The Performance Management Contribution

There are many advantages associated with the implementation of a performance management system. A performance management system can make the following important contributions:

1. Motivation to perform is increased. Receiving feedback about one's performance increases the motivation for future performance. Knowledge about how one is doing and recognition about one's past successes provide the fuel for future accomplishments.

2. Self-esteem is increased. Receiving feedback about one's performance fulfills a basic human need to be recognised and valued at work. This, in turn, is likely to increase employees' self-esteem

3. Managers gain insight about subordinates

The basic approaches to handling predictable variability in demand

predictable variability refers to the changes in demand that can be forecasted, e.g. seasonal variation in demand. If not dealt with properly, it can cause increased costs and decreased responsiveness in the supply chain.

A firm can handle predictable variability using two broad approaches:
-Manage supply using capacity, inventory, subcontracting, and backlogs.
-Manage demand using short-term price discounts and trade promotions

Managing supply is done through the management of capacity and inventory
-Managing capacity
----time flexibility from workforce
----use of seasonal workforce
----use of subcontracting
----use of dual facilities - dedicated and flexible
----designing product flexibility into production processes

Core supply chain processes and core competence

No matter how simple or complex a supply chain is, it must consist of some core processes or activities which can be classified as follows:
Create - to design a product to meet customer needs
Source - to find and procure the raw materials to produce the product
Make - to move the product from the raw materials

Understanding Motivation

While motivation is one of the most frequently researched topics, there exist many theories and ideas about how employee motivation works. Some argue that motivtion is an exclusively individual trait, such as the old saying "You can bring a horse to water, buy you can't make it drink".
It is the environment that will empower employees to motivate themselves. Another approach argues that different people are motivated by different things and a 'one sizes fits all' approach will not work. 

Money, fear, job satisfaction, incentives and perks, flexible timing, training and learning and various other tools are used at random by firms in the belief that a combination of these tools will motivate their workers. These tools in isolation indeed motivate people for a short while or even slightly longer. It is probable that one or two in combination will definitely work for an individual as long as all areas are covered. There is nothing wrong with this formula, but none of these tools work in isolation within the environment and culture of an organisation. So, as we explore and document the concept of motivation, we need to keep in mind that the level of motivation varies both between individuals and within individuals at different times.

We define motivation as the processes that account for an individual's intensity, direction and persistence of effort towards attaining a goal. while general motivation is concerned with effort towards any goal, we will narrow the focus to organisational goals in order to reflect our singular interest in work-related behaviour.

The three key elements in our definition are intensity, direction and persistence. Intensity describes how hard a person ties. This is the element that most of us focus on when we talk about motivation. However, high intensity is unlikely to lead to favourable job-performance outcomes unless the effort is channelled in a direction that benefits the organisation.
Therefore, we consider the quality of effort as well as its intensity. Effort direct towards, and consistent with, the firm's goals is the kind of effort managers are seeking. Finally motivation has a persistence dimension. This measures how long a person can maintain effort. Motivated individuals stay with a task long enough to achieve their goal.

Understanding behaviour

Individuals base their behaviour not on the way their external environment actually is, but rather on the way they see it or believe it to be.

An understanding of the way people make decisions can help us explain and predict behaviour, but few important decisions are simple or clear enough for the rational model's assumptions to apply. 

We find individuals looking for solutions that satisfice rather than optimise, injecting biases and prejudices into the decisin process, and relying on intuition.

Managers should encourage creativity in workers and teams to create a route to innovative decision making.

Creative outcomes (innovation)

Creative behaviour doesn't always produce a creative or innovative outcome. We can define creative outcomes as ideas or solutions judged to be novel and useful by relevant stakeholders.
Novelty itself doesn't generate a creative outcome if it isn't useful. Thus, 'off-the-wall' solutions are creative only if they help solve the problem.
Ideas are useless unless they are used.
Creative ideas don't implement themselves; translating them into creative outcomes is a social process.

Creative environment

Most of us have creative potential we can lean to apply, but as important as creative potential is, by itself it's not enough. We need to be in an environment where creative potential can be realised. 

Environmental factors that affect creative potential include:
motivation, rewards and recognises creative work, free flow of ideas, fair and constructive judgement, fair and constructive judgement, freedom from excessive rules, good leadership, diversity in team creativity