An operations starategy is hinged on defining a set of coordinated tasks that are aimed at attaining a specific competitive objective.How do you define the objective?I will propose a simple step process:
1.Define how you manage to win an order,is it the presentation,the quality of the product,or how quickly you respond to a customer query or you have managed to build efficient processes that enable you to have the best price?
2.Define how your competitors are winning orders,the same set of questions that apply to yourself or your organisation are valid for your competitors.
3.Get your hands dirty ,get down to the basic issues.Say for example as in the case i experienced,the key issue was paying small scale individual raw matterial suppliers in cash and on time,these were spread out over a distance of over 350km.
How did i solve the problem.My team and my self had to define the infrastructure we had to set up.This included setting up communication channels(cell phone sms systems),cash in transit plans and storage.Security,documentation.After executing these specifc tasks the key issue was to measure the performance of the strategy.I set up a time monitoring system to check the duration between cash requests and replenishments.
In any operations or manuafactuing strategy you define, always ensure that you take an inward and outward look at things simultaneously ,and that you get down to the details without getting lost in them.Keep the objective upper most in mind.
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