Assignment
Case Study: The Management Approach at the Fordsburg Car Centre
Dylan van Rooyen is the managing director of Fordsburg Car Centre (FCC), an automobile repair shop with 22 branches nationally. FCC is a family business that opened its doors in the suburb of Fordsburg, Johannesburg, South Africa in 1994. Shaun van Rooyen, Dylan's father, started FCC to service cars in Fordsburg offering a variety of car services in the community. He took advantage of the economic outlook offered by the end of apartheid. It was clear that a significantly growing market started to emerge for automobile tune-up and lubrication shops. This demand came about because of the change in the newly led government affected consumer buying patterns as the majority of people in South Africa were joining the middle class.
In FCC's early days, Shaun's leadership and hands-on management approach was very critical to set the company on the success path. Shaun learned of the different strategies organisations could use to compete. His philosophy, which he always shared with his staff, would later become the organisation's motto: 'Always offer what the customer wants, as they will dictate our business strategy - always.'
Back in the 90s, FCC started with one workshop, which has become a landmark of pride for the entire Fordsburg community. FCC provided high-quality services to its customers - the types of services that one could expect from businesses in the wealthy suburb of Sandton.
Nowadays, consumers have better buying power, which allows them to purchase more vehicles than they did in the 90s when FCC started operating. With the South African economy struggling with slow economic growth, more customers have changed their spending pattern and a shift in strategy was needed to cater for the changing demand.
FCC now aims to provide economical preventative maintenance and interior auto cleaning, primarily to vehicles owned by individuals (as opposed to businesses), in South Africa while respecting the environment. FCC workshops perform minor and major services, oil changes, lubrication, and interior cleaning in a spotless environment. At FCC, the customer is greeted by service representatives who are graduates of the internship programme run by FCC through the Johannesburg Central College, in Doornfontein. The greeter takes the customer order, which typically includes fluid checks (oil, water, brake fluid, transmission fluid, differential grease) and the necessary lubrication, as well as filter changes for air and oil. Service personnel in neat uniforms then move into action in an environment where safety is key. The standard three-person team has one member of staff attending to the service tasks and repairs if necessary, and another in the garage pit, removing the oil filter, draining the oil, checking the differential and transmission, and lubricating as necessary. Another is assigned to interior vacuuming and window cleaning. Precise task assignments and good training are designed to put the car in and out of the bay in ten minutes. The idea is to charge no more, and hopefully less, than the competing automotive repair chains, and auto dealers, while providing better service.
Task
A. Which specific two performance objectives fuction is FCC achieving in order to be more competitive? Support your answer by providing extract(s) from the case study. Do not mention all five objective function. Only provide the two that are applicable.
B. FCC is planning to automate its operation by introducing robotic process automation. How would you decide what to automate Support your answer by providing extract(s) from the case study.
C. What Governance issues will you consider in executing the automation?
D. What will be the ideal robotic process automation team required to carry out the automation?
E. How would you measure the digitization success?