The management of information and operations flow is an important aspect of business. Both service and manufacturing organisations frequently use these to ensure they are competitive, and assist in providing and maintaining good levels of customer service. Developing a process of an organisations operation and information flow can be advantageous for both the customer and the organisation. Subsequently, once a process has been developed and understood it should be possible to determine why it works well, or not well, and to recommend possible improvements.
In this report analyse an organisation’s (service or manufacturing based) operation with which you are familiar. In doing so you should consider addressing the following points:
• Critically analyse how effectively the operational process has been deployed within the organisation and how this has been aligned to deliver the organisation’s performance objectives.
• Suggests ways in which the process might be better managed to improve and deliver value for those objectives.
• Identify the desired outputs of, and what constitutes effective performance for your chosen organisation.
In your answer you must address the theoretical ideas or models that may assist the modern Operations Manager to systematically deal with any issues encountered as they design, operate and improve their processes.
Your report should be clearly structured using sub-headings etc. You may wish to use an executive summary at the beginning of the report in order to set the scene for the reader.
You must endeavour to use theory explicitly at all stages but do not spend time describing that theory. While you must be explicit about the theories and models you are using you can assume that your marker is familiar with them. What the assessor is looking for is evidence of your ability to apply theory and learn from it.
You must cite all sources on which you have relied, e.g. textbooks, articles, webpages etc. using the Harvard Bibliographic referencing system. If you do not cite all your sources you risk being accused of plagiarism. If you are in any doubt about how to reference your work you can get guidance from the library.
Use diagrams and graphics wherever these are helpful; they do not count towards your word limit. If you do use graphics please do not put them in appendices. If they are part of your argument they belong in the body of your text. Appendices are the
appropriate place to put supporting material.
The report should be no more than 2500 words (+/- 10 %) in length.