Operations Flashcards
Background Information
Qantas (Qan) is a large public airline company that competes internationally through the aid of their low-cost carrier Jetstar. Before COVID Qan had consistently high profits for 5 years until they lost $1.8 billion in revenue. With international borders opening recently, Qan is bouncing back from economic downturn.
Transformed Resources includes:
Materials
- Raw goods: water, fuel
- intermediate goods: food, drink, plane parts and hardware, fuels, steel
Information
- internal: financial reports, quality reports, Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), inventory turnover rates
- external: government report and market statistics
Customers
- customer choice and feedback influence demand
Transforming Resources include:
Human Resources: pilots, ground and baggage handlers, fleet presentation, flight attendants, engineers
Facilities: airplane/aircraft, terminals, aircraft hangers, e-kiosks
Influence of 4V’s
- volume is the amount of flights over a period of time
- variety is the different locations the flights got to
- visibility is the level of customer contact measured through the internal data on fuel consumption
- variation in demand is the changes in environmentally friendly fuel
Sequencing and Scheduling
Sequencing refers to the time allocated to prepare, travel and unload aircraft and scheduling is the order in which tasks occur. Qan uses Gantt Charts to determine the critical path that is most efficient.
Technology, Task Design and Process Layout
Technology: Qan uses online bookings, check ins and e-tags as established technology and Project Sunrise and biofuels as leading edge technology
Task Design: Spreads specialised jobs such as engineers, pilots, fleet presentation with skill audits that measure performance
Process Layout: The proximity of terminals to gateways and storage
Monitoring, Control and Improvement
Measuring means watching KPI’s, control is taking corrective action against inefficiencies and improvement is eliminating bottlenecks
Outputs
The final product is the flight and the customers experience
Customer Service
- customer opinion through feedback on performance
Warranties
- Depend on customer and destination
Performance Objectives
- Quality
- This is how well the flight meets customer expectations - Speed
- Speed refers to making service fast as possible - Dependability
- The reliability of the safety and efficiency of the flight at Qan - Customisation
- The special features of the flight that alter it from competitors - Cost
- This is the amount of money associated with purchasing materials and human resources in the service - Flexibility
- This is the speed of how to adjust to market demands
New Product Design and Development
Product design involves scanning and learning, research and development and launching the product.
- Project Sunrise will make the first airline to offer direct flights from Sydney to London and New York in 2025
- 4 hours faster to major hotspots
- This experience is specific to Qan and also offers 40% of seats to be premium across economy, business and first classes.
- First travel at this length, their may be issues with dependability which increases cost when relying on their product
- The uniques offers a competitive advantage in international markets
- Overall, Qan is able to meet Obj2 and Obj4
Supply Chain Management (SCM)
SCM refers to managing the supplies in the inputs, transformation process and outputs to best meet customer demand.
- Qan globally sources A380 aircraft in LA and Germany and puts them in overseas hangers
- They usually order 7 or more at a time and take advantage of economies of scale to with cheaper cost per unit
- Negative due to the fixed upfront costs that are high and the risk of currency fluctuations makes it harder to implement cost leadership principles
- Qan also uses e-commerce to track the transport of aircraft to hangers in a fast way
- These hurt the flexibility of using aircraft domestically where Qan’s main market is
- Achieves obj2 and obj5
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is using third-parties for areas of the business so Qan can focus on flying people worldwide
- Qan outsourced 7500 ground handlers in Malaysia as a cost-effective response to COVID lockdowns.
- Employees don’t have the same contract entitlements as laid off employees
- The handling and cleaning was in-house offshore maintenance leaving greater flexibility for the business to operate in Australia
- Offshore maintenance affects quality of product due to a lack of control over safety regulations and cleanliness standards
- obj5 to compete internationally
Technology
This refers to using leading edge and established technology for efficient operational processes
- Implements FlightPulse for pilots to measure data and apply it to future flights
- Makes the most of employees and reinforces the dependability of Qan never having crashed
- This improves employee engagement and thus customer trust in the product quality
- Negatively standardises how all flights are supposed to be, affecting meeting obj4
- Meets obj1 and obj3
- research and development helps differentiate from market expectations
- Also uses e-kiosks for self check-ins
- Reduces labour costs, risk of error and barrier of communication among international markets
- Drops visibility
- hits obj1, obj3 and obj4
Inventory Management
This refers to the amount of stock a business is holding at a specific time.
- Qan uses JIT and FIFO for their aircraft parts through the PTC Management systems that records inventory in real time
- After Qan reduced $250 million in excess warehousing stock
- Records time stock is stored assists FIFO to use the highest quality parts, which it can do without over sourcing supplies
- Also operates electronically, assisting obj1, obj2 and obj5
- Remaining stock can be useless if Qan plans to maintain high standards
Quality Management
This includes quality control inspections, quality assurance standards and total quality management off and on flights
- Qan grounded all 747-400 aircraft after flying from COVID hotspots and destroyed all disposable materials like seat covers, pillows and blankets and disinfected necessary equipment with TGA listed hospital grade disinfectant
- These standards slowed down recently with easing lockdown restrictions
- The reinforced consumer safety and dependability in Qan flights although costs up to $50 million for replacement materials and added wages
