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Productions & operation Management

Case studies on productivity competitiveness and operation strategy formulation

Priyanka Hui Chowdhury ID: 120316

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CONTENT Case: 1 productivity gains at whirlpool

Overview Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4

Case: 2 The US Postal Service Overview Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6

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Productivity gains at whirlpool

OverviewWhirlpool appliance’s Benton Harbor plant in Michigan, had a glories history of productivity gains. But they had to go through from hard times earlier. The management and workforce get along to achieve such productivity gains a present times.

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Qus 1 what were the two key things that whirlpool did to achieve productivity gains?

Management introduced “gain sharing”Workers trainings with overhaul manufacturing

process

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Qus: 2 who has benefited from the productive gains?

Management Workers

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Qus: 3 how are productivity and quality related?

• Direct relationship• Cost saving • Little defective production• Utilization of inventories • Labor productivity • Machine productivity

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Qus: 4 how can a company afford to pay its workers for productivity gains?

Set fair payment rate Motivate workforce Draw relation among work and payment rates

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The US Postal Service

OverviewThe US postal service s the largest postal service of the world. They process and sort mail and ensure mail delivery services to their customers. With the change in modern technologies, it bought many technical advancements like automated mail processing machines and bar code readers. But it also experienced huge competitive pressure from the competitors like FedEx,USP and email, fax machine. To cope with these challenges it adopted many tactics and strategies.

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Qus1 why is it important for the postal service to have a high volume of mail to process?

• Determine most critical operations in whole operations• Developing methods• Establishing reasonable goals• Ensure management support • Encourage workers• Measure improvement and publicize them

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Qus 2 What caused productivity to increase?

1. Use of automation2. Introduction of zip codes

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Qus 3 what impact did competitive pressures have on postal services?

• Experienced slowdown• Price reduction• Developed service quality • Introduced features

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Qus 4 what measures did the postal service adopt to increase competitiveness?

Reorganizing Cost reduction Emphasize on quality Focus on consumer satisfaction

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Qus 5 What results were achieved by the postal service’s changes?

Reduction in projected deficits Cut production costs draw attention of new business Gain competitive advancement

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Qus 6 what effect will increased use of email on postal service productivity?

Huge competition Cut demand of mail service Price reduction Introduce new strategies Allowed automated processing

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Questions ???