Operations – Individual Paper Assignment
Overview
The aim of this Assignment is to provide you with the opportunity to apply your skills and knowledge gained during the course to solve rather complex and real world challenging problems that your company or your industry is currently facing.
Your mastery in the subject matter will be proven via a report. The report demonstrates that you can perform critical analysis of a given problem and draw conclusions relevant for the firm setting. Further, the report is proof that you can describe the project related activities and results in a well written report.
Possible Approach and Project Deliverable
Each student investigates analyses and presents a given problem. This can be a specific challenge of your firm, a general phenomenon of your industry or a specific topic of your interest. A report is the final deliverable. This covers the project problem, objectives, methodology, findings, analysis, and recommendations. The final report should have 3000-3500 words. These numbers exclude the table of contents and the bibliography.
The following is a recommended report outline, which should be adapted as necessary:
- Introduction: The introduction should define the relevance of the question (why the topic is important) and the overall context (which phenomenon in which firm are you looking at and why this is relevant (approx. 1 page).
- Methodology: This chapter should describe approach, design, research methods, data collection, or appropriate procedures used to investigate the problem or topic (approx. 1 page).
- Analysis: This chapter is an appropriate representation of the actual situation and all relevant data. A concrete analysis of the chosen phenomenon in the firm setting should be presented (approx. 3 pages, graphs can be additionally included).
- Results, Outcomes, Discussion: This chapter is an appropriate representation of findings and outcomes of the project. A discussion of concrete applications of the chosen phenomenon in the firm setting should be presented (approx. 2 pages, graphs can be additionally included).
- Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations: This chapter includes how the project contributes to the given field. (approx. 1 page).
- Bibliography: Every citation made in the body of the report must appear in the Bibliography. Similarly, every item listed in the Bibliography must be cited in the body of the report.
Possible Topics to Select from
Students may choose from the following lead questions/topics which then have to be adapted to the student’s business environment. You may use the results of the group discussion as a basis for your report.
- Operations & Productivity: Identify for your company/industry sector how each of the 10 OM strategy decisions are applied to this organization. Name examples for future developments. How would you determine the productivity of this company/industry sector?
- Learning Curve: Which learning strategies for processes are used in your company/industry? How can the theory of learning curves be used? Name examples and show usage and benefits.
- Forecasting: What forecasting methods are used in your company/industry? How can forecasting be used in the future? Name examples and show usage and benefits.
- Lean Operations: How are operations processes managed in your company/industry? How could this be improved by lean management? Name examples and show usage and benefits.
- Process Strategy: Identify companies in your company/industry on each of the process focuses. What are opportunities to contribute via Operations Management to further strengthen the process focus?
- Location Strategy: Choose for an organization of your choice important factors that would affect the location decision. Decide on the best location using the Factor-Rating Method
- Inventory Management: How is inventory and safety stock managed in your company/industry? How could methods to manage inventory and safety stock be improved. Name examples to improve the inventory management.
- Operations Strategy: Describe the different ways to achieve competitive advantage in your company/industry. What are opportunities to contribute via Operations Management to further strengthen this competitive advantage?
- Supply Chain Management: Which upcoming trends could change the supply chain in your country? How could this effect your industry?
Quotation
All sources and quotes have to be marked and should be quoted accosting Harvard citation style. There are various sources online with detailed description of the Harvard citation style, e.g.: http://www.citethisforme.com/harvard-referencing
Plagiarism
There must be no plagiarism in the final report or any document submitted