Location

One Eight Distilling is located in DC 1135 Okie St NE. Washington DC. This comes out as an ideal location for a distillery company. Washington DC has substantial population size hence would easily provide for the relevant human needs. Among them is that the state provides favorable market prospects due to the favorable population size. It is also easy for the company to also acquire qualified employees to work in the company due to the wide pool available to choose from. This applies to both skilled and unskilled employees. The state is also ideally located to access raw materials from different suppliers.  This aspect helps to deal with the porter’s fives forces of business that involves the bargaining power of suppliers. When the bargaining power of the suppliers is low, the company can control their actions.

Currently, Washington is ranked as the second state with the highest percentage of adults consuming alcohol. The state is also ranked number one with regards to the number of heavy drinkers residing there. This information has been provided courtesy of detox.net, which is an online resource that focuses on alcohol abuse treatment programs. The report shows that 65.9% of adults tend to taste alcoholic products every month (Clabaugh, 2017). There are varied reasons that contribute to high levels of alcohol consumption in the state. Among them is the improving economic status being experienced in the region. This has improved the purchasing power of consumers in this regard. The state also has a large pool of professional population coming from different towns. These individuals are known to drink more on average (Clabaugh, 2017). The district also tends to have liberal alcohol laws since there are no restrictions to happy hours.

These and other reasons make One Eight Distilling’s location favorable. It is a location that enables for the efficient and optimal functioning of the business given the industry of operation.

Inventory Management

Inventory management is regarded as an important element in the company. This is because the process helps in the delivery of quality products to the end consumer. It also makes it easy to run operations without facing the problem of redundancy. One Eight Distilling uses the concept of “grain to glass” in delivering their spirits products to consumers. This goes a long way to manifest that they are honest with the consumers with regards to their operations. This is because the products are made on site. There are some distillers that tend to purchase spirits from other companies in bulk, and put a label, then tell consumers that the products are “handcrafted” by the company. This is not the case with One Eight Distilling.

The company sources its raw materials from local suppliers. There is the concept of crafting the recipes with the finest ingredients available from suppliers. The grains are milled on site, and the grist is transferred to the mashing tank where fresh water is added at desired temperatures to help convert the starch in the grains to desired sugars that will be suitable for fermentation. The product is later distilled in a facility that enables the controlling of the flavor profile that is required. After distillation, the white spirits are bottled in Anchor Hocking bottles while aged spirits are barreled on site until they acquire the desired smoothness.

The final products are usually stored in a warehouse, and there is a manager responsible for the control. Physical stocktaking is enhanced now and then to ensure everything is in order. The process takes place when there are products coming in or out of the warehouse. The company has adopted an inventory management software that enables the ease of conducting these operations. Any time there is an inventory transfer, the data is fed to the software for ease of tracking. Inventory posting also takes place here.

Among the larger scope of the inventory management software is to enable Inventory control,  finished product assembly, purchase orders, and vendor management. With inventory control, the software enables tracking of every item, giving real-time stock levels, and set record points or alarm notifications. On finished product assembly, the software enables to build the assembly list for all the finished products, tracks items separately and enhance case size quantities. With regards to purchase orders, it enables tracking of status or warnings, managing purchase orders, enhancing automated inventory adjustment and receiving payments. The aspect of vendor management on it part is enabled by managing all supplier and vendors, enhancement of setup custom terms, multiple contact information and single place accessibility.

Human Resource and Job Design

One Eight Distilling does not have an active human resource department. Human resource duties at the organization are conducted by the general management. The functions that the management executes with regards to human resource include recruitment, safety, employee relations, compensation and benefits, compliance, and training and development. The recruitments, in this case, work in-house. Job positions are usually advertised on the company’s website and other relevant outlets. The employees are sourced, screened, and there is coordinated hiring efforts with the relevant superiors. The company has an employment policy that discourages discrimination in employment, advertisement for employment, recruitment, termination, compensation, promotions, upgrading among other employment issues.

When it comes to safety, employers have an obligation of providing a safe working environment for the employees as provided in the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (Bratton & Gold, 2012). One Eight Distilling management achieves this by enhancing workplace safety training and also maintaining the mandated logs for fatality and workplace injury reporting. Employee relations, on the other hand, are meant to enhance the relationship that exists between the employees and the employer. This is usually done by way of strengthening employee engagement, measuring of job satisfaction and resolving prevailing workplace conflict. The company also ensures that there is working in partnership in all the departments to help improve the relationships involved. Planning of team-building activities also seems to be a way of the management of ensuring that these relations have been improved.

The compensation and benefits function is usually performed by one individual. There are compensation structures that have already been defined for employees in different departments. The company has a policy of not discriminating when it comes to compensation. Skilled employees and those that have been with the company for long seem to enjoy more benefits. Compliance, on the other hand, is necessitated since there is a need for complying with relevant labor and employment laws. Noncompliance is likely to result in conflicts with the employees. There is also the probability of costly law suits and fines as a result of failing to comply with set rules and regulations.

Training and development are viewed as an important aspects at One Eight Distilling. This is because it helps the employees to operate in a manner that is equivalent to the organization’s standards. Training is usually done at the departmental level to pass the required skill sets.

Job Design

Job design at One Eight Distilling is meant to reduce job dissatisfaction and increase productivity. This is usually done without using monetary rewards. Among the ways that the company uses to improve job design is employing individuals with a passion for the products that are being developed (spirits). This ensures that the employees are self-motivated since they have a feeling of achievement while working at the company.

The management also enhances variety with regards to the scope of employment. Here, employees are usually rotated from one area to another to help avoid monotony. Doing the same thing over and over can easily lead to loss of interest even for the self-motivated individuals (Bratton & Gold, 2012). Variety does not necessarily mean working within a different department, but can be an aspect of adding an extra but a similar duty.

The management at the company also improves job design through responsibility and autonomy. Employees are responsible when their work is clearly defined. Autonomy comes in when the employees can control or regulate their own work (Bratton & Gold, 2012). This is why One Eight Distilling advertises on its website that it prefers recruiting employees that can work under minimum supervision.

Supply Chain Management

The company’s supply chain management commences with the purchasing of raw materials. One Eight Distilling purchases its raw materials locally. This is usually viewed as a way of reducing costs such as transport and handling costs. The distance involved is not extensive, and there is also no need for establishing an additional warehouse in the outskirts for assembling of the raw material before they are transported to the organization premises.

Other operations involved in the supply chain management often include forecasting, demand planning, and production. Demand planning helps to provide a forecast of the components, materials and services needed in future for the purchasing function. It helps to provide informed guidance on future revenues, sales, and inventory levels. Forecasting is usually regarded as an integral part of demand planning since it works to provide a favorable foundation for accurate demand planning. The production part of the supply chain management has been covered in the inventory management section.

Initially, One Eight Distilling used to distribute its products using the three-tier system. Here, the company’s distribution would involve producers, distributors and retailers. The company would sell to wholesalers who would later sell to retailers then the retailers sell to consumers. Given the changes in alcohol laws in Washington, the company can now distribute directly to the retailers. The company has also set a tasting room for cocktail service at the company’s premises. The consumers get the opportunity of sampling the selection of spirits on offer. Entry to the tasting room is only granted to people who are 21 years and above with valid I.D.

Recommendations for Improvement

There are several recommendations on how the company can improve the operations management. Among them is creating an open environment that makes it possible for everyone to assess everything going on with the set processes and simplify the concept of job management. This makes it possible to expose problems in the workplace before they become detrimental (Starr & Gupta, 2017). It is an aspect that can apply to both office environments and manufacturing operations. Having an open environment also enhances communication among employees since it is easy for everyone to see the state of current operations. This is something that can be implemented in the concept of job design by the human resource. It is something that enhances improvement of employees’ relations in levels of employment. As a result, it is something that will bring a sense of belonging hence work as motivation to increase productivity since the employees are feeling like part of a team.

Maintaining flexibility is another aspect that the organization should aim an enhancing. The design being employed at the organization ought to be flexible to allow for new conditions. This is an aspect that makes it easy for an organization to transform without encountering unwanted bottle-necks. A good example is when the inventory management system is not working as expected, the company will have the ability to change to another system if there is flexibility. Flexibility ensures that the changes made are seamless, and they do not affect the operations being conducted. This makes the change process less costly hence more beneficial to the organization (Starr & Gupta, 2017). There are times when change seems like the best thing for an organization given the circumstances, but the cost that is likely to be incurred puts the management of. If possible in the case of One Eight Distilling, through maintenance of flexibility, there should be the ability to reconfigure the design to help accommodate the introduction of new products or changes in the mix of products produced at the company. This helps to remain competitive by offering consumers what they want.

The company should also ensure that there is creation of a human resource department. There should be a HR manager to oversee all the human resource operations being conducted in the organization. Currently, some of the employees are being overworked (information obtained while visiting the premises) due to shortage issues. If there is a HR manager, he/she will help to sort the staffing issue. This is because as a HR manager he/she will be having ample time to assess all the areas and note where there is deficit.

References

Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2012). Human Resource Management. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Clabaugh, J. (2017). DC has highest percentage of heavy drinkers. WTOP. Retrieved 12 December 2017, from https://wtop.com/business-finance/2017/12/dc-no1-heavy-drinkers/

Home. (2017). One Eight Distilling. Retrieved 11 December 2017, from http://www.oneeightdistilling.com/home

Starr, M., & Gupta, S. (2017). The Routledge companion to production and operations management. Taylor & Francis.

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