Reference no: EM132426666

MBA7061 Operations Management - Gulf College - Cardiff School of Management

Company - Shell Oman Marketing Company

Aims

• To develop and introduce and develop a critical understanding operations management for modern organisations in a variety of sectors of activity;
• To consider operations strategy in its broadest sense and relate this to the internal management and organisation of the production of goods and services within organisations in different sectors of the economy;
• To examine how to organise resources and operations, and how to improve them using a variety of quality tools and techniques and process improvement activities;
• To consider the organisation in its wider context; examining how inputs on the supply side can be managed
and improved, and on the demand side how customers, and customer satisfaction can be understood.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this module, students should be able to:
• Evaluate the nature, scope and extent of manufacturing and service operations strategy;
• Critically evaluate the use of quality tools and techniques for a wide range of organisational problems;
• Solve complex operational problems related to managing capacity and constraints within organisations;
• Demonstrate the application of strategies, tools and techniques to improve business operations and appraise and select appropriate methods for managing supply bases for a variety of organisations.

TASK:

Pick an Organisation of your choice. You are an Operations Management Consultant. You are required to undertake an individual research project and to prepare a Management Report for the Board of Directors of the company. (You need to seek prior approval for the chosen organisation from the module leader before starting your research). HAND-IN date to be advised.

The key aspects that need to be covered within the report are:

PART A

i) Critically evaluate the existing operations functions within the organisation and the role of the operations manager within the organisation. (Note: I would expect you to evaluate current practices and evaluate them in the light of standard practices within the industry that the organisation is in and how well/badly does this organisation align with the industry standards)

ii) Draw a Process Chart for the organisation showing how customers are processed through operations within the organisation. Critically discuss how the Process Management should be planned in the organization to achieve operational excellence. Support your answer by illustrating:-
• Process analysis and improvement
• Customer service strategies
• Inventory management
• Scheduling operations
• Purchasing and supplier management

iii) Identify if the organisation is implementing any Lean processes. If it is then critically evaluate if what benefits it is bringing to the organisation and IF NOT then critically evaluate how implementation of lean management could benefit the organisation. (Extra credit would be provided for use of examples).

PART B
i) Managing Capacity is the most tricky part of operations management as it is characterised by uncertainity. Using the organisation as an example you need to critically evaluate whether: "Organisations should always attempt to match its capacity to its forecast and known demand patterns or there might be situations where this might not be needed".

PART C

i) Collate all your finidings about the organisation and draw concrete conclusions and draw some recommendations for the organisation, which can be from the practitioner i.e. other organisations/industry or academic research.

You need to follow a REPORT FORMAT.
Report Structure, Layout and suggested wordcount:
• Cover Page: Your Name and Student Number and the word count.
• Executive Summary
• Introduction (setting the scene and purpose of the report)
• Operations Management in the Organisation highlighting the key issues as well (Part A - i)
• Process Management in the Organisation including the Process Chart (Part A - ii)
• Lean Management in the Organisation (Part A - iii)
• Capacity Management within the organisation. (Part B)
• Conclusions and Recommendations. (Part C)

Attachment:- Operations Management.rar