Operations Management Outlook and Analysis

Question: 1. Give a very brief introduction of their competitive landscape. Summarize the operations strategy of the organization. 2. Identify in detail 2 major challenges/Problems in their operations and how to improve it. Answer: One of the major problems with Sainsburys supermarket is the problem of inventory management. The Sainsbury is the second largest retailer in the United Kingdom and it has to manage the inventory of large number of products. Some of the products have good shelf life. However, there are products with low shelf life. The company has found it difficult to manage the shelf life of such products. For example, the shelf life of eatable products is really low and the inventory of food items have to be replenished soon. Sainsbury has found it difficult to deal with a large number of suppliers and manage the inventory of these items with limited shelf life. The company has witnessed number of losses as product wastage or spoiled product. The recommended solution for the company is the use of JIT (Just in Time) System. With the focus on JIT methodology, Sainsbury would be able to minimize the stock out of products. With the JIT system, the company would procure the products just in time (Walke r, 2015, pp 1183). It would be difficult to achieve this system. However, a strong focus on Information Technology would enable the company to use JIT system efficiently. With the JIT system, Sainsbury would be able to minimize its inventory holding cost. This system would be beneficial for the company in short term and in long term. It is recommended that the company should invest to provide training to the users of the company to deal within the new system. Another operations management problem for Sainsbury is the issue of dealing with multiple suppliers. The company has found it difficult to maintain the standardization for its products that it procures from multiple suppliers. The management of the company has laid down several quality guidelines that the suppliers should fulfill. However, there are cases when the raw materials or the goods provided by the supplier have difference in the quality. In these cases, Sainsbury is not able to maintain the quality of its deliverables. This happen because the company has a large number of suppliers for the same type of raw materials. This problem can be resolved with a tight mechanism of vendor selection. It is recommended that the company should have limited number of vendors for the product. Moreover all the vendors should be listed as suppliers only after a full scrutiny. It is recommended that the company should have a tight system of quality check (Gunasekaran Ngai, 2012, pp 700). As a part of this quality check, all the suppliers would undergo a quality test. It is recommended that Sainsbury should use benchmarking to develop quality checks for the company. The company should study the supply chain of other players in the industry and the supply chain of other industry leaders. It would provide important inputs to Sainsbury to overcome its quality management and operations management problems. References Gunasekaran, A. and Ngai, E.W., 2012. The future of operations management: an outlook and analysis.International Journal of Production Economics,135(2), pp.687-701. Walker, H., Chicksand, D., Radnor, Z., Watson, G. (2015). Theoretical perspectives in operations management: an analysis of the literature.International Journal of Operations Production Management,35(8), 1182-1206.