Planning

Operations Planning and Scheduling:

Operations planning and scheduling is, “the process of balancing supply with demand, from the aggregate level down to the short-term scheduling level (Krajewski, Malhotra, & Ritzman, 375). Operations planning and scheduling is extremely important when it comes to running and operating a company successfully. There are three levels in operations planning and scheduling that helps companies to operate well and be profitable. Wells Fargo is a company that uses the three levels in operations planning and scheduling to help them meet their goals.

Level 1: Sales and Operations Planning

Under sales and operations planning, Wells Fargo uses aggregation, information inputs, and related plans in their company.

It is never too early to plan ahead

Wells Fargo performs aggregation along the three dimensions of services, workforce, and time. As per services, Wells Fargo uses the concept of product family. Product family is defined as, “a group of services or products that have similar demand requirements and common processes, labor, and materials requirements” (Krajewski, et al., 376). As Wells Fargo provides many different services, such as loans, mortgages, and so on, they benefit by separating all of their different service offerings into product families. By grouping together services that demand the same requirements as well as have common processes, they speed up the processes and are more efficient in helping assist their customers with higher quality. As per workforce, Wells Fargo employees are somewhat flexible, but to an extent. At any Wells Fargo branch, it is typical to see a teller work either the drive-thru window or the front desk, but it is atypical to see a teller be placed at a desk to assist customers with loans and such. For the planning of time, Wells Fargo typically looks at their sales and operations from the last year. Wells Fargo has a system that helps them to determine how things were at that time in the previous year, which gives them a pretty accurate way to plan things out for the future.

The input of information is essential to Wells Fargo when it comes to sales and operations planning. By inputting information and data into a system, Wells Fargo can, at any time, go back and refer to the data and information for different months or even specific days. By referring back to the data and information, they track patterns as well as compare sales. Tracking patterns and comparing sales helps to plan and prepare for what may happen next.

When it comes to related plans, Wells Fargo uses a business plan, which is, “a projected statement of income, costs, and profits” (Krajewski, et al., 376). By using a business plan, Wells Fargo is able to estimate how much they think they will make, how much they think will lose in expenses, and how much they ultimately will profit. A projected business plan helps Wells Fargo stay on budget and on track. 


Level 2: Resource Planning

Money is the most important resource

Resource planning is, “a process that takes sales and operations plans; processes the time standards, routings, and other information on how services or products are produced; and then plans the timing of capacity requirements” (Krajewski, et al., 377). Resource planning is extremely important for Wells Fargo. In order to ensure that they can serve their customers, the resources that Wells Fargo needs daily are things such as computers, scanners, and money. Every day, Wells Fargo makes sure that their computers and scanners are working properly so that they can help their customers with what ever they may need. It is important that their computer systems are working properly because the systems projects an estimated timed requirement for different actives (processing loans, opening accounts, etc.) based on the times that it took the previous year. As Wells Fargo is a bank, their number one resource is money. In the short-term as well as in the long-term, Wells Fargo makes sure that they always have enough money on hand to fulfill the financial needs of their customers. By having enough money on hand, using scanners to speed up processes, and taking advantage of time with an agile computer system, Wells Fargo can ensure that they are providing the best quality for their customers.


Level 3: Scheduling

A program schedules employees

Workforce scheduling is important at Wells Fargo. A workforce schedule, "details the specific work schedule for each category of employees" (Krajewski, et al., 378). As part of their workforce, Wells Fargo employs full-time and part-time workers, where the job category differs between them. Wells Fargo has a computerized scheduling program that recommends how many full time and part time employees are needed that day. The number of employees needed depends on the traffic that had come in from the same day the previous year. Using that information, the program also recommends the time of the employee's shift as well as the length of the employee's shift. The scheduling program is essential to Wells Fargo, as it ensure that there are always enough employees to help fulfill customer needs.