Question

4.The text mentions a number of major challenges (listed below) to operations management that are expected to develop in the near future. Select one of these and briefly discuss the nature of the challenge. These concepts are discussed in the text under the heading "Current Issues in Operations Management" on page 18. (5 marks)

%oCoordinate the relationships between mutually supportive but separate organizations

%oOptimizing global supplier, production and distribution networks

%oIncreased co-production of goods and services

%oManaging the customer's touch points

%oRaising senior management awareness of operations as a competitive weapon

Answer 1

Chosen Challenge: Optimizing global supplier, production and distribution networks

As the rate of globalization and digitalization is increasing at a tremendous pace, opportunities for companies to expand on global scale is also rising. Also the ease of doing business is widening the overall scope and applicability of business. However, with the scope of business getting widened, it is becoming quite difficult for companies for managing the global supply chain network and logistics. The company faces the following roadblocks in effectively managing the global supply chain:

• Span of control is quite limited
• Maintaining quality standards in the logistics and distribution of supply chain is quite difficult
• Global supplier partnership management is challenging as there is dependency on technology for collaboration
• Conducting collaboration and interaction with the global suppliers and distributors, keeping the different time zones in mind, can be quite tedious
• Accountability of operations in global supply chain gets compromised