S W O T STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES . Things your company does well . Things your company lacks · Qualities that separate you from your competitors . Internal resources such as skilled, knowledgeable staff · Tangible assets such as intellectual property, capital, proprietary technologies etc. Things your competitors do better than you . Resource limitations · Unclear unique selling proposition Types of production 1) Batch 2) Flow 3) Job Job production OPPORTUNITIES Underserved markets for specific products Few competitors in your area · Emerging need for your products or services · Press/media coverage of your company THREATS Emerging competitors Changing regulatory environment Negative press/ media coverage · Changing customer attitudes toward your company WordStream Job production occurs when a business produces products that meet the specific requirements of the customer. Each time a new product is made, changes may need to be made to the production process. Some examples of job production may include made-to-measure clothes, handmade crafts and bridges.
Some advantages of job production: · The business may be able to charge a higher price for the product · Products are likely to be high quality · The variety of work may mean employees are less likely to become bored and demotivated at work Some disadvantages of job production: · Expensive to produce as each product is different · Employees need to be skilled and may require training Flow production Flow production occurs when a business makes large numbers of identical products on a continuous production line. Some of examples of flow production include chocolate bars, televisions and bottled drinks. Advantages of flow production: · the business is able to produce large volumes of products · employees can specialise in a small number of tasks. This is also known as division of labour · producing in large quantities reduces the cost per unit Disadvantages of flow production: · High initial costs of machinery to set up the business · A lack of flexibility, as all products need to be identical or fairly similar · Employees may become bored or demotivated due to their limited range of tasks
· Large investment into things like expensive machinery leads to increased risks Batch production · Batch production involves making a set quantity of identical products. This quantity is known as a 'batch'. The batch size could be ten, 10,000 or a million identical products. An example would be a bakery making a batch of 100 white bread rolls and then making a batch of 50 wholemeal bread rolls. Advantages · Able to make a variety of sizes or flavours · Can be partially automated · Can produce more products than job production Disadvantages . Not as flexible regarding customers' tastes as job production . As batch production is not fully automated, costs may be higher than in flow production The purpose of business operations The term business operations refer to the part of the business that provides customers with the goods or services that they ordered. Operations is responsible for taking resources -