1. This assessment task is a group task. Students are to work in groups of four (4).
2. The group will need to meet regularly in order to plan, research, write and collaborate to produce the written report.
3. It is expected that there will be an equal contribution to the written assignment work and the participation of individual group members is compulsory through a wiki (blog or Forum) on Moodle.
4. Contributions should be identified in an Appendix to the report. For Example, which group member contributed to each part of the report.
5. Group member names and student numbers should be on the title page of the report.
6. The written report should follow all the conventions of Business Report writing (Sample of business report heading attached with this assignment) and uploaded on Moodle (no hard copies will be accepted).
7. Students need to upload reports to Moodle during session 5.2.Case Study:
• Slack, N., Chambers, S. & Johnston, R., (2009), Operations Management, 6e,
Pearson Education, N.Y. Case study Chapter 13, Page 401 - 404.
Assignment Questions:
Operations strategy:
- Does Benetton, H&M and Zara, have a clear operations strategy?
- Compare the operations strategy of these organisations.
- How has the operation strategy developed and changed in fashion industry recent years?
- If these organisations don't have an operations strategy can you help them broadly define an operations strategy or give them guidance on what they should do to develop one?
Forecasting:
- Outline the types of short and long term planning that are carried out in the organisation.
- Discuss the processes and models used within these organisations for forecasting.
- What are the appropriate approaches of forecasting?
- Can you comment on the use of technology in forecasting techniques?
- Critically analyse three organisation's approaches to scheduling, loading and sequencing where appropriate.
- From your reading of chapter 6 of the operations management unit and other literature review reading (minimum of three), consider whether or not alternative approaches might lead to improvements in the performance of the organisation.
- How would you go about helping organisation to make improvements?
Innovation and improvement:
- How does the companies encourage innovation?
- Is innovation something that is managed?
- Outline some of the tools for improvement that you would recommend as being appropriate for these organisations and explain how they could be implemented.
- Would you say these organisations are lean?
Supply Chain:
- Outline the supply chain of these organisations, including purchasing, physical distribution management and materials management.
- How different types of technology used in supply chain management?
- Outline how these organisations supply chain might be improved?
Quality management:
- Discuss the costs of quality as they apply by these organisations.
- How quality problems can be diagnosed?
- How could these companies improve their approach to quality management?
- Does these organisations have a formal quality system?
- Would this be appropriate?