BUS 3500 March 24

The reading of Chapter 12 for the March 24 class has been of great interest to me, and I am seeing some connections to my time working at The Shingo Prize and also my husband's management insights as a global director at Autoliv. I had never seen it spelled out this way in an overall teaching though - Marketing Channels and Supply Chain Management. First, the pull system concept - I learned this at Shingo - and many examples of the benefits of taking the cue from the customer rather than producing and pushing it onto the customer. I see the benefits to this concept in all kinds of business - sell them what they want and need, not what you want them to want and buy. The customer will pay for the things that they feel have value to them, so as the Shingo principles say, don't add cost without adding value - otherwise it's waste. Excess inventory is waste, and also waiting is one of the eight wastes... and this chapter on Supply Chain Management emphasizes that with references to JIT. I love the example from my Autoliv that my husband shared with me: The Brigham plant produces the inflator module that is needed to complete the airbag assembly that Ogden produces. Autoliv reduced wait time and managed inventory with JIT, by calculating when the line in Ogden would need product from the Brigham plant, how much, and scheduling a truck to bring that product directly to the line, every 36 minutes. The line got what they needed, when they needed it, exactly where they needed it - and you can set your clock on that truck traveling down I-15... every 36 minutes.

BUS 3500 March 17

March 3 was midterm exam so no class, and March 10 was spring break, no class again! But over spring break the reading of chapter 10 was due for the March 17 quiz and class... and I really enjoyed this chapter on product development and management. I could not help applying these teachings to my former and current jobs at USU in event management. The educational products we developed and marketed at the Shingo Prize as part of the business school were affected by the economy during the past several years, as customers weighed the advantages of further training and development of their people over the bottom line expenses and costs in the face of low sales and economic downturn. No amount of sales and marketing could change the fact that the money simply was not there for that type of investment. There is also the aspect of saturation - with only one basic product (Operational Excellence training) - at which point does the market become saturated - and in this economy, there are less new organizations with these needs than there are existing organizations downsizing or going out of business entirely. It's probably not a question of the product having achieved its end in the life cycle, but more of a temporary decline stage, brought on by economic conditions. In my current job though at University Conference Services, there is potential for new product development and growth, by introducing meeting services to the other various departments at the University. With reductions in budgets come staff cuts and emphasis on downsizing, and that is where we can come in, by offering our event management services as an "in-house outsource solution." Rather than pay an internal person in a small department to be a full time event organizer, it makes sense to partner with my department to do the job on an "as needed" basis - and I am seeing the potential for a product launch targeting departments in need of exactly that.

BUS 3500 February 24

Chapter 9 - Product Concepts - DEFINED: a product is defined as everything, both favorable and unfavorable, that a person receives in an exchange. CLASSIFIED: The types of products range from business or industrial products (used to manufacture other goods/services, or re-sell to other customers), to consumer products (personal wants), convenience products (inexpensive, little shopping effort), shopping products (which require comparison shopping) - to speciality products which require extensive search behavior and substitutions are not acceptable - and to what is called an "unsought" product - things not actively sought but needed eventually - such as insurance or burial plots. AND FURTHER DEFINING: The chapter went into defining product items in categories including product lines, product mix (in width and depth), talked about product modification, planned obsolescence and product line extension. I was most interested in the sections on branding and packaging - strategies for domestic vs. international marketing of a product. As a marketing/pr person, I like to consider the potential impact of persuasive labeling - using the package to help sell the product. I designed a package for a seafood salad product when I worked in Denver and the considerations of packaging shape, design, graphics, color, all came into play. Had I read this chapter prior to that I could have done a better job at it.