Thomas Williams’s New Business Startup
Thomas Williams (Thomas) had worked for ‘NewsRoom’, a news daily for almost 5 years. Although the company had gone through tough times many a times it had always managed to turn around. The topline and bottom-line of the company improved dramatically every time from what they had been earlier due to companywide quality improvement program. The exhilaration, however, was very short-lived. Forced by intense competition, cost escalations, and the resultant depressing margins, the company’s CEO, John Thomas (John) decided to downsize the organization. The downsizing decision, as could be expected, was devastating for 100 employees,
including Thomas.
After recovering from After recovering from the setback, Thomas started to search employment elsewhere. Despite his enormous efforts of job-hunt, even after many months he was unable to land a job. His savings were almost depleted, nevertheles, he was nurturing a plan to start his own business. He borrowed money from his father, friends and relatives. On a rainy Tuesday morning, he decided to start work for himself by setting up his own business...................
Assignment Questions
I. Briefly discuss Operations Management, operations function and and its role in any organization.
II. How would you judge the quality of Thomas’ services, if you are –
a) an existing customer and
b) a potential prospective customer?
III. Thomas is also defacto Operations Manager of MBS. Some of his important responsibilities are – forecasting, inventory management, scheduling, quality assurance, maintenance, etc.
a) What kinds of variables would likely require forecasts?
b) What inventory items does he probably have? Name one inventory decision he has to make periodically.
c) .................
...........................