Management Essay Example: Operation Consulting, Product and Service Design

Operations consulting which also known as operational management is primarily the provision of advisory services and coming up with projects and strategies with the overall goal of improving efficiency and tackling productivity-based issues within an organization. Engaging these services with its specific disciplines often leads to an increment in active client operations.

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The tools required by an operational consultant to come up with a viable solution are in abundance. These tools generally consist of; cost reduction strategies, identifying opportunities for improvement, understanding the process, risk management, potential risks and problem examination.

What is vital in the use of these tools of operation management is the comprehension of the inner workings of the business or organization. Therefore, with the detailed knowledge of the operation, identifying the liability would be more comfortable and the effect of the proposed solution can be predicted.

The design of products and services is key to the growth of a business, and though necessary, it does come with a lot of risks. Due to these risks, market research is warranted to establish the actual needs and wants of the consumer. This can be accomplished by receiving feedback from customers. Knowledge of the competitor's product is valuable as some of its features could help improve your product and even make it superior.

Looking into new ideas to innovate the product is an essential practice with the help of research it could be fundamental in predicting the potential demand for the innovated product and with analysis of the cost of producing an educated prediction of the potential revenue can be formed.

After vetting of ideas and adequate research then a business can proceed toward the production and technical aspect of the product development. Product designers start by developing a prototype that will be used for consumer evaluation. The feedback would be valuable, and modifications could be made to improve potential revenue. The prototype can be utilized further by testing it in a region that represents the market. This will also enable the business to evaluate its possible triumph of the product.

Service design emphasizes the organization of resources such as labor, infrastructure for them to be useful in the improvement of service quality. The process of service design begins with the identification of the required actor involved in the provision of the service. Analysis of the best criteria to choose the actors is undertaken with the appropriate tools.

Possible service scenarios are simulated to establish the appropriate sequence of actions the actor is required to take to achieve the objectives of the service and describe the organizational structure of the service. The general time taken for the service and interaction between actors is also analyzed from the logistical perspective.

Product and service design is an evolving field as designers find innovative ways to overcome the challenges. One of these challenges is the speed of the process. There numerous ways in which the design process to be slowed down. It's common for a design to be stuck in a loop in which it is constantly undergoing revision. Another challenge comes from the complexity of the product or service. It is possible for the outcome to be too complicated for the consumer. When it comes to consumer response incisive questions are necessary as people from outside the design process may give a lot of irrelevant feedback. An idea may prove viable through the process but may still be unsustainable from an economic or environmental perspective.

There are significant differences between product design and service design, one of them is the objective, while product design measures their output the service design concentrate on the outcome. The product designers control quality using data while service designers describe condition by experience.

Reference

Operations Consulting And How Can Your Firm Benefit. (2018). Retrieved from http://www.operationsmanager.com/how-much-operations-managers-make/operations-consulting-can-firm-benefit/

What is Product Design?. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.strate.education/gallery/news/product-design-definitionStevenson, W. J., Hojati, M., & Cao, J. (2007). Operations management (Vol. 8). Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Voss, C. (2010). Case research in operations management. Researching operations management (pp. 176-209). Routledge.

Flynn, B. B., Sakakibara, S., Schroeder, R. G., Bates, K. A., & Flynn, E. J. (1990). Empirical research methods in operations management. Journal of operations management, 9(2), 250-284.