Operations

 

Select a core process from the operations function of your chosen organisation and critically examine the challenges facing its operations manager(s) in terms of balancing the efficiency and effectiveness of this process. Make recommendations for improvement as appropriate.

Part B: Operations

This document relates ONLY to Part B: Operations –

The word count set is 1500 words for Part B.

PART B – Operations

For Part B of this assignment, you are asked to consider the organisation that you work for, or one that you are very familiar with.

Prepare a brief introduction for this assessment to identify your chosen organisation. This introduction should be no more than 200 words and should clearly and concisely set the context for your answer to Part B.

ASSIGNMENT TASK:

Select a core process from the operations function of your chosen organisation and critically examine the challenges facing its operations manager(s) in terms of balancing the efficiency and effectiveness of this process. Make recommendations for improvement as appropriate.

GUIDANCE NOTES:

(1) You are required to write concisely to transmit the information and your analysis. The expected overall word count for Part B is 1500 words.

Note: the maximum word count allowed for each part is 1700 words. Any assessment that is greater than the maximum word count set for each part will be penalized in the marking process.

ALSO: for each part, please note that you are advised to keep the ‘brief’ Introduction section to within 200 words
The word count does not include the Title Page, Appendices, Reference List and words in tables and diagrams.

(2) In your answer, make full use of the range of material available in this course (including academic and industry sources [plus market reports and government data]). We would expect to see a minimum of 6 academic references outside of the core textbook used in each part to support your answers.

(3) You must provide discussion / examination / analysis, using the academic theory and relevant sources (company, industry, government and academic) to support your answer.

(4) Provide appropriate examples to illustrate your points.

(6) You will be required to cite the sources used within the text for each part and to provide an accompanying Reference List on a separate page at the end of your answer for each part presenting the sources used in that part.

(7) For guidance regarding citation and referencing, please refer to the ‘AMBS Citation and Referencing Guide’, a copy of which is available for you to access on
Blackboard.

(8) Please ensure that you are familiar with the section in your Global MBA Student

Community Areas on Blackboard, which relates to ‘Academic Misconduct’ and the University’s policy regarding collusion and plagiarism.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

Please note that you will be assessed on the following criteria:

• Critical analysis and clarity of argument
• Knowledge and use of the academic literature
• Relevance
• Structure and organisation
• Bibliography and referencing

A rubric will be supplied to provide you with more detail of the criteria.

USEFUL REFERENCES:

The following provides some ‘initial’ readings for this assessment. Remember, you will need to support your answers with a range of academic and non-academic sources.

PART B (OPERATIONS):

Core Textbook Chapters:

Slack, Brandon-Jones, and Johnston, (2016) Operations Management, 8th Edition. Pearson Education Limited: Harlow – Chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9

Other ‘Useful’ Readings: Please also refer to the ‘supplementary’ readings provided under Units 5 and 6 of the course materials – see under Reading List for Units 5 and 6.

Evans, P. and Wurster T., (1999), Blown to Bits: how the new economics of information transforms strategy, Harvard Business Review.

Hammer Michael,(1990) Reengineering Work: don’t automate, obliterate, Harvard Business Review.

Margherita, Alessandro, (2014), Business process management system and activities, Business Process Management Journal, Vol.20(5), pp.642-662

Ravi Anupindi, Sunil Chopra, Sudhakar D. Deshmukh, Jan A. Van Mieghem, Eitan Zemel, (2012) Managing Business Process Flows (3rd Edition), Pearson Education Limited

Roemer, Thomas ; Ahmadi, Reza, Models for concurrent product and process design, (2010), European Journal of Operational Research, Vol.203(3), p.601

Wong, Wai Peng, (2013), Business-process management: a proposed framework for future research, Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, Vol.24(5-6), p.719-732

OPERATIONALIZING & COMMUNICATING VALUE

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT – FINAL
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQs)

To assist you when completing the Operationalizing & Communicating Value Assignment 2 (final individual assignment) task, the following are some of the questions that are typically asked by students and the responses provided by the e-Tutors:

Question Answer

What is meant by ‘academic The main sources of academic references include:
references’? articles from academic journals, academic books /
textbooks, academic research reports, conference
proceedings.
On the other hand, examples of practitioner /
industry sources include: press and media,
business publications, government reports, market
research reports / market intelligence (e.g. Keynote,
Mintel and Euromonitor), and company websites /
reports / communications.

I’m concerned about using my You can retain the anonymity of the company by
own company name when referring to it as ‘Company X’, ‘Company Y’, etc.
answering some of the However, for the marker’s information, in your
questions, due to confidentiality answer you will need to state that you have taken
issues. this approach due to confidentiality issues. Also, it
would be useful to give an indication of the industry
/ sector in which the company operates.

I want to use material that is If you are using a specific confidential internal
classed as ‘for internal use only’ company document, then we recognize that it might
by the organisation that I work be difficult for you to acknowledge that specific
for – how do I acknowledge this source. Therefore, you will need to let the marker
source in my assessment? know the situation in the main discussion (rather
than not acknowledging the source of the
information at all) – ie. that the source for this
information is undisclosed due to confidentiality
reasons.

What is the required structure of It is recommended that you use an essay-type
the assessment? format and avoid presenting your answer as merely
a series of bullet-points or lists. Make use of
relevant headings / sub-headings to help to provide
structure to your answer.

Question Answer

Can you please confirm what is The title/cover page, reference list and appendices
included / excluded in the set are not included in the set word count for this
word count for this assessment? assessment. However, although appendices are
not included in the word count, the word count set is
already of a sufficient amount to answer this
assessment. As indicated in the assessment task –
any assessment that is greater than the maximum
word count set will be penalized in the marking
process.
Therefore, text which should be included in the
main body of your answer should not be
incorporated into the appendices in order to avoid
exceeding the word count limit. The marker would
not look kindly on this approach.
Words in tables and diagrams are also not included
in the word count set – however, they should be
used appropriately and not used to circumvent the
word count limit. Again, the marker would not look
kindly on this approach.

Are we allowed to use flow You can use diagrams/illustrations etc. that you
charts/diagram illustrations in think appropriate to enhance your answer.
our assessments? However, all tables, charts, diagrams, etc. must be
numbered sequentially, and labelled and referenced
correctly.