Understanding Operations, Logistics and Supply Chain Management

In this relation, the report below is based on Jaguar Land Rover, which is one of the most recognised companies in the United Kingdom's automotive sector. The firm currently deals in a range of vehicles that are segregated into several categories such as passenger and utility vehicles. The report undertakes a detailed analysis associated with the operations, logistics and supply chain management of the firm, which focuses on two key areas, that are managing quality and managing relationships within the supply chain. For this purpose example of assignment, the report includes two appropriate theories which would be governing the effectiveness of the company in relation to these factors, along with analysis of triple bottom line and certain recommendations associated with the organisation.

MAIN BODY

Jaguar Land Rover is an a British Automotive organisation, that effectively deals in manufacturing, as well as distribution of different vehicles within the UK and beyond. Headquartered in Conventry, United Kingdom, it is one of the most recognised and preferred organisation in relation to providing high end offerings to the customers. In addition to this, the firm's marketing abilities are very much appropriate in terms of communicating their offerings with the target market. In addition to this, the organisation has quite appropriately handled its logistics functions and operations, which are required to provide the company an effective edge within the marketplace (Addo-Tenkorang and Helo, 2016).

In relation to the company, the very first topic in question is Managing Quality. It is one of the most necessary functions that must be adopted by a company to ensure that the products manufactured by the organisation are developed with highest quality possible. In addition to this, another prominent feature which this topic contains within the same is related to managing the operations, logistics and supply chain management with utmost consistency, which automatically reduces any scope of error. Moreover, this concept also ensures that customers are very much attracted and retained, along with enhancement in market image. Hence, this topic in context of Jaguar Land Rover would be covering the extent up to which the company manages the quality in the product development process, along with operations, logistics and supply chain management (Hazen and et. al., 2018).

Another topic that has been clearly analysed and evaluated is related to Managing Business Relations in Assignment help USA Supply Chain. It is yet another essential component which must be adopted by the companies in relation to managing the supply chain in the required manner, which would further facilitate the manufacturing and production operations of the company. In addition to this, in context of Jaguar Land Rover, a detailed study upon how well the relations of the firm with its supply chain are maintained and improvised would be undertaken. This would be covering configuration of the supply chain network of the organisation, the quality, cost and dependability of the firm, along with several sharing of information and traditional market supply relationships.

Managing Quality is one of the most important operation that must be implemented within an automotive organisations, as their goodwill, preference and profitability is very much dependant upon the same. This is related to a complete management of the firm that is associated with elements like planning, designing, procedures, supply chain as well as logistics. Furthermore, for this aspect, the theory which is adopted within the organisation is Total Quality Management (TQM). This method is adopted by company relates to all the techniques, processes and tools that are fairly implemented by an organisation to ensure consistent and achieving high level quality related to the operations and functions of the company. In addition to this, the agenda of this principle is related to reducing and simultaneously eliminating the errors within the operations and processes of the company. In addition, this function also ensures a consistency in improvement when it comes to ensuring better quality management within the processes and operations of the firm (Fernie and Sparks, 2018).

In relation to the same, there are several principles that are associated with TQM which guides the organisation in relation to enhancing the scope of quality in operations and functions. One such principle is related to Continuous Improvement, which is associated with regular and consistent evaluation of the current processes and operations and ensuring continuous modifications to increase the quality of operations. In addition to this, continuous improvement also contains applications on elements like cost, delivery and safety in manufacturing vehicles which further promotes the quality. Moreover, another principle in associated with the same is commitment to management. In this relation, firms adopt several functions that are also reflected Shewart's PDCA model, where the management of the company ensures planning, doing, checking as well as acting on different purposes. Another aspect through which this commitment could be ensured is associated with employee empowerment. This is associated with providing authority and responsibility to employees within the company, that would enhance their engagement towards maintaining the quality of operations within the organisation (Choi, Chiu and Chan, 2016).

In relation with this principle, Jaguar Land Rover is quite inconsistent in managing quality and implementing TQM in its operations and manufacturing processes. For instance, the firm's market in China is consistently becoming weaker, due to the ineffective quality of operations. A couple of years earlier, the firm collaborated with Chery Automobile within China to essentially improvise and modify their vehicles that would be suiting the current conditions of China. However, despite improvisation in design, the quality of the products were severely damaged and was dropping consistently. An evidence of the same is that within 2017, the firm undertook almost 13 recalls from its Chinese markets, with heavy faults in engines, airbags, batteries and so forth. This reveals that the firm is not implementing any principle associated with Total Quality Management within its manufacturing processes. Moreover, these recalls undertook almost 106,000 products, that is equivalent to higher than 70% of the firm's local sales within the marketplace (Jaguar Land Rover hurt by quality control issues in China, 2019). Moreover, there is a very limited adherence within the organisation when it comes to ensuring employee empowerment. This is because there is lower adherence of employee engagement within the company and much lesser concern on their motivation. This is reflected through the fact that quite recently, the firm has planned a £2.5bn cost cutting plan, as to which the firm cut up almost 5,000 jobs within the United Kingdom (Jaguar Land Rover to cut up to 5,000 jobs, 2019).  This led to a major setback for the employees of the company and hence, reveals that the organisation is somewhat inconsistent when it comes to managing quality and implementing TQM within its processes.

One prominent example of an organisation which implements this principle is General Motors, which is another prominent company in the automotive sector within the United Kingdom. In terms of this method, the firm is highly consistent when it comes to manufacturing processes. For instance, the organisations adopt this functions right from the starting of development of a new vehicle. Moreover, aspects of vehicle manufacturing such as focusing on speed, reliability and accuracy are heavily emphasised upon when the firm implements TQM. In addition to this, its implementation within the company is surely facilitated with ensuring participatory management, which enhances commitment of employees towards the company, as well as empowers them in an appropriate and effective manner (TQM management: Explain importance of customer satisfaction in organizations, 2019).

Another aspect reflected above was managing relationships within supply chain. For an automotive organisation, the quality, consistency and reliability of vehicles is highly associated with the efficiency of the supply chain. This is because the more efficient and consistent the supply chain of the organisation, the more effective would be the supply chain.

One of the models which is associated with the same is Six Sigma. This refers to the framework which requires the company to consistently monitor and evaluate the current processes in order to ensure improvement within the same and reduce the cost in an appropriate manner. The firm has several steps related to this technique, such as, defining the objectives, measuring the current and anticipated elements, analyse the current processes, improvise the same as well as control the improvement in an effective manner. All these steps are very much appropriate in relation to manage supply chain of an organisation, which ultimately helps in development and fostering business relationships of the firm (Copacino, 2019).

In context of Jaguar Land Rover, the firm is very much inconsistent where supply chain relationships are concerned along with implementation of Six Sigma. This is because due to Brexit, the supply chain management of the firm has very much disrupted recently, causing ineffective relationships with its supply chain due to high cost and lower money supply within the market. Hence, this reflects that the firm was not applying Six Sigma in an appropriate context. The reason for the same was related to the fact that the firm was not analysing the situation surround Brexit as well as was not improving its supply chain which disrupted the relations (Jaguar Land Rover to Close Plants for a Week as a Brexit Safeguard, 2019). This led to closure of several plants of these models that caused further inefficiencies within the company. However, there are several positive aspects associated with the supply chain relationships as well. For instance, Jaguar Land Rover does not implement traditional supply chain model any more and has shifted its operations towards closed loop valu chain model for supply chain. In this model, the firm has created several new supplier relationships with other organisations such as Novelis, Innovate UK and other organisations that would be ensuring delivery of more closed-loop aluminium within the firm (How Jaguar Land Rover ditched traditional supply chain thinking to create a closed loop value chain, 2019). This would further cause improvements in the supply chain management, along with consistent improvement which satisfies the requirements in relation with the supply chain of the company.

However, there are several organisations which are working impressively when it comes to adopting Six Sigma principles and managing the supply chain relationships. One such organisation which could be used to compare Jaguar Land Rover is Ford. The firm is one of the biggest competitors of the company within the UK market and is spectacular when it comes to Six Sigma implementation and supply chain management. As for the former, the organisation has recently formulated its production and supply chain departments through application of Six Sigma Principles. The company has directed these principles towards achieving of several others, such as cost reduction, improvisation of quality, as well as reducing the impact on environment. Moreover, for supply chain management and business relations associated with the firm, Ford has implemented the principles of Six Sigma on all the operations related to this function of the company. As a result, the firm has been very much successful in eliminating almost $2.19bn amount of waste in the last year (Six Sigma Case Study: Ford Motors, 2019). Hence, this helped the company in investing the amount in prominent operations associated with this function.

However, there are several considerations which Jaguar Land Rover must adhere to, in order to ensure effectiveness in their operations, logistics and supply chain management. The first aspect associated with the same is economic consideration. This requires the organisation to be economically viable and appropriate in terms of feasibility. However, Brexit and other associated factors of ineffective supply chain might cause certain disadvantages to the company. Reason for the same is that Brexit has disrupted the regulations, which caused high costs associated with the supply chain management (Trautrims and Wong, 2017).

Another consideration related to the organisation is related to social aspect. This requires the firm to be ethical towards people and other stakeholders of the company. Hence, in such relation, Jaguar Land Rover must appropriately ensure high inclination towards managing the people within the organisation along with the ones in the supply chain. However, in this context, the organisation's management and Assignment help leadership is quite a big issue in relation of managing the same. This is because the firm does not appropriately ensures empowerment of employees and business relations with the suppliers of the company (Schönsleben, 2018).

Furthermore, environmental consideration is another essential and important factor that is related towards ensuring protection of environment surrounding the organisation. In this context, the firm is very much capable when it comes to being environmentally sound. The fact which could be implemented in relation to support the same is that the closed loop value chain for the company is supportive towards protection of environment in a prominent and better manner. This is because closely related supply chain could ensure required volume of materials when required, which might ensure reduction in transportation, hence, protection of environment and geology topics.

Hence, in this relation, the firm could implement several recommendations which is associated with improvisation in managing quality and business relations with the supply chain. In terms of managing quality, the firm must adopt Strategic or Transformational leadership, which would be appropriate in terms of empowering individuals. This would encourage them to ensure quality within the operations of the organisation. In addition to this, the firm could implement Just In Time inventory system, which would improvise the quality in relation to inventory and logistics management, due to reduction in cost and quantity, hence, maintaining the quality of operations and raw materials (Wang and et. al., 2016).

Another appropriate recommendation could be performed in context of managing relationships in supply chain management. One aspect which could be performed within the same is related to ensuring contractual supply chain. This would allow the firm to manage the chain at a pre decided rate and quantity, despite changes in regulations of the country. Furthermore, another aspect associated with the same is that facilitation of information which could be done through prominently implementing digital information sharing system.

CONCLUSION

Hence, this is concluded from the report above, that operations, logistics and supply chain management is important for an organisation in terms of ensuring effectiveness within the functions. Moreover, it is important that several topics associated with the same are analysed in relation to highlighting the issues associated with them. Furthermore, different theories must be implemented and understood against these topics to ensure the extent up to which the firm is applying the same. In addition to this, other firms must also be compared to the organisation to compare the implementation of these models in practice. Lastly, companies are required to ensure compliance with several considerations, which would be allowing an effective and essential management of operations, logistics and supply chain.

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