6: Operations Strategy Flashcards
Performance at 3 levels:
Operational level: operational objectives.
Strategic level: risk & resilience, capital utilisation, service & revenue, efficiency & cost, and capability for innovation.
Societal level: social (people), economic (profit) and environmental (planet).
Polar diagrams
Used to indicate the relative importance of each performance/operational objective to an operation or process.
Flexibility
Associated with an operation’s ability to change.
Trade-offs
‘Do you want it good or do you want it tomorrow?’
Trade-offs in operations are the way we are willing to sacrifice one performance objective to achieve excellence in another.
Operations strategy =
Operational objectives + operations planning
4 stage model of operations contribution
- Correct the worst problems.
- Adopt best practice.
- Link strategy with operations.
- Give an operational advantage.
3 roles of operations in relation to strategy
Operations as an implementor of strategy,
Operations as a supporter of strategy,
Operations as a driver of strategy.
Top-down perspective of operations strategy
What the business wants the operations to do.
Bottom-up perspective of operations strategy
What day-to-day experience suggests operations should do.
Operations resources perspective of operations strategy
What operations resources can do.
Market requirement perspective of operations strategy
What the market position requires operations to do.
‘Fit’…
Operations strategy must attempt to achieve ‘fit’ between market requirements and operations resource capabilities.
Structural operations strategy decisions
The ‘hardware’ of the operation.
Infrastructural operations strategy decisions
The ‘software’ of the operation.
Operations resources can give a sustainable competitive advantage if they are…
Scarce,
Not very mobile,
Difficult to imitate,
Difficult to substitute for.
