Operation Management ASSIGNMENT

Submitted By
Hina Mahmood
Department of MBA
Shanxi University of Finance and Economics

Submitted to
Course Instructor; Zhou Liqing
Course; Operation Management
Department of MBA
Shanxi University of Finance and Economics

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 Study Case; Hazel

Summary

Hazel used to have a stable permanent job for long before being fired due to the downside program of her
company. After being fired, she tried to find a new job in 8 months, but there was no positive signal for
her. Surprisingly, Hazel had a chance to start a business by herself when she accepted to mow a neighbor's
lawn. There were many people want Hazel to take care of their lawn, which made her decide to stop
seeking a new job and focused on this type of business. After 1 year, Hazel business of mow lawn seems to
be very good in which she decided to perform other supplement services and hired part-time workers.

Case Question;

QNo.1: Hazel is the operations manager of her business. Among her responsibilities are forecasting,
inventory management, scheduling, quality assurance, and maintenance.
a. What kinds of things would likely require forecasts?

Answer; As a role of operations manager, Hazel needs to forecast a plenty of things to make sure about
the running status of her business. Hazel would be expected to forecast the future demands depending on
the past trends related to her business.
Things that would likely required forecast for Hazel's business includes sales forecast, demand
forecast, inventory forecast and budgeting focus. Most important is the sales forecast so that she can
evaluate the current sales level and growth of her business, and allow her to compare her company to
industry norms. It will also help her in establishing the policies so that she can easily monitor the prices
and operating cost to guarantee profits and make her aware of the monitor problems before they become
major problems. Other things would likely require forecast are:

1. First, it is about the potential of her business. Only in one year, Hazel has experienced a significant
change in her business. Starting from a sudden chance with the lawns from her neighbors, Hazel now
considers it as her real business with a brilliant number of customers. However, something come quickly
cannot hold for long. Hence, forecasting the potential of this service will tend to be the first thing Hazel
needs to consider in order making decision for changing the type of services or keep continuing to grow the
business
2. Second thing it is about the weather and climate, which plays a crucial role to the status of lawns. The
demand for the service can change quickly with a change in weather and climate, in which more or less
people needs the services of Hazel. In the case, Hazel hired several part-time workers for efficiency.
3. Third, it is also the consideration for the equipment used in gardening services. If there is a breakthrough
in technology to mow lawns easier, so people may not need the service of Hazel. Hence, forecasting this
factor will help her to determine the future of her business.

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B: What inventory items does Hazel probably have? Name one inventory decision she has to make
periodically?

Answer; To run the business of mowing lawns, there are several lists of items Hazel may have. First the
inventory items may be agriculture products like: fertilizers, grass seeds, lawn grass or plants. Besides, they
could be gardening materials and equipment like mower or grass cutters. Or even it can be some vehicles to
use for a special use in gardens.
One inventory decision Hazel has to make periodically may be the use of fertilizers because fertilizers can
make the lawns grown well and have a good looking. So Hazel may need to use periodically. 

C: What scheduling must she do? What things might occur to disrupt schedules and cause Hazel to
reschedule?

Answer; About the schedule, Hazel needs to consider at first the demand of customers to her services.
Based on the demand, Hazel can set up a reasonable schedule for mowing lawns of customers. Moreover,
depending on the places, She can make a schedule can serve both benefits of her business and her
customers. Besides, the schedule for the use of her employees, the flow of supplies like order, delivers or
arrival need to put in consideration. 
There are several factors can disrupt Hazel's schedule, which cause her to reschedule like the change in
weather like heavy rain, flooding. Besides, it can be problem from her staffs when they got sick or even the
disruption from the equipment being broken. Especially, if her fund is in trouble, things need to be
rescheduling for a bottom outcome.

D: How important is quality assurance to Hazel's business? Explain

Answer; It is important to the survival of Hazel's business. If the quality of her service is low, customers
will stop using her services. Furthermore, they also tell other potential customers not to use Hazel's service
due to poor quality. So Hazel will lose both customers and potential customers and the life of her business
is in trouble.

E: What kind of maintenance must be performed?

Answer; For the business of gardening like the case of Hazel, the maintenance arises as one of the
crucial points. First, it is the checking process of grass seeds, fertilizers or the checking condition of
gardening tools to make sure they will work. Besides, it is important to maintain the relationship with
customers because without customers, Hazel will easily run out of business. And one way to build up a
good relationship is serving a high quality service to keep customers stay with the business for long.

QNo.2: In what ways are Hazel's customers mostly likely to judge the quality of her lawn care
services?

Answer; There may be some base for customers to judge the quality of her lawn care services.

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1. First, it is from the judgments of other customers. And from that a customer of Hazel's service can
determine the quality.
2. Second, it is the working performance of Hazel's business. If her business can run efficiently and make
customers satisfied with quick responses, the customers can judge a high rate for her gardening services.
Besides, customers care services are also important to provide a plenty of supplement benefits to
customers. The creditability in here plays a crucial role.
3. Third the price can be considered to be a good point to determine. A competitive price with the same
quality can make customers rate a good status for the service of Hazel.

QNO.3: What are some of the trade-off that Hazel probably considered relative to?

A. Working for a company instead of herself?

Answer; If working for a company, Hazel will not have to invest in gardening tools, hire part-time
workers. She can save a huge amount of money used for investing the services. Furthermore, Hazel will
have more time to relax if she doesn't run business. However, she may only have a lower payment
compared to the profit of her business and she can't have the right to manage everything if she is only a
normal staff.

B. Expanding the business?

Answer; By expanding the business, Hazel can have a greater return for herself because now her services
capability can serve for a higher number of customers. However, with the trade-off, Hazel needs to have
additional investment to put in the process of expanding her business, which can cause the cost of her
business increase, and customers will find a substitute service provider rather than Hazel. Moreover, she
may face a greater risk, which can result in a lost to her business. 

C. Laughing a Website? 

Answer; If launching a website, it becomes a good channel of her business to more potential customers.
So her services can attract more customers. However, on the other hand, the cost for running a website is
high, and sometimes it doesn't work effectively, which cause the cost result a loss for Hazel. 

QNO4: The town is considering an ordinance that would prohibit putting grass clippings at the curb
for pickup because local landfills can't handle the volume. What options might Hazel consider if the
ordinance is passed? Name two advantages and two drawbacks of each option?

Answer; The obvious option in which Hazel can make on the given situation would be extending her
services covering the disposal of grass clippings. Instead of letting the trashes be picked up by the
authorities she could make additional profit by replacing the role. In other words, it would make Hazel's
lawn care service to be a complete package. As a result more customers will patronize her business since it
creates a good image being socially responsible by following the new audience.
Advantages

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 1. It can increase Hazel's business because the customers would not wait the grasses grow too long to
call the mow service
2. Hazel can start a new pick up service to help the customers to collect all the grass clippings and
throw it away. 
Drawbacks  
1. The working volume is increase which means Hazel needs to hire more employees to assist her.
2. Hazel has to reschedule all her working hours and it might be increased her working hours compare to
previous.

QNo.5: Hazel decided to offer the students who worked for her a bonus of $ 25 for ideas how to
improve the business, and they provide several good ideas. One idea that she initially rejected now
appears to hold great promise. The students who proposed the ideas have left and currently working
for a competitor. Should Hazel send that student a check for the idea? What are the possible trades-
offs?

Answer; In my opinion, Hazel should not send the student a check for the ideas. The reason for her,
this student and even his/her idea now belong to the competitor. Despite the great promise the idea can
bring back to her business. Hazel shouldn’t consider using it. 
Beside, about the possible trade-offs, Hazel now lose a great idea to the hand of her competitor, and it is
also the loose of the students, who seems to be a good supporter for providing ideas. But there are many
new ideas waiting for her to make profits for her services, and she can try to focus on new ideas rather than
just thinking about the old student's ideas.

Q.NO.6: All managers have to cope with variation.

A. What are the major sources of variation that Hazel has to contend with?

Answer; From my point of view, it is true that all managers have to cope with variation and it is the
same for Hazel. There are three major source of variation Hazel need to contend with. They are quality of
service Hazel give to customers, the affordability of her services and finally it is the variation of
credibility. 
Normally, a lawn care business experiences variations with regards to input in productive, quality
assurance, and wages and even with the season. It is really difficult for Hazel to achieve uniform input in
providing services since it varies in different customers depending on the area of their lawns. 

B. How might these sources of variation impact Hazel's ability to match supply and demand?

Answer; The impact of these types of variation Hazel has to deal with the process of determining the
quality of supply she needs to have in order to much with the demand from her business. In some cases, the
impact from these three sources make Hazel can't have a good forecast for the output her services can
afford to the real demand of the market.

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So, The variations presented on the previous question affect Hazel's ability to match supply and demand
since as stated, input may be less than or more than adequate to meet the desired outcome. There will be
time when supply is not enough to meet the customers demand, resulting to miss opportunities or to incur
unwanted costs.

D. What are some ways she cope with variation?

Answer; Before designing strategies, Hazel must first conduct careful study and analysis as to cause,
nature, correlation and effect of these variations. She should be able to identify the significant variables
that give large impact on her business as a whole. Until then, she can create new ideas and develop
coping strategies in order to manage the existing variations. She should resort imposing certain criteria
and standards that maintain balance between input and output, hence matching supply with demand.
This way she can ensure an efficient and effective operation of her start-up business.

QNO.7: Hazel is thinking of making some of her operation sustainable. What are some ideas she
might consider?

Answer; Aside from quality assurance, the other ideas that would help Hazel make some of her operation
sustainable include innovation that maximize profit and reduce costs, offering a wider range of services,
reaching new groups of customers, improving the service quality based on insight from past customers, and
investing on high quality tools and equipment. Hazel can also encourage her customers to grow beneficial
plans that add beauty to the surrounding which are also healthy for the environment.