The Ineffective Operating Procedure At More Uk In Ho Chi Minh City.pdf

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business NGUYEN THI ANH THU THE INEFFECTIVE OPERATING PROCEDURE AT MORE UK IN HO CHI MINH CITY MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Ho Chi[.]

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business NGUYEN THI ANH THU THE INEFFECTIVE OPERATING PROCEDURE AT MORE UK IN HO CHI MINH CITY MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018 UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business NGUYEN THI ANH THU THE INEFFECTIVE OPERATING PROCEDURE AT MORE UK IN HO CHI MINH CITY MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION SUPERVISOR: Dr Phan Thi Minh Thu Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018 SUPERVISOR’S REPORT ON THE FINAL THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER of BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Final thesis title: The Ineffective Operating Procedure at More UK in Ho Chi Minh City Student name: Nguyễn Thị Anh Thư Supervisor name: Dr Phan Thị Minh Thư General comments: ∙ Remarks on the student’s attitude: ∙ Remarks on the assignment’s academic quality: Overall assessment: □ Meet requirement for submitting; □ Not meet requirement for submitting Other remarks: - Did the student follow the report schedule? □ Yes □ No □ Other - The Turnitin plagiarism percentage: ❧✶❧ Supervisor’s signature Table of Contents Executive Summary Introduction CHAPTER I: INDUSTRIAL OVERVIEW AND COMPANY BACKGROUND 1.1 Industrial Overview 1.2 Company Background CHAPTER II: PROBLEM JUSTIFICATION 2.1 Problem finding process 2.2 Company’s Symptoms 2.3 Problem Identification 2.3.1 Problem mess 2.3.2 Potential Problem 14 2.3.2.1 Ineffective partnership management 14 2.3.2.2 Ineffective operating procedure 15 2.3.2.3 Unclear organizational structure 16 2.3.3 Identify the central potential problem 19 2.3.3.1 Central problem definition 19 2.3.3.3 Justify the importance of central problem 21 2.3.3.3.1 Potential Consequences 21 2.3.3.3.2 The problem importance in MORE UK 22 CHAPTER III: ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS 23 3.1 Cause validation 23 3.1.1 Affiliative leadership style 23 3.1.2 Lacking of job description 24 3.1.3 Lacking of training 25 3.1.4 Poor planning and scheduling 26 3.1.5 Language and Culture Barriers 26 3.2 Proposed solutions 27 3.2.1 Solution 1: Writing job descriptions 29 3.2.2 Solution 2: Creating an official integrated process planning and scheduling 29 3.2.3 Solution 3: On-the-Job Training 33 3.2.4 Solution 4: Diversity training 34 3.3 Alternative sets of solutions 34 3.4 Action plan 37 3.4.1 Objective 37 3.4.2 Timeline and Cost 37 Conclusion 44 Reference 45 Appendix 47 Appendix 1: The survey questions were contributed for choosing sets of solution 47 Appendix 2: Interview 48 Appendix 3: Related template which using in MORE UK operating procedure 56 LIST OF FIGURE Figure 1: Value chain of Vietnam’s textile and apparel industry……………………………5 Figure 2: Initial Cause – Effect Map………………………………………………………… 13 Figure 3: Updated Cause – Effect Map……………………………………………………….18 Figure 4: Solution Map………………………………………………………………………… 28 Figure 5: Sets of solution ……………………………………………………………………….35 Figure 6: The process of fabric development and importing process …………………….40 Figure 7: The process of developing neck ring trims and importing trim ……………… 40 Figure 8: The actual hangover date and the docket hangover date……………………….41 LIST OF TABLE Table 1: The amount of orders which transferred to supplementary factory………………7 Table 2: The CMT Price in VC factory and supplementary factory……………………… Table 3: The transferring expense to supplementary factories……………………… Table 4: Proposed solution assigns the tasks for employee in Solution 2.1…………… 31 Table 5: Proposed solution assigns the tasks for employee in Solution 2.2…………… 32 Table 6: Survey result ……………………………………………………………………………36 Table 7: Timeline and estimated cost for Solution ……………………………………… 38 Table 8: Timeline for a bulk fabric ……………………………………………………………39 Table 9: Timeline for a bulk trim ………………………………………………………………40 Table 10: Timeline and estimated cost for Solution 3……………………………………… 42 DEFINITION OF TERMS Merchandiser is a person who is the bridge between the industry and the buyer Merchandiser have to look after every job like buying the raw material which is required to finish the product, making the garment, finishing the garment, documentation, finally shipping Pattern maker is a person who take responsible for taking fashion designers ideas and creating a workable pattern that will ultimately become an article of clothing Trims: The raw materials used in sewing room other than fabric, which materials are directly attached to the fabric to make a garment are called trims For example: Threads, buttons, lining, Interlining, zippers, labels, etc Docket is the production orders to the factory The docket is the order to your factory that tells them exactly: What style to make, how many garments and the size breakdown What the hangover date is PP sample (Pre-production sample) is essentially an example of what will be produced during the manufacturing process The PP samples are garments that are produced in the facility that is planning to manufacture the bulk order Lead time is the latency between the initiation and execution of a process For example, the lead time between the placement of an order and delivery of bulk of button from a manufacturer may be from 10 days to 15 days Hangover date is the delivery date of garment Executive Summary The purpose of this paper is to point out the problem that exists in the operation of MORE UK in Ho Chi Minh City and the author have proposed alternative solutions to solve problems that help to manage the company become more effective In Chapter I, the author introduces MORE UK as well as the general situation of the garment industry in Vietnam According to the company size, MORE UK is a rep office which specializing in processing women's clothing and export to countries such as England, Australia, America, Korea, as well as describe company products and company structure In Chapter II, the author analyzes the problem that MORE UK is facing From problem finding mess, the author presents the symptoms of the company that is MORE UK looking for supplementary factories with better production capacity and clearer production plans to take over orders because the main factory can not continue to handle orders because of many problems between related parties such as: Customers changing order detail information, low capacity of factory for production, Insufficient dealing FOB price between MORE UK and factory, Lacking of person who charge in controlling sample room and Lacking of merchandiser's role clarity internally MORE UK Therefore, MORE UK noticed that with the VC production capacity will not complete the progress to export garments in time, hence, the Chief Rep make decision to find supplementary factories which leads to pay higher CMT price and other costs as transferring cost and importing cost By the interview method, the authors proposed some potential problems leads to the company symptom are Ineffective partnership management, Ineffective operating procedure and unclear organizational structure, the central problem is ineffective operating procedure However, to justify the existence of problem, the author analyzed the main problem in ineffective operation management, which led to issues related to Ineffective partnership management, Ineffective operating procedure and unclear organizational structure These problems are linked together, however, the central problem leading to the symptom is ineffective operating procedure officially The authors also show the importance of central problems by pointing out the potential consequences which are increasing cost management, affecting firm performance and customer satisfaction, which is unavoidable if the situation is not resolved At the same time, the author had pointed the level of important of these potential consequences when this problem occurs at MORE UK to justify the importance of this central problem In Chapter III, the author is continuing to analysis the cause validation to find out what causes of core problem of MORE UK is the presence of unexpected supplementary factories By interview and related theories, the author identified the potential causes of the problem are Affiliative leadership style, Lacking of job description, Lacking of training, Poor planning and scheduling and Language and Culture Barriers Because the cause “Affiliative leadership style” is an objective cause, the author did not build a solution for this cause but focused on solving the remaining causes By doing survey and analysis, the author choose the set of solution is the combination of Writing job description, Each employee in the merchandiser team will take responsible to follow up one or two customer in whole process, from receiving purchasing orders to exporting the goods and On- the- job training to develop action plan to solve problem of MORE UK is ineffective operating procedure The above is a executive summary of the thesis to give the reader a preliminary view of the content of the paper There is the full thesis "The ineffective operating procedure at MORE UK in HO CHI MINH CITY" from the author Introduction In recent years, in the tendency of world integration, Vietnam has succeeded and developed the products in the country and has exported many kinds of goods such as petrolium, textiles and garments, agricultural products, footwear, software, etc to the world and brings great value for this country One of the main exporting goods is garments MORE UK is a garment manufacturing company headquartered in Leeds, UK with the main line of clothing for women, which is the intermediary company between the factory, supplier and customer The main purpose of this thesis is to explore the causes of appearance of unexpected supplementary factories at MORE UK since the beginning of 2017 It leads to the increasing of related expenses, for instance, CMT price, transferring expenses or garment quality The methodology is the combination between validated data and theories which collected through in-depth interview and company survey to explore the causes of problem The finding of the study revealed that ineffective operating procedure is the main problem why it occuring the unexpected supplementary factories and leads to the thing is that MORE UK have to pay higher CMT price for factory From the analysis, the author point out the central problem is the ineffective operating procedure in MORE UK from receiving purchasing order from customer to ship the garment back to customer is not effective The causes led to it happens are from are Affiliative leadership style, Lacking of job description, Lacking of training, Poor planning and scheduling, Language and Culture Barriers To solve the problems, the author proposed the set of solution Writing job description, Each employee in the merchandiser team will take responsible to follow up one or two customer in whole process, from receiving purchasing orders to exporting the goods and On- the- job training to help MORE UK can decrease the expenses which happens if the situation continues procedures, employee evaluations become a matter of personal opinion, which is hardly fair to your employees and reducing the risk of employee risk At MORE UK, when the author made the interview with Ms Ngoc Lan who is a member of merchandiser team, she said “Almost merchandisers are overloaded because of too many orders from different customers but they have not really worked effectively actually, it leads to high workload which causes employees to always be stressed and tired The process of placing fabrics and materials from receiving purchasing orders from customers until the transfer of all fabrics and trims to the factory is still limited because the lead time of fabrics and trims are different The relevant positions such as merchandiser, pattern maker, QA/QC actually not work effectively, who have not created an official process at the factory and ensure the quality of goods when shipped garment to customers At MORE UK, the process from receiving your order until the shipment is really shortcoming, there is no official procedure for the employee to follow There is the lacking of planning and scheduling when merchandiser and planning staff work to related parties The procedure of placing fabrics and trims not synchronized, sometimes, it can not be imported to factory at the same time that led to increasing importing expenses and the factory can not put all materials in line in production because of ineffective operating procedure 2.3.2.3 Unclear organizational structure Nahm et al3 defined “Organizational structure is normally described as the way responsibility and power are allocated, and work procedures are carried out among organizational member” According to Rajan D4 “unclear and non-transparent organization structure and policy, unfair work shift and unhealthy interpersonal relationship such as conflict, dispute at workplace will cause stress which will further affect their job performance.” One of the main difficulties which MORE UK is facing is that the company's server system is slow and always has problems accessing, which makes the work process of the staff sometimes interrupted According to Ms Lan "Because the server system is located in the UK, sometimes when the office of Vietnam has a problem, we have to spend a whole day that waiting for IT in the UK to solve the problem because of time zone’s difference It’s necessary when merchandiser gets important information on the CMT 16 price on the system to Costing sheet and send to factory, however, because the system is faulty which causing the work to be delayed Another problem here is that the organizational structure is not clearly actually, there is not a clear job description in every position Merchandiser and the planning staff sometimes have similar functions because of lacking of role clarity In addition, MORE UK sample room sometimes makes the wrong pattern with customer requests and takes time to revise and fix it In addition, there is no one who is in charge of following samples in sample room for ensuring the quality of the sample as well There is the updated cause-effect map below: 17 Figure 3: Updated Cause – Effect Map POTENTIAL PROBLEMS Ineffective partnership management Time consuming for approval samples Changing order detail Low capacity of factory for production Insufficient dealing FOB price Ineffective operating procedure Insufficient placing fabric and trims process Lacking of person who in charge of controlling sample room Unclear organizational structure Unexpected supplementary factories Lack of merchandiser’s role clarity Higher CMT Price ORGANIZATION SYMPTOM Poor server system 18 2.3.3 Identify the central potential problem Following the analysis above, there is considered three potential problems: ineffective partnership management, ineffective operating procedure and unclear organizational structure Based on the literature and by using the quantitative method, the researcher conducts a survey to merchandiser team to get the result which is the central potential problem for the unexpected supplementary factory is ineffective operating procedure Almost merchandisers agree that the way to manage all partnership is not effective but the core problem is MORE UK don’t have an effective and clear operating procedure because of ineffective operation management This is the central problem in this case, the ineffectiveness of operation management makes the way to manage partnership is not efficient Or, we can say, the ineffective partner management is the consequence of the ineffective operation management 2.3.3.1 Central problem definition Following the article from UK essay5 quoted “Operation management is concerned with the managing the resources that directly produce the organization’s service or products The resources usually consist of people, material, technology, and information but may go wider than this These resources are brought together by a series of process so that they are utilised to deliver the primary service or product of the organization Thus, operation management is concerned with managing inputs through transformation processes to deliver outputs” Operation management involves managing people, technology, information and all other resources needed in the production of goods and services “Effective operation management can therefore be defined as the effective planning, organizing and controlling of an organization’s resources and activities necessary to provide the market with tangible goods and services” Johnston et al argued It thus applies to manufacturing industries, nonprofit organizations and service industries According Onyett and Ford, the effectiveness is essential for the development of clear aims and for monitoring adherence by disciplines to operational Because the operation management is application of concepts, procedures and technologies to improve the 19 process of transformation, therefore the effectiveness of an organization depends on how effectively and efficiently operations are managed 2.3.3.2 Justify the existence of problem To justify the existence of problem, the author analyses the existence of the ineffective partner management in MORE UK because ineffective operation management leads to the way to manage partnership There is the relationship between MORE UK, supplier, factory and customer specifically However, to prove the core problem is ineffective operation management from initial symptom is “unexpected supplementary factories”, in the deep interview to Ms Kim Dung, when the author ask how to outsource the factory to make the processing orders She stated “The final decision to choose the factory which is made by Chief Representative and almost trousers and blouse processing contracts are signed to VC factory Priority of MILLERS 'orders have put at VCs based on the close relationship between the two directors is not based on the factory's production capacity leading to the unexpected supplementary factory to keep following these orders that VC can not be completed and delivered on the hangover date” She also continue “In addition, because this is a family-owned company particularly and relying on long term relationships to the business, it is one of the reasons for the passivity in getting orders Although MORE UK in Viet Nam was established in 2014 but the mother company had a long time to look into the Vietnamese apparel market VC is one of the long-term cooperative factories with the parent company” In addition, MORE UK outsource suitable material suppliers for ensuring the quality and cheap price and some material suppliers is nominated by MILLERS customer, it’s quite passive for MORE UK if the suppliers can not respond MILLERS’s requirement Ms Kim shared “In some cases, for instant, when we order the labels which approved by customer already, the China supplier make goods and send labels to factory, but in the end of the day, they send an email to me and said they send wrong label, so we have to wait again, it takes time and the factory not have labels to attach to garment” In the symptom part, the author has shown the Table 1: The amount of orders which transferred to supplementary factory, the proportion of the amount of order which transferred to supplementary factory to the amount of order in VC takes 35% in first quarter of 2017 and 40% in 4th quarter of 2017, 20 it leads to increase the higher CMT price and transferring expenses when change the factory This is found that MORE UK not have an effective partner management way to reduce the management cost “Moreover, because we not have any standards or procedure to choose supplier or factory, only based on relationship, so choosing a partner for business is relatively subjective At the same time, because there is no clear management process, employees of MORE company often overlap work, the efficiency of work is not high So when working with partners, employees will depend on the situation and personal experience to solve the problem, the company does not have a standard for employees to rely on and solve the problem” Lan said Without set standards, management will face a disciplinary challenge when poor work performance eventually does affect productivity 2.3.3.3 Justify the importance of central problem To justify the importance of central problem is the ineffective operating procedure or the ineffective operation management, furthermore, the author show some potential consequences based on theory There are some research shows the important of ineffective operating procedure by evaluating how it affects the operation of the company There are some potential consequences might be happened if this problem is still presented 2.3.3.3.1 Potential Consequences + Cost Management According to Swamynathan R, Ravindran S “The cost management issues in a firm usually arises in a number of functional areas like: Purchase & supply of raw materials, shop layout & manufacturing processes, design of the products manufactured, mode of transportation, warranty & return services, employee training methods, types of information technologies used, strategic cost audit of the members and their capabilities and market forecast and research” 21 + Firm performance Murphy et al claimed that firm performance is a multidimensional concept, and three indicators can be production, finance or marketing, or consequences such as growth and profit The ineffective operation management affects to firm performance, which can lead to the decrease in profit When the organization is facing to ineffective operation management, employee particularly, they may be lost and not know how to solve problems, how to deal with partners In this case, MORE UK have to pay higher CMT price because of changing factory in the end of the day, the gross profits are directly impacted decreasing In addition, the transferring cost is too high and money is otherwise mismanaged, a lower business income will be realized + Customer Satisfaction Successful operations management is the key to ensuring customer satisfaction by creating more value than the competition Oliver RL8 defined that “customer satisfaction is defined as pleasurable fulfillment That is, the consumer senses that consumption fulfills some need, desire, goal, or so forth and that this fulfillment is pleasurable Thus, satisfaction is the consumer's sense that consumption provides outcomes against a standard of pleasure versus displeasure” Another researcher Heskett J L, Sasser WE, Schlesinger LA9 claimed “Customer satisfaction is understood as a consumer's perceived value received from a product or service provider during his/her transactional or on-going relationships The main objective of in any organization remains to maximize on resources and improve on customer satisfaction 2.3.3.3.2 The problem importance in MORE UK The purpose of conducting in depth interview is confirmation the importance of consequences The analysis method which used to collect data and information is depth interview with Ms Kim - merchandiser and Ms Thao - Accountant, it was conducted until no more information come out The finding from qualitative research was summarized below: (1) Cost Management: Important + Minimize the transferring cost from factory to factory 22 + Choose the right partners (factory and suppliers) to minimize the incurred expenses + Negotiate reasonable CMT with factory and FOB with customer (2) Firm performance: Important + Control the lead time of fabric and trims more effective + Work with partner more effective to reduce the appearance of supplementary factory + Make sure to deliver garment to customer on time, even MORE UK can deliver earlier than hangover date (3) Customer Satisfaction: Extremely Important + Get more orders from customers if MORE UK guarantee about delivery time and garment quality + Easy to get approval for sampling in the process + Customer will introduce MORE UK to other fashion branch companies CHAPTER III: ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS 3.1 Cause validation To find out what causes of core problem of MORE UK is the presence of unexpected supplementary factories Interview is the chosen method to identify the underlying causes of ineffective operation management The author conducted the interview with Ms Dung and Ms Nhu - two merchandisers in the MORE UK and Ms Thao - Human Resource staff, who have deep understanding the working environment and problems of the company and knows the cause of the problem mentioned Specific causes shown in the company are as follows: 3.1.1 Affiliative leadership style Leaders play a core role in leading their employee to fulfill company’s goals effectively, Fiaz M, Su Q, Ikram A, Saqib A11 Leadership has been routinely found to be an important contributor to organizational success and competitive advantage, Bass BM 12 The effective operation management is not always a result of how efficient the processes are, but also is a matter of leading people and involving them in achieving the common goals of the organization As Yukl & Van Fleet13 said, the leadership is viewed as a 23 process that includes influencing the task objectives and strategies of a group or organization, influencing people in the organization to implement the strategies and achieve the objectives, influencing group maintenance and identification, and influencing the culture of the organization Affiliative leadership style helps to create emotional relationships that bring a sense of belonging and belonging to each member in the company The strength of this leadership style is in keeping with the stressful situations However, using only this leadership style, the only reliance on praise and encouragement can lead to lack of orientation and not increase productivity At MORE UK, the Chef of the representative office based on experience and relationships with partners to solve the problem is one of the causes of this central problem The boss is too soft, easy to change, and does not have a good idea about how to make decision to choose a good factory or good suppliers, which make it difficult for employees to keep up with partners and to be very dependent on them Ms Kim agreed “Our Boss is quite easy to deal with factory because the Director of MORE UK in head office and he have the close relationship with VC owner, therefore, if VC owner agree to our CMT price, we will place orders in VC even their capacity can not handle all orders There is a bias because MORE UK can find another factory to place orders with the same CMT price but better production capacity In addition, the way he manage the office is like family- style management, he’s a good boss, however, we not have clear policy, every thing will be sorted out by experience 3.1.2 Lacking of job description According to Schneider & Bowen, “job description is a written statement which provides information on all the essential duties and responsibilities assigned to one or more individuals performing a job”, which required qualifications and reporting relationships of a particular job Job descriptions affect your employees' performance in a variety of ways, written descriptions guide both your managers and their employee in their day-to-day work If the company don’t have currently provide job descriptions for each employee that discuss with your executive team members how job descriptions can improve two-way communications and boost your organization's productivity Everyone wants to be 24 recognized by their employer for the work they do, especially if it's above and beyond their job description It happens often, whether you're asked to complete a task outside your scope of work At MORE UK, sometimes because of too much work and no clear job assignment or job description, merchandisers and planning staff have a same job sometimes and they don’t remember is this job that they have done or not and blame responsibility to each other because there are lacking of job description Following Mr Vinh - pattern maker, he said “We not have the person who control samples, sometimes when Boss need that style’s sample but it takes time to find it even we lost it, then, we not know who take responsibility here, maybe quality controller or merchandisers or even me” In the other hand, because MORE UK don’t have a clear structure, so sometimes, people not know who needs the information, who the tasks and who is the person in charge of that tasks 3.1.3 Lacking of training Following European Journal of Business and Management14, “Training is a systematic process to enhance employee’s skill, knowledge and competency, necessary to perform effectively on job Effective training and development programs aimed at improving the employees’ performance Training programs not only develops employees but also help an organization to make best use of their humane resources in favour of gaining competitive advantage” Training in workplace is very important, if the manager has been ignoring the importance of workplace training, the company could get risk, for example: creating unsafe working environment, employees feel not happy and unsatisfied, it might be lead to the reduce productivity and even increased turnover rate of employee At MORE UK, employees are not trained to improve their knowledge to solve problems, everything is based on their own experience and depending on the situation they will discuss to with Chief of the Office Representative to come up with solutions New employees are only handled from the predecessor in 1-2 days then the rest must be based on experience to solve the problems The author is in the position of merchandiser but had a background in economics, the knowledge of the apparel industry is absolutely nothing, the author had no chance to take any training courses at the company, instead of 25 Self-studying from old employees to have knowledge and experience in the garment industry This made employees spend a lot of time when they started working at MORE UK 3.1.4 Poor planning and scheduling To maximize productivity, the company needs to set up an effective planning and scheduling in production The effective planning is a complex process that covers a wide variety of activities to ensure that materials, equipment and human resources are available when and where they are needed, it helps you know we are going to and how long we will take to get there With a good planning and after that scheduled and executed accordingly employee productivity will increase significantly and reliability will increase This will result in faster product throughput and lower costs In the interview with Ms.Nhu - merchandiser, MORE (UK) does not currently have a system for scheduling and planning purchasing orders efficiently Purchasing order is controlled by the merchandiser, but the focus of tracking all the orders of all customers is limited, so not know which orders really need priority to arrange the factory in a reasonable way Merchandisers not have weekly meetings to arrange production schedules for all orders, instead of just ordering their own customers In some cases, there is a coincidence of the hangover date of two orders from two different customers, the chief will assign the factory to produce the orders passively and urgently which can affect the quality of the final product 3.1.5 Language and Culture Barriers According to Peltokorpi, V., & Clausen, L15 language and cultural differences create barriers to intercultural communication in foreign subsidiaries, language has either been overlooked or considered a subordinate part of cultural values in international business The cultural barriers are one of the most challenges for native employees, which have an overall negative and influence on intercultural internal communication The main barriers to intercultural communication were the lack of a shared language and low motivation for foreign managers and Vietnamese employees to develop their English proficiency It leads to employees are quite shy and cautious to express their opinion/ideas The consequences of culture and language barriers for Vietnamese employees were feelings 26 of isolation, decreasing work relations with foreign managers and decreasing work performance Because the chief of the representative office and managers of the planning and techinal department are foreigners, the level of staff is mostly just basic English communication, so sometimes there are difficulties in working because of the language barrier In addition to the cultural differences, MORE UK customers come from different countries and continents, languages, cultures, time zones, and different good standard requirements This is one of the difficulties of merchandiser when working with customers Sometimes, because of language barriers and cultural, it makes them feel unconfident to work and communicate with foreigners 3.2 Proposed solutions The author chooses the causes are lacking of job description, lacking of training, poor planning and planning and language and culture barriers to solve The author eleminated the "Affiliative leadership style" to find the solution because it is an objective cause, it’s a human nature and personality so it is impossible to propose an appropriate solution to this problem For each cause, the author relies on theories and conduct interview and survey with MORE UK employees to find the one or two alternative solutions Therefore, this is the solution map for the author to prepare for an action plan later 27 SOLUTION MAP Tải FULL (67 trang): https://bit.ly/3vmWTrx Dự phòng: fb.com/TaiHo123doc.net Potential Causes Affiliative leadership style Each merchandiser will take responsible for one step in the ordering process, applying for all S2.1 Writing Job Descriptions S1 customers Creating an official integrated process planning and scheduling Not having a job description Ineffective S2 Poor scheduling and planning operation management Each merchandiser will take responsible to follow up one or two customer in whole process, S2.2 On-the-job Training from receiving purchasing orders to exporting the goods Diversity Training S3 Lacking of training S4 Language and Culture Barriers Figure 4: Solution Map 28 3.2.1 Solution 1: Writing job descriptions Ducey A16 defined a job description is a written statement of what the worker actually does, how he or she does it and what the job’s working conditions are This information is in turn used to write a job specification, this lists the knowledge and skills required to perform the job satisfactorily Most job descriptions contain sections that cover: Job identification, job summary, responsibilities and duties, Authority of incumbent, Standards of performance, working conditions and job specification It is important of having a clear job description allows employee to understand the responsibilities and duties that are required and expected of them By Using job descriptions will help company in the hiring, evaluation and potentially terminating of employees Tải FULL (67 trang): https://bit.ly/3vmWTrx Dự phòng: fb.com/TaiHo123doc.net In MORE (UK), there is no job description for any position at the beginning, hence, when the problem occurs, the question is who take responsible and why the problem happens The author recommends it should write job description for all key positions in the company, including merchandiser, pattern maker, QA/QC, planning staff, admin cum human resource staff Which need to be clear of responsibility and it will not lead to the duplication of other people's work, especially the merchandiser and the planning staff that should be clear because the job function are quite similar 3.2.2 Solution 2: Creating an official integrated process planning and scheduling The nature of apparel industry complicates the production planning and scheduling process Bowers MR 17 “The main difficulty of planning and scheduling efforts is the need to process an overwhelming amount of information” that require the employees have an official integrated process planning and scheduling According to Mok PY 18, to cope with the short lead-time and small but frequent orders, apparel manufacturers strive to improve their processes in order to deliver finished products within the expected time frame at the lowest production cost Planning and scheduling are therefore gaining importance in contemporary apparel manufacturing To have a better understand how to make goods in the apparel industry, the author describes the basic process in MORE UK for getting a completed order to go through a process On average, it takes from 3.5 to months from receiving the purchasing order from customer to meeting the hangover date 29 - Planning staff will work with customer and receive the official purchasing order from customers - Merchandiser will place the order of main fabric in China - Merchandiser will place the order of trims: button, labels, lining, zippers, that depends on the quotation, MORE UK will choose China suppliers or local suppliers for trims - Merchandiser will work with the forwarder to transfer all fabric from China and distribute to nominated factories - At the same time, the technical manager will send the request to sample room to make fit sample, PP sample for customer approval before make the bulk in factory - Pattern maker will send the tech pack to factory, which is the documents that the factory will be base on to make the bulk - Merchandiser will contact to local suppliers to transfer all trims to factories - Merchandiser and QA will follow up the orders, check the specifications and quality for ensuring meeting the hangover date The above is the basic process at MORE UK, which is applying to follow an order However, because of the causes, symptom is the appearance unexpected supplementary factory that increases the cost of the company For solving, the author proposed two options: Solution 2.1: Each employee in the merchandiser team will take responsible for one step in the ordering process, applying for all customers At present, MORE UK has customers (PEACOCKS, MILLERS, DOROTHY PERKINS, CROSSROAD, KATIES, BOYES, YOURS) There are merchandisers, planning staffs, QA / QC and the pattern makers are not directly related to planning and scheduling, so the author only refers to the merchandiser department The chief representative should appoint an experienced merchandiser who becomes the merchandiser manager All problems must be reported directly to manager instead of reporting to Chief of Representative as now Each employee in the merchandiser team will take responsible for one step in the ordering process, applying for all customers 30 6678045 ... ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business NGUYEN THI ANH THU THE INEFFECTIVE OPERATING PROCEDURE AT MORE UK IN HO CHI MINH CITY MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION... ineffective operating procedure at MORE UK in HO CHI MINH CITY" from the author Introduction In recent years, in the tendency of world integration, Vietnam has succeeded and developed the products in the. .. Thi Minh Thu Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018 SUPERVISOR’S REPORT ON THE FINAL THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER of BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Final thesis title: The Ineffective Operating Procedure