Analyses and discuss how the overall nature of demand affects planning and control. As described demand management as being essential in modern business environment and made a statement that suggested "it recognizes all sorts of needs for goods and services for the purpose of supporting marketplace". It stated that UOP "perfectly meets market demand". The business environment of proprietary education in the United States has changed drastically over the past 2-3 years, which puts the citations you included in your post as being somewhat dated.
How has this changed in terms of the type of demand UOP may encounter for an online course and how might the university address such demand?
Include specific examples of how UOP may cope with demand fluctuation?
Article - Identification of various types of demand
In variable demand, the demand of customer varies as per their requirements due to this highly variable demand pattern, companies will have to manage their resources and cost accordingly. Organisations have to remain prepared with resources and processing of goods and services to serve the variable demands of customers. In contrast, level demand is the one that companies face stable market needs with few fluctuations. For instance, whenevercustomers come to a hotel the total number of rooms will remain the same without any variation. Constant demand is the one that does not experience any variation, for example the human needs of food or dwelling. Dependent demand can be regarded as the demand which is comparatively predictable as it is reliant on some factor which is known to companies, such as semi-manufactured products or raw materials. In this manner, when the factor changes the demand also changes, and therefore, companies are required to consider the factor effectively on which demand depends (Slack, Chambers and Johnson, 2010). Conversely,there are operations in the organisation that are subject to independent demand. Companies in such situations will supply demand devoid of having any definite forward visibility of orders of customers, for instance production of a car. Chase demand can be considered as the one that requires adjusting capacity. In chase demand organisations refer medium term capacity management that endeavours to amend output considering the variations in demand(Che, Sudhir&Seetharaman, 2007).
Assessment of demand on planning and control
Demand management is essential in modern business environment. It recognizes all sorts of needs for goods and services for the purpose of supporting market place, which also involves prioritizing demand when supply is lacking (Brave, 2002). Therefore, properly organized demand management enhances the organizational profitability and improves the resource utilization. It is impossible to escape variation in customer demand, but it is possible to design effective means to cope with it (Julien, 2005, p.3).Planning and control can be described as managing the in progress operation activities so that customer's demand can be satisfied consequently. Planning and control is pertinent in all operations to manage the demand in an effective manner (Mula et al., 2006). However, planning and control can also be referred as the reconciliation of demand and supply. This is because demand for different products and services are dissimilar and to avoid uncertainty in operations planning and control needs to be done on the basis of the demand so that adequate supply can be maintained. Overall, demand significantly affect planning and control although it may be unpredictable sometimes (Slack, Chambers and Johnson, 2010).
In this regard, the example of dependent and independent demand can be taken into account, which helps in analysing how overall demand affects planning and control of operations. For instance, when the demand is dependent the procession of goods and services will be started only when it is needed, while in independent the processing of goods and services will be done in advancing by recognising the visibility of customer needs. Thus, it is notable that demand affects the planning and control activities because operations need to planned and controlled as per the demand of customers to supply quality product at lower cost, without any inconsistency (Coyle et al., 2008, p.235).
Analysis of encountered demands for online education & the way of coping fluctuation
The demand that a university will encounter for an online education will be independent demand and constant demand. The constant demand of pursuing higher education always exists and seldom changes, this is in the macro scale. On the other hand, in the micro scale, the independent demand is dominant, which replies on the individual needs and willingness of customers that is students in this case. Students will enrol for the online module when they feel the need to study the module and might not enrol when they do not need it. The demand for online module in a university is independent because the university cannot forecast either the volume or the particular needs of students (Wisner, 2008, p.210). Thus, the university will have to take decisions on how many and what types of study material should be provided on the basis of demand forecasting to address such appropriately. Moreover, the design of the course is also important; the university should construct a systematic curriculum that is practical and sustainable for students and the university itself both.
In order to cope with demand fluctuation, the university is required to make their best possible guesses with the involvement of flexibility strategy in decision making, hence various resources can be put in place and demands can be satisfied accurately. University has to be prepared to respond rapidly to demands if the actual demand will not be equivalent with the forecasted demand, which requires a strong capability of demand forecasting. In order to address the independent demand of students and cope with demand fluctuations the university must consider the risks of being out of stock for study material and online tutors (Slack, Chambers and Johnson, 2010, p.275).As Nordmeyer (2011) figured out that "demand forecasts enable the manufacturing department to plan production to meet customer requirements".
University of Phoenix is a very successful example in online education, which perfectly meets the market demand. The university is famous for achieving a success in online education for adult learners, and the university is among the few profit organizations in the US education system (Xiao & Jiang, 2008). It is because the university perfectly forecasted the demand of adult education booming growth since the 1970's. Of course, the demands are always changing, the university by implementing online education and part time tutor system, to minimize operation costs, the university has few permanent assets, which allow the organization not only to save the cost but also invest in developing education software and improving the existing modules. By offering 24 hours availability to cope customers' individual time; introducing new courses for the customers and properly altering outdated contents for attracting potential students. Furthermore, from aspects of course design to the approaches of service delivery; everything is concentrating on the concept ofpracticality and flexibility. Therefore, University of Phoenix can cope with the fluctuated demands.