Discussion Questions:

1. Compare Wyatt’s buffalo hunting to the approach used by the old-timers?

Wyatt recognized that what was important was the gain after expenditures for horses, suppliers, wagons and skinner’s wages were put into consideration to compare to old times who measured success when animals only killed and cash received for the meat and hides. At the end of the season, any hunter could boast the money in his pockets but few could say accurately how much was gain.

2. What are the key elements of business success from an operations perspective?

One of the key elements of business success from an operations perspective is that currently in the society environmental perspective is very important.’’ The company should protect the environment as much as possible- or at least cause no harm’’ (Jacobs & Chase, 2014). If the concept of an environmental perspective had been followed could allow buffalo to be hunted for a longer time. Another key element is productivity measurement. Wyatt had a good idea of applying productivity measurement on buffalo hunting which enabled productivity ratio as high as possible (Jacobs & Chase, 2014).

3. Relate these ideas to Wyatt’s approach.

The environmental perspective relates to Wyatt’s approach because the way buffalo was killed or the amount which was killed did not wipe out the whole heard and he never attempted to stampede buffalo causing more harm or buffalo that were shot to get lost. He had an economical approach and I believe that he tried to cause the least amount of harm considering the options.

Wyatt kept the number of inputs low by having him, a skinner, as well as one wagon in place of five the other hunters, were utilizing. He managed to have a good output with a low of eighteen buffalo in a single day. Wyatt began with one other man, four horses, one wagon and a less expensive gun when taking the eighteen buffalo hence his productivity measure was much higher than that of veteran hunters. He was willing to assist skin the animals assisted with his productivity. Veteran hunters thought that they were ‘’too good’’ to do as much work but this made Wyatt make more money at the end by cutting down on the amount of labor of his skinner. It looks like Wyatt had a good concept of productivity measurement and how to apply it in a way that would increase his profit. Wyatt was able to capitalize on all the inputs material, labor, energy and capital to keep his operation small but high profits.

4. Were the buffalo hunters irresponsible in killing off the great buffalo herds as they did? Please explain.

I believe that the buffalo hunters were irresponsible for killing off buffalo herds. They should have recognized that by conducting mass killings would not allow the herds to regenerate and replenish. Buffalo hunters were greedy and the end shot themselves in the foot by not thinking about their actions would impact future hunts and profits.

References

Jacobs, F. R., & Chase, R. B. (2014). Operations And Supply Chain Management (14th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.