Tourism is a huge and dynamic industry that’s comprised of a huge variety of service businesses that reflect the very same dynamics and priorities that a manufacturer would need for operations planning (OP) and supply chain management (SCM). 1 such service business is the cruise ship sector where vacationers travel via these kinds of vessels to several destinations.
While producers create tangible products and wastes, service companies also create waste, but their products are intangible. For example, the product a personal trainer might produce is a healthier customer. Operations Managers (OM) in both industries share similar interests in removing waste and delivering quality solutions.
Both primary intangible products that the vacationer (end-user) buys, along with a cruise ship company”manufactures” and delivers, are relaxation and pleasure - the entire experience that enables visitors to”suspend” their regular reality for a period of time and immerse themselves in gratifying experiences. The mission of this cruise ship industry is to deliver this expertise to them in a manner that surpasses their customers’ expectations, and it depends a whole lot on the production sector to make this potential.
Comparable Dynamics and Priorities in Manufacturing and Service
The motion and connection of goods and services in the point of source, or the source, to the end-user is known as”the supply chain”. Supply Chain Management is a part of the Operations Management that involves the successful management of Several inter-firm processes such as:
Supplier/Vendor relationship management
Order Processing
Information Systems management
Sourcing and Procurement
Manufacturing Scheduling
Inventory Management
Warehousing and Supply
Customer Services
Environmentally sustainable practices
Just as in the production business, in the cruise ship sector it takes the coordination of a variety of resources - financial, material, and human - working together to manage these processes to attain organizational goals.
Operations Management involves the management of all the activities that produce an output (a product). In operations management, plenty of processes must be managed to produce and distribute products and services. Policies must be devised; daily operations must be handled, and so must the use of human and material resources. OM also needs the effective utilization of technology and communications methods to permit for timely delivery and ordering of materials and products, as well as the servicing of customers and stakeholders.
Policies in both the service and manufacturing industry sectors might include social and environmental impact factors such as the use of resources and the disposal of wastes. Spiritual, cultural, political, and legal issues like human rights, use of child labor, wage and hours; human resource impact issues like age, gender, and other types of discrimination also has to be considered.
In a production scenario, these concerns would affect the merchandise and services that the cruise industry might use. A number of these goods include foods, linens, toiletries, furnishings, packaging, electronic equipment, gas, etc… Each of these products is the outputs of a manufacturing process a cruise ship may use and each one of these products impact the environment from the origin to the end-user.
Organizations in both industries need to develop a sustainability mind-set and identify where waste being generated in their businesses and as well as their supply chains; why and when, in what stage it is being produced.
Therefore, by way of instance, the OM of a cruise line that is socially and environmentally aware, and who wants to boost their SCM and incorporate a closed-loop method of operation inside her business, might be considerate of those inputs that a manufacturing company utilizes in its production process and in the procedures that it uses to convert the raw materials into products; the timely deliverance of those products; the quality of consumer service after the product is delivered, and the effect that disposal of these products has on the environment.
Similarly, manufacturing companies (whose products the cruise lines use) also wishing to perform the identical might, in turn, be considerate of those inputs that their suppliers utilize in their surgeries. As stated before, these inputs include - but are not limited to - various impact considerations previously mentioned.
This backward perspective of this distribution chain connects the end-user of the help of the cruise boat to the start of the supply chain - which includes all the firms which, working backward, might compose the series to the origin. A source may be cotton growers and the policies that they have set up which may affect the methods that they use to grow, harvest, and provide the converters of their cotton.
Questions that Operations Managers might ask, for example, are:
· Ate the cotton growers using dangerous, soil polluting compounds in growing the cotton?
· Is child labor used in harvesting?
· Are operating conditions safe, and are wage and hours legal and honest?
· Are substances being delivered on time - and if not, what are the motives that are preventing this?
These questions affect the management of their supply chain and organizations may lose or gain a competitive edge if they don’t consider such questions because, in the event of a cruise boat, for instance, an enlightened vacationer might hardly be amazed that the soft cotton sheets which she uses to the cruise line were produced from cotton chosen by children who reside in slums and who earn mere pennies every day for back-breaking labor - and therefore are denied an education due to these bad labor practices.
These types of concerns and decisions confronted by a cruise line Operations Manager will affect her or his own company’s financial bottom line and will also affect the operations control of their down-line suppliers, as it also would in manufacturing. An individual can easily see that the considerations and activities of Operations Managers in support industries easily affect supply chain management in their organizations.
Maintaining a Competitive Advantage
Today’s customers are more sophisticated and aware of the global impact that their actions have on the environment and several consumers already take actions to reduce their own”carbon footprint”, which is the contribution to the environmental effect of human beings as well as their activities upon Earth.
For example, the more squander one leaf in the daily activities, the larger one’s carbon footprint. This notion has been capsulized in the term” going green”. Consumers aren’t merely changing their own habits to minimize waste and thus reduce their carbon footprints, but they’re also holding corporations responsible for their impacts on the environment. This has placed pressure on many corporations to go green by embracing more environmentally friendly processes in their operations.
Cruise ships are like floating cities that may generate up to”. . .30,000 gallons of sewer, 250,000 gallons of the kitchen, laundry and bath wastewater and 10 tons of garbage each day”. Effectively managing the inputs that create this amount of waste begins with the successful management of the distribution chain. Successful control of the supply chain starts with successful operations management.
Socially and environmentally-conscious organizations that create a vision and a mission articulating a definite objective to take responsibility for ensuring the sustainability of all inputs which go into their products will have a competitive edge over those who don’t. Therefore a cruise line, for instance, that establishes that a culture of”world-class supply chain management” into its operational processes can obtain a substantial competitive edge over its competitors because”supply management directly impacts the two factors which control the bottom line: total expenses and earnings”[2] (Burt, Dobler, Starling. 2003, p. 10). For more details, check this site and this union in Edmonton about Alberta warehousing union.
For instance, a cruise ship line that’s an early entrant into World Class Supply Management practices will most likely emerge as a pioneer in the clinic and, as such, will stand to maintain”40 -60 percent of this marketplace after competition enters the image” (p. 11). The standard of its offerings will also improve since it utilizes the renewable products produced by producers. Since quality usually commands premium costs, this might help companies gain market share. Nowadays, a more informed and enlightened public needs high-quality goods and thus supports organizations that deliver quality.
