SCM60001 Operations Management Assignment Sample

Introduction

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The Wedding industry globally has remained buoyant due to the increasing demand for the growing number of millenniums attaining marriageable age. Therefore, organisations associated with offering Wedding dress collections will gain a myriad of opportunities in the coming years. The market size of Wedding attire in Australia is $353 million and according to the market forecast, Australia is going to experience a boost in the number of marriages in the coming five years due to an increase in household discretionary income and positive consumer sentiment which will contribute in the rise of wedding dress expenditure (Parkins and Findlay, 2021).

Operation management is the business practice which develops a high level of organisational efficiency (Zhang, Wang and Lin, 2019). On the other hand, quality management is the activity of monitoring all the tasks and activities which need to be attained for ensuring the desired level of organisational excellence. When it comes to the issues faced by the organisation while managing transformation, a firm faces a number of issues, such include, managing employees, incorrect planning, lack of resources, lack of communication etc. In this highly transforming world of business, change has become an integral part in order to stay relevant in the market. This particular report will highlight different aspects associated with operational management considering an e-commerce platform which will offer Australians a variety of Wedding attires from different ranges.

2. Operational Management Plan and Literature Review

2.1 Understanding Operational Performance Objective of the Competitive Firm

It is the dream of every bride and groom to wear their dream attire on their most special day of life; the Wedding Day. But finding the best attire as per the dream becomes often challenging due to a lack of options and availability and most importantly cost. Most people in Australia rely on boutiques and designers for bagging the best wedding attire for their Wedding. In this case, the boutiques and designers offer their limited range of unique collections but a bride and groom cannot get a huge number of options in terms of buying their wedding dress.

According to Statista, the most expensive state in Australia in 2021 to purchase a wedding gown was Victoria, where costs exceeded $2.68k AU. In Queensland, wedding dresses often cost less than $2000 AU (Hughes, 2022). In that year, the average price of a wedding gown in Australia was around $2,385. Considering the scenario, the main objective of Wedding Attire will be to offer an e-commerce platform where Australians will be able to access a large number of wedding attire collections from different corners of Australia and will be able to offer a diverse collection of wedding attire in the diverse price range.

 

Moreover, Brides and Grooms will get the option of augmented reality where purchasers will be able to try on the Wedding attires (Wu and Kim, 2022). Customers will also get two options: they may use the default avatar and customise it with their own measurements, or they can utilise the phone’s camera to create an avatar that closely resembles them. Using this feature will help the e-commerce platform to position itself uniquely which will further make the wedding attire purchasing process time efficient and will benefit in increasing customer satisfaction.

2.2 Description of the Stages Included in Product Design

There are seven stages in new product development and following these stages helps an organisation to successfully launch a new product.

Idea Generation

This is the initial stage where the new product idea is generated (Balzan et al., 2021). Wedding Attire is the business plan which will offer consumers a diverse range of products in a diverse price range. Along with this, grooms and brides will be able to use AR for trying on their wedding attires in less time. The main target of this e-commerce platform is the 22-50 age group males and females who will be getting married. The main feature which will attract brides and grooms is their diverse range of options and attires from different price ranges and the application of augmented reality will bring convenience to their shopping.

Product Definition

In this stage, a clearly defined product roadmap for Wedding Attire will be built (Cooper, 2021). For measuring the success of the entire operation KPI will be used. Moreover, as a marketing strategy, Wedding attire will emphasise digital marketing strategy and advertisements will be done on various popular social media platforms to draw the attention of the 22-50 age group male and females.

Prototyping

In the prototyping stage, an estimated timeline will be made to understand feasibility (Cooper, 2021). Within 3 years timeline, Wedding Attire will be able to draw customer attention and attain success via surpassing the invested amount to gain profitability. The major risk which will be faced by the firm is from small boutiques though, through the strategy of diverse products and diverse price range of Wedding Attire, the brand will win over the mind of consumers.

Initial Design

In this stage, Wedding Attire will source all the vendors from different places in Australia and encourage them to tie up. Along with this, communication with different stakeholders will be ensured by the e-commerce platform.

Validating and Testing

After developing the prototype successfully, Wedding Attire at this stage can include writing code or making a physical model of the prototype. Utilize team members and beta testers to conduct functional testing and ensure the quality of development. Moreover, the brand at this stage will also test marketing in order to ensure whether it is ready to launch or not.

Commercialisation

This is the last stage where the product will be launched (Petrakis, Wodehouse and Hird, 2021). By this stage, the design and quality of the product and marketing strategy have been passed already. Products will be released to the consumers and the team members of Wedding Attire will be given a prototype and MVP iterations for developing the product to the correct specification

2.3 Examining the Process Strategy and Layout Design of the Product/Service

In terms of process strategy, it is basically considered as the documentation procedure as well as the establishment of the different procedures which an organisation puts in place in order to attain its goals. There is a range of procedures associated with the process strategy and the layout design of an organisation's products/services. By putting key terms on the search engine of the app, the users will easily find their desired dress. Also, the customers can virtually trail their items through Augmented Reality systems in the application which is indeed beneficial (Zhao, Zhou and Deng, 2020). In fact, Wedding Attire will also provide push notifications to the app users in case of the desired product on the wish list is available. The strategic tactics can become extremely advantageous for the company to make a substantial bonding with its potential customers.

The payment procedure is just a two-step verification procedure which is indeed safe and secure. The customers will get the delivery within the allocated days and it can be between 3 to 5 days. In case of the dress is unfit for the customers, there is an option for exchanging their dress within 3 days (Zhao, Zhou and Deng, 2020). In fact, the users can secure this app by simply adding passwords and they can change the background colours of this app according to their preferences.

2.4 Evaluating Ways to Measure Capacity and Planning

In order to ensure that the supply chain can keep up with demand, a business needs to engage in capacity planning, a subset of production planning that entails calculating production capacity and labour requirements. Within a predetermined timeframe, capacity planning helps firms grow effectively, pinpoint bottlenecks, improve design capacity, and reduce risk (Li et al., 2022). If adequate capacity planning is not done, e-commerce systems have a tendency to fast consume server and network resources and might trap businesses in an endless cycle of upgrades and migrations. An effective product capacity plan will guarantee that the business has sufficient materials to complete necessary tasks. Through careful workforce capacity planning, an organization can make sure there are sufficient resources and time to finish all of your projects. Planning for one’s tool capacity ensures that sufficient tools are available for all tasks (de Meneses Monteiro, 2021).

In order to measure the capacity planning, the Wedding Attire e-platform can utilize three basic steps, measure, formulate and analyse. In measurement, the e-commerce platform needs to measure resource capacity and in analyse part, demand forecasting should be done to get an accurate measurement of whether there is the sufficient capacity or not. In the Final stage, all the information will be utilized to develop a plan for required funding and in this stage; the brand will get different options for making the best decision (Falchetta and Mistry, 2021)Capacity planning strategies may lead the way, lag behind, or simply meet the demand. Of the three capacity planning strategies, Lead is the most proactive. Specifically, manufacturing capacity is increased in anticipation of future demand growth. In terms of caution than the Lead Strategy, the Lag Strategy is most suitable. In contrast to raising output in advance of what may be an uptick in demand, the Lag Strategy waits until demand has actually increased before making any adjustments to production.

The Match approach is halfway between the Lead and Lag tactics. The Match Strategy prioritizes making small, incremental adjustments to capacity in response to changing market conditions rather than making significant changes to capacity in reaction to expected or actual increases in demand (Imai, Kim, and Wang, 2019). These definitions tell us that the Match technique for capacity planning will work best for Wedding Attire since it has the highest chance of properly matching actual capacity to what is required.

2.5 Analysing Suitable Inventory Management Strategy

The term inventory management is associated with the activities of cost efficiency, keeping track of the stoked materials and ensuring the product or service is progressing effectively. It is indeed necessary to implement an appropriate inventory management strategy for a business to create a competitive edge. 

The Utilisation of Data and Analytics

The utilisation of data is considered really accommodating for the company owners for having appropriate information related to the service or product and to forecast the sale quite effectively. For this reason, Wedding Attire might be able to fulfil the expectations of the customers in a superior way, and can effectively manage their inventory systems with the assistance of the obtained information (Setiawan et al., 2021). Regarding this fact, they can comprehend and cam apply significant inventory strategies to fulfil the demand of the consumers. In fact, the accessibility of real-time inventory data can provide Wedding Attire with the opportunity to predict the market demand which in terms considered a great advantage for the company. Moreover, it is involved in a number of benefits such as:

• Enhancement of the customer service though giving them appropriate product availability (Setiawan et al., 2021).
• Improvising the revenue margins through restraining the discounting of old stock.
• Making a forecast by applying accurate inventory quantities in order to convey the market demand.
• The rising rate of the cash flow through decreasing the inventory management.

It is quite advantageous to adopt this particular tactic which can permit the campaign organised by Wedding Attire to generate their own data analytics. By applying this inventory tactic, the company can match the demand of the customer base.

2.6 Identification of the Suitable Quality Management Strategy

Observing different types of activities as well as additional tasks to make sure the products and services are well managed, is the purpose of quality management. in fact, the appliance of a suitable quality management strategic approach will help Wedding Attire to effectively attain and maintain an anticipated level of quality related to the product or service.

Total Quality Control and Strategic Management

This particular approach is being implemented by the company for achieving a product or service having zero amount of defects and the generation of the products or service which meets the desired standards of the consumers (Pambreni et al., 2019). It has been observed that the initiation of this method of addressing quality accentuates the management as well as the improvement of signs of progress within the company. Similar to the strategic management strategic approach, this technique views the company as including independent functional areas which necessities a degree of flexibility to answer to the altered market requirements. In fact, total quality control emphasizes the significance of associating the entire department in the service generation progress.

It has been observed that the implementation of the quality control strategic management Wedding Attire might be able to take account of activities such as marketing, finances, design and purchasing. Therefore, Total Quality Control makes sure that the generation of the feature involved in the service is well developed and continuously improvised (Pambreni et al., 2019). Moreover, it also underlines that workforces have the acceptable knowledge and abilities sets to achieve the required procedures and that there is an intelligence of truthfulness and organizational culture to raise quality.

2.7 Understanding the Appropriate Supply Chain Management Strategy for the Chosen product

Managing supply chain management is indeed beneficial for a company in order to make sure of its relationship with its potential suppliers. A supply chain manager frequently develops this particular strategic approach with the primary intention of exploiting value around all phases of the production cycle. The supply chain strategy revolves around the four major elements.

1. The Marketplace

After the launching of any product or service, it requires proper advertising to notify the customers about it where it can be available (Ali and Haseeb, 2019). The finished product or service can be found in different locations and can have multiple distribution channels. As in the case of Wedding Attire, it can be found in the Play Store and App Store free of cost. 

1. Competitive Positioning

Competitive positioning necessitates a clear consideration of the organisation’s exclusive value proposal regarding the fact of its supply chain. For making relevance, the customer will find all types of wedding dresses in this application from reasonable prices to designer dresses which is indeed a great policy to attract all types of customers.

• Supply Chain Procedure

The enactment of the organisation’s supply chain progressions should be supervised to ensure that they are as resourceful as required (Ali and Haseeb, 2019). The utilisation of the SCOR model can be applied to measure the supply chain performance of wedding attire.

1. Supply Chain Process and Business Strategy

wedding attire should be able to implement suitable business strategies to anticipate the future requirements of its potential customers to make the supply chain management efficient. 

2.8 Examining the Best Operational Strategy for Ensuring Sustainability

It is indeed true that more and more business enterprises are focusing on developing efficient systems and logical systems which are considered sustainable for the future sustainable expansion of the company. Regarding this fact, Wedding Attire requires to aim at developing a suitable operational strategy which will be appropriate for their future sustainability development.

Optimising Packaging Control Through the Supply Chain

Public awareness of packaging-waste leakage, especially from plastic waste, into the environment has increased significantly over the past 12 to 24 months. Considering these facts, the packaging of Wedding Attire is completely eco-friendly (Magill et al., 2020). The usage of plastics in the operational process is extremely limited and this initiative made by the company is definitely environment-friendly. In fact, the company do not use any types of plastic materials during the time designing the dress. Moreover, the swift delivery to the clients on the allocated day also ensures the fact that Wedding Attire will be able to monitor their operation along with implementing sustainable practices. 

Conclusion

By analysing the entire business report, it can be evaluated that operational procedure is indeed necessary to keep track of all the business activities to maintain an extensive level of efficiency in a business firm. for this reason, Wedding Attire should implement strategic approaches which will benefit their practices related to operation management quite effectively.

References

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Cooper, R.G., 2021. Accelerating innovation: Some lessons from the pandemic. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 38(2), pp.221-232.

de Meneses Monteiro, S.P., 2021. Using Business Intelligence to leverage field workforce capacity planning in Telco.

Falchetta, G. and Mistry, M.N., 2021. The role of residential air circulation and cooling demand for electrification planning: Implications of climate change in sub-Saharan Africa. Energy Economics, 99, p.105307.

Goswami, M., Daultani, Y. and De, A., 2021. Decision modeling and analysis in new product development considering supply chain uncertainties: A multi-functional expert based approach. Expert Systems with Applications, 166, p.114016.

Hughes, C. 2022. Australia - average wedding dress cost by state 2018. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/993462/average-wedding-dress-cost-by-state-australia/.

Imai, K., Kim, I.S. and Wang, E.H., 2019. Matching Methods for Causal Inference with Time?Series Cross?Sectional Data. American Journal of Political Science.

Li, D., Cheng, X., Ge, L., Huang, W., He, J. and He, Z., 2022. Multiple Power Supply Capacity Planning Research for New Power System Based on Situation Awareness. Energies, 15(9), p.3298.

Magill, L.J., Jafarifar, N., Watson, A. and Omotayo, T., 2020. 4D BIM integrated construction supply chain logistics to optimise on-site production. International journal of construction management, pp.1-10.

Pambreni, Y., Khatibi, A., Azam, S. and Tham, J.J.M.S.L., 2019. The influence of total quality management toward organization performance. Management Science Letters, 9(9), pp.1397-1406.

Parkins, I. and Findlay, R., 2021. Commodity Feminism and Dressing the ‘Best Self’on A Practical Wedding. Australian Feminist Studies, 36(109), pp.297-312.

Petrakis, K., Wodehouse, A. and Hird, A., 2021. Physical prototyping rationale in design student projects: an analysis based on the concept of purposeful prototyping. Design Science, 7.

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Wu, Y.F. and Kim, E.Y., 2022. Users’ Perceptions of Technological Features in Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) in Fashion Retailing: A Qualitative Content Analysis. Mobile Information Systems, 2022.

Zhang, W.J., Wang, J.W. and Lin, Y., 2019. Integrated design and operation management for enterprise systems. Enterprise Information Systems, 13(4), pp.424-429.

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