TORRES, LOUELLA MARIE V. PT NO.

3
BSBA OM 3-1 PRODUCTIVITY AND
QUALITY TOOLS

PART A (PT no. 3)

Briefly answer the following discussion questions

• From time to time, various groups clamor for import restrictions or tariffs on foreign-
produced goods, particularly automobiles. How might these be helpful? Harmful?
- It is helpful in a way that it would allow manufacturers to have time to step up using
industrial technology and other measures, which would enable them to compete in a
domestic and world markets.

• List the key ways that organizations compete.

- The key ways that organizations uses to compete with one another are price,
quality, products, differentiation, flexibility, and delivery time.

• Explain the importance of identifying and differentiating order qualifiers and order
winners.
- The importance of identifying and differentiating order qualifiers and order winners is
that companies may emphasize or de-emphasize a given characteristic based on its
classification of importance. In order to classify order qualifiers and order winners,
marketing and operations must work together to match the consumer demands with
the operational capability of the firm.

• Select two stores you shop at, and state how they compete.
- The most often stores that I shop are Watsons and Handyman, obviously both are
different in nature, but they are both accessible for consumers. As for Watsons, I think
that its main strength in competition is their promotion, price and quality. Most of the
time they are on sale and offers big discounts such as “buy one take one” and more. On
the other hand, for Handyman, their main strength is the customer-service, price wise
and wide variety of items. The moment you enter their store a lot of salesman and woman
will welcome you and willingly assist you for faster transaction.

• What are distinctive competencies and how do they relate to strategy formulation?
- Distinctive competencies are set of unique strengths that certain firms possess
allowing them to gain advantage over competitors. It is related with strategy
formulation since it is the process of determining the strategies of the organization.

• Contrast the term strategies and tactics.

- Strategy is formulated as a basic approach used by an organization to achieve its goal
while, tactics are the methods and actions used to accomplish strategies and carry out
operations.
• Contrast organization strategy and operations strategy.
- Organization strategy focuses on the overall direction for the company and is in broad
scope while, Operations strategy is narrower in scope dealing primarily with the
operation aspect of the organization. Despite the comparison, Operations strategy must
be consistent with organizational strategy in order to deal with products, processes,
methods and etc.

• Explain the term time-based strategies and give three examples.

- Time-based strategies are approaches that focuses on reducing the time needed to
conduct the various activities in a process. It aims to prove that by reducing time, costs
appear on the market earlier, and customer service is improved. Examples of these are
delivery time, response time for complaints, and planning time.

• What is productivity and why is it important? Who is primarily responsible for

productivity in an organization?
- Productivity is the measure used to evaluate the effectiveness of resources in an
organization. It is important because it could be a company edge in competing with
other companies. The Operation Manager is solely responsible for the productivity in an
organization.

• List some factors that can affect productivity and some ways that productivity can be
improved.
- The factors that may affect productivity are methods, capital, quality, technology, and
managements. These may be improved by using productivity measures for all
operations, eliminating bottlenecks, soliciting ideas from employees, forming work
teams, studying other firms, reviewing work methods, establishing reasonable goals for
improvement, obtaining support from management, and etc.