Case Study Of Quality Management In The Apparel Industry

In order to succeed in any business we have to be aware of operations management. It is considered as the most important part of the company; it is the part which is responsible for producing goods and providing services. After all, operating

Operations management refers to all levels of an organisation and how best to efficiently convene, fund, maintain and maximise its services and/or operations, both internal and external. The core goal/objective of operations management it to maximise outputs while reducing and minimising the inputs required to achieve the desired results.

Operations Management focuses on the design and management of products, processes, services and supply chains (Diemond, 2014). It considers the acquisition, development, and utilization of resources that firms need to deliver the goods and services their clients want (Diemond 2014). Operations Management consists of many topics which are applied on a daily basis at the company I work for. Some of the topics include process control, lean manufacturing, six sigma, and supply chain management. It is the process that controls how inputs (raw materials, labor, and energy) get converted into outputs (finished goods or services).

James, T. (2011) defines Operations Management as the management of the processes which aid production of goods and or services. This implies that all production activities must be coordinated well to ensure a lean process of resource management is adopted.

Operations Management in an organisation is repsonsible for managing and in making decisions concerning the activities that convert inputs into outputs , that is goods and services. This covers both short term actvities as well as longer term activities to meet strategic goals. Inputs can be the raw materaials need to manufacture goods such as furniture or the computers needed to create a service like online shopping site. Operation management’s role is to make decisions to improve how operation activities function, for example, to improve the final quality of the output or to change production methods to be more efficient in terms of cost and in time.

Operations Management explores the way organizations produce and distribute goods and services. Everything you wear, eat, sit on, use or read comes to you courtesy of the

Quality management is an act that monitor all activities that needed to maintain and sustain high quality output, continuous improvement of process and product to a desire level of excellence in order to create customer satisfaction (Flynn, Schroeder, & Sakakibara, 1994, p. 342). Nowadays, increase in globalization and international trade had led to the increase of competition in the global market. The increase of competition had forced companies to focus on the concept of quality in their business and discover that effective quality management can increase their competitive advantage in the global market (Anderson, Rungtusanatham, & Schroeder, 1994).

The process which combines and transforms various resources used in the production/operations subsystem of the organization into value added product/services in a controlled manner as per the policies of the organization, is the definition of Production/operations management. Consequently, it is that part of an organization, this part is involved in the transformation of a range of inputs, like men, material, machines, information and capital, into the required (products/services), with the requisite quality level. The group of correlated management activities, that are engaged in producing particular products, is called as production management. Using the same concept but extended to services management, then the corresponding set of management activities is named as operations management. It’s could also be defined as all those business functions that perform the doings of planning, organizing, leading and controlling the resources needed to produce an organization’s goods and services, in order to generate value. It includes managing people, equipment, technology, information and many others resources. All parts of the organization are operations.

Operations and process management is ‘the activity of managing the resources and processes that produce products and services’ (Slack et al. 2015, p.4). The Operations Manager is responsible for bringing the resources and processes

Operation management system relates to the concept of how an organization is able to offer their goods and services with satisfying the customer and maintaining quality (Mullins & Gill, 2013). It is a fact that the operation system of any firm is major resources arrangement that is often linked with the production and delivery of its product and services.

Operations management can also be referred as a business practice that are used to generate profit for an organization with the use of optimal resources. It includes function such as material requirement planning, managing purchases, storage, logistic and evaluation of processes. The focus is on efficiency and effectiveness while performing these functions. Thus it can be concluded that operations management involves measurement and analysis of processes.

Operations management focuses on managing the processes of producing and distributing products and services. Operations activities often include product creation, development, production and distribution. It deals with all operations within the organization. Related activities include managing purchases, inventory control, quality control, storage, logistics and evaluations. The nature of how operations management is carried out in an organization depends very much on the nature of products or services in the organization, for example, retail, manufacturing, wholesale, etc.

The discerning customers nowadays are better educated and are able to recognize the quality of products or services, rather than just looking at the price. As competition between organizations grows more intense, many different factors and dimensions would be considered by the customers when they are going to measure the quality (Stevenson, 1999). In order to remain competitive among those rigorous competitions in the dynamic changing business environment, organizations have to maintain and enhance the quality of the products or services being delivered.

Deming, Juran, and Crosby all define quality in different ways. Deming defines quality as a continuous improvement and the ultimate goal is zero defects; however, he realizes an error free product may not be economically feasible or practical (Kerzner, 2009, p. 880). Deming also states a product or service is defined by the customer and quality is a relative term and will change based on the customer’s needs (Suarez, 1992, p.3)

Implementation of excellent quality comes with a cost. The company must decide if it is really worth compromising the quality for revenue. If the quality costs exceeds the expected revenue of the company then the company must abandon implementing quality control mechanism. If otherwise, the quality would contribute to the product value and hence the revenue.