Monica Laticia

Table of Contents Introduction to operations management1 Assignment task1a,b,c,d,e,f2 Assignment task2a,b,c,d,e,f3 conclusion4 OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT IN THE FOOD INDUSTRY Introduction Operations management refers to the administration of all business practices within an organization to create a top level efficient. Operations management is mostly concerned with changing materials and labor into goods and services as proficient as possible to maximize the profit margin of an organization.2 Sisters Food Group is a private food manufacturing company with its headquarters based in Birmingham, it was established in 1993 and its yearly revenue worth 3.12 billion GBP. a) Define and Compare the Different Roles and Characteristics of a Leader and a Manager Leader A leader is a person who will influence other employees to work together and achieve the goals, objective and the vision of an organization. He or she will carry out the leadership process by applying their leadership skills and knowledge to create the best level of efficiency within the organization. A leader will innovate, develop new ideas and inspire the followers to make sure they do the right things. A leader in 2 Sisters Food Group will provide the followers with long term view on how they can work together in converting raw materials and labor into food products efficiently while maximizing the organization’s profit margin (O’Neill, 2014). Leader’s behavior can have great impact on the overall performance of the followers either negatively or positively, according to behavioral theory, ‘determines how different kinds of specific leader behavior affect the performance and contentment of the followers.2 Sisters Food Group, choose its leaders according to path-goal theory: “a leader’s role is to use structure,support and rewards to create a work environment that will help employees to reach the organization’s goals”(Michael and Adeniyi, 2007). Manager A manager is an individual who oversees controlling and administering all the operations within an organization, to make sure that the organization’s goals and vision are achieved. A manager is the key factor that will determine the company success or its failure. A manager is part of leadership that will assist in ensuring that the organization’s goals are achieved and its vision is attained. He or she will be responsible for the administration and controlling of all business practices within an organization so as to maximize the organization’s profit margin. The 2 Sisters Food group’s manager will be responsible to control and maintain the organization’s daily operations, he or she will also initiate ideas on how the employees can do things right and achieve the organization’s goals (Bennis, 2009). b) Examine with examples how the role of a leader and the function of a manager is applied in different situations within your organization The role of a leader in different situations within 2 Sisters Food Group Every organization needs good leader. Good leaders are made not instinctive. If you have the desire and will power, you can become a successful leader. Good leaders are developed through a never-ending process of self study, learning, training and experience. John, (2002) Mandate that the role of a leader in 2 Sisters Food Group will be to introduce new ideas on how the organization can improve its productivity and increase its profits, for example a leader can introduce new raw techniques of the manufacturing process that will increase the efficiency of production. A leader can also improve the established business ideas of the organization, this will improve the products and services thus maintaining and attracting new customers, for example in 2 sisters food group the leader can come up with techniques of how the food products can be improved according to customers demands, it is also the role of the leader to ensure that the followers do the right things like making sure the food products are right for human consumption and also ensuring that the organizations produces competitive products in the market (O’Neill, 2014). Function of a manager A manager is an individual who oversees controlling and administering all the operations within an organization. Functions of a manager in any organization will include; planning, organizing, controlling and directing all business practices to ensure that the organization’s mission, vision and business goals are achieved (Martin, 2004). Mainly the function of a manger in 2 sisters Food Group will be to administer all the business practices to create top level of efficiency within the organization. It will mainly involve controlling the organizations operations to ensure that things are done right. For example, a manager at 2 Sisters Food group, will be responsible in ensuring that all the production operations run smooth to achieve the organization’s goals. He or she will also be required to initiate ideas to improve food production, maintain and attract new customers. It is also the function of the manager to ensure total quality management (TQM) of the organization. Total quality organization is the use of quantitative methods and human resources to improve and smoothly run all the process within an organization and maintain customers (Gitman and McDaniel, 2007). c) Apply theories and models of leadership approach including situational leadership, systems leadership and contingency in specific situations within your organization Leadership is the process of influencing followers for the purpose of achieving shared common organization’s goals and vision. Leadership has been defined ‘as the process of influencing others to get the work done effectively over continued period’.There are three main theories of leadership approach: situational leadership, systems leadership and contingency leadership. Situational leadership In 2 Sisters Food Group organizations, all these models of leadership can be applied to specific situations, like situational leadership can be applied when the followers want to explore with the leader their own level of competence and commitment for an upcoming task or any challenging tasks within the organization. Situational leadership can also be applied when the leaders want to know if they are getting what they require from the organization manager, or in a situation where the managers want to initiate new ideas of food production then situational leadership can be applied to know how they might want to approach the forth coming changes (Kennedy,2012).  Systems leadership Systems leadership can be defined as the joint leadership of a network of people in different places and at different level in the system, creating shared efforts and cooperating to make a significant change. Systems leadership will embrace the novel perspective that leadership is a key resource that needs to be managed. When we once applied systems leadership within our organizations it help us realize that most organization’s problems are not the manager’s personality or their lack of skills but the system is the main problem, applying systems leadership we were able to identify strategic leadership priorities, identify the much needed shifts of leadership style and culture and also it saved the organization a lot of money that would have been used in mass training to change managers to leaders(Timmins, 2015). Contingency theory of leadership According to fielder’s contingency theory, effective leadership does not only depend on the style of leading but also on the control of the leader over the situation he or she is in. The conditions under which the employee oriented leader is in will determine the effectiveness of their leadership. We applied contingency theory of leadership within our organization to measure the organization’s leadership success, and through this theory of leadership we realized that an organization needs to have tasks with clear objectives and procedures, good leader-member relations and the ability of the leader to measure out rewards and punishments to have good and successful leadership (Rahman, 2016). d) Analyse and differentiate the role of a leader and function of a manager by effectively applying a range of theories and concepts The role of a leader Leadership is all about getting results for your followers, if you as a leader you get good results then people will feel motivated to support you, and basically the role of a leader in an organization is to develop winning strategies to get results for the followers. According to trait theory of leadership, leaders are said to possess a set of traits which makes them distinct from their followers. A leader is said to have a strong desire to for accomplishment, initiative, creativity and intelligence, high tolerance and the ability to influence others (Chemers, 2014). Function of a manager As per Lussier (2008) the Functions of a manager in any organization will include; planning, organizing, control, command and coordination all business practices to ensure that the organization’s mission, vision and business goals are achieved. Henry Fayol. Administrative theory.In other words, function of a manager is to create top level of efficiency within the organization to maximize profits margin. “To maximize worker’s capacity and profits by making employees work at their maximum capacity “said, Fredrick Taylor. Theory of scientific management. e) Asses the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to situations within the work environment There are several leadership approaches to situations within the work environment such as: directing, coaching, supporting and delegating. Directing This leadership approach involves defining, showing, telling how, and planning, orienting, teaching, checking or monitoring and giving feedback. When an organization uses this leadership approach to its work situations, it makes it easier for the followers to understand what they are required to because their leader will teach them or show them how to perform various tasks. However, this kind of leadership approach does not give room for the followers to grow and improve themselves since they get used to their leaders checking or monitoring their work always (Kennedy,2012).  . Coaching This leadership approach involves explaining, asking, clarifying, redirecting, exploring, sharing feedback, encouraging and praising. This kind of leadership approach allows the leader to interact with the followers explain how tasks should be tackled, redirect them when they go wrong encourage and praise them for good performances, the followers will feel motivated and encouraged to work even harder but this leadership approach still do not give room for growth because the followers will depend on the leader to some extent to explain and clarify thing (Rahman, 2016). Supporting It involves reassuring, facilitating self reliant problem solving, asking, listening, collaborating, encouraging feedback and appreciating. Using this kind of leadership approach will allow the followers to grow and improve themselves. They will be able to solve problems within the organization by themselves, thus improving their working skills. Although this could affect other thing in the organization like time management sometimes the employees can take a lot of time to complete a task, because they have full control of their work the leader is just there for support. Delegating This is leadership approach involves empowering, acknowledging, allowing, trusting, confirming, and challenging. It is the best approach in leadership ever, it allows the leader to have full trust on the followers, and this will grow them and increase their work capacity thus increasing profits. However, this approach can lead to in accuracy when followers are left on their own to tackle challenging tasks they are likely to mess up (Clutterbuck and Megginson, 2008). f) Critically analyse and evaluate the different theories and approaches to leadership in the given context Alan Keith stated that “leadership is the ultimately about creating a way for people to extraordinarily happen Situational leadership Situational leadership can be applied when the followers want to explore with the leader their own level of ability and obligation for a forthcoming task or any difficult tasks within the organization. Situational leadership can also be applied when the leaders want to know if they are getting what they require from the organization manager, or in a situation where the managers want to initiate new ideas of food production then situational leadership can be applied to know how they might want to approach the forth coming changes (Kennedy,2012).  Systems leadership Systems leadership will embrace the novel perspective that leadership is a key resource that needs to be managed. Systems leadership can be referred to as the joint leadership of a network of people in different places and at different level in the system, creating shared efforts and cooperating to make a significant change. When we once applied systems leadership within our organizations it helps us realize that most organization’s problems are not the manager’s personality or their lack of skills but the system is the main problem, applying systems leadership we were able to identify strategic leadership priorities, identify the much needed shifts of leadership style and culture and also it saved the organization a lot of money that would have been used in mass training to change managers to leaders (Tate, 2009). Contingency theory of leadership According to fielder’s contingency theory, effective leadership does not only depend on the style of leading but also on the control of the leader over the situation he or she is in. The conditions under which the employee oriented leader is in will determine the effectiveness of their leadership. We applied contingency theory of leadership within our organization to measure the organization’s leadership success, and through this theory of leadership we realized that an organization needs to have tasks with clear objectives and procedures, good leader-member relations and the ability of the leader to measure out rewards and punishments in order to have good and successful leadership (Rahman, 2016). Task2 a. Explain key approaches to operations management and the role that leaders and managers play Operations management refers to the administration of all business practices within an organization to create a top level efficient. The 2 sisters food group operations management mostly involves converting raw materials and labor into goods and services to efficiently maximize profits. Below are the key approaches to operations management and the role that leaders and managers play; Six sigma approach Six sigma is a management idea that is focused on business improvements process to eliminate waste, rework and mistakes while increasing profitability, competitiveness and customer satisfaction. It is a quality management program that was developed by Bill Smith,” the father of six sigma” while he was working with Motorola. There are two six sigma methods; DMADV (define, measure, analyse, design and verify) and DMAIC (define, measure, analyse, improve and control). the role of a leader in this operations management approach will be to design and Define goals that are consistence with the customer demands and the enterprise strategy, then Measure and categorize the characteristics that are critical to quality, measure the product ability, production process potential and the risks involved in the process. It is also the role of a leader to Analyse, develop and Design alternatives, create a top-level design and evaluate design capability, to Verify and select the best design (Basu, 2011). The role of a manager in six sigma will be to define the customer and which type of product and how the company will benefit, collect the baseline data to Measure and determine where the production process stands compared to where it should be. Analyse the amount of improvement that is necessary to make the critical to quality characteristics the best in the industry. Implement suggestions to Improve this phase and to test possible solutions to the process problem, collect data from all possible solution, test them and run a cost benefit analysis of implementing the solution, then choose the best solution and take Control to create a plan for implementing the solution (Larson, 2003). Value chain approach The value chain approach was founded by Michael Porter in the book “Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance”. The perception of value added, in the form of the value chain, can be used to expand an organization in the business world of the 21st century. All organizations consist of activities that join to grow the value of the business, these activities form the organization’s value chain. These activities can include purchasing, products manufacturing, distribution and marketing of the organization’s products (Lynch, 2003). the role of leader in this operations management approach will be innovate and develop the production activities to maximize the value of the business while the role of a manager will be to administer and control these activities to grow the organization’s value chain. b. Explain the importance and value of operations management in achieving business objectives Operations management is an essential part of any organization. it plays a very vital role in the achievement of business goals and objectives. It mainly involves the process of manufacturing and production of goods or services, the manufacturing process is the most important and challenging field of operations because it is the key determining factor of the organization’s success or failure. Galloway, stated that "operations management is concerned mainly with manufacturing or the change of physical state of the goods". Any operations management involves similar management responsibilities regardless of how organization or business operates. Operations management involves Controlling, Directing, Motivating Planning, Staffing, and Organizing. Irrespective of business, the operations management varies across the organization as part of deliberate operations (Voss et al., 2002). 2 Sisters Food Group can the perfect example to explain why Operations Management is important to all types of business, whether at the production or manufacturing sector the organization aims to reduce the waste, increase productivity, time and resources management to make sure that there is low cost of production. at the stores the organization plan to ensure that the storage warehouse is used properly, sales team need to create product awareness to the customers and ensure the product are delivered to the market at a low shifting cost, this shows that there always will be set of operations irrespective of what field of work or type business you are in and at the end of the day successful businesses will be defined by the effectiveness of their operations management (Basu, 20011). c. Assess the factors within the business environment that impact upon operational management and decision making by the leaders and managers Improper planning operational planning concerns three aspects of an organization's work: how work should be done, who will the employee perform the work and what resources are required to complete work in each business field, this is according to the book "Business Principles and Management," Managers are not alone in making operational decisions, they get help from leaders and employees with technical expertise in specific tasks and so if there is no proper planning on how things should be done within an organization then it becomes hard for the leaders and managers to decisions. Lack of management Commitment If the entire management team does not have common goals and is not committed towards achieving the organization’s goals and vision, then this will affect every other field of business within that particular organization. For example, if 2 Sisters Food Group manager is not fully committed to achieved the company’s goals it then becomes hard for the leaders to make any decision, because operational management requires joint efforts from both leaders and managers (Sallis, 2014). Incompatible organizational structure Operation management is a very crucial part that will determine the fate of an organization in the business world. All the structures of an organization need to speak same language and have common goals to achieve its goals and business objectives, this makes decision making a lot easier for both leaders and managers. d. Evaluate how leaders and managers can improve efficiencies of operational management to successfully meet the business objectives Quality Oriented Management The mission and vision of an organization should be such that they balance the needs of both company and customers. Leaders and managers should inspire and encourage the whole work force to improve the efficiency of operational management. They also must be role model in moral behavior, communication and in coaching. That there should be open communication with both customer and employees. Focus on customer Customers are considering as the most essential feature of any business within an organization, Consumers buy products and if they are satisfied will purchased more; in turn the organization will be more profitable and competitive in the market. Thus, an organization’s leaders and managers must define all the process and functions with the customer point of view, and create good customer relations. Involving entire work force The work force should be considered as the internal customer and so the leaders and manager should make sure they are satisfying with their basic needs which will include: Communicating centers, safety, and Job security. If the employees are satisfied with their work environment they get motivated to increase their work capability thus improving efficiency, a satisfied employee will work their best for the achievement of organization goals. Another way to involve the employees is by empowering them, employee empowerment basically is the individual obligation for decision making on organization behalf, allowing the employee to make decisions shows how much you trust in them and this will motivate them (Sallis, 2014). e. Analyse how different factors in (c) affect the business environment and wider community . For an organization to successes in business there should good operational management in other words the organization needs to have total quality management(TQM). total quality management can be defined as ideas and set of guiding principles that represent the foundation of a constant improving organization. It is the application of quantitative methods & human resources to improve all the processes within an organization and customers. Improper planning The most important part of operations management is operational planning. If the operation and manufacturing processes are not well planned then the organization will be likely to fail. Proper planning will build a solid foundation for the business. Operational planning concerns three aspects of an organization's work: how work should be done, who will the employee perform the work and what resources are required to complete work in each business field. (Cook, 2008). Lack of management Commitment Let’s say if 2 Sisters Food group managers are not fully committed to achieve the organization’s goals it then becomes hard for the leaders to make any decision, because operational management requires joint efforts from both leaders and managers. Commitment will yield positive results if both leaders and managers are dedicated to achieve the mission and vision of the organization Incompatible organizational structure If the management team and the employees do not have common goals and they not committed towards achieving the organization’s goals and vision, then this will affect every other field of business within that organization. Operation management is a very crucial part that will determine the fate of an organization in the business world. All the structures of an organization need to speak same language and have common goals to achieve its goals and business objectives, this makes decision making a lot easier for both leaders and managers. f. Critically evaluate application of operations management and functions that impact on the wider business environment for your organization. Total Quality Management In 2 Sisters Food Group the managers and leaders make sure they provide total quality management that will inspire and motivate employees. This has increased their efficiency and helped the organization to be competitive in the food industry (Sallis, 2014).whenever employee are trusted and encouraged to do more they feel inspired and this will increase their work force and create business friendly environment that will impact of profits. Operations management is the key to succeed in business. Constant operations improvement Constant operations improvement means taking perfection in all organization functions and processes. There are several ways through we make improvement within our business environment in 2 Sisters Food Group: discontent with current level of performance, eradicating waste when it occurs through rework and adopting with the customer needs. Consumers buy products and if they are satisfied will purchased more; in turn the organization will be more profitable and competitive in the market. Thus, an organization’s leaders and managers must define all the process and functions with the customer point of view, and create good customer relations (Cook, 2008). Conclusion the study concludes that for the organization to succeed in business it requires good and competent leadership, 2 Sisters Food Group has invested a lot to ensure its has the best leadership that will make sure all operations within the organization run smooth and the organization attains top level efficiency to maintain and attract new customers while maximizing its profits margin Bibliography Basu, R. (2011) Fit SIGMA: A Lean Approach to building sustainable quality beyond Six SIGMA. Chichester, United Kingdom: Wiley. Bennis, W. (2009) On becoming a leader. 20th edn. New York: Basic Books. Chemers, M. (2014) An integrative theory of leadership. 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