A case study on Burberry and Waterside Inn

Introduction

Lean management is the approach of managing the organisations with the support of the organisational resources and capabilities, where the brands try to improve their activities and operations (Hamja, Maalouf and Hasle, 2019). It is a long term approach of managing the organisational operational activities in the market where the firms can improve their contribution and performance over the period of time through continuous improvement strategies. There are several principles of lean management such as eliminating the waste, building the quality of the organisations, creating knowledge, deferring commitment, delivering fast services, optimising the whole process and respecting the people engaged with the organisational activities. The study aims at managing the lean management principles of the organisations one is restaurant and another is clothing manufacturing company operating in the market, where the firms face difficulties to manage their waste and it further deteriorates the quality of their operations. Hence, it is important to analyse the wastes that have been exposed in the organisations and develop appropriate tactics through which it is possible for the brand to minimise the wastage and run the business successfully.

Organisational background

Burberry is the British luxury fashion house situated in London, England. It designs the creative and fashionable leather goods, clothing and accessories and footwear for the customers. The fragrances and cosmetics are also other product ranges of the company (Burberry, 2020a). It is mainly the manufacturer of the creative and fashionable clothing products for the customers. The organisation is also efficient to manage their operations across the globe and it gains high competitive advantage in the international markets. The revenue of the company in 2020 is £2.63 million where the customers are satisfied with the company’s operations and the products quality. On the other hand, the restaurant is also renowned restaurant in the UK, established in the year of 1985. Superlative skills of the chef, interior decoration of the restaurant, as well as the multinational cuisine further attract the customers to enjoy their leisure time in the restaurant. The Waterside Inn is also efficient to handle private dinners, arranging wedding at the premises and helping the customers to be comfortable and enjoy their dinner time successfully. The quality services and the efficient skill of the chef and the staff members attract the audiences in the market and these are the major success factors of The Waterside Inn., to manage their position and gain competitive advantage in the market (Waterside Inn, 2020a).

Identifying different types of waste in the organisations

One of the most critical principles of lean manufacturing is to eliminate the wastage so that the organisational values and quality of the operations can be improved further. It is hereby necessary to identify the wastes of the organisation Burberry to acknowledge the system and operational activities further (Hamja, Maalouf and Hasle, 2019). The major wastes of the clothing company are such as over production, waste of unnecessary motion, waste of inventory, production of defects, and waste of waiting, waste of transportation and waste of over production. These are the major wastes which are mandatory to be eliminated from the organisational production and operations so that Burberry can lead their operations in a systematic and smooth way to achieve the future brand vision.

Figure 1: Types of waste in Burberry

The above mentioned wastes are necessary to be determined for the clothing manufacturing company so that the firm can improve their operations and manage the quality in long run. Over production is one of the wastes of Burberry where the firm cannot control their production units and over production and it leads to waste. This further increases the waste of inventory, where over production leads to wastage of the clothing materials (Abreu, Alves and Moreira, 2017). There is extra burden and cost for the over production at the organisation and it is major waste for Burberry. The economy of scale is also being hampered for such issue of over production, where extra cost may reduce the organisational profitability and deteriorate the efficiency of the reduction and operations. On the other hand, the waste of unnecessary motion and the production defects are also serious issue for the clothing company Burberry in running their production units for the clothing products (Burberry, 2020a).

In this regard, the issue of production defects may increase the time and reduce the quality of the products in the production unit. This further raises issues for Burberry to manage their production and operations in running their business in future. On the other hand, waste of waiting and production defects also deteriorate the efficiency and productivity of the staff and this is also another major issues for the clothing manufacturing company (Chisosa and Chipambwa, 2018). The clothing manufacturers face the issues of waste of transportation and over production and these are also serious waste for the company to run their business activities. In the production, over production leads to waste and the transportation also exposes wastes. Transportation process increases the issue of carbon emission and it further leads to negative environmental footprint in the society. Hence, the company Burberry must focus on managing wastes in the production and operations in order to enhance the quality of the organisations and run the business sustainably in near future. During the production and operations, the above mentioned wastes are there for which the firm cannot maximise their values in the society and it further leads to deterioration of the organisational profitability and hamper brand image.

Figure 2: Types of waste in Waterside Inn

On the other hand, the major waste in the restaurants is such as defects, waiting, transportation, over production, over processing, stock and non-used talent. The major waste in the restaurant Waterside Inn is waiting where the customers are waiting in the restaurant for their orders. If there is lack of management of the processing and serving, the waiting time is not synchronised and it leads to time taken activities to deliver high quality services. The major reasons of this waste of waiting are such as poor manpower in the restaurant, long changeovers, poor batch completion management, transfer between the operations and time required for performing efficiently (Orynycz, Tucki and Prystasz, 2020). On the other hand, the over processing is also another major waste of the restaurant and it is caused by unclear specifications and lack of quality of standard as well as the lack of best technique for which there is lack of efficacy in managing the production units of the restaurant. Moreover, stock management is one of the effective operations of the restaurant so that the food items can be stored effectively with safety and security, however, the restaurant face difficulties to manage the stock of the food items and it leads to waste. In this context, over production is also another issue, for which food wastage is the main issue in the society (Crespo Guillermo, 2018). The restaurants cannot manage their optimum production level and this elands to wastage of food. Another waste of defects which are caused by diverse ways to provide services to the customers, mismatch between the customer’s expectations and the service quality provided by the restaurant, incapable suppliers and staff members, frequent errors in the operational activities, damages due to excessive handling, skill shortage and inadequate training. Hence, there are different wastes which are necessary to be determined and it would be beneficial for Waterside Inn to manage the wastes by implementing latest tools and techniques of lean management (Waterside Inn, 2020a).

Lean management strategies to reduce waste

Lean management strategy for Burberry:

It is mandatory for the firm to manage their waste through implementing the best lean management tools and techniques and in this regard there are several strategies through which Burberry can reduce their waste and improve the quality of their production and operations. For the brand Burberry, JIT or Just in Time is the one of the major tool of lean management where the company can reduce their operational wastes. The apparel manufacture like Burberry face intense competition in the global market and it is mandatory for them to manage their lean principles and improve their quality of operations further. The major benefits of lean management on the firm Burberry are such as maximisation of the quality, improving the quality of the products and services as well as increasing productivity in the production unit of the firm. It also reduces the inventory waste, lead time and eliminates the manufacturing waste successfully. Lean management is a systematic process where Burberry can focus on the strategic planning to improve their quality of operations and production in long run and for developing quality products in Burberry, there are contributions of human effort, production unit and machineries, investment tool and engineering techniques (Burberry, 2020a).

Figure 3: JIT at Burberry

JIT is one of the effective ways for Burberry to manage their production and operation and eliminate the identified waste in the firm. It is the management strategy for aligning the raw, materials from the suppliers with the production schedule for manufacturing the quality products, in this regard, and the organisation Burberry can reduce the waste through implementing the tool of JIT (Maia, Alves and Leão, 2019). The company can ensure continuous improvement among the staff members so that skilled workforce can contribute positively for managing the organisational activities at Burberry. It is also necessary to enhance uninterrupted working flow to manage the production unit and develop long term supplier’s relationship, so that there is adequate supply of the raw materials in Burberry and it would be possible for the firm to manage their activities and lead the operations towards achieving success in near future (Costa Maia et al., 2017). In his regard, the company can reduce the waste of over production through managing optimum production unit where as per the market trend and the demand of the customers, Burberry should strategise the unit of production which further helps the firm to maximise the economies of scale and manage the cost of the production (Kumar, 2016). On the other hand, the company also needs to reduce the waste of inventory and in this regard, the strategy of implementing Enterprise resource planning or ERP, hiring skilled workforce and developing the storing activities in the warehouse of the company are mandatory for Burberry to manage safety and quality of the products (Burberry, 2020b). The strategy of ERP further boosts the efficacy of the firm and develops computerised process to handle the workforce and the sales and production activities. additionally, the waste of transportation is also necessary to be eliminated in Burberry and in this regard the firm must utilise the electric cars for managing green supply chain and the efficient distribution network to maintain the stock of the materials and distribute the products in the market, the use of electric cars eliminates the waste of transportation by reducing the greenhouse gas emission and contribute in the society successfully (Burberry, 2020c).

Lean management tactics for Waterside Inn:

In order to manage the above mentioned waste at Waterside Inn, it is necessary for the restaurant to choose efficient tools so that it would be possible for the firm to increase the quality of the production and operations as well as manage their services successfully in future. In this regard the restaurant must focus on TQM or Total Quality Management which is beneficial for the firm to eliminate waste (Keyser, Clay and Marella, 2017). It is the quality control tool through which the restaurant Waterside Inn can standardise the workplace, eliminate waste, maximise the quality of their services, reduce the risk and late delivery as well as increase productivity.

Figure 4: TQM at Waterside Inn

For managing the total quality, Waterside Inn must train the employees and lead them successfully by arranging training and developing suitable organisational culture. It further helps the staff to share their feedback and work collaboratively (Orynycz, Tucki and Prystasz, 2020). The leadership style must be improved where the leader of Waterside Inn can cooperate with the employees and encourage their creativity to serve the customers in the restaurant. Total employee commitment must be maintained and this process is mainly related to maximising the efficiency and productivity of the staff as they are the major stakeholders of Waterside Inn to manage their operations to serve the con summers in a better and unique way (Rauch, Matt and Linder, 2020). Developing integrated system, and enhancing cooperation as well as empowering the staff in the decision making practice of Waterside Inn will be fruitful to improve the efficacy of the staff and ensure high quality service delivery. The waste of waiting and defects are eliminated through this process of total quality management (Waterside Inn, 2020b). The restaurant must also focus on managing the waste of over production and in this process, Waterside Inn needs to arrange the food item and maintain stock of the food at the restaurant safely (Helmold, 2020). Apart from that, new initiative of free distribution of the extra food items to the needy people would be great initiative for Waterside Inn, to manage their waste and improve the organisational values.

Comparing two organisations for the lean management tactics

Both the organisations Burberry and Waterside Inn must focus on lean management principles and the strategy in order to manage their operations safely and eliminate the waste. This further helps the organisations to improve the quality of their production and operations and maximise their values in long run. The company Burberry mainly focuses on eliminating the waste of reduction, defects, transportation and motion so that the production unit can be managed well. For the firm, JIT principle is good for managing their lean and operational activities, where Burberry must focus on managing economies of scale and conduct the market researcher for analysing the customer’s trend and demand to produce accordingly so that the waste of over production can be controlled. Additionally, the firm also needs to implement the green supply chain management through using the electric cars to eliminate the waste of transportation (Niederstadt, 2018). On the other hand, Waterside Inn also focuses on lean management to reduce the waste of waiting, over production and stock management. TQM is good for Waterside Inn to manage their waste by improving the efficacy of the staff members where they are empowered to share their creativity and perform better so that they would be able to serve the customers uniquely and within effective time.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that, both the organisations Burberry and Waterside Inn must implement the best practice of lean management to eliminate the waste exposed from the companies. The organisations focus on maximising their production efficiency so that the waste of over production and inventory control can be managed well. Additionally, Burberry focuses on managing green supply chain and utilising efficient production technology for improving their operational excellence. On the other hand, Waterside Inn focuses on TQM to enhance the productivity of skilled workforce as well as manage the waste of waiting and over production successfully. Both the firms try to enhance cooperation and communication with the staff to improve their performance and also manage their production in a sustainable way to secure future growth and development of the companies.

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Reference List

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