Reflective Discourse

Question: Discuss about theReflective Discourse. Answer: Introduction: It amazes me how capacity planning, location planning and scheduling is done almost every day in our lives. From a simple dinner party to a large scale industry producing a range of products or an IT company delivering wide variety of services production planning is the most commonly used management process. This is the main reason why this topic has caught my attention. Understanding the core of the topic is quite simple as we perform this form of planning continuously in our lives. However, implementing the same in an industrial environment can get quite complicated if the topic is oversimplified. I have worked with a small organization in the past years as an operations manager and have had the opportunity to have a closer look on how capacity planning based on demand forecast is done. As a part of my tenure there, I also had to research on whether a new location had to be added for smooth production. I worked on a production line where downsizing and expanding the capacity of the line was seasonal. The organization produced food products that were in huge demand around Christmas and New Years while the rest of the year the production capacity was quite steady. Every quarter a decision making team was set up to decide on the capacity of the production line for that quarter. These decisions involved an analysis on the demand that has been forecasted, the sales done in the past quarter and the expected clients in the new quarter. This meeting was the most important meeting for a quarter from an operations manager point of view. The decision made here effected the human resources required, the machinery that could be cut done, hours in which we would have to work and so on. I had the opportunity of working here in a high demand quarter when the company backed a client that required a high capacity production. I was quite shocked to see how the entire production line had been transformed to meet the unexpected demand of a specific client. We had to adopt a flexible capacity strategy were quick thinking was required. I had to talk to the HR team to recruit line workers on contract for a month and the facilities team to set up the machinery that was usually not used in this season. Also, the new recruits had to be trained to operate the machinery. To set the right tone, we had to prepare a schedule and make sure that the SLA given to the client was met. Aggregate production planning was done, were we recruited and trained the new line workers and at the same time informed and procured raw material from our vendors. This helped me understand that when a sudden demand arises it is not just the producing company that gets effected but also the vendor that supplies raw material. I had to create a material requirement list for procurement. It is here that I realized that missing a single product or ordering less than the required quantity would cause mayhem in the production. The scheduling was again based on the demand and deadlines forecasted. Capacity has been increased. It was crucial here that each stage of the production had to be done in time to ensure that the next stage was not bottlenecked. Thanks to prior planning the schedule was followed well and the demand was fulfilled. The standby machine maintenance team ensured that there were no surprises. I learnt here that capacity planning, demand forecast, material planning and production planning all go hand in hand and production cannot be complete even if one single aspect misses. After this demand I was asked by the company to study the production process of the company and suggest if a new production facility was required. I had to go through the current machinery the company uses, the revenue it generates, the labor it has, the demand it gets and so on. The fact that we could expand the current facility when a spike in demand was seen helped me determine that a new facility was not required as long as machinery backup was available. Labor was contract based and hence could be requested at any time. Also, investing in a facility would cost the company a huge part of its revenue and I have advised them to not do it as the company was relatively new. They could rather invest in better machinery. After going through the topic, I realized how production planning is not as simple as it looks. With the help of the academic knowledge I have gained and the new techniques I have learned I would be able to increase my capacity as an operations manager.