Introduction
The
objective of this report is to identify a key operations management issue in
not for profit organisation in Melbourne Victoria by the name ‘Eastern
Volunteers’. The report identifies the current issues which the not for profit
organisation is facing and provides recommendations to bring upon a change in
the same by the virtue of recommendations that are included in the report.
The
report begins with a brief background information of the not for profit
organisation and then moves on to discuss the internal environment of the not
for profit organisation. Further, the concepts of the operations management has
been applied to gain a deeper understanding of the specific issues which the
not for profit organisation is facing in the contemporary times. The last parts
of the report provide a set of recommendations which can be used by the
organisation to overcome the identified shortcoming. The report ends with a
brief conclusion that ties the contents of the report together (Berry 1992).
Background
Information of the Company
Eastern
Volunteers was originally incorporate in the year 1976 under the name
Volunteers unlimited. There primary objective is to provide transportation
services to the old aged, needy and disabled people especially in those areas
where public transport is relatively weaker. These parts include the outer
suburbs of Melbourne and other areas.
Specific
Operational Issue
The
main operations issue that the not for profit organisation “Eastern Volunteers”
is facing relates to creation of a schedule that allows them to ferry more service
users per trip. This is more significant because the organisation is limited by
funds and also the number of volunteers, drivers and vehicles are fixed and
hence a judicious use of the resources is desirable. Although, the organisation
deals in providing a number of other activities as well, this report only
discusses the transport service and the related issues for the purpose of
simplicity (Whitford 1998).
Flow
Chart of the Operations of the Organisation
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Opportunities to change the current operations
in the organisation
The
opportunity for eastern volunteers lies in ensuring that there is a better
mechanism of fulfilling the service request. One of the possible measures is to
use dedicated software which would automatically detect the best possible route
and timings given the service request of a particular day. On the contrary, an
organisation like Eastern Volunteers will have to carefully work out the cost
structure to use dedicated software like that. The current situation demands a
manual schedule which provides them almost the same benefit which the expensive
dedicated software would provide (Grönroos 2001).
Resources
to be utilised for improving the current operations
Eastern
Volunteers need a dedicated volunteer who would be carefully planning the
service requests for transportation for the users on a daily basis. As stated
above, the organisation would ultimately like to move to use a state of the art
technological tool to serve this purpose. However, given the financial
constraints, the company would not be able to afford such a tool, but they
would certainly like to make use of that in the future.
Technology
and Human Resource Issues
The
section above denotes the need of the human resource and the technology. Both
the types of resources are desirable for the not for profit organisation.
However, the plan of action would to start with the manual system first to
overcome the identified shortcoming and then move on to the technology phase at
a later stage (Varey 1995).
Application of the Operations Management Issue
The above identified issue is applied to the five main
performance objectives of operations management:
Performance
objective of operations management
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Speed:
|
The resolution to the above identified issue would
increase the level of efficiency of Eastern Volunteer services and will also
reduce the time per request. Hence, performance is likely to be improved by a
proper resolution is achieved.
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Flexibility:
|
The issue discussed above involves a great degree of
flexibility as the plans of the service users can never be anticipated or
planned. The management would always have to be pro active to be able to
manage adequately.
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Dependability:
|
The trust of the service users is directly
contingent upon the quality of the service they receive. Hence, the service
users are depending upon Eastern Volunteers in order to avail their
respective services.
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Quality:
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It has to be ensured that in
order to save on two trips, the quality of the service experience is not
affected. The volunteer drivers must not show assigns of panic that they are
in a hurry to take the other service user as well from another location.
Thus, everything should be planned in a comprehensive manner and in the case
of a service user not agreeing to share the vehicle; it should not be forced
upon him or her.
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Costs:
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The primary objective of
providing a resolution to this issue is the fact that it will result in
saving extra costs involved for the organisation. Hence, it is directly
related to improving the performance of the organisation (Eastern Volunteers
2013)
|
Changes to performance and outcome
The
changes would be to make aware the service that they are encouraged to book a
service request at least two to three days in advance so that the management
and operations team are in a much better position to plan the trip and the
visit properly. Also, the change would include ensuring that no close service
requests are left unattended by the management and the operations team. Also,
as ‘Eastern Volunteers’ grow, there would be a required change to increase the
number of volunteers, volunteer drivers and the number of vehicles as that
would be the need of the hour (McQuire 1999).
Recommended improvements
The
number of service requests made in the last six months would be analysed to
judge the number of service requests in the coming days. Although, the accurate
number of service requests cannot be known, the analysis of the last six months
can provide a fair idea. Also, a dedicated professional is desired by ‘Eastern
Volunteers’ who would essentially look after managing the service requests of
the upcoming latest requests of the new service users.
Cost
Structure
The
current costs involved for ‘Eastern Volunteers’ pertaining only to the
transport services accumulates to monthly expenditure of 2000 AUD. This
structure does not have any provision for adjusting for two service request at
the same time as is proposed in the current report. Although, it would
difficult to estimate by how much the same can be reduced. The organisation
would like to target spending 1400 AUD monthly. That would result in savings of
7200 AUD annually which the organisation can use in other marketing endeavours
and promotion of the organisation (Eastern Volunteers 2013).
Recommendations
A
number of changes are recommended in this report which can be utilised by the
management and operations team both to improve the service quality offering of
the organisation and also to address the specific issue at hand which is
highlighted in the report.
Ø
Covering
two service requests at the cost of one, especially those request which lie in
close proximities.
Ø
Hiring
or using the service of a dedicated professional who would only be responsible
for managing the service requests by using a dedicated city map on a daily
basis (Greene
1994).
Ø
Using
the manual system initially and then using a modernised technological method to
address the issue at hand.
Conclusion
This
report highlights the importance of effectively addressing and dealing with a
operations management issue confronting an organisation. The concepts that has
been applied are specifically related to the not for profit organisation
‘Eastern Volunteers’. It has been learnt by the virtue of this report that an
organisation needs to be highly proactive while anticipating the concerns which
the company might face. There is also a need to assess carefully the identified
shortcoming so that the efficiency of the organisation can be improved in an
overall manner.
References
Berry, LL & Parasuraman, A 1992,
‘Services marketing starts from within’, Marketing Management, Winter,
pp. 25–34.
Eastern Volunteers 2013 , ‘Welcome to
Eastern Volunteers’, About Us, Eastern
volunteers retrieved from http://www.easternvolunteers.org.au/about/
Accessed 10th Dec 2013.
Greene, WE, Walls, GD & Schrest, LJ 1994,
‘Internal marketing: The key to external marketing success’, Journal of
Services Marketing, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 5–13.
Grönroos, C 2001, ‘Managing internal marketing: A
prerequisite for successfully managing customer relationships’, in Service
Management and Marketing: A Customer Relationship Management Approach, 2nd
edn, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, pp. 330–55.
McQuire, L 1999, Australian services marketing
and management, Macmillan Education Australia, Melbourne.
Varey, RJ 1995, ‘Internal marketing: A review and
some interdisciplinary research challenges’, International Journal of
Service Industry Management, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 40–63.
Whitford, B 1998, Customer Service Excellence:
How Organisations in Australia Are Exceeding Customer Expectations,
Beaumont Publishing House, Subiaco, WA.
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