Operations Management Case Studies
1. Introduction
This report focuses on the case studies of the Levi Jeans workers and the California Auto Club reengineering customer service.
It looks at operations management as a source for gaining a competitive advantage and overcoming potential problems experienced within and organisation or workplace.
The questions to be reviewed are as follows:
Jeans Therapy - Levi's factory worker are assigned to teams, and morale takes a hit:
1. What went wrong with Levi's move to teams in their plants?;
2. What could Levi's have done differently to avert the problems?;
3. Devise a team incentive plan that you think might work; and
4. Do you think the need to move jeans production offshore was inevitable? Could Levi's have done anything to avert the problem of increasing labour costs?
A California Auto Club reengineering customer service:
1. Discuss the customer service process at CSAA and discuss the different phases of the reengineering effort;
2. What tools from the operations consulting tool kit were applied here? Which other ones would be of value here? Explain; and
3. Discuss process enablers' role developing the new design.
2. What went wrong with Levi's move to teams in their plants?
In order to respond to both change and complexity, most organisations are turning to new, more adaptive ways of doing their work, such as flatter organisational structures, more team orientated environments and greater support from technology.
2.1 Scientific management
It is fair to say that pre-introduction of the new teamwork system, Levi's had in place the ideals of scientific management.
Around the turn of the Twentieth Century, Frederick Winslow Taylor had developed a set of ideas designed to get employees in manufacturing industries to produce more output. Taylor's objective was to attain high productivity by eliminating inefficient motions in human labour. Hence he divided work process into the smallest elements or motions based on 'time and motion studies',
This report focuses on the case studies of the Levi Jeans workers and the California Auto Club reengineering customer service.
It looks at operations management as a source for gaining a competitive advantage and overcoming potential problems experienced within and organisation or workplace.
The questions to be reviewed are as follows:
Jeans Therapy - Levi's factory worker are assigned to teams, and morale takes a hit:
1. What went wrong with Levi's move to teams in their plants?;
2. What could Levi's have done differently to avert the problems?;
3. Devise a team incentive plan that you think might work; and
4. Do you think the need to move jeans production offshore was inevitable? Could Levi's have done anything to avert the problem of increasing labour costs?
A California Auto Club reengineering customer service:
1. Discuss the customer service process at CSAA and discuss the different phases of the reengineering effort;
2. What tools from the operations consulting tool kit were applied here? Which other ones would be of value here? Explain; and
3. Discuss process enablers' role developing the new design.
2. What went wrong with Levi's move to teams in their plants?
In order to respond to both change and complexity, most organisations are turning to new, more adaptive ways of doing their work, such as flatter organisational structures, more team orientated environments and greater support from technology.
2.1 Scientific management
It is fair to say that pre-introduction of the new teamwork system, Levi's had in place the ideals of scientific management.
Around the turn of the Twentieth Century, Frederick Winslow Taylor had developed a set of ideas designed to get employees in manufacturing industries to produce more output. Taylor's objective was to attain high productivity by eliminating inefficient motions in human labour. Hence he divided work process into the smallest elements or motions based on 'time and motion studies',