OPERATION MANAGEMENT

PROJECT REPORT
on

E-COMMERCE IN THE NHS

SUBMITTED BY
GROUP 1
PRAGYANDEEP RABHA (20154)
PRUTHUL KAMBLE (20157)
SHIVAM (20165)
SIMRAN GARG (20167)
SOMYA JAISWAL (20168)
PATEL PRIYANK(20241)

Indian Institute of Management, Jammu

Jammu - 18001 October 2020
 CASE 1

INTRODUCTION

● The UK Government has a mission to modernise schools, hospitals, economy and our criminal
 justice system– renewing the country for the new millennium.
● The Government set out five key aims for delivery; one of those aims was to exploit new
technology to bring government into the Information Age.
● Each part of government was required to deliver this agenda, by:
● appointing its own Information Age Government Champion at a senior level
● preparing its own e-business strategy
● meeting key targets for electronic service delivery and electronic access by citizens.
● ensuring implementation in all its agencies, non-departmental public bodies and other public
bodies it sponsored.

GOVERNMENT E-BUSINESSES ARE:

❏ Government business with ‘citizen’ -

1) Public services to be provided to citizens electronically (100% by 2005)
2) Citizens to have electronic access to government and its services (100% by 2005)

❏ Government business within/across departments -

1) e-mail , web-based policy documents, payroll, financial systems

❏ Government business with industry -

1) Doing business with its suppliers (e-commerce) including routine procurement (90% by 2001)
2) Sponsorship of industry development (’UK pic’), making the UK the best place in the world to
trade electronically by 2002.

SUPPLY CHAIN IN NHS

1. The supply chain system of the NHS is huge and complex.

2. The arrangements reflect mainstream management culture of the time.
3. Supply chain in NHS is oscillating between the influences of centralisation and devolution
4. There were framework agreements in the supply chain system of the NHS.
5. The system is:
● Streamlined
● Standardised
● Integrated approach
E-COMMERCE FOR NHS

First, despite what e-commerce providers claimed, it was apparent that there were no existing models,
either in the public or the private sector, which replicated the circumstances of the NHS.
Second, system-based ‘solutions’ of computer software programs which ‘do’ part of the procurement
process, and the technology to run them, would be a
relatively small component of e-commerce compared to the
scale of business change that e-commerce was going to
require.
Third, system ‘solutions’ do not achieve ‘e-commerce’;
designing and making systems available does not
necessarily mean that they are in widespread operation.
The function of e-commerce are:-
● E-commerce helps integrate all the business processes from demand through payment
● E-commerce changes the function of purchasing from transactional to strategic
● Generation of management and strategic supply information
● Ecommerce embraces all key players in the NHS supply chain

SCOPE OF E-COMMERCE

The e-commerce as the agency investigated the growing

market more and more deep, it came to our notice that the
scope of e-commerce must include the following:-
➔ Undertaking electronically traditional and discrete
procurement-based activities, such as: electronic
tendering, electronic catalogues, electronic purchasing
➔ Overlapping financial and probity process, such as:
invoice receipt, payment of suppliers, audit trail
➔ Generation of management and strategic supply
information, such as: planning, control, demand forecasting

BENEFITS OF E-COMMERCE
First Order benefit

Helps Improve efficiency of transactional processes of NHS and its suppliers

 ● Automates manual processes
● Re-engineers business process
● Enforces business controls
● Implements best practice
● Optimises procurement skills
● Standardise and share procedures, advice, document

Second order benefit

Obtain greater leverage through appropriate aggregation of demand locally

● Across NHS
● Across government
● Across wider public sector

Third order benefit

Consolidates/exploits transparency of information across supply networks

● NHS educated customer

● Flourishing and effective supplier base
● Strategic collaboration
● Support decision making, risk management, innovation
● Cross-government benefits for taxpayer

THE AGENCY’S VISION STATEMENT FOR E-COMMERCE

The agency's vision for e-commerce is to integrate it into their technology system to have a smooth
transaction. Following are a few points which state their vision

● Every transaction with a supplier, from demand through to payment, will be electronic
● This process will be standardised throughout the NHS (subject to agreed variations
necessary in certain selected markets)
● This process (processes) will be integrated with other systems (including supply chain
systems)
● There will be the ability to customise choice (i.e. product range, supplier)
● There will be the ability for aggregation across the whole NHS
● There will be the ability to aggregate across the whole NHS trust (demand, contracting,
ordering, payment and supply chain)

KEY ELEMENTS OF STRATEGY

● Modernising government
● Government agenda -
 1. government business with citizen
2. government business within departments
3. government business within industry
● Information sharing - aiming for transparency in the supply chain
● The Agency drew a distinct line between e-commerce and e-business

MAIN BARRIERS
It was predicted that the overall objectives of e-commerce in the NHS would take three to five years,
and part of the Agency’s strategy would have to be about managing expectations accordingly. An
enormous programme of change was needed to underpin the overall objective of changing business
practices throughout the NHS, and for undertaking development work with the supplier base which –
with notable exceptions – was far from ready for such upheaval. Even if all transactions were dealt with
by a common information systems platform, without a common coding platform for goods and services
and for suppliers it would still not be possible to find out exactly what the NHS was spending on each
item and with each supplier, therefore potentially prohibiting a more rational, coordinated and strategic
approach to purchasing.

Some of the main barriers in the supply chain of NHS are:

1. Lack of supply chain maturity due to fragmentation
2. No pre-existing models, in the public or the private sector
3. System-based 'Solutions' of computer software program were small component of e-
commerce
4. System 'solutions' do not achieve e-commerce

SOLUTIONS

The agency can remove those barriers and enable an effective e-commerce strategy to be implemented
by:

1. It can develop a policy platform, which would drive its creation of an e-commerce
strategy for the NHS.
2. NHS can use barcode or RFID coding method to take individual product detail (date of
purchased, date of delivery, supplier name and contact no, delivery time, city)
3. Every shipping has a digital tracker so that the company has information about that
particular point of path.
4. Payment method should be through on partial payment one instalment before delivery
and one at delivery point.
5. NHS can use coupling technology methods like (payment and delivery barcode scanning)
so payment and per product price so we can analyse per product price.
OUR RECOMMENDATIONS
Some other things that the company can do are:

● The selected technology should have good acceptable financial return.

● The selected technology has good scalability.
● Resource and process distance should be less because not everyone can accept change in
conventional method of supply, procurement method.
● If the Resource and process distance are large then implementing the new technology in
the country is more difficult.
 CASE 2

HOGSMEADOW - Garden Centre

Background:

Hogs meadow is a Garden Centre located in a large village called Hogs meadow in the
United Kingdom. The company supplies a wide variety of leisure products and services
including a few home and garden items. The company is currently managed by Don Dursley.
Garden center. opens from Monday– Saturday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
all year round. The canter can accommodate 350 cars. Many people visit this canter during
the week they spend lots of time in the centre. averages 53 minutes during the week and 73
minutes at weekends.so canter is like by people. Because they are spending more time here.
there is another observation also the time of year, day of the week, and time of day. There are
two peaks in customer numbers, one during the late spring/early summer period and another
in the build up to Christmas. Hogs meadow quality of their plants is high, with plants looking
well-tended and they are a little more expensive than other smaller garden centres. This
garden centre is taken care of by Professionally qualified staff.

Problem statement:

They are facing difficulties to predict sales of plants during seasons.

Because the external environment affects the demand of the product.

So they have to face monetary loss in business some time and they have to give discounts for after
season product plants. There is also a peak in demand at the beginning of the spring.

Some time they face difficulties to sell products, some time they sell each product from the center.so
they are facing a dilemma for how much they purchase to sell.

Solution:

They can make demand forecasting models in which they can use moving averages of 3 month or 6
months. and they can take 2 scenarios like normal environment and second is uncertain environment
(weather changes). So they can act according to these two scenarios and they can forecast demand for
that product.

Honeydukes Restaurant:

Background: Honeydukes is part self-service and part assisted service restaurant. So in this restaurant
Customers enter, pick up a tray, help themselves to cakes and pastries, and order meals from the
counter staff. Staff members on normal weekday lunchtime there are 12 staff, seven of whom are in the
kitchen preparing food, one is responsible for taking money, one serves drinks, one deals with hot food,
one deals with clearing tables and the washing-up. At lunchtimes queues can reach 10 people during
the week and sometimes in excess of 20 people at the weekend. At peak times it can take up to 15
minutes to move from the back of the queue to complete the purchase. 50 full-time staff working 40
hours per week, 15 part-time staff working 15 hours a week and 20 weekend staff working eight hours.
The centre is open for 61 hours per week but with setting up and closing down procedures of half an
hour at both ends of the day, staff need to be present for 68 hours a week. Once seated, customers tend
to spend around 20 minutes over morning coffee or afternoon tea and take around 30 minutes for lunch

Problem statement:

· Long queuing during people turn away when they see the queue which is very frustrating for the
restaurant. particularly as often restaurants are only half full.

· Regulars customers often ‘save’ tables by putting their coats and bags on them whilst they wait
in the queue.

· Once seated, customers tend to spend around 20 minutes over morning coffee or afternoon tea
and take around 30 minutes for lunch. Older couples and those with small children usually take
longer (according to case).

· staff need to be present for 68 hours a week.inadequate part time staff members.

· At peak times there could be up to 80 staff present;

· They need some flexibility in staffing through the use of part-time staff and casual workers but
they need to be able to respond better than they can at present to the fluctuations that happen in this
business

Solution:

They can hire part time staff members so they can meet requirements of peak time staff members.

They also need to expand their restaurant place for increasing customers.

And they need to change their restaurant layout . like shift from 4 chair table to 2 table chair table so
busy table no, will decrease and queuing will decrease,

And they can also add new services for customers after applying a new layout. And they are thinking of
launching children lunch box service but they are lacking staff members and time. But after recruiting
part time members they can reduce the burden on permanent staff so they can focus on new services
also.
CASE 3
 INTRODUCTION

For over a hundred years, Motoring Service had been founded in the car breakdown and recovery
business and had owned a patrol force that was equipped to rescue and repair roadside vehicles for
customers. RAC has a long tradition and practices in supporting its clients with roadside assistance.
● The shift in the dynamics of the industry, however, has a significant influence on its activities.
● The case study shows that RAC has both strengths and disadvantages that have an impact on
successful operations at the same time.
● Strengths > RAC has a solid brand identity and a broad client base, which gives them decent
profitability.
● They are addressed as follows. > High quality facilities are considered to be delivered at a
premium price. > Investment in state-of-the-art performance enhancement systems , i.e. call
reception and patrols. > Installation of eye-catching signage at widely prominent points of the
control centres on the motorway route, reflecting their role as a new service provider. > 1350
patrols of RAC staff who are extremely professional and capable of restoring damaged cars. >
RAC's greatest advantage and power is its expertise and capable patrols that have the capacity to
appreciate and fix roadside issues.
● They have vast mechanical expertise and state-of-the-art technologies to have solutions. > The
patrol turnover, at about three per cent, is surprisingly quite tiny. > Each of the patrols has their
own car and, even after completing their change, they are not concerned about turning it in.
 ● Without some strain, Patrol will perform the repair work and give them the ability to gain over
time. > The RAC has split its activities into regional cells, which have supported them in
allocating the number of patrols to the individual
cell 's requirement.
This allows them to shorten the delivery time, take care of the broken down vehicle and repair it
in time by shifting the duty of patrolling the unique "unit."

REDESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTATION

This framework can be enforced by small changes in their contact centres, coordination tools for
patrols and expanded presence of service managers in the management of available and updated
services.
● To further improve the efficiency of the patrol, improve PAR and minimise waiting times, the
job contracts, payment system and working procedures will be revamped. It is possible that
opposition will be met, and how best to counter this.
● In 1999, 1350 patrols were hired by the RAC, armed with state-of-the-art vehicles and technical
know-how to fix mechanical issues. These patrols are conducted in three shifts running as
follows > Early 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. > Mid 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. > Late 15:00 a.m. to 11:00
p.m.
● Each patrol is provided with a fully equipped vehicle to provide support to its customers and is
responsible for caring for those vehicles.
● They are not bound by the management to return their vehicles after the end of their shift.
● This is an important factor in the employment contract because patrols are not pressured to
return to the head office to hand in the vehicles to the next patrol and they can continue to work
beyond the end of their shift..
 ● This has given patrols the chance to earn the overtime and they exploited this opportunity to
earn more money while doing fewer jobs.
● Patrols can wilfully "log off" from the system if some difficult job has been asked to do and the
service manager has to transfer that job to the contractors. This is the main weakness in the
RAC's employee contractors.
● The patrols are deciding their own operations and service managers are only performing a large
number of odd jobs that patrols are kept on road.
This is not the operations manager's duty to ensure the patrol performance; his duty is to make sure that
patrols are meeting the set targets, are they productive.

CONCLUSION

This is a critical step to strengthening the discipline, behaviour and efficiency of the patrol. This
educational curriculum stresses service enhancements, drills that operate on the reaction side of the
patrols, and includes them in the process of continuous development.
● The involvement of Patrol in the action plan is very critical because they are the front desk staff
and the vital organ in the service delivering body of RAC. > The other relevant advice has to do
with the contractors. These contractors can also be active in patrol training programmes.
● It would strengthen their technological knowledge, emerging technologies know-how and they
will learn a great deal from their fellow patrols. This will help contractors develop their
productivity, expertise and understanding of the facilities they tend to provide clients with. >
Naming them under RAC could be another choice for RAC relevant to the contractors.
This will enhance two aspects, first, the customer's overall quality level will increase and second, this
will allow the RAC to maximise the system's performance. This bid can be related to the contractors'
success standard and give them an incentive to develop their technologies and productivity above all.

The most promising part of RAC is that they are ready to invest in device expansion, which is a
promising indication, but because of tremendous spending, they do not go for acquisition.

They want to increase the current design's PAR, productivity and efficacy. Overall, in the above-
mentioned suggestions, there are still trade offs, but they have to adjust their existing payment set-up
and contractors.
This will be opposed by the union because the proposed proposal will reduce the fun time for the
patrols and the possibility of completely signing off.
The top management should be prepared for the union's tough opposition, but the new pay structure
should raise the fixed work ratings Some will serve as a diluter of the case, from GBP6 per job to
GBP10 per job for big workers. The majority of the overtime rates were good for Saturdays and
Sundays.