Process Design and Economics Apple Inc.

Question: You are an Operations Manager for one of the companies or organisations listed below, Apple Halliburton BBC LIDL NHS You are currently reviewing the product portfolio in order to introduce a new or modify an existing product/service. Assignment Task Design or modify a product or service for your chosen organisation. You are to report on the following: An introduction to the product or service Detail of the importance of process design on the product or service The overall aim and objectives of the product/service using process design Stages of product/service to illustrate your design concept Analysis of the impact of performance objectives on the design Your report should include relevant academic models to support your analysis. Answer: Introduction This report is focusing on the logistic and operation management of Apple, Inc. This report is emphasising the importance of the process design on the products. The chosen product for this report is iPhone 6S Gold, which newly introduced by Apple in global market (Apple 2016). The aim of this report is to investigate the impact of process design on the product performance. Moreover, this report is paying attention on modifying the process design for the product. In order to modify the process design of the product, this report will analyse the current issues of iPhone 6S Gold in relation with process design. Process design refers to the systematic process in which an organization introduces innovative products or service to the market (Galindo and Batta 2013). This process is diversified in two separated aspects, which are related with each other. One is product design and another process is producing the product as per chancing needs and requirements of the targeted consumers. Product details Apple iPhone S6 Gold is a newly launched mobile device of Apple, which is preloaded with iOS 9 and upgradable to iOS 9.2.1. Apart from that, this device is using Apple A9 chip set and Dual-core 1.84 GHz twister processor. The screen dimension of this device is 138.3*67.1 mm, which is the most recent in mobile phone industry. This device supports a Nano SIM card of CDMA/GSM/EVDO/HSPA/LTE technology. The screen size of this device is 4.7 inches with 750*1334 pixels resolution. The camera features of this device supports full HD video recording. The primary camera is 12 MP, which supports 4K video recording. Apart from that, the product is consisting of 5 MP of secondary camera. In order to enhance the battery performance of this device, Apple has given a Li-Po battery with 1715 mAh, which allows the users to get a 240 hours standby battery life in third generation network. Moreover, this device is having many other added features such as noise reduction, focal length adjustment and man y more. In addition, this product is offering a high security to the users, which is ensuring that the files stored to the device are safe and secure from external threats such as hacking. Moreover, Apple is providing 10 GB of cloud storage, which is beneficial for the users. There are two variation of storage, one is coming with 64 GB of internal storage and another is coming with 128 GB of storage (Apple 2016). Importance of process design In this competitive era, the major aim of the organizations is to create a value proposition among the targeted consumers. Therefore, companies are trying to influence consumers touch point regarding how the product should looks or feels like (Dekker, Bloemhof and Mallidis 2012). The needs and demand of the consumers is changing rapidly in this era and therefore, consumers are seeking for new inventions rather than the traditional products or services. In case of a product manufactures, especially in case of mobile phone manufactures, it is highly important to adopt innovation for attracting consumers (Gunasekaran and Ngai 2012). Therefore, the process design is the most important factor for following a systematic way of product design. The process design is having several stages such as concept generation, screening of the concept, preliminary stage of design, improvement of the design and final design (Towler and Sinnott 2012). Now, these steps are having different importance, which needs to follow for successful invention. For an example, an organization should have the patent the concept for avoiding threat of innovation theft. In order to generate an effective concept for the product, it is highly important for the company to investigate consumers needs and demand (Davis et al. 2015). Therefore, it can be said that an effective process design helps an organization in gaining competitive advantages. The second phase of process design is supply chain management, which is highly important for maintaining product availability among the targeted market (Hessel et al. 2012). After introducing the product, the company needs to aware the consumers regarding how the consumers will be able to avail the product. In this process, an effective layout of supply chain is required, which is an important part of the process design. Aim and objective of the product using process design The major aim of Apple iPhone S6 Gold is to utilise the process design for acquiring high market share. Apart from that, Apple is aiming to increase organizational profitability during the maturity stage of the product. Apple has protected the innovation with the help of legal procedure, which is effectively helping the company in maintaining business sustainability in competitive market (Leane et al. 2013). Apart from that, using an effective process design, the company will be able to introduce the most innovative product among the targeted market, which will make the consumers more loyal for the company. Following are the objectives of Apple, which can be fulfilled with the help of an effective process design. To build the new concept as per consumers requirements To make the primary design and further improvement for manufacturing the product To promote the product among the targeted market To establish an effective supply chain management process for increase product availability Stage of product to illustrate process design The company has introduced Apple iPhone S6 Gold in 2015, September 19th. Since then, this product is attracting the consumers by its innovative features and attractive built. Moreover, this product is elegant in looks, which is the major reason for what the consumers have accepted this product as the best among the market (Stoller et al. 2013). The primary stage after the product release is known as the introductory stage. In this stage, Apple has conducted promotion for increasing product awareness among the targeted market. In order to increase the awareness among the targeted market, the company has adopted effective advertisement and promotional strategies heading towards the growth stage. The company has achieved the growth stage within two months after launching the product. During this stage, Apple has experienced high sales for this product (Kralisch et al. 2013). Thereafter, the product is on the maturity stage in which the product is failing to attract consumers towards the products. The reason behind being matured in such a short period is competitiveness of the market. Rival organizations are repeatedly introducing new technologies for attracting consumers and therefore, consumers are paying attention to the other brands, which is negatively affecting organizational profitability of Apple Inc (Estrada et al. 2012). Currently, Apple iPhone S6 Gold is on the maturity phase and the company is restructuring their product design for returning to the introductory stage. The activities for leading the product towards introductory stage again, Apple needs to incorporate new technology to the product before the product goes to the decline stage. Figure 1: Product Life cycle of iPhone S6 Gold (Source: Created by the author) The above-mentioned product life cycle of Apple iPhone S6 Gold is showing that this product needs improvement in product design for attracting consumers interest. Therefore, curtain area of this product needs improvement in immediate basis (Zhang et al. 2014). In order to attract consumers in global market, the product needs some added features and variation as well. For example, a new version of this devise needs to be introduced for attracting new consumers. Apart from that, interest of existing consumers can also be increased by following this particular strategy (Schoenecker et al. 2013). Following is the product design for leading the product towards introductory stage of product life cycle. Camera features: Currently, this product is having a 8 MP of primary camera with dual LED flash, which is ensuring high quality of pictures in low light as well. However, this product is not having that good secondary camera (Sharifzadeh 2013). The major weakness of this product is the secondary camera is not having flash. Therefore, the product design will incorporate a flashing technology for secondary camera. Apart from that, the new version of Apple S6 Gold will be consisting of high quality of 21 MP of primary camera and 15 MP of secondary camera. Along with that, the user of this device will be able to adjust the focal length and aperture of the camera while taking pictures through this device (Grbl, Walter and Haider 2012). Build of the product: The current version of Apple iPhone S6 is having a slick built. The dimension of the product is 138.1*67*6.9 mm. The newly launched product of this device will be more attractive in terms of built and therefore, it will attract more consumers (Ouattara et al. 2012). The screen size of the current device is 4.7 inches and the coming version of this device will consisting of 5 inches of display. The larger display will affect the battery life of this device and therefore, Apple will consider the battery capacity for the new device. Primary memory: In current market, many organizations are introducing products with high primary memory, which is effective for improving product performance in an effective manner (Kralisch et al. 2013). Therefore, product design of Apple iPhone S6 will incorporate 2 GB of RAM to the product for retaining existing and new consumers from competitive market. Apart from that, the device will also include a graphics memory, which will increase gaming performance of the device. Battery performance: Currently, the device is offering 1715 mAh battery. Therefore, the company is aiming to increase the battery performance by providing 2500 mAh battery for enhancing the battery performance to the new device (Estrada et al. 2012). As the company is aiming to increase display size, this feature will help the users to experience a lag free performance from the device. Application compatibility: Apple is manufacturing the products, which are supporting limited applications and most of the applications are paid for the users. Therefore, the software platform of the newly launched device will support many applications. Consumers will be able to download different applications from the Apple store after registering the devices (Leane et al. 2013). The major reason behind heading the maturity stage within short time is that the products of Apple are not comparable with most of the applications, which are available among the open source market. However, devices of apple are unable to support applications of open source market and therefore, the company is aiming to the improving the compatibility of the device for reducing the time of heading the maturity stage (Kralisch et al. 2013). Targeting new customer: The current device is consisting of various business class features such as document viewer, excel, word, PowerPoint and other applications. These applications are helpful for the business people among the targeted market. Now, the company will focus on a diversified target market by increasing product features (Sharifzadeh 2013). The newly launched version of iPhone S6 will be loaded with many features, which will facilitate the youth generation as well. Therefore, this product design will also attract various consumers of various social classes, which will increase profitability of the company. Impact of performance objectives on product design Performance objectives refer to the basic goals of an organization for building an effective product design. In case of Apple, the company has created the objectives for modifying the product design for Apple iPhone S6 Gold. In these objectives, the company is planning to incorporate innovation, which is effective for grabbing competitive advantages from the contemporary market (Zhang et al. 2014). Apart from that, the systematic process of performance objective is helping the company in getting successful outcome from the product design. Recommendations In order to introduce the product in existing market, Apple should identify the needs and requirements of the consumers for understanding changing trends of consumers. It will help the company in incorporating importance features to iPhone S6 Gold. Apart from that, Apple should improve the software platform for making the software more comparable with other devices. The major issue of Apple devices is that the devices are unable to communicate with other devices for security threat. In order to increase sales volume of the products, Apple should implement strategies for overcoming this constraint. Conclusion After preparing this report, it can be concluded that process design is the most important aspect, which an organization should consider for improving organizational profitability. Apart from that, modifying the process design is required for uplifting the product sales in competitive market. This assignment is showing how process design of iPhone S6 Gold can be modified to lead the product towards introduction phase from maturity stage. The evaluation of product lifecycle is emphasising that the company should be more innovative in terms of technological getting successful outcomes. Reference list Apple, U., 2016. Apple (United Kingdom). Apple. Available fom: https://www.apple.com/uk/ [Accessed on: 7 Mar. 2016] Davis, R., Tao, L., Scarlata, C., Tan, E.C.D., Ross, J., Lukas, J. and Sexton, D., 2015. Process Design and Economics for the Conversion of Lignocellulosic Biomass to Hydrocarbons: Dilute-Acid and Enzymatic Dekker, R., Bloemhof, J. and Mallidis, I., 2012. 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