The Craft Era

The world-class major date of reference is now referred to as maneuver manufacturing and value shop deli actually. This system was European in breed and linked to the way in which skills were developed the apprenticejourneyman chieftain progression, which led to the creation of guilds of skilled people who sought to control the bring home the bacon of their speciality, and the consolidation of skill within a subsector of society (as, for example, skills were passed on from bring to son).This was noted for low- the great unwashed, high-variety products, where workers tended to be super skilled and quality was strengthened into the very process of operations. It was also appropriate for colossally national markets, supplied internally with stripped imports and exports. Some swap manufacturing still remains today, in markets where exotic products and go can control demands done some incomparable feature or high take of desirability. For instance, some house building, fu rniture making, clock and con making be still machineried out by skilled craftsmen/women workings on a single or few items of output at a time.While the processes and techniques used by these craftsmen/women argon exceedingly inefficient, the unique quality of their products commands a premium price, as illustrated by the secondhand pry of products such as a Daniels pocket watch or a Morgan auto. In the case of Morgan, however, it is a mistake to conclude that the passenger car attention might still be able to employ craft production. Morgan is unashamedly part of a sector that is closer to specialist toys than that come to with personal transportation. It is also the end of a very thin tail, some other parts of which (AC, Aston Martin, Rolls Royce, etc. hasten already been absorbed by volume producers, keen to operate in exotic niches for purposes that are closer to unified advertising than to income generation. In the clothing industry, one significant sector of the in dustry haute couture is based on the craft production approach. In services, the craft era has also continued perhaps even more so than in manufacturing. The slower pace of change within services derives from the extent to which customer processing operations can adopt unexampled technologies and new systems. solitary(prenominal) services that require little skill at the operating level (such as FMCG or petrol retailing) or processing large amounts of teaching (such as financial services) are significantly different now from what they were analogous even 30 years ago. Many services such as hotels, schools, hospitals, hairdressers, vehicle repair and transportation have changed very little, despite new technologies. The potful production era The second major era is know as caboodle production, although once again its principles were by no convey restricted to manufacturing.This system grew in North America to accommodate trine principal requirements of the developing giant the need to export, the need to provide troth for a massive, largely unskilled workforce, and the need to establish itself as a world player, which meant infiltrating other regions with ideas clearly associated with the USA. In short, the Americans could not play by the European rules, so they reinvented the game innovating by destroying the competitive position of craft production.The system was massively successful and changed the working and buying practices of the world in the first three decades of the twentieth century. In order to swap the regulate products made by standardized operations practices, mass production had to standardize the market requirements too. Fortunately, the market was immature and would do what it was told to do. Thus, mass production turn the paradigm of craft production volume was high with little variety.The marketing ploy (and the resultant manufacturing strategy) was exemplified by Henry Fords known declaration, from now on, a customer can ha ve a car painted any colour he likes, as long as it is black In mass production, workers were typically unskilled. This was the era owing more to the contribution of F. W. Taylors Scientific Man geezerhoodment, whereby workers had very narrowly defined jobs, involving repetitive tasks, and quality was left to quality experts at the final stage of the boilersuit process rather than being an integral part of operations at each step (Taylor, 1912).Taylor enabled firms, for the first time, to control costs, times and resources, rather than confide on skilled craftsmen and women to decide what was appropriate. Coupled with the developments made in mechanisation and employee co-ordination during the European industrial revolutions, Taylors ideas provided an entirely different way of operating. In 1926, Encyclopaedia Britannica asked Henry Ford to christen his system and he called it mass production. He meant mass in the sense of large volume production. possibly he did not see the oth er meaning of mass as heavy and cumbersome, which is what the system turned out to be (in impairment of management systems and superstructure), once the market no longer bought what it was told. These principles originating in the twenties were slow to be adopted in services, but by the 1970s, Ted Levitt, from Harvard military control School, was able to identify the production-lining (Levitt, 1972) of service and the industrialization (Levitt, 1976) of service. He cited fast food, the machine-driven teller machine (ATM) outside banks and supermarket retailing as examples of this.Schmenner (1986) coined the phrase mass service to exemplify this type of service operation. More recently, the aspects of working demeanor that are typical in this mass production context have been extended to life in general by Ritzer (1993), who refers to it as the McDonaldization of society. The substitution from craft marketing to marketing in the mass production age is clearly demarcated by the p ublication of Levitts (1960) article in the Harvard art Review entitled Marketing myopia.In mass production, customers bought what was supplied producers backbreaking on keeping costs, and hence prices, down, and focused on selling to customers through aggressive advertising and sales forces. As organizations were product-led, operations management was relatively straightforward. Mass producing goods at the lowest cost meant minimizing component and product variety, large production runs and scientific management. The success of Ford made this view highly persuasive.In 1909, the Model T automobiles were sold for $950, but by 1916, chase the introduction of the assembly line, it had fallen to $345, and three-quarters of the cars on American roads were built by Ford (Bryson, 1994). However, as Levitt (1960) pointed out, Ford was eventually outstripped by world-wide Motors, who were not product-led but market-led. They gave customers what they wanted choice, model updates, a rang e of influence (not just black ). The symbol of this age is the give away.Originally (in the craft era) the brand was a mark on the product, often a signature for example, on a painting or symbol, signifying its ownership or origin. But in mass production the brand took on far more significance. It became the bureau by which one product (or service) could differentiate itself from a competitors product (or service). Procter & Gamble set up brand managers in 1931 to sell their different soap products. Later the brand also became a assure of product/service quality.Kemmons Wilsons motivation in 1952 to open the first Holiday Inn hotel was his own disappointment with the ariable standards and sleaziness of the motels he stayed in whilst on a family holiday. The success of delivering a consistently standard level of service resulted in Wilson opening one hotel every two and half eld in the mid-1950s. But by the 1990s, brands had come under threat. Markets are highly fragmented, t he proliferation of niches makes target marketing more difficult, product and service life cycles are shortening, and product/service innovation is quicker than ever before change magnitude customer sophistication has reduced the power of advertising.As a result, a more holistic view of operations management is required, as Crainer (1998) suggests Companies must add value throughout every single process they are involved in and then translate this into better value for customers. This is because the red-brick era has brought profound changes in operations management and operations has to be at the heart of successful strategic thinking.