Assignment Brief-

Introduction:

Students need to conduct their project work in their units of study to develop their competencies and contribute to the development of best practice models applicable to operations management. It is planned to use real life organizations as the site of learning for this unit of study. The benefits of this approach are as follows:

• Learning is reality based
• The outcomes of learning is a tangible intellectual asset
• Students learn valuable workplace knowledge

Scope of the Learning Projects:

Student teams are to study the operations management practices in a case organization, highlight the observed deficiencies in comparison to the best practices suggested in the literature and develop a revised Operations Management Plan. It is important that the operations management plan can address the gaps and set the organization on the path to apply those best operations management practices.

In this unit of study the scope comprises the following activities:

1. Establishing clear and concise project objectives (Start-Up)

2. Literature review, research and documentation of best practice model for operations management from the perspective of an enterprise or a business unit or a major functional department in a major organization (Activity 1)

3. Distillation of key theories reviewed in the literature and of the best practices in operations management that the team considers to be suitable to the case organization - develop a conceptual model. (Activity 1)

4. Develop a research methodology to demonstrate how data will be collected in the case organization. Use the selected best practice model developed in assignment (conceptual model) as the basis to review the current operations management practices in the case organization. Once the current practices are identified apply a SWOT analyses (Activity 2)

5. Use the selected best practice model developed in assignment 1 (conceptual model) as the basis to review the current operations management practices in a benchmarked organization in the same industry of choice. Once the current practices are identified apply a SWOT analyses (Activity 2)

6. Address the areas that are deficient for further development and demonstrate the gaps -GAP analyses - and further develop a revised operations management development plan for the case organization detailing SMART recommendations for your case organization to fill in the identified gaps. (Activity 3)

7. Evaluate your Operations Management Plan vs. the best practices developed in Assignment 1 and the feedback received from your course convenors and or from the actual case organization Directors or Executives (Activity 3)

8. Design the presentation structure of your Operations Management Plan. Consolidate the contents from the all preceding activities, finalize and write up your Operations Management Plan and submit this (Activity 3)

9. Self-reflections of your personal learning

10. Present your Operations Management Plan and your entire project work.