This case relates the genesis and evolution of vision centres (VCs) for primary eye care at Aravind Eye Care System (AECS). AECS, based in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, is the world's largest eye care provider. The case is based in 2014, exactly a decade after the first vision centre was opened, and evaluates the role of VCs in Aravind's outreach ecosystem. Community outreach programmes were an integral part of Aravind's model from the start and formed a central part of its vision of taking eye care to the community's doorstep. For many years, community outreach at Aravind was done through eye camps held in remote rural locations. Eye camps had worked extremely well for a long time. However, eye camps were not a perfect solution to Aravind's outreach goals for many reasons. Vision centres evolved as a way to address some of the shortcomings of eye camps, and both these outreach methods were employed in parallel. This case focuses on Aravind's vision centres and how they evolved over a decade, how they compare with the eye camps as a vehicle to attain Aravind's goals, and the opportunities and challenges ahead.
Innovations that radically redefine how a service is delivered can create tremendous value for customers and for providers. But they require deep insight into clients' needs and the revising of basic assumptions. It's possible, for example, that a doctor can treat more than one patient at a time. Organizations can redefine service delivery along four dimensions. A change in one may unlock--or block--possibilities for innovation in the others. 1) The structure of the interaction. Sometimes the service becomes more valuable to clients if they share it with others or if multiple providers coordinate closely to deliver it. 2) The service boundary. If a segment of clients uses the same complementary services and has trouble accessing them, a provider might consider integrating them into its offering. 3) The allocation of tasks. Who actually delivers the service? Employees' expertise might not match their assigned tasks. 4) The delivery location. This should be defined by the client's needs, not the provider's.
In 2006, surgeon Ara Darzi identified several key areas, including acute stroke care, for improving health care across London. In response to his seminal call to action, stroke care was reorganized around eight hyper-acute stroke units covering London's five sectors, replacing the more than thirty units that previously delivered acute stroke care. This case profiles the roll-out of the new care delivery model in North Central London, where acute stroke care had previously been fragmented among five acute hospital trusts with varying care resources, capacity, and protocols. In the new model, stroke care would be delivered across facilities in an integrated fashion, with a single hyper-acute facility designated for care of the most acute and severe cases.
The purpose of this technical note is to introduce a creativity exercise based on photo stimuli to business-school faculty and to discuss how it can be used effectively in the MBA and executive education classrooms. Variants of this exercise are in use at design and innovation firms. It works well for a 90-minute class session. The goal is to get participants to engage in the processes of observation and idea generation by using a set of photographs (taken from a random family album) as the subject of observation, and to gain an understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of this type of observational research.
HCL Technologies, a major Indian IT services company, rolled out a radical new strategy, "Employee First, Customer Second" (EFCS) in 2005. The strategic goals for EFCS were to create a unique employee organization, drive an inverted organizational structure, create transparency and accountability within the organization, and encourage a value-driven culture. The case describes the different aspects of this program, and its impact on employee engagement, customer experience, financial performance, and innovation in 2005-08.
At the W'Up Bottlery in Uttar Pradesh, India, Rajat Mehra, director of supply-chain management, mused over the W'Up plant's supply-chain performance over the peak summer period that had just ended. The W'Up Bottlery, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Private Limited (HCCBPL), made Coca-Cola and other soft drinks for several regions within the Uttar Pradesh market. While inventories had gone down and fill rates had improved relative to the previous peak-sales season, Mehra was looking for ways to improve performance dramatically. Mehra had heard about the concept of vendor-managed inventory (VMI) that was gaining popularity in the West. Implementing VMI would involve moving away from the current situation in which independent distributors placed orders for replenishment to the W'Up plant, to one in which distributors would instead report their inventory levels directly to the W'Up supply-chain management group. Managers in this group would then decide how much stock to send out to each distributor. Mehra and his team wondered how this idea might be applied to HCCBPL's highly fragmented supply chain, covering regions where IT infrastructure was sparse or non-existent. See also the B case (UVA-OM-1352
After spending a day in a meeting room in August 2005, pondering how to improve supply-chain performance, Rajat Mehra's team hit upon an idea that might enable dramatic reduction in the cost of stock-outs and excess inventory, through implementation of vendor-managed-inventory (VMI). This idea involved moving away from the current situation in which independent distributors placed orders for replenishment to the W'Up plant, which in turn shipped the items ordered. In the proposed system, distributors would instead report their inventory levels directly to the W'Up supply-chain management group. Managers in this group would then decide how much stock to send out to each distributor. This plan mirrored the concept of vendor-managed inventory (VMI) that was gaining popularity in the West. A novel idea for implementation allowed the company to circumvent the scarcity of IT infrastructure. See also the A case (UV1285).
This brief note describes the kanban system of inventory control. It discusses the rules for its use, techniques for calculating the number of cards, and the difference between push and pull systems.
This note focuses on the fundamentals of managing process flows. A process viewpoint is useful when the goal is to manage operational metrics such as capacity, cost, inventory, or responsiveness. The note examines Little's Law, the fundamental relationship among three important metrics: average inventory, average throughput time, and average throughput rate in any system that is in equilibrium.
This note provides an introduction to process analysis, covering key concepts such as bottlenecks, capacity, capacity utilization and throughput time. Concepts are illustrated in a context that is simple and familiar to most students: neighborhood drycleaner. The note is suitable as a technical reading on process analysis in a required MBA or undergraduate course in operations management.
This B case allows students who have completed the Tastee Snax Cookie Company case (UV5918) to analyze how the duration of project described in that case can be most cost-effectively shortened.
This note provides an introduction to the First Year Operations course in the Darden MBA program. The course is taught over 36 class sessions spanning two quarters. The note provides an introduction to operations management, why it is important, and what will be covered in this core course. The course is designed to provide students with a fundamental understanding of operations management and a perspective that will enable them to leverage their knowledge of operations to improve their managerial performance.
Rakesh Gupta sits in his new office at Nariman Point, Mumbai contemplating the future of OceanCove, which in the last two years has grown from a single seafood restaurant to a chain of five restaurants. Aware that aggressive expansion is planned in 2002 and worried about the recent proliferation of moderately expensive restaurants serving international cuisine in India, Gunta must consider a proposal to increase the size of the existing restaurants from 120 seats to 160 seats. His immediate concern is whether accepting this proposal will necessitate changing OceanCove's operating processes.
Our Daily Bread was a small boutique bakery, producing a variety of daily and specialty breads. The company had excess capacity and was considering several options to increase revenues by entering the wholesale bread production business. The case allows students to perform process analysis in a multi-product setting with seasonal demand and evaluate the impact on capacity--as well as the profitability of--potential wholesale orders. The case also enables analysis of the option to purchase new equipment.
This case focuses on product design as a source of competitive advantage. In the late 1990s, Carrier France faced extremely high labor and overhead costs relative to smaller Italian competitors in one segment. The only way Carrier could compete was by designing a product with low labor costs. While one design alternative would lower assembly costs and space requirements, market acceptance was unpredictable. Relative to another more conservative design alternative, a delayed launch was likely. The case contains rich qualitative and quantitative information on the costs and benefits of the two Aquasnap design concepts in consideration, and focuses on which alternative to introduce.