Isaac Farmer

Dr. Katherine Hyatt

operations Management

April 27, 2014

Introduction:

            For a production company, the challenges are quite endless since everything in the company runs on a tight deadline. The interconnected processes in the organization also makes it harder for the manager to maintain the functionality of the production as halt in one process may very well result in halting the whole production. Challenges like these are faced on an everyday basis and such issues must be resolved in a quick manner. Furthermore, it is essential for any production company to find the shortcomings in its operations to ensure that there are not bottlenecked problems in the production process that make the production rate slower.

            For manufacturing enterprises to succeed in this current volatile economic environment, a revolution is needed in restructuring all three main components of a manufacturing enterprise: product design, manufacturing, and business model(Koren, 210).

            This report will cover the issues in the production line of the chosen organization, HP (Hewlett Packard), a computer manufacturer firm. A production line should always follow the aim of the organization and fulfil the requirement of production speed and volume as and when needed by the sales offices of the company. For a production organization, it is important that the production house uses the minimum resources required while ensuring the highest possible production with a high quality of products.

Selection of the Organization:

            Hewlett Packard is a multinational organization in the information technology industry. The company manufactures storage devices, laptops, tablet computers, and other hardware & software components for governments, businesses, and public end users. The California based company is one of the leading PC (personal computer) manufacturing companies in the world and has offices worldwide.

            HP has been selected for this report due to its massive scale of production and its reach to the global markets. This brand is popular worldwide and as one of the biggest companies in the world, it faces the challenges that are not generally faced by small scale companies.

Vision:

            From day one, Hewlett and Packard pursued a different kind of question: “What can we contribute?” and thereby HP attained extraordinary success (Packard, 2013).

            The HP organization’s vision has always been winning the trust and loyalty of the customers on a global scale. The products provided by the company are of high quality and are very reliable. HP is known for its dedication towards the customer oriented services and development of projects that are capable of satisfying the needs of the masses.

Mission:

            The mission of the HP Company is to establish itself as one of the top brands in the world. According to a BusinessWeek Study (2009), HP was the world’s 11th most valuable brand. The company aims to achieve global acclaim for its products and innovations and has been acquiring new companies to increase its market reach and share.

Key-elements of the HP organizational strategy:

            Without IT (information technology) support there is a huge gap between production planning systems and the automation level (Atkinson & Draheim, 2010). Hewlett Packard as an organization is popular worldwide for its computers and laptop devices; it has offices in different regions and countries. However, like most other IT companies, the organization relies on just a handful of production houses located in several countries. This approach is utilized to ensure that the production can be performed on a massive level and costs can be reduced. This also reduces the necessity of hiring more labour and subsequent management for production in different countries. The production strategy of HP consists of the following key elements:

·         Mass production: Having fewer production houses makes it possible for the company to achieve the target of mass production. It will also help the company in keeping the cost of production low.

·         Quick on supply: The production is done while ensuring that the supply of the product can be done promptly and rapidly to different locations of HP stores.

·         Ease of accessing resources: The HP organization has established all of its production houses in countries or region where getting raw material and components is easy and cheap. It is also ensured that the labour is also available at lower rates.

Alignment with the operational strategy:

            Decision making in organizations is, in several aspects, different from the taking on decisions by individual persons (Haritz, 2006). For the desired results in a competitive business environment, it is essential for the company to make sure that the processes and tasks in the organization are well aligned with the operational strategy and goals of the company. This is one of the most crucial aspects in self-reviewing of the company’s own performance. There are several tasks in the HP organization that are not well aligned with the strategy of it, such tasks are listed below:

1.      Estimation of expected sales of products: With launch of every new product, the company runs a preliminary analysis to estimate the expected sales of the product. Based on this estimation, the company manufactures the number of units for initial sale in different regions. This estimation needs to be accurate or else the company will see either the shortcoming of its well-received product or clutter of the non-popular product.

2.      Supply chain: It is important for the company to ensure that the product produced is available in all regions or points of sale. An effective supply chain is required to distribute the product as needed.

3.      Market analysis: Marketanalysis is that crucial analysis that tells the company which product specification should be delivered and when to deliver it. The company needs to compete with the pricing and specifications of the rival products. This will allow essential efficient market analysis.

4.      Pricing of the product: One of the most important aspects of production is the pricing of the product. A product’s price must always satisfy the expectation of the manufacturing company in terms of margin profits. The production cost can be cut significantly to achieve this target.

Four Enablers of the operational strategy of HP:

            The production and operations of the Hewlett Packard organization can achieve better results with the following four goal enablers:

·         Effective communication among the production, sales and marketing departments

·         Better alignment of the resources

·         Dedication and commitment of the employees towards the brand

·         Discipline within the organization

The pros and cons of these enablers can be discussed as:

Pros

1.      Increase in the overall productivity of all the employees

2.      Better utilization of the resources of organization

3.      Development of core competency

4.      Improved communication within organization would also result in reduction of conflicts within organization

Cons

1.      Increased cost to the organization as any new change comes with some investment

2.      Increase short term risk to the government

3.      Reduction of flexibility

4.      Reduction of free available time for resources

References:

Atkinson, C., & Draheim, D. (2010). Business process technology: A unified view on business processes, workflows and enterprise applications. Springer.

Packard, D. (2013). The hp way: How bill hewlett and i built our company. HarperCollins.

Haritz, A. (2006). Business processes: An archival science approach to collaborative decision making, records, and knowledge management. Springer.

Business Week (2009, September 11). 100 best global brands. Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/best_global_brands_2009.html

Koren, Y. (210). The global manufacturing revolution: Product-process-business integration and reconfigurable systems. John Wiley & Sons.

Malecki, E., & Moriset, B. (2008). The digital economy: Business organization, production processes, and regional developments. Routledge.

DuBrin, A. (2011). Essentials of management. Cengage Learning.