What is the role of the Operations Manager to apply these principles?

Essay by eborgUniversity, Bachelor's October 2014

download word file, 7 pages 0.0

Downloaded 2 times

What is the role of the Operations Manager to apply these principles?

An operations manager fills a pivotal role in Aldi. In general, an operations manager plans, oversees and smooth communication.Operations manager is also concerned with Capacity Management, Inventory Management and ensuring that pull inventory control system is efficient and effective in terms of meeting customer requirements.

Aldi applies a lean approach and it includes also Just In Time strategy. JIT is a strategy in which items are created to meet demand, not created in surplus or in advance of need. The purpose of JIT production is to avoid the waste associated with overproduction, waiting and excess inventory. It is an inventory strategy companies employ to increase efficiency and decrease waste by receiving goods only as they are needed in the production process, thereby reducing inventory costs. The JIT system eliminates waste by reducing the amount of storage space needed for inventory and the costs of storing goods.

An example of a JIT system is the pull inventory control system where the goal is to keep inventory levels to a minimum by only having enough inventory, not more or less, to meet customer demand. The pull inventory control system begins with a customer's order. With this strategy, companies only make enough product to fulfil customer's orders. One advantage to the system is that there will be no excess of inventory that needs to be stored, thus reducing inventory levels and the cost of carrying and storing goods. However, one major disadvantage to the pull system is that it is highly possible to run into ordering dilemmas, such as a supplier not being able to get a shipment out on time. This leaves the company unable to fulfil the order and contributes to customer dissatisfaction.

This method however requires that...