Name: Bren Ong Chap 3 HW Assignment Problem 3

Explain the importance of identifying and differentiating order qualifiers and order winners. Order winners are understood to be the main reasons for customers to purchase a product or service resulting in more business for the company. Order winners would distinguish the product or service of the company from its competitors. Order qualifiers are often described as qualifying or minimum levels of performance below which companys product or service would be disqualified by customers or by the market. Therefore it is important for any organization to clearly identify and focus on their specific order winners and use that knowledge to develop strategy that is aligned with the industry approach and expectations of the market. Problem 4 Select two stores you shop at, and state how they compete. Walmart Affordable and large variety of products, convenient and reliable Starbucks High quality coffee, great customer service and high brand image. Problem 7 Contrast organization strategy and operations strategy.
Organization strategies are long-term organizational goals that help to convert a mission statement from a broad vision into more specific plans and projects. They set the major benchmarks for success and are designed to be measurable, specific and realistic translations of the mission statement that can be used by management to guide decision-making. Operational strategies are set out with strategic objectives in mind and provide a means for management and staff to break down a larger strategic goal into workable tasks. The most important difference between a strategic and an operational objective is its time frame; operational objectives are short-term goals, while strategic objectives are longer-term goals.

Problem 8 Explain the term time-based strategies and give three examples.

JIT was the first manifestation of time-based competition. Time-based competition is the extension of JIT into every facet of the product delivery cycle, from research and development through marketing and distribution of the final product. Time-based competition is a broad-based competitive strategy which emphasizes time as the major factor for achieving and maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage. It seeks to compress the time required to propose, develop, manufacture, market and deliver its products. Firms, such as Black and Decker, Ford and AT&T have found success by organizing teams to work, from the time of inception, on an entire family of new products. By bringing together people from product engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and purchasing throughout the development process and giving them the authority to make real decisions, enormous time and expense has been cut from new product efforts.

Name: Bren Ong Chap 3 HW Assignment

Problem 9 Productivity should be a concern of every business organization. a. How is productivity defined? Productivity is defined as follows: output volume per one unit of input volume. b. How are productivity measures used? Productivity measures can be based on a single input (partial productivity), on more than one input (multifactor productivity), or on all inputs (total productivity). The units of output used in productivity measures depend on the type of job performed. Time, Units, Labor, People,etc. c. Why is productivity important? Can be used to track performance over time. Can also be used to judge the performance of an entire industry or the productivity of a country as a whole. d. What part of the organization has primary responsibility for productivity? Management. Business leaders are concerned with productivity as it relates to competitiveness e. How is efficiency different from productivity? Efficiency is a narrower concept that pertains to getting the most out of a fixed set of resources; productivity is a broader concept that pertains to effective use of overall resources.

Name: Bren Ong Chap 3 HW Assignment

Case: M&L Manufacturing

1. What are some of the potential benefits of a more formalized approach to forecasting? To overcome the periodic out of stock situation. One of these products will become increasingly important to future growth plans. Enhance the company profits because of competitive pressures and falling profits

2. Prepare a weekly forecast for the next four weeks for each product. Briefly explain why you chose the methods you used. (Hint: For product 2, a simple approach, possibly some sort of naive/intuitive approach, would be preferable to a technical approach in view of the manager's disdain of more technical methods.)

According to product 1, we can see that there is a gradual increase of 3 pieces every week, despite that there is an extraordinary order in one of the 14 weeks. For product 2, there is no trend, so it would be found easily by taking the average of the 14 weeks.

Week 1 2 3 4

Product 1 99 102 105 108

Product 2 43 43 43 43