Midas’ Tune-ups
BUS644: Operations Management
Kathy Wilson (kawils8424)
Instructor: Dr. Ronald Beach
April 13, 2015

Midas’ Tune-ups The company Midas has been considering adding a service to their line-up along with mufflers, brakes, and shock absorbers. Surveys and focus groups have pinpointed several possibilities, but the one that caught Midas’ attention is tune-ups. Their worry is that the addition will upset operations and may result in adverse customer experiences with longer wait times due to the implementation of the service. This paper will point out some of the possible negative and positive impacts, and some of the accommodations that will be needed to integrate this service into their existing practices. Adding a new product or service will undoubtedly impact normal operations until it becomes part of the routine. “Operations can become a positive factor contributing to organizational success, rather than a negative or neutral factor. To make this happen, facilities, equipment, and training should be viewed as a means to achieve organizational, rather than operational, objectives” (Vonderembse & White, 2013, Chapter 2.5). While there are many Midas franchises, they are all under the same corporate umbrella and this requires that the corporation take into consideration the opinions and needs of the franchise owners, as well as their employees. This is because no one has a better grasp on the ramifications of adding a product line like those who are selling the product or service. Another consideration is the consumer because, ultimately, they will make it succeed or fail. In addition those in the corporate office who will engineer the processes and source the tools and parts that will be needed at start-up. Some of the positive effects of a new service are that “firms that manage transitions from one product….[to another] have a competitive advantage and tend to be more successful” (Arslan, Kachani, & Shmatov, 2009, p. 439). This is also true for product additions. According to Klemperer & Padilla (1997), “A firm that offers an additional product can capture business from rival firms for other products when consumers prefer to concentrate their purchases at a single supplier (p. 471). The new service will probably bring in new customers who long for a one-stop shop. Some of the negative effects will be the cost of training employees to perform tune-ups and then allocating space to perform this service. Customer wait times will be impacted as well. One solution might be training and building efficiency for one or two service techs at each of the initial locations before the roll out of the new service. This prevents the consumer from feeling as if their vehicle is part of a grand experiment. As the employees become confident in their abilities, they can transmit that confidence to the consumer. Another solution could be an update of the scheduling software to allows for balanced scheduling within the existing space and sales data can contribute to the consideration for expansion to allow for additional capacity at either the existing locations or additional locations. As already discussed input from the franchise owners and managers as well as the more experienced technicians should play an important part in the collection of data needed to strategize the introduction of the new product. These are the people who know best, how to make the addition of the service go smoothly. In addition, marketing data from surveys and focus groups can give insight to the needs of their customers. Desmeules (2002)