form to submit an essay.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

Case study analysis <<Concept Design Services>>

2021, Maria Vytinidou

This is a case study analysis of the Concept Design Services business, one of Europe's most profitable plastic household products (homeware) business, with the purpose to apply the concepts of operations management, to analyze and confront the issues that the company faces, evaluate its business success, provide recommendations for improvement and solutions to the problems. This assignment critically analyzes the Concept Design Services' Strategies, the effects on Manufacturing Operations and Supply Services, the Main Features of Strategies in the 1990's, the development of New Markets, conclusions & recommendations.

Related Papers

Romina Radovic

Background: A systematic and continuous product policy management is important for a company&#39;s competitiveness and the question is to what extent and in what way companies engaged in the furniture manufacturing sector actually apply them. Objectives: The objective of this paper is to explore to what extent the design profession is involved in the product policy and teams which define market properties of products in the furniture industry. Methods: In order to achieve the objectives of this paper, the Model for Exploring the Role of Design in Defining Market Properties and the Product Policy in the Furniture Industry has been devised. Two surveys have been conducted, measuring the level of involvement of the design profession in the product policy, as well as the involvement of designers in the work of teams which define market properties of products in the furniture industry. Results: The design profession is not systematically and continuously involved in the function of the p...

Abstract Proceedings International Scholars Conference

Noah Balraj

The research paper deals with the study of products and services and its design thinking. Design thinking is one of the major branches of sciences that is fast developing with the economic development of nations around the globe. Design thinking could also be considered as a core human-centered, problem solving, and creative solutions to human living. There is a progressive modification of designs in the improvements of components both inside (functional components) and outside (aesthetics) of product-service design. The purpose of this study is to identify and understand the elements and the importance of design thinking and its implications in the management of design in products and services in organizations. Designs are the impact of the previous designs and the influences of human thinking on designs. Progressive learning on design thinking promotes a better understanding of consumer satisfaction. The methodology of the study was done with an observation method of product-servi...

Seda Erdural

Management and Industrial Engineering

José Marcos Zea Pérez

The present work has been planned to satisfy the needs of the metal-mechanic industry in Mexico, San Juan del Rio, which generates 16% of the Gross Domestic Product and counts with 8,932 economic units in Mexico. The metal-mechanic sector is a pillar for other industrial activities. This work focuses on the thinking skills for designing dies as tooling that are used to punch metal parts with high or low production volumes. Design skills, due to a lack of investment and development, have been lagging in Mexico, compared to foreign markets, which export tooling to Mexico mainly from Asia, for 2,600 Million Dollars (MDD) per year. Consequently, the objective of this chapter is to demonstrate that the service is feasible from different points of view. Based on the scientific method, this research work is structured to reach next objectives: (1) To detect the need to locate the market that allows the creation of the company and (2) To deploy the product lifecycle method to determine the ...

Magnus Eneberg

While the design industry is moving into new domains, it seems that potential customers do not always understand how the designer can contribute beyond the aesthetically appealing product. The overall purpose of this thesis is to expand our understanding of design as an enabling service in the context of small and medium sized enterprises. An enabling design service has the potential to result in organizational learning and change. The co-creation of new knowledge and competencies can in turn enable the customer organization to become more innovative and able to deal with an ambiguous environment. The first part of the research consisted of interviews and workshops with the major industrial design consultancies in Sweden and Finland and some smaller American consultancies. A conceptual business model canvas based on service dominant logic is presented in the thesis to increase our understanding of the business of the industrial design consultancy. During the study, we observed several changes in the organization of the industrial design consultancy. We also noticed self-confidence among the industrial design consultancies in respect to their skills in methods to orchestrate collaboration and contribute to strategic development in customer organizations. An analysis of the initial interviews and workshops together with a literature study helped me to summarize the characteristics of the methods and processes designers are educated in as being integrative, collaborative and explorative. They are integrative in that they incorporate hands with thought, and theory with practice. They are collaborative in that interaction between individuals is a necessity to solve the wicked, ambiguous and open-ended problems the designer usually faces. This has resulted in designers being educated in methods involving a broad range of stakeholders such as users in development processes. Finally, the methods and processes are explorative in that they aim at ingenuity and focus on how things ought to be rather than on the present state. The second part of the research consisted of interviews and observations and had a focus on shared activities between design students and participants from small and medium sized companies. Design methods and processes were put into the context of organizational learning and change theories that centered on knowing as embodied and encultured. An activity theoretical model was applied to enrich the analysis of the diversity of perspectives that may lead to conflicting interpretation and negotiation in shared activities. The concepts of place and space were used to highlight the dynamics between how structures and human desires and needs motivated participants in the shared activities. Place is characterized by stability and is the strategy of the prevailing and often connected to identity. Space is practiced place and connected to change and human agency. The thesis presents how design services enabled individuals and organizations to be introduced to and to strengthen a given place, such as a discipline or organization. It also provides examples of the opposite, with individuals distancing themselves from a place, such as a discipline. Mediating artifacts and the integration of doing and reflection created experiences that evoked emotional involvement and enactment among the participants. Most activities resulted in creating space for change and learning and the outcome can be characterized as business and organizational development.

John Bryson

João António Almeida Mota

Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management

Oriole Bolus

CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology

Tatsunori Hara

RELATED PAPERS

블루드림카지노주소〃〃GCN777。COM〃〃먹튀잡는해병대

Rebeca - Revista Brasileira de Estudos de Cinema e Audiovisual

Scheilla Franca de Souza

Gynecological Endocrinology

Marina Khamoshina

M Andi Fikri

rosnani hashim

Dwayne Beck

Australian Zoologist

David C Paull

Journal of Environmental Quality

Francois Birgand

SSRN Electronic Journal

Muhammad Arslan

Pediatric Hematology and Oncology

Nabil Ahmed

Anita Anita

ELECTROPHORESIS

Diego Cortes

UNIVERSIDADE CESUMAR

Valéria Borges Yonegura

Mary Pittman

Sadiqur Rahman

The Proceedings of JSME annual Conference on Robotics and Mechatronics (Robomec)

Nak-Young Chong

Jerry Anthony

Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management

Bakhtiar Ostadi

American Journal of Psychiatry

Silvina del Valle Berra

Silvina Berra

Diederick de Jong

Károly Farkas

Journal of Virology

Jeroo Kotval

tufhfgd hfdfsd

Edson Vinícius Bezerra

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Provide details on what you need help with along with a budget and time limit. Questions are posted anonymously and can be made 100% private.

Studypool matches you to the best tutor to help you with your question. Our tutors are highly qualified and vetted.

Your matched tutor provides personalized help according to your question details. Payment is made only after you have completed your 1-on-1 session and are satisfied with your session.

• Homework Q&A
• Become a Tutor

All Subjects

Mathematics

Programming

Health & Medical

Engineering

Computer Science

Foreign Languages

Access over 20 million homework & study documents

Case study in design house partnership at concept design services.

Sign up to view the full document!

24/7 Homework Help

Stuck on a homework question? Our verified tutors can answer all questions, from basic  math  to advanced rocket science !

Similar Documents

working on a homework question?

Studypool is powered by Microtutoring TM

Copyright © 2024. Studypool Inc.

Studypool is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university.

Ongoing Conversations

Access over 20 million homework documents through the notebank

Get on-demand Q&A homework help from verified tutors

Read 1000s of rich book guides covering popular titles

Sign up with Google

Sign up with Facebook

Already have an account? Login

Login with Google

Login with Facebook

Don't have an account? Sign Up

Thursday 14 January 2010

Case study-design house partnership at concept design services, 9 comments:.

As to question 2, my understanding of 4V of the company's products/services are as below: Volume=>low Variety=>high Variation in demand=>high Visibility=>high but for volume I am not sure very much because it does not mention the sales number or products in the case study.

Question 1: Why is operations management important in CDS? In general, Concept Design Services (CDS)is complete and includes everything from helping to select the correct product for your needs. From the case, it would seem to me that CDS emphasizes on the importance of product development (design value) as a result of a distribution service which is tailored to customer's needs.Therefore, it would appear that they highlights the significance of the product improvement and the customer satisfaction. With regarding the operations management is the activity of managing the resources which are devoted to the production and delivery of products and service. Thus, it would be clear that operations management is significant in CDS because all the activities of operations management can improve the processes, products and services in term of customer satisfaction that is the aims of CDS.

As the article present, unpredictable demands from the customers are inevitable which a company has faced. In my view, the company should survey and collect data regarding the requirements of customers before planning, designing and manufacturing. This solution may help the company accurately predict the demand of customers. This means that consequences of accurate demands of customer directly affect customer satisfaction because correct calculation of customer requirements can reduce out-of-stock. Hence, customers will be happy to receive the right products that they exactly want to buy. This solution may have benefits for the company since the company can maintain their customers.

In contributing to question 2 where Rad states the Volume was low, i fail to agree because there volumes went high as a result of low unit costs that they were able to maintain as a result of subcontracting focus products to smaller moulding companies enabling them to focus on core activities making there tasks more systematized; hence increasing productivity since specialization came into play.

Regarding as question 1, in my opinion, operations management plays an important role in CDS is because CDS replace new moulding equipments and decrease the requiring time for changing product lines and increase the productivity than before. Moreover, the distribution service also provides a planning system from forecast input to finished goods shipping to help CDS to meet customer demand. These operation adjustments help CDS to enhance its competitiveness and provide a variation for better services.

Picking up on Phailin and Rad's comments on the importance of OM for CDS, I would like to emphasize that there are three basic operations in the company: design, manufacturing and distribution. You may consider this classification to highlight how each of these operations can contribute to company's business objectives to enhance customer service, reduce cost, improve efficiency, etc. I feel that Rad's comment on 4V classification is correct, if restricted to the Partnership products. However, Harry is also right in his disagreement on the volume dimension when he refers to the Focus products. Please note that besides these two categories, there is a third group of products (Concept products) which might have a different pattern. Any idea on 4V profile of this later category? Donya, you point to an important issue on the importance of accurate customer demand to improve operations. However, in order to increase accuracy of demand forecast, the company need to invest on its marketing, CRM, etc. To what level this investment can be justified? There should be a trade-off on extra investment to improve accuracy of data. There are other areas of improvement that can be recommended to CDS. Any ideas on this? Thanks for collective contribution of all group! Keep posting your comments!

In regard to question 3 and how the company could improve its operations, i do think they could this better if they stuck to what they know best which is plastic moulding and specialized in it, this makes standardization speed up production processes for them as well as reduces unit costs. In terms of operations, i do believe if they were to separate partnership operations from other activities, though the main decisions do still come from one central operational body, it would work to their advantage. This is because by offering first priority to designers, it caused delays and friction within the firm as well as to waiting customers. Close coordination by all aspects from product testing to scheduling and forecasting, will enable unit costs to be lowered since waste reduction will be minimal as well as offer relevant feedback to designers. This will enable them to know what feedback marketers are getting in regards to there products, whats being em brassed and whats not. The company seems to be gaining more from a narrow client el that have heavy based accounts, thats why separating operations shall enable more concentration to be placed on them to ensure their retainment is guaranteed as well as show them that they are being prioritized, for some can easily change their ming where operations are visible and not to their satisfaction. Where as for normal day to day orders and activities another part can be set up to cater with these orders enabling flexibility and speeding of requests that may range from color changes that seem to be taking longer, therefore dealing with a wider variety of clients who may not have weighty orders enabling both types of client need to be dealt with.

In regard to question 3, an additional activity of providing cross-training between designers and marketing departments to enhance sales forecasting can be carried out.

Discuss all operations management topics mentioned in this case study

My Blog List

Blog archive.

• ►  February (2)
• New topics in this week
• Some links for Boeing 787 delay
• The topics in this week are different approaches i...
• Case study-Design house partnership at Concept des...

Sunday 17 January 2010

Case study: design house partnership at concept design services.

Why is operations management important in CDS?

Operations management is important in CDS if they are to continue being one of Europe’s most profitable home ware businesses. As with any other company, CDS objective is to add value to their final product while using its resources effectively and efficiently through its internal processes. The company has successfully been able to apply the technology used in the aerospace sector onto home ware items, through the mastering of injection moulding machines. Moreover, the company has expanded into a premium home ware product market, integrating new functions within its operations, such as forming partnerships with reputable designers and increasing the volume and complexity of its production.

Draw a 4 V’s profile for the company’s products/services

Volume: High. Although the case study does not specify the amount of production, it can be deduced that production volume is high as it has increased 600% since the acquisition of new large multi-cavity moulds. Another indication of high volume production is the fact that CDS decided to subcontract their Focus line to other moulding companies, so they could focus on the production of their premium line (Concept).

Variety: High. CDS market is a highly competitive one, in which design innovation determines the longevity of the firm. CDS capacity of developing products that are in fashion and moreover, its adaptability to change as fashion changes is key to the survival of the firm.

Variation: High. For the same reason as with variety, CDS is forced to continuously produce innovative designs that would keep their customers interested and therefore keep demand high.

Visibility: Mixed high and low. There is the visible part of the operation that is when the final products are

What would you recommend to the company if you were asked to advice on improving its operations?

There are 2 areas that CDS needs to improve: the relationship between its designers and other parts of the company (such as the manufacturing and distribution) and a better forecasting of sales. For the first challenge, it seem that the designers don’t get to spend enough or any time on the ‘floor’ of the company, that is, they do not have an in depth understanding of the manufacturing processes and the way they are affected by their decision making. Perhaps if they could spend some time doing ‘cross training’ they would get a real idea of the manufacturing processes and could implement this knowledge into their designing activities, in other words, both departments should have a better collaboration.

The second challenge is improving the sales forecast. Once again there seems to be a problem of collaboration between the marketing and operations departments of the company. As above, it could be suggested that both department managers and key personnel should cross train in order to understand the ‘way they do things’ and the reasons behind them.

Author: Cecilia Quino

6 comments:

he Buzzers.in is dedicated to providing high quality educational programming and tools for preschool children.Our online learning activities help parents and educators to continue their preschoolers adventures of learning.please Visit:www.buzzers.in Management cds

thanks for that piece of information, it was rilly helpful

ty ma'am. ur a real heroine! saved me 3 hours of me life.

sank you mam for hilpfool anser

very nice ! thank u majid to giv this link four my. thx u !

Operations Management

Blog archive.

• Case study: Design house partnership at Concept De...

• No menu assigned!

Game Design Track

• No Comments

When & Where: Orange Hall, May 17, 11:15 am

The original War Robots meta was based on only three classes of robots: light, medium, and heavy. Vladimir Krasilnikov , Head of Game Design Department, Pixonic will tell you what kind of problems you may encounter with this approach, and how to find practical solutions to these problems.

How to figure all it takes with Excel and elementary education

When & Where: Orange Hall, May 17, 11:45 am

A lot of game designers who don’t have any higher technical education need to do math on their projects. More often than not, it is very time consuming and is a real pain in the neck, yet the results can still be disappointing. This talk from Aleksey Rehlov , Head of Russian Branch, Creative Mobile , will help you save your glial cells and attain more predictable results in the future.

Game Design by Community (based on Surgeon Simulator, I Am Bread and Worlds Adrift)

When & Where: Orange Hall, May 17, 12:30 pm

Bossa Studios is famous for creating strange games in strange ways. Imre Jele , Co-founder, Creator-In-Chief, Bossa Studios , is going to touch on how they let go of dictatorial auteurship and embrace co-creation with their audience, allowing players to make them laugh through the irreverent comedy of Surgeon Simulator and build Worlds Adrift together, making it the first community-crafted MMO.

Neighbor’s design

When & Where: Orange Hall, May 17, 03:30 pm

“Hello Neighbor” is unexpected YouTube phenomenon of 2017. Game that stretched its gameplay over a year long period. Nikita Kolesnikov , Game designer, Dynamic Pixels , is going to cover such questions as ‘How was it all created?’ ‘How everything worked out?’ ‘Is it fun to sleep on the floor?’ ‘How not to die?’

From idea to proposal: a method to make your game concept viable and strong

When & Where: Green Hall, May 17, 04:45 pm

This talk will explain a method to create and revise your game idea in a new, unexplored way. Sviatoslav Torik , Product Vision Expert, Research & Development, Wargaming.net , will guide you through the whole process: from stating the idea to explained possibilities and USPs. To be totally fair with you Sviatoslav will provide a challenging game idea example as well.

Creating Game Design Tools

When & Where: Orange Hall, May 18, 11:00 am

This talk from Konstantin Sakhnov , Head of Game Department, Rocket Jump , will cover useful cases of creation and tuning different game design tools (no need of in-depth programming skills) that can help every game designer optimise his work.

When & Where: Red Hall, May 18, 11:00 am

Such experienced game-designers as Serge Himmelreich , Game Designer, Co-founder, GDCuffs , ARPU.GURU , Vladimir Kovtun , Creative Mobile , Sviatoslav Torik , Product Vision Expert, Research & Development, Wargaming.net , Gregory Choporov , Producer, 2RealLife , will offer publicly practical ways of gameplay improvement to 3 selected but not released projects.

Prototyping pipeline: Lessons learned

When & Where: Orange Hall, May 18, 15:00 pm

The session of Ivan Barishnikov , Team Lead Prototyping division, Wargaming.net , will focus on prototyping pipeline. Building process from the scratch, evolving and working on mistakes. Problems that we’ve got and solutions that we’ve found.

When & Where: Pink Hall, May 18, 04:45 pm

During this session, Pavel Sovushkin , Head of UX department, WOWlab, is going to share the insights on UX design for VR projects. You’ll learn: what actions will help you to reduce the risks and improve the quality of a project at the pre-production stage; what you should take into account to make a VR project intuitively understandable and interesting for audience; how to make a prototype of a VR project in two days.

We’re waiting for you at DevGAMM Moscow. Take the chance to learn great insights on how to improve your game design and what tools you should use. Tickets are on sale 🙂

Get your tickets

Lerika Mallayeva

Email: [email protected] Skype: mallayeva Phone: +79035826001

Maria Chyrvona

Email: [email protected] Skype: chyrvona Phone: +380938368195

Sergey Chernobrivets

Email: [email protected] Skype: sergey_ukraine_acc Phone: +380990311747

Tori Pavlenko

Email: [email protected] Skype: viktory1209 Phone: +79689363486

Sales and business relationships with sponsors.

• Parties & Networking
• Career Wall
• Awards 2018 Winners
• Speed Game Dating
• Submit Game