Coca Cola’s history can be traced back to a man called Asa Candler, who bought a specific formula from a pharmacist named Smith Pemberton. Two years later, Asa founded his business and started production of soft drinks based on the formula he had bought. From then, the company grew to become the biggest producers of soft drinks with more than five hundred brands sold and consumed in more than two hundred nations worldwide. Although the company is said to be the biggest bottler of soft drinks, they do not bottle much. Instead, Coca Cola Company manufactures a syrup concentrate, which is bought by bottlers all over the world. This distribution system ensures the soft drink is bottled by these smaller firms according to the company’s standards and guidelines. Although this franchised method of distribution is the primary method of distribution, the mother company has a key bottler in America, Coca Continue reading
Operations Management Concepts
Quality Control (QC) – Meaning, Definition, and Benefits
What is Quality? Quality has become one of the most important factors of consumers decision in selecting a product among competing products (services). This phenomenon is wide spread regardless of the fact whether the consumer is an individual organisation, retail store, or a military defense programme. The quality of products / services can be evaluated in several ways. It is important to identify different dimensions of quality Garrin (1987) discusses eight components or dimensions of quality as follows. Performance (Will the product do intended job?) Reliability (How often does the product fail?) Durability (How long does the product last?) Serviceability (How easy is it to repair the products?) Aesthetics (How the product looks like?) Features (What does the product do?) Perceived Quality (What is the reputation of the company?) Conformance to standards (Is the product made exactly as the design indented?) Meaning of Quality Control Quality control is defined as Continue reading
Just-In-Time (JIT) Method – Eliminate Waste and Improve Productivity
Just-in-time or JIT means producing goods and services exactly when they are needed, like for example a new company opens that is producing steering shaft for automobiles. The company, under the JIT system, will set up the machines to produce the jobs in a row from those who collect the metals at one end, all of the way to those who ship the product at the other end of the factory. The people at each station, as they receive the product, take the job order, perform their duties on the product, and then transfer the product out to the next station after their work is completed. Along the way, the product is screened for infirmities, and if they exist, the line is stopped until the defect is repaired. In the end, the shipping agent will receive the product and ship it to the customer. All along Continue reading
5S – Japanese Concept of Workplace Improvement
What is 5S Concept? Simply put, 5S is a method/Japanese concept for organizing a workplace, especially a shared workplace (like a shop floor or an office space). It’s sometimes referred to as a housekeeping methodology, however this characterization can be misleading because organizing a workplace goes beyond housekeeping (see discussion of “Seiton” below). The key targets of 5S concept are workplace morale and efficiency. The assertion of 5S is, by assigning everything a location, time is not wasted by looking for things. Additionally, it is quickly obvious when something is missing from its designated location. 5S advocates believe the benefits of this methodology come from deciding what should be kept, where it should be kept, and how it should be stored. This decision making process should lead to a dialog which can build a clear understanding, between employees, of how work should be done. It also instills ownership of the Continue reading
Criteria for a Good Layout
The layout of a plant or facility is concerned with the physical placement of resources such as equipment and storage facilities, which should be designed to facilitate the efficient flow of customers or materials through the manufacturing or service system. The layout design is very important and should be taken very seriously as it can have a significant impact on the cost and efficiency of an operation and can involve substantial investment in time and money. The decisions taken with regards to the facility layout will have a direct influence on how efficiently workers will be able to carry out their jobs, how much and how fast goods can be produced, how difficult it is to automate a system, and how the system in place would be able to respond to any changes with regards to product or service design, product mix, or demand volume. In many operations the installation Continue reading
Lean Supply Chain Management
Even though Toyota – the Japanese company – was the one who made the lean concept widely well-known with the Toyota production system (TPS), there is a fact shows that lean did not just emerging but it was partially used in the United States. For example in 1908, “Scientific management” made by Frederick W. Taylor was the concept of using scientific method such as standardization to apply with the working process. This scientific idea was criticized to be the initial stage of developing the lean concept, since it helped workers to work in system and ignored the unnecessary jobs. However, Henry Ford is considered to be the first person, who used the lean principles. In 1910, Ford has developed the concept of continuous flow – called Ford’s model T production system (MTPS) – for manufacturing assembly line. This MTPS was to have workers focusing on their individual jobs and moving Continue reading