Lean and agile operations

Lean and agile operations Introduction For a long period of time, organizations have been adjusting their management and operations tactics. The main objective behind this approach has been to trend to consolidate management and operational elements that are closely linked together so that they can be monitored easily (Drew, McCallum Roggenhofer, p.6). Lean management has over time replaced mass production. This form of operation calls for a different form of thinking and operation. On the other hand, companies are attempting to change or adjust their departments. In the present day, Networks are more agile in terms of being adaptive, operationally efficient and informally lean (Goodpasture, 2009, p. 268). Some of the elements that are associated with agile operations include cultural acceptances in business relationships, expansion in accessing and adoption of instant messaging plus wireless connectivity and electronic networking (Goodpasture, 2009, p. 268).Advertising We will write a custom essay s ample on Lean and agile operations specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This paper explores the concept of lean and agile operations and also offers a succinct comparison of both types of operations in manufacturing and service sectors. The concepts of lean and agile operations According to Mattias and Jan (2009, p.976-999), lean and agile operations have been used in all sectors of production. They have highly been utilized in service and manufacturing sectors. There are internal and external factors that drive companies to adopt these measures of management. In most cases, lean and agile operations have been tested to be operationally effective. Agile operation can be defined as the use of specific principles such as techniques, interactive developments and automation in running an organization. On the other hand, lean is a concept and a philosophy developed to minimize wastage during the process of production. It focuses on specific values as perceived by customers, creating value streams, making value flow from raw materials to end user, pulling productions together and striving towards perfection. Lean operation is highly valued in most organization since demanded by customers is well met. The differences between lean and agile operations/management can best be understood from a supply point of view. The following table highlights some of the major distinguishing attributes between agile and lean supply. Distinguishing attributes Lean supply Agile supply Life cycle and product variety Long life cycle and low variety Short life cycle and high variety Forecasting mechanism Algorithmic Qualitative: Consultative Market Predictable Volatile Profit margin low High Stock demand Stable long term Volatile and immediate availability Source: Nieuwenhuizen (2009, p. 124)Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Agile supply operations are market sensitive and can easily respond to movement in demand emanating from various market dynamics or players such as customers and the suppliers. To achieve this, there must be unconventional mechanisms in hearing the daily voices coming from the market (Nieuwenhuizen, 2009, p. 125). Agile supply operations also introduces the concept of electronic data exchange which helps partners in the supply process to have and react to actual demand or same data. Lean operation is more of a theoretical application than a practical one. However, when molded well, it can serve as an ideal operation in any situation. According to Reiner (2009, p. 163), the concept of lean management has been hyped as ideal concept fitting the new millennium. It has a set of tools that can assist in steady elimination of waste, production of time, cost reduction and quality improvement (Reiner, 2009, p. 163). It is built upon experience and insights from just-in-time applicati ons. Applicability of lean-agility There are various examples that can be equated to lean and agile operations. The basic principle of lean agility is on reducing the costs of production and increasing value in customer service (Waters, 2003, p. 41). For example, a supplier can increase customer services and reducing costs of operations by improving EDI links. These strategies have dominant themes of low cost operations and a focus on customer satisfaction. Organizations are able to focus specific operation features of their products by enhancing the ability to deliver goods and services quickly to the customers. The best form of satisfying customers is by ensuring that goods and services reach them in time, are of high quality, their volumes are flexible, there is product flexibility and there is specialization as well as diversification (Waters, 2003, p. 41). Some organizations in Information Technology are clinging to the environment that apply centralized control, tight notions of operations and rigorous blocking of services coming from outside. However, some companies have adopted service delivery that gives the end user or the customer some sense of pride despite the fact that the services are low cost and are leaner. El-Haik and Al-Aomar (2006, p. 23) write of a lean six sigma approach and note that it has been the hype in latest engineering paradigms. This is because it has a focus for quality management and increasing general operational effectiveness. The Lean Six Sigma (LSS) approach is capable of helping companies reduce variability and cut the process lead time.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Lean and agile operations specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Martins (2006, p. 379) is categorical that LSS has better maturity when it is put in the supply chain which for long has demanded for an effective change style/program. On this, Hill (2011, p. 4) gives the bottom principles of Lean S ix Sigma as good, fast, strong and cheap. However, Martins (2006, p. 379) cautions against compromising customer satisfaction in the efforts to make supply chain cheap. Challenges in lean and agile operations Lean operations The main objective of lean operation or management is to enable transformation of an organization from problems of functionality to effective and proactive management (Martins, 2006, p. 379). However, there are many challenges that are identified with this form of operation. According to Bell (2006, p. 69), practitioners of lean management are confronted with real challenges. For example, there are many constrains that come with management of volatility of goods and services, keeping knowledge content high and management of variability of process mix. There is also a challenge that comes with trying to approach all manufacturing operations with one style conversant with lean management. Mahadevan (2010, p. 563) is however categorical that with a strong implement ation strategy in the organization, it is possible to make lean management journey enjoyable, easier and fruitful. Lean management has become hype in health care industry. However, it is more recognized as an ad hoc practice rather than a style that can last forever in the industry. Therefore, this approach is not recognized as a means to effective end, rather, as a means to solve immediate problems (Young, 2009, p. 310). There are three major critical challenges that are identified in the health care industry. Young (2009, p. 310) puts them as lack of evidence for management quality, it has not brought strong value in the health sector because of the sensitive nature of the sector and low metrics. Quality management is supposed to achieve at least 75% in terms of effectiveness, and whenever the percentage is low, it is categorized as low metrics. Black (2008, p. 194) summarizes the difficulties that come with lean management as inability of operational managers to cope with dramati c change management. Mostly, change of organizational culture drags implementation of these dramatic management changes.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Agile operations Anna and Lars (2005, p. 362) categorize the challenges that come with agile management into three; lack of improvement initiative, unsupportive environment and failure to adhere to targeted practices. Mostly, agile operations are practical in IT sector and a failure to many other developmental sectors. Even though there have been efforts to replicate this style of management in other operational areas such as service industry, the method has not succeeded to levels that could be desired. Levine (2005, p. 353) is clear that the problems of agile operations are only beginning and if there are no immediate measures to resurrect it, it may collapse easily or fail to be utilized. With a shift towards strong agile models, it is possible to transform workplaces towards realization of goals conversant with 21st century management. As well, agile operations tend to take the concept of lean operations, and therefore, some of the challenges that are associated with lean manage ment are common in agile operations. Ramesh (2010, p. 453) introduces two risks that come with the introduction of agile operations. The first problem is with the inability of the customers and lack of concurrence in customers to impact agile developments as may be envisioned. Secondly, neglecting non functional requirements like scalability and security is a major problem. He adds that all developers who are keen on using agile operations should first of all evaluate inherent risks, and work towards eliminating them as much as possible. They should outweigh these risks and the costs involved as a measure of countering the challenges. Babar (2009, p. 84) is categorical that agile development especially in the IT sector has brought in mechanisms of reducing costs while at the same time increasing abilities to handle market dynamics. However, there are some concerns on the importance and the role of issues that are related with software architecture developed through agile approaches. Examples of lean operations Manufacturing sector: Toyota By late 1960’s, Toyota management had started to push for lean production (Dennis Shook, 2007, p. 10). The management was compelled to adopt such strategic management measures due to demanding price reductions. The company’s management permeated entire supply chain by 1970 and this has continued to present day. In Toyota Company, the method has succeeded in a number of ways. For example, equipment maintenance has become effective; there is pull production, supplier involvement, quality at the source of production, high employee involvement plus empowerment, small lot production and reduced set up times. However, this company has faced a number of challenges that are associated with adopting lean strategies in operations. For example, this method has become a major focus rather than the putative results that come with it. Toyota has failed to define the operations and actually brushes the importance that comes w ith such an operation. Service industry: Vodafone Company Vodafone Turkey started lean operations in the year 2006 and this has led to change initiative. Some of the results that were foreseen with such a method of operation were effective deployment and proper work design. The company was prompted to get into lean management due to a high need for data based management, customer driven focus and a structured approach to management of its systems. Some of foreseen efforts were improved customer experience, elimination of wastes, costs and increase revenue; empower and develop people and more importantly, move to a model and culture of continuous improvement. Challenges included slow stakeholder management, high expectations from people, lack of combination of a top down and a bottom up approach and failure to retain right resources. Examples of agile operations Manufacturing sector: Hewlett-Packard Co Hewlett-Packard Co. is one of the companies in the world which have remained agile for many years. According to Pride and Hughes (2011, p. 211), the company strives to remain agile as well as adaptable to changes in management environments. The company’s management identifies clinging to this style of management as its major challenge but hopes that it will remain glued to it for long. However, the company has experienced lots of challenges in its agile style of management. For example, in a number of times, the style demanded a lot especially in approaches that are collaborative, iterative and incremental. As well, agility operations have resulted to salary cut controversies amongst the employees. Even though this measure was not directly related to agile operations, it was seen as a way of keeping everything low and maximizing customer service and quality production. Service sector: Sony Life This is an insurance company that focuses on giving made- to -order insurance services to their customers. These are based on specific demands of the customers, and in Japan, this method has made it possible for the company to increase customer base to 4.4 million. Cummins (2008, p.93) equates made- to- order services with agile operations. He writes that with such management style, it is possible to track the needs of the customers, and this way, companies can increase quality of their services to the people. It is a production- line mode that has gained fame in the 21st century (Cummins, 2008, p. 93). However, Sony Life has faced major challenges with this style of management. A major challenge was in keeping with the pace of change management. Companies are increasingly adopting new measures, and since a made –to- order service is expensive, the management may be forced to drop the style in the middle of operation. Recommendations/suggestion Lean- agility management is a concept that has come with change management of 21st century. From the discussion, it is clear that companies are adopting these methods for the purposes of enhancin g quality delivery, minimizing time in delivery, satisfying customers and improve growth of organizations. However, there are various challenges that have been noted to come with these forms of management. As a remedy, there ought to be a number of measures that organizations should adopt to make lean -agility management style work. For lean operations, it is proper to visualize workflow by splitting works into various pieces, always specify the values that are demanded by customers, always strive for perfection and create value streams. For agile management, it is essential to adopt a build- to -order style of production, make just- in- time deliver effective by combining with just-in-time sequence delivery, enhance real-time management and put together supply chain with supplier and customers. To recap it all, two of the methods that have been adopted in the 21st century for management of companies are agility management and lean operations. Lean -agility operation looks at satisf ying the end user, providing products of high quality and improving the production of an organization. However, with dramatic changes in management field, companies are finding it quite cumbersome to stick to these styles of management. Therefore, the styles are not leading into any quality production quality, delivery and customer satisfaction as envisioned. With such challenges, it is only fair to always keep alert of any form of changes so as to plan on how to counter and improve the process of production. This paper has analyzed the concepts of lean operations and agility operations as applicable in manufacturing and service sectors. In agility operations, HP Company and Sony Life have been analyzed while Toyota and Vodafone companies have been analyzed in terms of lean management. Lean operation mainly aims at changing or transforming the operation status of an organization. As already mentioned in the essay, most organizations which often opt for lean operations always target minimal use of raw materials in a bid to reduce wastage. It is indeed crucial to mention that while agile operation may be practiced alongside lean management both in the service and manufacturing sectors, managing both types of operations may demand stringent skills and knowledge due to the complexity of each. For instance, goods and services that are highly volatile in nature may pose a real challenge when these types of operations are unilaterally integrated in the process of production. References Anna, B., Lars, M. 2005. Improving software organizations: agility challenges and implications. Journal of Information Technology People, 18 (4), 359 – 382. Babar, M.A. 2009. An exploratory study of architectural practices and challenges in using agile software development approaches. Software architecture, 2009 European Conference on software architecture. WICSA/ECSA 2009. Joint working IEEE/IFIP Conference, 81-90 Bell, S. 2006. Lean enterprise systems: Using IT for continuou s improvement. Hoboken: John Wiley Sons, Inc. Black, J. R. 2008. Lean production: Implementing a world-class system. New York: Industrial Press, Inc. Cummins, F. 2008. Building the agile enterprise: With SOA, BPM and MBM. Burlington: Elsevier publishers. Dennis, P., Shook, J. 2007. Lean production simplified: A plan language guide to the world’s most powerful production system. New York: Productivity Press. Drew, J., McCallum, B. Roggenhofer, S. 2004. Journey to lean: Making operational change stick. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. El-Haik, B., Al-Aomar, R. 2006. Simulation-based lean six sigma and design for six sigma. Hoboken: John Wiley Sons, Inc. Goodpasture, J.C. 2009. Project Management the Agile Way: Making it work in the enterprise. Fort Lauderdale: J. Ross Publishing. Hill, A.V. 2011. The encyclopedia of operations management: A field manual and glossary of operations management terms and concepts. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. Levine, L. 2005. Reflections on software agility and agile methods: Challenges, dilemmas, and the way ahead. Journal of Business agility and information technology diffusion, 180(1), 353-365. Mahadevan, B. 2010. Operations management: Theory and practice. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. Martins, J.W. 2006. Lean six sigma for supply chain management lean six sigma for supply chain management. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies. Mattias, H. Jan, O. 2009. Lean and agile manufacturing: external and internal drivers and performance outcomes. International Journal of Operations Production Management, 29 (10), 976 – 999. Nieuwenhuizen, C. 2009. Business management for entrepreneurs. Cape Town: Juta and Co ltd. Pride, W.M. Hughes, R.J. 2011. Business. Belmont: CengageBrain Learning. Ramesh, B. 2010. Agile requirements engineering practices and challenges: An empirical study. Journal of Information systems, 20(5), 449-480. Reiner, G. 2009. Rapid modeling for increasing competitiveness: Tools and mindset. New Yo rk: Springer Dordrecht. Waters, C.D. 2003. Inventory control and management. New Jersey: John Wiley Sons, Inc. Young, T. 2009. Some challenges facing lean thinking in healthcare. International Journal of Quality Health Care, 21(5), 309-310.

AP Euro DBQ essay Essay Example

AP Euro DBQ essay Essay Example AP Euro DBQ essay Essay AP Euro DBQ essay Essay TJ Long AP Euro DBQ Essay There were numerous responses to the plague, such as fear, greed, and looking for a cause. The plague is a zoonotic disease, one of the three rare types of diseases that is created from Yersinia Pestis, a part of Enterobacteriaceae. This was a devastating time for people in Europe from the late 1400s to the early 1700s and there were many responses about how the plague was affecting society during this time. This disease killed about 25 million people which caused all of these mixed reactions. Mixed responses and different point-of-views spread all throughout Europe. One response to the plague was fear. Fear was common in these times due to the mass killing caused by the plague. The plague eventually managed to slow business in schools down dramatically and some children never bothered coming again as shown in document 1. The Schoolmaster at Deventer said this because as a school teacher he was concerned for his Job. According to N. Versoris, the rich people ran from the plague leaving all of the poor people to die. As shown in document 5, drastic measures had to be taken to keep everyone safe from the plague. Boarding p a house that was infected with the disease was a way of creating a barrier between the uninfected people of society and the diseased society members. Most travelers feared the plague in Europe and stayed home instead of traveling to new places such as Italy (doc. 12). According to D. Defoe, no trading nations with Europe would trade with them because they feared they would bring the plague over to their country, infecting all of their people. As you can see, the plague sent a common fear through many nations including Europe. Another response to the plague was that people were looking for a cause. According to Erasmus of Rotterdam, the filth and waste in the streets was causing this infectious disease. Erasmus said this because he was a humanist, therefore he was always looking for a logical cause for things that were happening. As shown in document 4, spreading ointment on the bolts of the gates started to spread the disease faster which, in turn, gave people more money from inheritance. Johann Weyer said this because as a doctor, he was looking for a reason why people were getting sick. Some people believed that offending and sinful people caused the lague because a god punished them for their actions therefore releasing the plague (doc. 15). Obviously many people responded with causes for the spreading of the plague and tried to find out what created it. A final response to the plague was greed. Like fear, greed was a common response to the plague in Europe. According to N. Wallington, he would rather give up all of his family members to the plague first before he gives himself up. Nurses didnt really help the infected patients at all. Usually they Just killed them quicker so they could collect their money and leave (doc. ). According to S. Pepys, people were not buying wigs anymore, for they feared that it was made of other peoples infected hair. He was concerned about this because as a naval bureaucrat, he was concerned time Just trying to make a living off of other peoples misfortune. During the time of the plague many people were in fear, tried to find a cause, and were greedy. Europe suffered greatly from this extremely infectious disease and it took them a long time to recover completely. It was a devastating time of horror and disbelief. This is certainly an incident to learn from.

Ratio analysis Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Ratio analysis - Coursework Example This difference could have been caused by a reduction in expenses including operating and financing expenses. ROCE also increased from 25.03% to 32.18% which shows a difference of 7.15%. This difference could be due to efficient utilization of assets to produce income and effective asset management. Liquidity of the company can be assessed using current ratio and quick ratio. Current ratio measures the number of times that current liabilities can be financed by current assets before they are exhausted (Pollitt, 2001). Quick ratio measures how current liabilities can be measured by more liquid assets before they are exhausted. The current ratio of Youngs increased from 1.37 in 2013 to 1.48 in 2014. This means that the company was able to meet its obligations faster in 2013 than 2013, i.e. it was able to meet its financial obligations easier in 2014 than 2013. The quick ratio of the company also increased from 0.36 in 2013 to 0.43 in 2014. Therefore, the company was more liquid in 2013 than 2014. This liquidity could be due to effective cash management in the company. Efficiency of Youngs can be determined by inventory turnover and total asset turnover. The inventory or stock turnover measures the number of times that stock is turned into sales in a year (Fridson & Alvarez, 2002). Total asset turnover measures the amount of sales generated by the sale of a single unit of the total assets. The total asset turnover of Youngs was 2.11 in 2013 and 2.09 in 2014. This means that a single unit of asset was used to generate 2.11 units of sales in 2013 and 2.09 units of sales in 2014. However, the difference between the inventory turnovers in the two years was -0.02 which is a negative figure. It could be because the company acquired more assets and failed to utilize the new assets efficiently to generate more sales. The company also had an inventory turnover of 6.85 in 2013 and 6.88 in 2014. This indicates that the company turned its stock