Supply Production and Operations Management †Assignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Supply Production and Operations Management. Answer: Introduction: Travel agency has the major business function and operation of purchasing and assembling of varied and huge components for the travel and sell the same products that are well packaged. Packages are standardised and repetitive, usually at single price. It should provide the services of one stop shop for all kinds of travellers. Discounts are offered through bargaining power. They should have an easier and faster access to the market with well known brands, especially for taking over the financial risks (Xiaoqiu, et al., 2003). The operations specified can be very well performed with ease and in much reduced time, by employing the information and communication technology. So, the use and values of the information and communication technology enables the travel agency, with the following. The productivity can be enhanced as multiple elements and multiple customers can be handled simultaneously, with widened capacity of operating the business functions. The regular productivity can be literally multiplied with the ICT employment. Tourists are increased during holidays and the capacity management of increased or sometimes multiplied number of travellers with the information and communication technology. The same increased bandwidth would still be able to provide the transport and accommodate more number of travellers with instant access to the vendors, through internet and other ways of communication. Reduce the costs of transactions The cost of employing the information and communication technology is usually, more at the initial stages and usually reduced further, limiting with the annual reneawals. Eventually, the cost of transactions can reach to n numbers, since the expense is usually annual plan, rather than the cost per transaction or travel. Eventually the cost of transaction can be reduced to a great extent, as the travel agency can increase the profits, by increasing the transactions, without paying for each of the transactions. Since most of the operations of the travel agency business would be performed over the internet, with instant booking, online transfers, the need of the workforce is reduced to a great extent. So, the ICT allows the travel agency to minimize the cost over the workforce, such as the telephone operators, labour cost, etc. ICT enables the travel agencies to improve their services to their customers, by informing all the relevant information, with very nominal and much reduced expense to the agency. It allows them to update the information time to time to the customers, increasing the count of the satisfied customers. ICT allows the travel agencies to better link with the tour operators, establishing electronic links, so that the information handling costs can be reduced and speed of transfer of information as well as retrieval can be increased to a better extent (Shanker, 2008). The market intelligence data can be shared among them that give great opportunity for dynamic packaging, dynamic pricing and yield management. The technology allows the agencies to monitor the progress of booking and the productivity on daily basis as well as annually. The history of the retail shops is a long way back and the development of the retail industry is in fact initiated from the rude booths. The existing retail industry has been growing so rapidly that reaches to the huge multi-storeyed shopping malls that adds up the entertainment elements as a process of scaling up the retail industry. Though the transformation from rude booths to the present huge shopping malls has taken centuries, from the beginning, the present rapid and advancement of the technology has added multiple elements to the retail and has made it a multi-faceted. Every retail business has to go through the decision making in two dimensions, managerial and strategic. It needs to make use of the conceptual tools, to stand and survive in the competitive environment. The OZ SUPERMARKET is a retailer store, in which the business operations are performed with advanced technology, involving RFID. The retail store is a chain store, contains the products of stationery and household that are of non-perishable. The objective of the advanced and RFID technology by the Oz supermarket is to reduce or nullify the checkout time, which becomes an important and tedious task for every customer. PayWave technology has been introduced completely, as bill payment is done through credit or debit card, by assuring the same that the customer is allowed entry at entrance with the card. During the shopping, the customer picks up any product or item, it is queued for payment automatically. In case the same item is removed from the cart, it is deleted from the list. Payment is done, while the customer is leaving from the store. The payment is done by the RFID technology, while the customer exits the store, from the formal exit. So, it stands as a potential opportunity for the business, to perform the billing effectively and automatically, with less and lesser, saving hundreds of working hours in a month. The customer feels their time is respected as precious. Customers, who have no credit or debit cards would enter the store with the PayWave cards. These cards are issued to the customers, such as tourists, children, before the entrance of the store, by depositing a small amount of cash, temporarily. The amount of bill is reduced from the cash deposited. If the cash deposited is lesser than the bill, an alarm rings automatically. If the cash deposited is more than the bill amount, the remaining amount is either recorded or optionally can be used for the future purposes. These customers can exit the store, just like the customers, entered with the credit or debit card. Summary stations are used and placed in the store strategically, so that the list of the items wished to purchase are viewed clearly, present in the trolley. Peak hour parking rates are set higher than the parking rates, at non-peak hours. During the peak hours, parking time is counted in minutes. The RFID technology adopted in the Oz supermarket retail business operations, it becomes an additional expense to the business of the store. The expense incurred is planned to collect from the customer overhead, from the peak business period. Automatic retail stores become the part of the store. The customers are provided with the self-service with small kiosks. BOPIS (Buy-online, Pick-up-in-store technology is established in the store, for a win-win benefit (Chang, 2011).. It helps the customers to be well-known about what products are available and waiting for the purchase. It makes the in-store sales team easier and effective in sales, since the customers have increased familiarity of the students. The technology replaces thousands of workings into two digit working hours. The customers are more inclined to spend their time in retail business, looking for the favourable products and exploring their features, rather than spending time in queues for payment, etc. So, RFID technology can be introduced, to fasten various processes. RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) technology makes use of the electromagnetic fields for tracking and identifying the tags, automatically, which is attached to the objects Shin, S., (Eksiogly, 2014). It can store and read the information that is stored electronically, through radio waves. The technology is adapted in the retail industry for item level tagging. It enables the self-checkout process and electronic article surveillance. RFID is used for inventory systems, to fasten its process. The technology helps preventing the diversion of the retailer products, either accidentally or intentionally. Each and every product is tracked exactly and to discover what products are sold at full discounted prices, through the supply chain. Major benefits of the RFID involve increased retail cycle velocity, improved inventory management, efficiency of operation of the store, integrated business model. Subjectively, the business operational factors, such as accuracy of the inventory can be increased (Bartlett, 2008). Reorder cycles can be optimized, out-of-stocks can be reduced and multi-channel capabilities are improved. Convenience store model is executed for the OZ SUPERMARKET retail business. It provides speedy checkout for the customers, who wish to buy the products, for which they are clear with quality, quantity and brand. It provides small amount of merchandise (Collins, et al, 2010). The price of the products in this store is a little above average, however, the cost of the price is normal during Sundays and public holidays, because of the increased flow and so increased sales of the retail products. These stores can be very useful for the consumables that can be purchased immediately. Customer service is not a challenger, rather an opportunity to grab and scale up increased chunk of the market, covering from local to global customers. Analysis of the customer is done in various dimensions, such as demographic, profile, psychographic profile, geographic profile, market segmentation, attitudes and values. Though the habits of the shopping is an important input factor for the customer analysis, the shopping habit of the customers can be very well influenced by the retail industry itself present in the specific geographical area. The customer service and its decisions and quality is usually based on the accuracy and close to perfectness of the customer analysis (Christopher Gattorna, 2005). The basic definition of the customer service is the sum of elements and acts, allowing the customers and consumers for receiving their desires and needs from the establishment of the retail. The degree of customer service varies from one level to another level and it is usually based on the technology available and affordable and also over the education levels of the customers, in the specific geographic region. Having assumed that the customers of the retail business OZ SUPERMARKET are well educated, good customer service can be provided much effectively and in potential ways. The customer service of the retail business OZ SUPERMARKET ensures that the products can be exchanged within six months after purchase of the product. The customer has to provide the bill number and product name and the product has to be not damaged physically. If the customer is within 3 kilometres of distance, the product can be exchanged right at the address of customers, as the exchange executives reach the customer, with the product to exchange (Hill, 2004). A toll-free number is provided to the customer to inquire availability of the product, exchange of the product, technical support and any other issues with billing. The toll free number is active and in operation, during the working hours of the Oz supermarket. During the non-working hours, there are no executives available. However, the contact numbers recorded in the phone would be retrieved and called back to the callers, in the following working day. It can increase the customer satisfaction and improve the retention of the customers to a great extent. Customer service can also be given in terms of assistance to pick up the items during the shopping. Not all customers visit every rack in the mall and pick. Some of the customers are very specific about the items they want as some of them even list out the items required in a paper also. The old people, who want to get the items that they have listed can obtain the list of item by special customer service. Sales assistants are employed over the floor to help the customers, who are at old age. They pick up the list of items the customer wants and get all the items collected in the shopping cart. Then the shopping cart is given to these customers. These customers can save a lot of time, as it can save a lot of energy of them. The same sales assistant can also help the customers over the floor, in locating the items they want. They can give additional information of features of the new products to the customers, when they are not collecting the items for the older people. The sales assi stants can help the customers at the floor, to perform various activities related to shopping (Koh, et al., 2006). Each and every customer is given a voucher, at the time of billing and exiting the shopping mall. The value of the voucher is proportional to the value of the bill paid by the customer. So, if the billing has a higher amount, the voucher would also be at higher with more value otherwise it would lesser. There is a lucky draw taken for varied and different slabs of the price of the voucher. Each of the lucky draw winners would win discounts. The range of discounts start from 25% and it would be offered to the customer in three different values, 25%, 50% and 75%, of their billing. The validity for this lucky draw can be given from the day of lucky draw to six months, after this date. The special discount increases the retention of the customers, as the discounted customers would most probably visit the shopping mall, without fail. The special discounts can also be offered seasonally. The special discount offers can be given for new year, yearly festivals, local festivals. In addition to these seasonal discounts, the lean seasons can also be targeted. When these special discount offers are offered in the lean season, the customers keep visiting the shopping mall, more frequently. It increases new customers, while customer retention is increased to a better extent. Shop cards are offered for every customers, after the billing process. It should be offered to the customers, who are not hurry and who are interested to explore the offers provided to the customers. The shop cards are updated with the billing amounts the customers make every time. The updates are done manually, by the billing operators, at the master exit of the shopping mall, as the total billing operator cost should not be increased. The shop cards are updated every time the customer visits and makes bill. The shop cards increase the credit points, according to the value of the total billing they made, after taking the shop cards. The credit points made by the customer allow the discounted price on the billing to the customers. Children Playrooms Children playrooms are set statistically, at the entrance part of the shop. The children would be allowed here to play here and spend their time, while their parents or guardians continue shopping. The age of the children starts from 3 to 12 years. It improves the flow of recreational shoppers, as they tend to spend more time in the shop and buy relatively more value of products. It eventually increases the total sales of the shopping mall. Basic information of the child, such as name, age and contact numbers are to be registered in the shopping mall. It increases the customer database and the RFID technology helps monitoring the tags of the children in and recorded. Each of the RFID tag code of the child starts, while a child enters this playroom. The life of this tag would be ended, after the child leaves the playroom (Shin Eksiogly, 2014). The overall flow of the customers increases eventually. References Christopher, M., Gattorna, J. (2005). Supply chain cost management and value based pricing. Industrial Marketing Management, 34(2), 115-121 Hardgrave, B. C., Waller, M., Miller, R. (2005). Does RFID reduce out of stocks? A preliminary analysis. Fayetteville, AR. University of Arkansas, RFID Research Center, Information Technology Research Institute. Hill, S. (2004). Apparel logistics: new technology, trends, and industry developments: Management briefing. Just-Style, 22-23. Koh, C. E., Kim, H. J., Kim E. Y. (2006). 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