Question

Two of the layouts - process-oriented and product-oriented - are used in production facilities. Research a firm that uses one of these two layouts. Describe your selected firm's layout and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each layout. Recommend changes that would improve your selected firm's layout.

Answer 1

The company I will be choosing will be Mcdonald which uses product oriented layout. Mcdonald is a world-wide chain that can be found in almost every county. Sometimes, the cheapest option to settle a meal is to grab a meal from Mcdonald. Their focus is to make thousands of burgers a day at a cheap price. As low as $2.50 SGD for a cheese burger to a $5 SGD Big Mac. Their goal isn’t to sell the best-tasting burger in the industry but to make a decent burger at an affordable price that will keep customers happy.

The advantages of product-oriented layout is to focus more on the manufacturing and production process rather than the customer needs. Thus there is no need to do about making the highest-quality product as cheaply and quickly as possible. You do so with the belief that if you create a good product at an affordable price, your customers will buy it, regardless of whether it meets their every want and need. Another advantage to this layout is that you can develop a reputation for providing quality products in the marketplace. If you focus on promoting the product, you can create loyalty among your customers because of the high quality of the item.

However on the other end, there is one disadvantages of using a product-based marketing strategy, is that you can alienate your customers. When you on focus on the product and not the customers, you not only need to create a quality product but also to match it up to a target market. Other companies can easily over take your product if you do not improvised to cater to your target market.

From my point of view, I do not think Mcdonald need to change their layout. If you were to realised, they often come out with new menus during different season and also cater the flavours/likings according to the country’s people. For example, Mcdonald recent came out with Bandung Desserts in Singapore which is a local flavours to us.