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AL Operations - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Geographic - Climate, landscape features, etc.
      - Demographic - Employees necessary for business
      - Legal - Local laws, tax, incentives, etc.
      - Political - Political stability, governmental information
      - Resources - Close access to resources and suitable land
      - Infrastructure - Utilities, transport networks, finance, etc.
    - - Reshoring - When operations are moved from overseas back to home country. Costs have risen overseas, incentives from domestic government, political instability abroad
      - Globalisation gives business access to cheaper and higher quality resources abroad, making it easier to set up abroad, and opening up new markets
      - Offshoring - When operations are moved overseas. May be easier access to resources and markets, lower costs, fewer regulations, helps overcome trade barriers
  - - - Objectives - If these don't include expansion, no change in scale
      - Legislation - Countries have laws that can limit size of business
      - Finance - Money must be available
      - Demand - Increase scale to meet higher levels of demand
    - - Lower average costs allow lower prices or higher profit margins
      - Different types
        
        Purchasing - Bulk orders can receive discounts
        
        Technical - More efficient tech/equipment to produce on a large scale
        
        Managerial - Experts employed can make business more efficient
        
        Administrative/marketing - One task may require the same paperwork whatever the quantity involved
        
        Financial - As a business gets bigger it may be seen as lower risk, which can reduce cost of sales
      - Occur when average costs fall as scale of output increases
        Avg. costs = Total costs / output
- - - - Kaizen
        
        TQM demands employees:
        Are committed to continuous improvement
        Share problem solving
        Are educated and trained to take responsibility for quality
        All these are vital components of the Kaizen approach
        
        Advantages:
        Improvements in productivity
        Less waste
        A lower breakeven level of output with lower costs
        More responsiveness to customer needs
        Better motivation
        
        Involves groups of employees identifying ways to improve how processes are carried out. Small incremental changes rather than big one-off changes
        
        Disadvantages:
        Training employees and managers in new attitudes
        Setting up teams of employees
        Dealing with employees who don't want more involvement
        Making sure all staff are involved
      - Main features are:
        Get it right first time
        All staff committed to continuous improvement in quality
        Build partnerships with supplier
        All staff educated/trained in responsibility for quality
        Supervisors should encourage rather than finding fault
        Problem solving is shared
        Clear and achievable goals for each employee
        Workers take pride in their work
        Organisational culture to suit the above
      - Process of quality assurance in which all employees are responsible for managing quality
    - - Successful benchmarking results in improvement of products + processes. Being equal to the best will mean a business can present its products as market leaders, meaning better reputation for reliability and quality. May result in being able to charge more
      - Advantages:
        By using information gained from observing other firms, quality can be improved
        Costs and waste can be reuced
        Customer service can be improved
      - Comparing a firm's procedures/products with best practice in other business. Firm can then change procedures or products to be at least as good as competitors.
      - Disadvantages:
        May be difficult to gain accurate information from other businesses
        Costs of collecting information may be greater than gains
        May be difficult to implement other businesses' approaches