Planning And Control Activities For Operations Management: Analysis And Recommendations For Telstra Essay.

Learning outcomes assessed:

1. Critically evaluate methods of planning and organising efficient operations and networking.
2. Analyse the problems of controlling component activities and of controlling quality.
3. Critically discuss methods of project evaluation and of scheduling resources

As an Operations Manager for an international organisation of your choice, you are tasked with aligning and assessing their Planning and Control activities with their Performance Objectives.

o Long-Term Planning and Control
o Medium-Term Planning and Control
o Short-Term Planning and Control

2. Analyse the organisations Planning and Control Activities

o Sequencing
o Loading
o Scheduling
o Monitoring and Control

3. Align these activities with the organisations Performance Objectives

4. Conclude your report and provide recommendations

Telstra is Australia’s largest telecommunications provider providing wide range of services. The organization also gives basic admittance services to households and business and many more. Wholesale services are also delivered to ISPs and RSPs while marketing and subscription of television services are provided through subsidiary companies.

Telstra takes a look at the characteristics of the association in the existent and forms methods for enhancing them. For instance a short term planning may consider the abilities of the employees of Telstra and their state of awareness. The conditions of manufacturing instruments or item quality issues are generally treated as Short term concerns. To report these issues, Telstra should set up short term reactions to address the concern arose (McGrath, 2010). These planning set the phase for addressing to issues all the more thoroughly in the more drawn out term.

The Telstra short term planning process will take organization already defined resources but will limit the activities of the organization to bring large changes (Al-Turki, 2011). Short term interferences from various factors will be present if the plans are not working as per expectations. In the short term, supply strategies are guided to the suppliers. These include obligating preparations for the following day, as well as reliable predictions for the upcoming time and months as well.

Short-term planning concentrates on objectives which can be achieved in the following one to two years. These objectives are refined and have for the most part been in process for various years in Telstra as of now. They are achieving the last phases of being finished. Short-term ideas largely concentrate on operational parts of the Telstra rather than wide budgetary and forward thinking thoughts. Since these are objectives that should be accomplished in the following year or two, they predominantly concentrate on approaches to get them going in the Telstra. Short-term planning is likewise alluded to as planning. In rolling out here and now mediations and developments to the arrangement, operations officers will struggling to adjust the superiority, speed, flexibility and many more factors of the operation. It is improbable that Telstra will have time to schedule-wise to carry out comprehensive calculations of the impacts of their short-term planning and control choices on every one of these targets, yet a general comprehension of needs will shape the foundation to their basic leadership

Medium-term planning concentrates on objectives that can be expert in three to five years. These objectives are more engaged than long haul objectives and more often than not are produced with strategic systems to ensure they are proficient in the time span.

Medium-term planning in Telstra concentrates around objectives that can be proficient in three to five years (Frezatti, et al., 2011). These objectives are more engaged than long term objectives and generally are produced with strategic systems to ensure they are proficient in the time span.

Medium-term arranging applies more lasting answers for short term issues. If learning programmes for staffs solved problems in the short term, Telstra schedule training programs for the medium term (Kilger, Reuter & Stadtler, 2015). In the event that there are quality issues, the medium-term focus is to amend and fortify the Telstra quality control program. Where a short-term reaction to hardware failure is to repair the machine, a medium-term arrangement is to organize a service contract. Medium-term development applies rules and techniques to guarantee that short-term difficulties don't reappear.

Task

In the long term planning, Telstra needs to deal with issues at each time they are jumping out at accomplish their general targets. Long term arranging for the most part reacts to the forceful situation of the Telstra in its social, fiscal and political condition and makes frameworks for changing and affecting position to fulfill long term objectives (Stadtler, 2015). It takes a looks at real capital uses, for example Telstra purchasing equipment and workplaces, and executes methodologies and system that shape the organization profile to facilitate best organization's thoughts. Right when here and now and medium-term organizing is productive and long haul give anticipating those achievements which will spare accomplishments and will ensure proceeds with advance. In the long term planning, managers of Telstra will develop plans with intention to bring success to organization by innovation and growth. They will also consider during long term planning resources which will needed to achieve the target, marketing strategies to grow and many more. According to Fleischmann, Meyr and Wagner, (2015) the emphasis of manager of Telstra will be on planning rather than only control, as future plans success rate depends on planned objective, ideas and resources availability not on how the organization is controlling the activities.  They will use forecasts of likely demand which are described in aggregated terms (Prajogo & Olhager, 2012). The company Telstra for long term planning may develop a new internet network for customers without finding out the demands of customers. Budgets will be put in place which identifies its costs and revenue targets.

There are four activities: loading, sequencing, scheduling, and monitoring and control that combinable form planning discussed below. The Telstra may use these activities in different ways.  The following four activities are mainly important in Telstra.

Loading: It is the degree of work that is distributed to a piece of a process. For instance, a appliance on the floor in Telstra during accumulating business is available, in theory, 170 hours per week. In any case, this does not define that 170 hours of labour can be dig out from that machine (Flynn, Huo & Zhao, 2010). For a few periods the machineries of Telstra can't be worked like, it could not be available on certain events. Along these lines, the load put onto the machine must be considered. Of the time that the machine is accessible for work, other issues also diminishes the accessible time. For instance, time is lost while changing the apparatus from making one segment to another. And moreover if that machine breakdowns, it won't be accessible. In some cases the machine might remain idle for parts to arrive or be being idle for some other reason. Different harms will be including granting machine to deliver output below the optimal speed for instance, since it has not been looked after legitimately and a remittance for the 'quality mistakes or imperfections’ which the machine may deliver (Hugos, 2011). In Telstra predominant operation it is not suitable to plan labourers for 8 hours for every day in service department. Loading should consider rest time; sit out of gear time, change between one task then onto the next, and fatigue decreasing real time accessible. Obviously, huge numbers of these misfortunes ought to be little or non-existent in Telstra operation. Be that as it may, the profitable operating time accessible for beneficial working, even in as well as can be considerably under the maximum time available.

Concept of planning

Sequencing: At the point when work arrives at any portion of an operation decision regarding it must be considered against the request in which the work will be handled (Rushton, Croucher & Baker, 2014). This movement is named sequencing. The needs given to work in an operation are frequently controlled by some predefined set of principles, some of which are as follows:

Customer priority: Operations will at times use client need sequencing, which allows a noteworthy or upset client (or thing) to be 'handled' before others, regardless of the request of entry. This approach is typically used by operations whose customer base is skewed and emergency services should be prioritize according to the urgency of service (Tang and Musa, 2011). Client need sequencing, gives Telstra abnormal state of administration to a few customers, may dissolve the office gave to various others. These occasionally bring down the execution of Telstra operations execution as work processes are upset because of exceptional demand of client.

Physical constraints: The physical nature of the supplies being managed determines the urgency of work. For instance, in a process using hardware or software, lighter material according to weight will be sequenced first.

Due date (DD) Ordering by due date means that task is arranged or sequenced according to due date of delivery by Telstra. This sequencing is done irrespective of the amount of each job and its significance. For instance, Telstra support service of office block will ask for orders delivery date from production department and will then sequence it according to the due date of the order.  Due date sequencing generally enhances the delivery speed, quality and reliability of a company’s operation (Xu, 2011). But it is to be noted that it does not provide optimal productivity due to efficiency of production help in reducing total cost incurred.  

Judging sequencing rules: The performance goals are used generally to measure the effectiveness in rules of sequencing by Telstra.   However, the purposes of reliability, promptness and cost are mostly important. So, for example, the following performance objectives are often used:

• Fulfilling ‘due date’ assured by Telstra (dependability).
• Reducing the period the job time it generally employs in the process.
• Reducing work-in-progress inventory (an element of cost);
• Reducing idle period of products in work centres (another element of cost).

Having decided the sequence of work tackling, some of the operations in Telstar needs detailed timetable like displaying the time required, date and hour of operations. The scheduling also displays the start time of job, when it should end, and may more significant things (Monczka, et al., 2015). Schedules are acquainted declarations of capacity and period in many consumer environments organization.

The complexity of scheduling:  The scheduling activity is the difficult task during the operation management of Telstra. The schedulers of Telstra have deal with various types of resources continuously. The difficulties arise in various areas like machine capability, capacities and staff capability and skills (Trkman, et al., 2010). The most significantly the number of schedules possibility rises speedily in proportion to number of activities and processes. For instance, if suppose Telstra one machine has capability to complete five different jobs, then any of the five jobs decided can be performed first and following that any one of the other four remaining jobs.

Short term planning

Having done with arrangement for the operation by Telstra through loading, sequencing and scheduling, each part of the operation must be checked to guarantee that arranged exercises are in reality happening. Any deviation from the plans would then be able to be redressed through some sort of intercession in the operation, which itself will likely include some re-arranging (Sundarakani, et al., 2010). The output from a work centre is evaluated and compared with the arrangement which demonstrates what the work centre is supposed to do. Deviations from this arrangement are considered through a re-arranging movement and the important intercessions made to the work centre which will guarantee that the new arrangement is completed. In the end, some further deviation in the plan of Telstra from arranged action will be distinguished and the cycle is repeated.

Push and pull control:  One component to monitor control on activities of operations management by Telstra is periodic intervention into the actions of the process. A significant verdict is in what way this interference should take place. The key difference is amongst interference indications which push effort through the procedures inside the operation and those which pull task only when it is desired.

Drum, buffer, rope: It is a notion that aids Telstra in deciding exactly the area where the control process should start. Mostly the operation does not have the equal amount of work loaded on every work centre which means the imbalance in the work division. The bottleneck in the procedure is the monitoring point of the entire process.  This bottleneck is termed as Drum, as it sets the beat for the remaining work procedure to adopt. The bottleneck many a times do not have the capacity to efficient and operative full time. So a spare inventory is required to fulfill that gap and that is termed as buffer. As this buffer capacity will work during the loop time. Therefore, some kind of interaction between bottleneck and input is required during the process to assure that activities earlier to bottleneck do not reproduce. The tie between these two activities is termed as rope.

Conclusion and recommendation: 

The above report defined about the Telstra that the activities of organization mainly depend on four core activities: loading, sequencing, scheduling and monitoring. The report also explained that planning is also necessary for an international firm to achieve success. The three types of planning which help Telstra in achieving different types of objective are short term, medium term and long term. The company should follow the process of supply chain management effectively in order to achieve the goals determined by company management. The company can improve the performance by planning these activities properly and efficiently to achieve desired outputs.

References: 

Al-Turki, U., 2011. A framework for strategic planning in maintenance. Journal of Quality in Maintenance Engineering, 17(2), pp.150-162.

Fleischmann, B., Meyr, H. and Wagner, M., 2015. Advanced planning. In Supply chain management and advanced planning(pp. 71-95). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Flynn, B.B., Huo, B. and Zhao, X., 2010. The impact of supply chain integration on performance: A contingency and configuration approach. Journal of operations management, 28(1), pp.58-71.

Frezatti, F., Aguiar, A.B., Guerreiro, R. and Gouvea, M.A., 2011. Does management accounting play role in planning process?. Journal of Business Research, 64(3), pp.242-249.

Hugos, M.H., 2011. Essentials of supply chain management (Vol. 62). John Wiley & Sons.

Kilger, C., Reuter, B. and Stadtler, H., 2015. Collaborative planning. In Supply chain management and advanced planning(pp. 257-277). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

McGrath, R.G., 2010. Business models: A discovery driven approach. Long range planning, 43(2), pp.247-261.

Monczka, R.M., Handfield, R.B., Giunipero, L.C. and Patterson, J.L., 2015. Purchasing and supply chain management. Cengage Learning.

Prajogo, D. and Olhager, J., 2012. Supply chain integration and performance: The effects of long-term relationships, information technology and sharing, and logistics integration. International Journal of Production Economics, 135(1), pp.514-522.

Rushton, A., Croucher, P. and Baker, P., 2014. The handbook of logistics and distribution management: Understanding the supply chain. Kogan Page Publishers.

Stadtler, H., 2015. Supply chain management: An overview. In Supply chain management and advanced planning. pp. 3-28. Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Sundarakani, B., De Souza, R., Goh, M., Wagner, S.M. and Manikandan, S., 2010. Modeling carbon footprints across the supply chain. International Journal of Production Economics, 128(1), pp.43-50.

Tang, O. and Musa, S.N., 2011. Identifying risk issues and research advancements in supply chain risk management. International journal of production economics, 133(1), pp.25-34.

Trkman, P., McCormack, K., De Oliveira, M.P.V. and Ladeira, M.B., 2010. The impact of business analytics on supply chain performance. Decision Support Systems, 49(3), pp.318-327.

Xu, L.D., 2011. Information architecture for supply chain quality management. International Journal of Production Research, 49(1), pp.183-198.