Ba Main Transformation Process

Executive sum-up The purpose of this authorship is to discuss the of import theories, models, frameworks and issues in the argona of trading trading trading trading operations guidance, employ British Air styles as a dish upal model, with egress the ext oddment. It was prepargons for a coursework assignment as part of a operations way Module Academic journals and books from the ara of operations management were employ to illustrate the primary(prenominal) points in the decl atomic number 18 to egest human activity up and back up the in cookation provided. recognize findings of this report show how theatrical role preserves on the ripening of the operations turn outline in British Airways and how the trace elements of origination tolerate hugely in operations. The importance and utilization of write out range of mountains was discussed and ternary fibre admit methods tincture Sampling, app last(a)e attribute prudence and ISO 9000 were evaluat ed to how they could remedy the surgery of British Airways. Conclusions were drawn and it was arrange that operations management, base on the points discussed is a major calculate to an presidencys success. Contents knave paginate bit 1. Introduction4 2. BAs Main slip Process 5 & 6 3. note & operations Strategy 7, 8 & 9 4. devise in operations 10 4. 1 invention Generation10 2. Concept Screening10 4. 3Preliminary programme 10 & 11 4. 4Evaluation and Improvement11 4. 5Prototyping and nett object 11 & 12 5. The Role of Supply Chain 13 1. whole tone13 2. Speed14 3. Dependability14 4. Flexibility15 5. salute15 6. choice Control Methods16 1. calibre Sampling17 2. hit fictitious character concern 17 & 18 3. ISO 900018 7. Conclusions19 8.References 20 & 21 1. Introduction This report has been issued by University as part of this trading operations Management module, in which a conjunction bequeath be selected and utilise as a working model by dint ofout the report . The chosen compevery that bring home the bacon be used in relation to operations management is British Airways (hereafter BA). The various elements of operations management go out be looked and utilise to BAs of import regeneration summons. This aloneow for be through with(p) utilize academic articles and books in the bea of operations management to illustrate the main points.The report exit begin with an overview of BAs main transformation assist indicating light upon in disgorges and outputs and wherefore investigate how persona capability impact upon the development of the operation strategy. succeeding(a) it allow for review the key elements of endeavor and how this impacts on the operation. Fin all in ally the role of tack chain in BAs operation will be discussed and three different spirit control methods will be evaluated to show how these might improve the effect in operations. Conclusions will be drawn and any overriding management issues identif ied. . BAs Main version Process The transformation sue is a model that describes operations in price of their input resources, transforming processes and outputs of goods or work (Slack et al, 2008, rascal 8) BA use their aircrafts and round which allows passengers and lode to travel from one finishing to other(a) thus, making this BAs main transformation process. The operations function of a business is the ar regularisement of the resources which argon allocated to the performance and forfeity of an organisations goods and goods.Three roles that are main(prenominal) for an operations function are the fulfiler, manoeuveroff booster and driver of the business strategy. In this suit the operations functions discovers the inputs of the transformation process. BAs main transformation process inputs are the 238 aircraft in run, 32 million passengers, and 760,000 tonnes of onus that it carried in 2009/10 along with the pilots and confine man. These are the transfo rming resources which allow the operation to wad engineer and results in the serve well macrocosm provided.This uses the modify resources which understructure be rupture into two suits facilities such(prenominal) as the buildings and equipment, and faculty who are all the people obscure in the operation in nearly way. (ba. com) The main activities of British Airways Plc and its subsidiary undertakings are the operation of international and domestic schedule air serve for the carriage of passengers, cargo and mail and the provision of ancillary serve As BA is one of the worlds largest airlines operational internationally, the transformation process muckle be complicated with umteen units or departments interconnecting and alter to the overall operation.Some of the operations with in BA acknowledge British Airways terra firma Cargo carrying freight, mail and courier traffic. (ba. com) They key outputs of BAs transformation process are the millions of transported p assengers to over 300 widely distributed destinations and the cargo including dangerous goods and live animals. The outputs are benefit and thitherfore intangible. 3. Quality & trading operations Strategy trading operations strategies plan how the function will discover future goals which are aligned with the companies overall strategy.This basin be done by understanding incumbent capabilities and limitations, exploiting current capabilities in attribute and process innovation. The basic role of operations is to implement strategy. Operations strategy concerns the pattern of strategicalal decisions and dos which set the role, objectives and activities of the operation (Slack et al, 2007, Page 63) Operations are the resources that create harvest-festivals and gos. There are four perspectives on operations strategy top d possess, market get requirements, bottom up and operations resources perspective.BA states Meeting the hike expectations of our guests system abori ginal to our strategy of transforming British Airways into the worlds leading world(prenominal) premium airline This includes investment in their add together, aeroplanes and facilities in night club to provide a premium part service to their nodes. (ba. com) Quality is consistent conformance to customers expectations (Slack et al, 2007, Page 539) Relating this to the to a higher place strategy of BA the quality of the service would be the friendly and helpful confine crew, the public life leaving on sentence, clean aircraft and baggage arriving at the same time and destination as the passenger. Punctuality ensures other operational processes run smoothly and remains a key factor in whether customers would recommend British airways to other travellers (ba. com). thus if BA produces a quality service to all of its customers, it is likely that they will modernise more(prenominal) business through recommendations and freehanded them an advantage over other airlines. As the quality of service that BA provides is prevailing to the customer and bath be a deciding factor on double over business, this will postulate to be embodied to the overall operations strategy of the organisation for it to be a success.In BAs 2009/10 annual report and accounts their strategy and objectives include meeting customer unavoidably and improving margins through new(a)lyfound revenue streams. Total Quality Management can endure an influential impact on this as quality can reduce comprises and subjoin dependability. bring down total quality expenditures, increased take incur of quality and reallocation of quality resources to streak and away from appraisal and defect/ affliction coifion activities (SAM Advanced Management diary, 1990, Page 25). This supports the higher up strategy of BA. TQM enables the developing of strategic thinking due to its inter-disciplinary nature (Journal of Manufacturing engine room Management, 2004, Page 264) Overall in r evere to BA this nitty-gritty that there has to be quality control in place for the overall strategy to be successful. When developing the operations strategy, taking quality into good will there whitethorn be a higher apostrophize initially, however, referring to the research preceding(prenominal) cost may be reduce overall due to less errors and more emphasis being placed on keep onion tactics. 4. Design in OperationsThere are pentad tiers of service design which will be looked at separately in relation to BA 4. 1Concept Generation If BA were to introduce a new destination to the existing regularize that they already offer if they decide to follow the market requirement perspective which is what the market position requires operations to do (Slack et al, 2001, Page 65). A lot of people would confine to be involved from management at the top down to the customers. Market research would be a good image to induct ideas and suggestions from the customers for the propos ed new estination. Operations strategy involves translating marketing requirements into operations decisions (Slack et al, 2007, Page 63) 2. Concept Screening This stage involves the ides exit through feasibility, acceptability and vulnerability evaluation. Questions such as are the resources such as aircrafts and staff available, will it be accepted and what may go wrong with it and will it all be answered and evaluated. At this stage the ideas will progressively get fewer as each one is evaluated until there is moreover one possibility left. . Preliminary Design Preliminary design is the identifying of component products and serve in the package, which in this case is the new escapism destination in BA and the process of this will also be defined at this stage. The components of the new flight destination may be the aircraft, ca lay in crew, pilot, information leaflets and arrangement of new flight path and times. BA is part of a mass service process type in which there are l egion(predicate) customers transactions therefore there is modified contact time and not more than room for customisation.For casing BA cannot put on a special pilgrimage for a single person as there are a range of pre-planned journeys for passengers to choose between. 4. Evaluation and Improvement Design evaluation and improvement is used to gain if the preliminary design can be improves and this can be done employ various techniques including quality function deployment, abide by engineering and taguchi methods. Looking at Quality Function Deployment (QFD), which is a technique used to ensure that the eventual design of BAs service actually meets the ask of the customers.For mannikin the new flight destination would bring forth to be where the customers want to go and figure how this can be achieved. 5. Prototyping and final design The final stage of design is to turn the design into a prototype. For the new flight destination this may be running the flight on a trial ba sis to get reactions and feedback from the BA customers. Through the design process the five performance objectives quality, locomote, dependability, tractability and cost will be considered.For example it can be decided if the quality of service will be the same as a regular flight or if it is going to be increased and marketed as a premium flight. Will the flight be dependable and be on a regular basis and will the cost be in relation to the service as mentioned above and if the customers will be willing to pay more. This would be classed as a product layout within BA which involves locating the transforming resources entirely for the convenience of the transformed resources (Slack et al, 2007, scalawag 193).The transforming resources being the people, for example in BA as they can come upon through the airport in a predetermined route to enable them to get to the aircraft. 5. 0The role of Supply Chain A leave chain can be described as A linkage or strand of operations that provides goods and services through to end customers within a bring network several preparation chains will cross through an individual operation (Slack et al, 2007, page 402) altogether emerge chain management has a common objective to satisfy the end customer and in the case of BA this will be the people traveling on the flight or BAs World Cargo.As mentioned in the design process the five performance objectives quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost will have to achieve appropriate directs in the supply chain. These can be looked at individually in relation to BA 1. Quality For a flight many onboard services are inevitable including the equipment food and drink. By the time the meal reaches the customer on the flight it has gone through many operations in the supply chain. It is historic that at each stage there are minimal errors as this multiplies by the time it reaches the customer.Each stage then needs to take responsibility for its own and their supplier s performance. This can in turn, ensure that the supply chain can achieve a high level of customer satisfaction at the end and therefore increase the chance of locomote custom. 2. Speed In relation to BA, speed can mean the time it takes a customer to be served from the time they beseech the item to when it arrives. For example, receiving a drink in-flight. A fast response may be achieved by ensuring there is enough resources and entrepot, such as flight attendants and beverages within the supply chain.If there is a large flyer of germinate then the customers demand will be ful overindulgeed. In order for this to be successful, the products received from further up the supply chain, such as from the manufacturers need to have fast throughput time. Achieving this allows the customer demands to be met if there is stock readily available. 3. Dependability This means that BA has to have to correct stock in the right place at the right time. The airline needs to have the correct nu mber or supplies or more on board at the time of a flight take off to ensure the demands of the customers are met.For example If the individual operations in a chain do not deliver as promised on time, there will be a tendency for customers to over order, or order early, in order to provide some kind of restitution against late delivery (Slack et al, 2007, page 404) A way that BA can control their items of low value, fairly consistent practise and short lead time (Tersine, 1982, page 432) such as beverages is the two bin re-ordering system. This is an effective way of controlling stock levels as it can easily be seen when the re-order point is reached. 4. FlexibilityFlexibility is the supply chains ability to manage changes and disturbances. If BAs stock levels are managed this should allow flexibility so the end customers needs are met and done so in a responsive manner. For BA to be flexible all operations in the supply chain must also be flexible. 5. Cost At each operational s tage of the supply chain costs are incurred in order to produce the final product or service. A way of reducing costs is through JIT. Just-in-time is a Japanese management philosophy which tries to bring off waste and always improve productivity.JIT has many roles to play in an organisation as Continuous improvement processes are associated with JIT including product quality, process efficiency, information systems and operating value-added activities more effectively while eliminating non-value-added activities (Wild, 2002, page 61) BA may also incur costs whilst finding the right suppliers or trying to find one supplier of there required costs to cut the cost of their transactions and come to a in return beneficial agreement for both parties. 6. Quality Control MethodsMeasures for quality characteristics within BA can include functionality which is how well the service does the job, for example taking people to their required destination safely. Appearance is another which rel ates to the interior decoration and cleanliness of aircraft, lounges and crew. Reliability, consistency of the flight service and property to the allocated times is another characteristic which is all important(predicate) to the service that BA provides. Durability ensures that the service provided is up to date and relevant to the customers needs. recuperation is the ease with which problems can be resolute and contact between airline staff and customers. These characteristics can be measured as variables and attributes. For quality control methods to take place operations must identify how the quality characteristics can be measured and a bar to which it can be checked against. As much of BAs quality comes down to service it can be difficult to perceive as this has no quantified measure. Quality control uses statistics, process analysis and quality standards, these attempts are to puzzle out the root cause of any quality problems.Quality means doing things right, first time, all(prenominal) time (Slack et al, 2010, Page 505) and in turn this will have a peremptory effect on revenues costs and customer satisfaction. The techniques of controlling quality that will be looked at in relation to BA are quality sampling, total quality management and ISO 9000. 1. Quality Sampling This can be done by handing out surveys towards the end of the flight to receive customer feedback. The results can then be used to determine whether or not the quality characteristics mentioned above are up to the correct standards as expected by the customers and what BA wants to achieve.This will not be c% checking as not every person will take the time to fill this out however it can give a good indication of BAs performance. The results of this can then be used to find areas that need to be approved for example the courtesy of the crew or areas that are positive such are the decor and cleanliness of the aircraft. Overall if action is taken this should help to improve the perfor mance of BA. 2. Total Quality Management Total Quality Management, (TQM) means meeting the needs and expectations of customers.This includes all costs associated with quality which are prevention, appraisal, internal and external misadventure costs. bar costs are used to pull round reverses and errors occurring. This can be the subscribeing and development of personnel and designing and improving of services and aircrafts to reduce any quality problems. appraisal costs that could be incurred with BA are the setting of sampling plans as mentioned above and also conducting customer surveys. Internal failure costs, dealt from within the BA may include lost time due to errors. For example if problems occur and a flight is slow or unable to take off.If a strategy is in place this could prevent this error from happening. Finally external failure costs which are errors going out of the operation to the customer. An example can be an annoyed customer who take up the time of staff at a check in desk. The main aim of TQM is that the processes and products will be continually improved. 3. ISO 9000 Without any quality control methods there is minuscule or no basis to measure and monitor quality performance. Certification to the ISO 9000 standard demonstrates if an organisations quality of service and products are acceptable.This may improve the performance of BA as it gives assurance to customers that the service has to be at a certain standard so therefore there could be an increase of custom. However this could prove costly to train staff and conducing audits. 7. Conclusions The main findings from this report were the set up of quality on the development of the operations strategy and how design also impacts on this within BA. It was shown how quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost form the basis to all the decisions that are do in the area of operations management.It was found that meeting the rising expectations of BAs customers was paramount and quality control remained central in this. It was suggested that BA could us a survey to receive feedback to work on and improve if appropriate. This could increase the standard of quality of service within the organisation. The five stages of design in operations concept generation, concept screening, preliminary design, evaluation and improvement and prototyping and final design were identified and evaluated.The role of supply chain was discussed against the five performance objectives quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost will have to achieve appropriate levels in the supply chain. Quality and its importance were shown how it can improve the performance of BA. In final conclusion it as found that operations management, based on the points discussed is a major factor to an organisations success. 8. References LEONARD, D and MCADAM, R. , 2004. Total quality management in strategy and operations dynamic grounded models, Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management. o nline. 15(3). Pp. 254-266. obtainable from http//www. emeraldinsight. com/journals. htm? issn=1741-038X&volume=15&issue=3&articleid=851034&show=hypertext markup language www. emeraldinsight. com Accessed 12th celestial latitude 2010 www. ba. com Accessed throughout December 2010 SLACK, N. , CHAMBERS, S. and JOHNSTON, R. , 2007. Operations Management. 5th ed. Essex Pearson Education bound GILMORE, H. L. , 1990. Continuous Incremental Improvement An Operations Strategy for Higher Quality, Lower Costs, and international Competitiveness. SAM Advanced Management Journal. online. 55(1). Pp. 21. Available from http//web. ebscohost. com/ehost/detail? vid=10&hid=112&sid=a64d86a6-2b59-4820-89e8-685e3526e9e7%40sessionmgr110&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3ddb=buh&AN=4601151 Accessed 13th December 2010 SLACK, N. , CHAMBERS, S. and JOHNSTONE, R. , 2001. Operations Management. 3rd ed. Essex Pearson Education Limited WILD, T. , 2002. trump out Practice in Inventory Management. second ed. Oxfo rd Elsevier Science Ltd TERSINE, R J. , 1982. Principles of Inventory and Materials Management. nd ed. New York, NY Elsevier Science Publishing Co. , Inc TANNINEN, K. , PUUMALAINEN, K. and SANDSTROM, J. M. , 2010. the origin of TQM analysis of its effects on profitability, productivity and customer satisfaction. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence. online 21(2) Pp. 171-184. Available from http//web. ebscohost. com/ehost/detail? vid=7&hid=105&sid=15499fbe-0026-4e12-b2c1-b55559c94134%40sessionmgr114&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3ddb=buh&AN=47760259 Accessed 16th December 2010