PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT CASE 4 ASSIGNMENTS

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CASE 4 ASSIGNMENTS

Jonas has been in the body building business for many years in Lagos. His gymnasium, originally built for men now consists of separate facilities for men and women located beneath a chicken parlour in main Island Lagos. Jonas views the primary task of his business as “providing” a full range of body building and weight reduction services for upper and middle class men, women and children.

Currently, he has 20 employees who work with the customers in designing their health programmes. His gym has separate weight lifting and exercise rooms for men and women, a pool, a sauna bath and a small running track behind the building. While Jonas states that every customer is different, he makes men go through his 23 steps conditioning course and women follow the diet in “Jonas’s Energy Diet” pamphlet. Customers are usually enrolled in a 10-week introductory course and then left to advance at their own pace.

The gym is molded after the one Jonas first managed on an army barracks in Port Harcourt. Jonas maintains that the Spartan atmosphere is necessary to build mental and physical toughness. With some pride, Jonas notes that he has all of the latest barbells and slant board apparatus. Jonas has always viewed his major inventory items as liniments and bandages, which are ordered periodically from a wholesaler or are purchased from a nearby drug store if stockouts occur. Other items are purchased from a local sporting goods store.

Jonas is very concerned about keeping all of his staff busy and keeping the equipment in constant use. So he requires that customers follow a specific hour-by-hour schedule on equipment use. If the equipment is scheduled to capacity, he requests that his customers come at slow periods during the day or evening. This procedure has met with some resistance from customers, but Jonas tells them that that is the price they must pay if he is to provide the most up-to-day health centre services.

Jonas has done a survey of the prices charged by the other four health centres in the area and his fees are about average. The other health centres have about the same number of employees, although two of them use licensed beauty consultants. Jonas considers this an unnecessary frill and tells all of his customers that anybody who works for him is an expert on all aspects of body maintenance. Jonas has instituted a policy of job rotation whereby each member of the staff, with the exception of the clerk typist, changes activities each hour.

Employees are paid by the hour and are primarily graduates who are interested in athletics. Turnover has not been a problem, even though Jonas pays only slightly more than the minimum wage.

Although, Jonas’s capacity is fully utilized, the number of memberships has dropped off from 500 to about 300 in the last six months and profits have dropped proportionately. His accountant is looking into the possibility of raising membership fees.

QUESTIONS:

1. Develop a new primary task for Jonas’s Gymnasium.

2. Based upon your analysis, what steps do you recommend Jonas takes to reverse the trend in memberships?

SOLUTION:

1. PROBLEMS IDENTIFIED

Here are some problems identified with Jonas’s Gym;

(a) The Gym originally was built for men

(b) The resistance from customers because Jonas requested them to come at slow periods during the day or evening if or when the equipment is scheduled to capacity

(d) Membership has dropped from 500 to 300 and profit also has dropped proportionately

2. EVALUATION OF THE PROBLEMS

(a). The Gym that was built for men originally, now consists of separate facility for men and women and that would pose some challenges to the owner Jonas because, he has to get a separate place for the women and even get separate facilities that would cost a lot of money and purchase money equipment or manage what is on ground.

(b) Telling customers to come at a slow periods during the day or evening if or when the equipment is scheduled to capacity is another problem because, customers are always right as the saying goes and they have their spare time for the GYM and that time must not be changed by the owner – that could result to alterative decision by the customers to consider another GYM.

(c) Jonas’s Gym has no Licensed Beauty Consultants – he uses graduates who are only interested in athletics and for that, they can’t bring out their best in the GYM business. When you use unskilled staff for your business, there must be a decline in patronage.

(d) Membership has dropped from 500 to 300 and even profit as well because from the above statement problems, it is so glaring that the patronage would be affected and once your patronage has dropped, income will also drop.

PROFFERING SOLUTION TO ALL THESE PROBLEMS

a. Jonas new primary task should be as follows:

b. Get Licensed Beauty Consultants

c. Get Gym Instructors/Experts and not graduates that are interested in athletic alone

d. Let his customers come at their scheduled time and not at Jonas’s time

To reverse the trend in memberships based upon my analysis, Jonas should take the following steps:

a. Hire licensed beauty consultants/expert GYM Instructors

b. Buy latest GYM equipment

c. Renovate the entire GYM facility and make the environment conducive for the users

d. Finally, Jonas should advertise his GYM in most viewing TVs stations/media houses and include all the recent changes as mentioned in (a to c) in his advert/promotion campaign.