1 Quality in customer focussed operations Name of student: Student no: Module name: Module number: Assignment title: Module tutor's name: Date: Word count: 2 Abstract This paper highlights on the operational issues of IKEA. The operational process followed by this company has been discussed in this paper. In addition, the paper has also critically analysed the role of quality management practices in meeting the expectation level of the customers. Based on this discussion, it has been found that IKEA has effectively followed the quality management practices to increase its operational efficiency. 3 Table of Contents IKEA............................................................................................................................................... 4 Product ........................................................................................................................................ 4 Main customers........................................................................................................................... 5 Order Qualifiers and order winners ............................................................................................ 5 Operational processes ..................................................................................................................... 6 Input – transformation-output process........................................................................................ 7 Input to the processes.................................................................................................................. 7 Output Products/Services............................................................................................................ 8 Process hierarchy ........................................................................................................................ 8 Literature Review on Quality management as a reflection of customer expectation ................... 11 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 13 Reference List ............................................................................................................................... 14 4 IKEA IKEA is regarded as the largest furniture retailer in the world as per the records of 2008. It is a Swedish company, which is registered in Netherlands and sells appliances, customized furniture and home accessories. The company was founded by a 17 years old boy, Ingvar Kamprad, who now happens to be the richest person in the world, in the year 2013. The company is well-known because of architectural designs that they provide their customers for all kinds of furniture and appliances. They also provide interior design work, which is attached with eco-friendly simplicity. Its cost control techniques, details of operational process and incessant product development, along with the corporate attributes, have aided the company to maintain a lower price for customers. During the period of global expansion, it has lowered price of products on an average of 2%-3%. As of January 2014, the company owns around 349 stores across 43 countries. It has been recorded that the company had sold products, amounting to $23.1 billion, in 2010. It is identified that sales of the company has increased by 7.7% from the previous year. The company website displays over 12,000 products to customers, along with clear pictures of IKEA range of products, in order for the latter to gain interest in the company products. The number of visitors, who visit IKEA’s website every day, has been recorded to about 470 million in 2013. It has been identified that in 2013, IKEA has been the largest user of wood, as the company has been noted to use about 1% of the total wood available on the earth. Product IKEA concentrates on selling wide range of products. The company sells nearly everything, which are required for furnishing a home, including furniture, plants, toys, kitchens and many more. The products, which are provided by them, have unique styles and the function of good quality and style is complimenting products to become most attractive and satisfy customers need. The company accepts the challenge of producing products at a lower price. Any company can make higher quality products at a high price, but IKEA provides its customers with the best quality, along with the lowest price possible, on the product. To provide high quality products at low prices, the company has undertaken cost effective and innovative techniques, which have made them strong enough to rule the retail market with confidence. The whole production process has been reviewed by designers, which has brought in new packing methods and such, thereby reducing cost of manufacturing. 5 Main customers The main customers of the company are the households and businesses. However, th
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