Business Operations -- Analysis of Lens Crafters -- Case Study Operations Management is a key to effective business. A notable business that effectively uses operations management is LensCrafters. LensCrafters employs an effective operations strategy that has honed a highly effective value chain with several state-of-the-art technologies that very favorably impacts customer experience. As a result, LensCrafters is quite successful in maximizing its profits in a highly competitive market.

Operations Management and the Five Competitive Priorities

Operations Management is the control of business processes to generate the greatest possible efficiency in an organization. It is focused on transforming materials and labor into goods and services as effectively as possible to maximize profits. There are five key competitive priorities in operations management: cost; quality; flexibility; delivery performance; and innovativeness (Kim, Sting, & Loch, 2014, p. 467). Cost involves monitoring expenditures and effectively distributing those costs on various products and/or services. Quality focuses on ensuring that products and/or services and their processes work and obey with specifications. Flexibility is the ability to manage changes in product mix or service mix, volume, equipment and/or workforce. Innovativeness focuses on how quickly new products, services or processes can be employed and effectively marketed. In combination, these five key competitive priorities help form a strategy or strategies to improve a company's position in the market and guides decisions regarding such processes as capability, technology, production processes, planning, and control (Kim, Sting, & Loch, 2014, pp. 468-9). The strength or weakness of the operation strategy depends on the amount of consistency between the organization's state emphasis on competitive priorities and the actual decisions about operational structures/processes. In a highly competitive market, there are often trade-offs made regarding each competitive priority because businesses cannot normally be the top performer in every characteristic. In order to create and maintain a workable management strategy, the five key priorities are divided into decision categories, which are prioritized by the recognition and development of order winners and order qualifiers. Order winners are qualities that will make it likely for the company to obtain new orders for product/services. Order qualifiers are qualities that are necessary for competing in the marketplace (Collier & Evans, 2012, p. 126). Both order winners and order qualifiers are constantly reevaluated and altered in order to stay as competitive as possible in a changing and highly competitive market.

2. LensCrafters' operations strategy and its mission to gain a competitive advantage in terms of sustainability.

LensCrafters' operations strategy is the effective combination of products in the form of high-quality eyewear and services in the manners of fast, accurate eye examination and one-hour service from examination to finished product (LensCrafters, 2016). The company focuses on time and quality of service as its highest priorities and potential order winners. LensCrafters offers an extensive benefit package to its customers in the forms of convenient locations; professional and friendly employees; modern equipment in its showrooms; one-hour service; eye examinations and related services; eyewear; eyewear accessories and cases; and contact lens accessories (Collier & Evans, 2012, p. 126). LensCrafters achieves its competitive edge through efficient production and an attractive service delivery system. Its efficient production consists of rapidly producing eyewear in each store's "backroom factory" without sacrificing the product's quality. Its service delivery system is: conveniently located in high-traffic areas; a system and designed space that projects high quality and professionalism; accomplished through 11 separate in-store work roles; and designed to allow customers to see the eyewear being produced in each store's optical laboratory. LensCrafters' strategy greatly assists its sustainability by delivering such a convenient, rapid, high-quality service and product with so little waste of time and material that the company has created long-term strategies for retaining customers, attracting new customers, attracting highly professional employees and retaining highly professional employees.

3. Analyze how operation management activities affect the customer experience. Select two (2) operation management challenges and provide the solutions for confronting them.

In the case of LensCrafters, operation management activities affect customer experience in that the company has designed a rapid system of examination and eyewear production that will serve the customer with high quality eyewear in an exceedingly short amount of time. Two operations challenges in this regard are: conflicting internal processes, such as differing methods of eye examination; and inconsistent methods of producing the eyewear. At LensCrafters, the possibilities of differing methods of eye examination and inconsistent methods of producing eyewear are confronted by a management strategy that openly communicates and ensures that all team members understand how the organization operates and follow those...

Examine LensCrafters' value chain and evaluate its effectiveness to operations in terms of quality, value creation, and customer satisfaction.
A company's supply chain is the steps in delivering a product or service from the company to the customer. In contrast, a company's value chain is a management design of how the company receives raw materials, adds value to those materials through its designed processes and sells the finished product/service to the customer. LensCrafters' value chain consists of: the information provided by its customers to the examiners (one functional component of LensCrafters) to the manufacturer of eyewear (another functional component of LensCrafters) and to its supplier (another functional component of LensCrafters), and then the flow of materials from the supplier to the manufacturer and finished products and services from the manufacturer back to the customer. LensCrafters value chain is highly effective to operations in that it rapidly obtains the information from the customer and relays it from the examiner to the manufacturer to the supplier, all in the same location, then obtains the materials, adds significant value by producing high quality eyewear and attains high customer satisfaction by delivering that high quality eyewear to the customer within 1-hour from examination to finished product.

5. Determine the different types of performance measurements that can be used to measure LensCrafters' service-delivery system design. Select at least two (2) types that can be applied and provide justifications for the selection.

Several types of performance measurements can be used to measure LensCrafters' service-delivery system design. Those include: service quality; customer growth; altruism; organizational productivity; business performance and cost/price (Roth & Menor, 2003, p. 149). Two of those performance measurements that are readily applicable to LensCrafters are service quality and customer growth. Service quality is an important performance measure for LensCrafters' service-delivery system design because a key aspect of its strategy is providing high-quality examinations and finished eyewear for customers. If LensCrafters remained just as rapid but produced lower quality examinations and finished eyewear, its business model and success would be seriously harmed. Customer growth is also an important measurement because the return business of satisfied customers, plus attraction and retention of new customers is vital for LensCrafters' sustained success in a highly competitive market.

6. Examine the different types of technologies applied to LensCrafters' service operations and evaluate how the technologies strengthen the value chain.

LensCrafters' service operations involve several types of technologies. In order to provide fast, accurate eye examination and one-hour service from examination to high-quality finished eyewear, the company requires reliable technology and support systems. In order to provide high-quality prescriptions quickly, the company uses several different types of technology. It uses "Clarifye" digital eye examination to pinpoint prescriptions and provide a high level of specific detail, employed by trained eye examiners (LensCrafters, 2016). It also uses the Snellen eye chart to assess the customer's vision proximity to 20/20; then, depending on the result it may also use a phoropter, which employs a variety of lenses to test nearsightedness or farsightedness. If astigmatism is indicated, the company may also use a keratometer to measure the curvature and reflection of a customer's corneas (LensCrafters, 2016). In order to ensure that the finished eyewear will fit properly and most effectively use the prescription, LensCrafters also uses AccuFit technology, which digitally measures each eye, how eyeglasses will sit on the customer's face, where the customer's eyes line up in the frame, and the distance between the customer's eyes (LensCrafters, 2016). When preparing the eyewear from the prescription and other measurements, LensCrafters claims that it uses "the same state of the art equipment found in large-scale production facilities" in order to prepare eyewear in on-sit laboratories. In addition, when specialized eyewear is required, LensCrafters sends the prescription and other measurements to a special off-site production facility with additional technologies, and still attempts to have the eyewear ready in an hour or on a promised date. Furthermore, to improve vision and eliminate glare and relieve eyestrain, LensCrafters uses an Anti-Reflective coating machine to apply an anti-reflective coat to the eyewear's lenses. Finally, LensCrafters uses certified lab technicians, trained and certified through a rigorous examine process, to prepare and triple-check the finished eyewear (LensCrafters, 2016). In sum, LensCrafters appears to use several state-of-the-art technologies, all to provide the fastest, highest-quality eyewear possible.

C. Conclusion

Operations Management is the control of business processes to generate the most efficiency possible and ultimately to maximize profits. Five key competitive priorities, including quality, flexibility, delivery performance, and innovativeness, are utilized to…