UNIVERSITAS ADVENT INDONESIA

Parongpong, Bandung Barat 40559

Final Exam :
Subject : Operation Management (Case Study) – Open
Book
Date : Desember 04 2020
Room :
Time :

QUALITY PROBLEM AT THE TECH BOOKSTORES

Tech is a major state univrsity located in a small, rural college town. Tech Service is
an incorporated and entity that operats to bookstores, one on campus and one off campus at a
nearby mall. the on-campus store sells school supplies, textbooks, and school licensed
apparel and gifts and it has a large computer departement. The off-campus store sells
textbooks, school supplies and licensed apparel and gifts and it has a large trade book
department. The on-campus store has very limited parking, but it is within easy wal9king
distance of the downtown area, all dormintories,and the football stadium and basketball
arena. The off-campus store has plenty of parking, but it is not eithin walking distanc of
campus, although it is on the town bus line. Both storre compete with several other
independent and national chain college bookstores in the town plus several school supply
store, apparel stores, computer stores, and trade bookstores. The town and university have
been growing steadly over the past decade, and the football team has been highly ranked and
gone to a bowl for eight straight seasons.

The Tech Bookstoreshave a long-standing policy of selling textbooks with a very

small markup (just above cost), which causes competing stores to follow suit. However,
because textbooks are so expensive anyway most students believe the Tech bookstores gouge
them on textbook prices. In order offset the lack of profit on textbooks, the Tech bookstore
sell allother product at a relatively high price. All “profits” from the stores are used to fund
student-related projects such as new athletic fields and student center enchancement.

Tech Services has a Board of Directors made up of faculty, administrators and

student. The executive director, Mr. David Watson, report to the Board of Directors and
oversees the operation of the bookstores (plus all on-campus vending and athletic event
vending). His office is in the on-campus store. Both bookstrores have a store manager and an

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assistant store, a trade book manager, and a computer department manager, as well as number
of staff people, including a computer director and staff, a personnel director, warehouse
manager and secretaries. Almost all of the floor employees, as would be expected.

Several incidents have occured at the off-campus store that have caused the Tech
Service Board of Directors concern. In one incident a student a faculty customer and student
employee was arrested for drug possession. In another incident a faculty customer and
student employee got into a shouting match whe the employee could not located a well-
known book on the bookstore computer system and the faculty member got frustated over the
time it was taking. In still another incident an alumnus who had visited the store after a
football game sent a letter to the university president indicating that a student employee had
been rude to him when he asked a question about the return policy for an apparel item he had
purchased on the bookstore’s Web site. When the student did not know the return policy, he
told the customer in a condescending manner to come back later. The last incident was an
offhand remark made by a local town resident to a Board member at a party about the
difficulty she had completinga purchase at the mall store because the registers were
unmanned, although she could see several employees talking to gther in the store.

Although sales and profit at the bookstore have been statisfaction an dsteady over the
past few years, the board of Directors is extremely sensitive to criticism about anything that
might have the potential to embarrass the university. The Board of Director suggested to Mr.
Watson that he might consider some type of assessment of the service at the bookstores to see
if there was a problem. Mr. Watson initially attemped to make random, surprise visits to the
bookstores to see if he could defect any problem, however, there seemed to be a jungle
telegraph system that alerted his employees whenever he entered a store, so he abandoned
that idea. Next he decided to try two other things. First he conducted a customer survey
during a two-week period in the middle of the semester at both store. As consumer left the
store, he had employees ask them ask them to resopond to a brief questionnare. Second, he
hired severa graduate students to pose as costumers and make purchases and ask specific
question of sales clerks, and report on their experiences.

Selected results from the customer survey are on the table below.

The only consistent responses from graduate stidents posing as customer were that
student employees ere something not that familiar with store polices, how to operate the stre
computer systems, what products were available, and where products were located in the

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stores. When they didn’t know something they smetimes got defensive. A few also said that
students sometimes appeared lackadaisical and bored.

Using observations of the operation of your own college bookstores to assist you,
answer the following question.

If you are appointed as “Operation Managet”, what should you do?

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Elaborate the case based on “Operation Management” approaches.

// ron_C

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