Minit Lube Mission as clearly stated on the case is to provide tune-ups, oil changes and lubrication service (Heizer & Render). In other words, preventive vehicles maintenance and interior cleaning to cars owned by individuals hopefully for less price, but with equal quality service provided by other mayor competitors. Minit-Lube provides a competitive advantage in comparison to other businesses because they offer maintenance to cars, but with de advantage of better prices and faster services than other mayor car’s dealerships that can be much more expensive.
Mini-Lube is able to provide and be successful with this service by implementing the ten Operation Management decisions: Service Design: providing car maintenance in a fast pace environment by designing specifics service tasks when lubricating cars. The Quality Strategy: employers follow limited and repetitive tasks in order to provide maintenance service. Process and Capacity Design: Customers drive in into a clean building with trimmed landscaping where they feel comfortable while the company’s focus on fulfilling its mission efficiently. Location Strategy: near residential area, very accessible to customers.
Layout Strategy: Minit- Lube can take up to 3 cars simultaneously, lubrication and vacuuming tasks are done at the same time; this way they maintain the speedier service that they are known for. Human Resource Strategy: Few employees are hired and trained by Minit-Lube School in which they acquired skills to perform specific task, duties and responsibilities. Each employee plays a specific role in the daily service that contributes to the overall success of the business.
Case Study Questions: 1. What constitutes the mission of Minit-Lube? The mission statement for Minit-Lube is to provide fast, reliable and superior services in a customer friendly environment while ensuring lowest possible fares. 2. How does the Minit-Lube Strategy provide competitive advantage? Minit-Lube’s approach to these 10 decisions includes:
Minit-Lube’s operation strategy allows the advantage over competitors while using the 10 decision of operations management. Minit-Lube uses the 10 decisions as follow: -Service design: Minit-Lube has an outstanding service design because it provides fast oil-change, interior cleaning and lubrications services in simply 10 minutes. -Quality strategy: quality exceeds normal standards compared to competitors as all employees are neatly dressed and fully trained from Minit-Lube U.
-Process strategy: Efficiently using available staff enables fast service execution as three workers simultaneously work on a car to perform needed tasks. -Location strategy: the buildings are clean inside and out, landscaping neatly trimmed near residential areas providing a convenient and inviting environment for clients. -Layout design: the three bay layouts minimize wasted movement on the part of the employees and to contribute to the speedier service. -Supply chain strategy: in an effort to keep cost low and establish a brand, Minit-Lube uses its own brand of products which are purchased at a negotiated price. -Human Resources: Human resources strategy focuses on training each staff member through Minit-Lube school to perform specific task at the highest level.
-Inventory strategy: inventory can be expected to be really low as the focus is on the services provided. -Scheduling strategy: scheduling of staff is set to meet customer volume. -Maintenance strategy: with a group of well trained staff maintenance service solution are expected to be reliable. Also, since Minit-Lube has three bays failure of bay won’t necessarily affect business much which is very good advantage.
3. Is it likely that Minit-Lube has increased productivity over its more traditional competitors? Why? How would we measure productivity in this industry? Minit-Lube’s strategy has certainly increased productivity over its more traditional competitors. Each staff member Specialized training in certain task allows Minit-Lube to be more efficient. A good way to measure productivity in this industry is to take into account the tasks accomplished per man-hour.
