Jaguar Operations Management

Quality is not expensive, it is priceless

Quality for Jaguar

Brief Description of Jaguar
Jaguar is a luxury brand for vehicle founded in 1922 and owned by Jaguar Land Rover since

Their values consist of Integrity, Understanding, Excellence, Unity and Responsibility. By excellence, it means, that Jaguar aims for their highest quality in their cars. (Jaguar, 2016)

Quality Definition
Quality is significant to all businesses. It can be defined as satisfying the needs of customers. Quality is to achieve the minimum requirement of a product based on a specific performance standard. Toyota and Mercedes are both quality cars, however, Toyota have specific standards to meet and Mercedes have different specific standard to meet. And once those standards are met then the products are considered to be quality cars. (Sondalini, M, 2018)

Quality for Jaguar
Grant McPherson, the Director of Operations of the company said that “Jaguar has always stood for engineering excellence and beautiful design”. They follow strict specifications and for them quality is defined as the ability to achieve that specification each time. They build luxury car and they want to exceed customers expectation and for that attention to detail is crucial. (Jaguar, 2018) Quality is an influential factor for Jaguar as they are building premium car and the slightest error will make the customers to doubt the quality of their products, moreover, for the price these cars are being paid, quality is significant.

End-to-End Quality
From the start of the manufacturing of the car to final assembly to a luxury car, there is a long journey of precision and quality checks. And if it happens that if a car is not perfect, then it will be remedied and double checked till it meets its specific engineering design standards. (Jaguar, 2018)

Impact of Changes in the Operation Practice of Jaguar’s Quality

Changes in the Operation Practice of Jaguar

The following changes which Jaguar made in its operations practice in 1990 when the company was acquired by Ford are as follows:
 A huge investment in training, especially, in quality technique
 Abolishment of piecework and clock in
 Introduction of productivity bonus and flexible working hours
 Shop floors initiated multi skilled team, total productive maintenance, continuous improvement team and benchmarking against competitors

Impact on the Quality of Jaguar Products
These changes made by Ford in 1990 had has a lot of beneficial impact for the company as Jaguar’s image and reputation has put Jaguar in a low position during a survey.

The huge investment in training can helps in improving the skills of the current labour in the company so that they are able to be more productive and make good decisions. The second part of the training process also includes training quality techniques, for instance, statistical process control. This also helps in a better control of all the operations in the company. A company that invests in technological processes can have a competitive advantage in the industry. (McCandless, K, 2015)

Piecework is when employees are paid according to the output produced. And the benefit of abolishing piecework is that this will make employees focus more on quality rather than in quantity as their salary will not be depending on output produced. (LaMarco, N, 2018) And clock in means to keep a record of employee’s attendance and time. The merits of abolishing the clock in systems is that it builds a relation of trust among employers and employees. With the clocking system, an employee might be on time however quality can be lacking. Thus, this abolishment
can make employees focus more on quality rather than on arriving at a specific time.
(Gartenstein, D, 2018)

The productivity bonus is a strategy that employers used so as to improve performance of employees and quality also. This will give employees an incentive to achieve quality standard. (Ashworth Black, 2016) Furthermore, the introduction of flexible hours can lead to a higher productivity of employees. It is easier to focus on performance and quality when you are not stressed with strict office hours. In addition, if you are not a morning person, you will be performing better in the afternoon, thus more productivity level. (Landrum, S, 2018)

And lastly, multi skilled team is a good idea of working as the team will composed of many different skills and experience making it easier for a team to achieve and objective. And the fact of continuously improving the team is another step towards quality achievement. Moreover, the benchmarking towards competitors will help Jaguar to know its position in the industry and know about its competitor’s products and quality specifications so as to be able to do better.

Operations and Performance Objectives for Jaguar

Definition of Operation Management

Operation management is about planning, organization and supervision of an organization concerning producing and manufacturing products. (Rheeder, K, 2018)

Importance of Operation Management for Jaguar
Operation management is important for Jaguar as it controls the core activities of the company. Operational management main role is to transform inputs such as aluminium sheets into output, luxury car. It is therefore important that these processes are well respected so as to achieved the desired output. Furthermore, operational management objectives are the sectors of the operational performance in which a company try to achieve better so as to attain the corporate strategy. They are the performance objectives which are cascaded down into five areas. (LaMarco, N, 2018)

Definition of Operational Performance Objectives
Operational performance objectives allow a company to measure its performance in its operations. It also helps the company to achieve its corporate objectives by improving the five areas of the operation performance. The five main operational performance objectives are as follows: (LaMarco, N, 2018)

Five Elements of Performance Objectives
 Speed
 Quality
 Costs
 Flexibility
 Dependability

Performance Objectives and Jaguar Operations

Quality
From a customer point of view, the features for a quality product include reliability, durability, its performance and its intended functions. For Jaguar, quality for its operation means to deliver its products conforms to its specifications. That is, when customers are using these products, they need to be satisfied. (LaMarco, N, 2018)

Speed
Speed means the amount of time to complete a specific task in the expected period of time. Speed is important for Jaguar as if the productivity rate of the company is quick that is they will be able to more cars and sell more, leading to more sales. And also, if they take less time in their research and development they will be able to deliver new models of cars quickly on the market. (LaMarco, N, 2018)

Flexibility
Flexibility is their ability to adapt and adjust to changes in the industry, to expectations of their customers or to new standards. If Jaguar is able to quickly deal with new request and new requirement then they will be able to keep customers satisfied and have a competitive edge on their competitors. (LaMarco, N, 2018)

Cost
Cost is to be able to produce cars within the required budget so as to achieve the expected profits. If Jaguar spend more on its operational cost due to defects, then this increased its operational costs and lower profits. (LaMarco, N, 2018)

Dependability
And finally, dependability means how dependable Jaguar is when it comes to the delivery of its cars to its customers according to its prices and initial budget. It also includes the ability of the car to function in the desired way and over the right period of time. (LaMarco, N, 2018)

Quality and Jaguar Operations

From my point of view, quality is the most important aspect of the five performance operational objectives. Jaguar has already a targeted market, it is high income earners, people with the means to buy luxury car, therefore reducing the cost of this product will make little difference for their targeted market. Even rising the price, will make no big difference towards Jaguar.

Quality is fundamental as the customers of Jaguar want value for money, they are paying for that brand name and they expect quality good that will be used for the required period of time and will all its functions fully operational. Even though, Jaguar is producing a high number of cars, if the quality is not good, people will not buy. They will prefer competitor’s product.

As for flexibility, if Jaguar is able to quickly adapt to the changes of their customers however are lacking in terms of quality level, they will lose customers. And for dependability means that the cars have to be delivered so as to be able to function in the desired way. And desired means an achievement in the quality standard.

The main two aims of any business are to reduce cost of production and maximise profit. And the best way to achieve both is through quality as quality is the best way to reduce cost and attract customers but also retain them. “Quality is not expensive, it is priceless.”