Operations cases fail-proof approach

Hey,

Sketch out the Product & Operations value chain as follows:

R&D-> Product Development->Demand & Supply Planning->Sourcing & Procurement->Manufacturing & Production->Delivery & Distribution-> Reverse/Returns Logistics

So, depending on the case, map out where the problem lies/or your hypothesis and work through this. Most of the times, its one or more of the following:

• Inefficient product portfolio/long tail i.e 80% of revenue comes from 10-20% of the products
• Poor Forecasting i.e. forecasted demand & actual demand are way off resulting in poor customer experience (order not filled on time and in full)
• Inventory stock outs i.e not enough inventory available (either in warehouse or retail channel)
• Excess inventory which results excess operational cost trapped in supply chain
• Supplier lead-times are long resulting in delayed arrivals of raw materials/finished goods
• Manufucturing throughput unable to meet demand
• Distribution Network performance i.e. SLAs not met, orders missed, not delivered on-time

Happy to help you get into details of this. Feel free to drop me a direct message.

Hey there,

In general, operations cases often focus on concepts such as

Capacity issues

• Increase / decrease capacity or move capacity from a less profitable product to a more profitable product
• Analysis of bottlenecks

Classic profitability issues

• Profit = Revenue - Cost :-)

Optimization problems

• Optimize utilization of production machines
• Optimize product mix to max out profitability

Stock issues

• Calculation of safety stock
• Optimization of stock

Value chain issues

• Break down the value chain in its constituent profits and figure out where the issue is

Regarding the latter, you should be able to map out a process in an operations case, especially when you are not familiar with a certain task or system of interactions. When laying out what constitutes a certain issue, you will be able to understand it by breaking it down into its constituent parts.

This helps you to think deeper about the issue. It can also help you to get 'unstuck' if you don’t understand the situation. In sum, problem or process mapping forces you to deconstruct the interactions and increases your odds to find the segment or area in which the issue is buried in.

For instance, you might want to investigate chronological sequences. Process mapping can be used to make a chain of interactions visible and see all parts involved that produce a certain outcome. You can use it when you look into temporal events or when you want to find out which part of the process is most crucial, etc.

Cheers,

Florian

Hi there,

Remember that your framework/structure is all about figuring out, at the highest level, what impacts the decision. So, at any stage you're in, think "What level am I at". Then, ask questions at that level.

For example, if a product isn't delivered on time, please don't ask a million "level 4" questions like you're currently doing! Rather, figure out what is the highest level split that exists. This means, you want to think "Ok, this is either a supplier production issue, a distributor issue, or a us issue (we're not ordering with enough notice)".

That's it! It's 1 of 3 things. So, ask a higher level question against each one of those.

For any case you're going to seriously struggle if you continue this scattergun approach. You need structure!