The Essay Highlights Traceability's Significance In Business And Agriculture.

Defining Traceability and Its Importance

Most business organisations will require research at some time. This is often motivated by the need to answer a specific question related to their planning or operation. A research question focuses the organization and researchers on a specific problem area. It should be clearly stated, relatively narrow in its focus, and relevant to the organization.
Proper research is always based on the store of knowledge that has already been established on the topic of interest. In some cases it’s quite a lot, in others not so much. But before a research program can start, there must be a thorough analysis of the existing literature.

Your first assessment is to develop two research questions and generate a modest literature review to provide a foundation for at least one of your questions.To give you a start with this process, we’ve supplied a list of possible research areas. These are not research questions, they’re only topics that might provide opportunities for specific research to be done. We’ve divided them into two categories. For the students enrolled in MGMT 634, we’ve provided agriculturally focused topic areas. For the students enrolled in COMM 605, we’ve provided a list of topic areas from a more general Commerce perspective. It’s important at a program level that the work you do in these courses is contextually relevant.

For this assignment you should:
• Think of two examples of planning or operational problems related to your chosen topic area,
• Describe the research questions that might be generated to help address these problems, 
• Explain why it is important to answer these questions and why the organization would be willing to spend money to find the answer,
• For one of these questions, find and review at least four appropriate pieces of existing research related to the chosen topic,
• Briefly describe the findings of each of these items and compare and contrast the findings of the four studies, identify any themes that emerge from the literature, identify future research that might be conducted based on these studies, and 
• Explain how these are relevant to the topic you are researching.

The literature you use should be predominantly from reputable academic sources such as journal articles or academic books. A certain amount of popular literature may be used, but this should be minimal.Remember, your research questions and especially the lit review provide the foundation for whatever research follows. It is important this be done very well.

Defining Traceability and Its Importance

These is a theoretical concept used in agriculture to help understand importance of traceability to both the product and the company (Aparicio & Harwood, 2013). Traceability of a product given or produced ensures that the right raw materials are used during the process of manufacturing to ensure it fits the requirements in the market. Traceability is important to the company as it helps create trust among the employees as well as the customers as the product given is in the right shape and good quality as required.

Strategic theory gives the idea that, well developed products and services in the market are likely to be marketable than those that are not (Armbruster, 2012). Traceability of products is very useful to an enterprise in that it helps layout a clear definition of the products given to ensure positive customer outcome.

Traceability ensures positive and healthy competition in the market as well developed products are enhanced. This is done by ensuring that there is adequate supply of the confirmed products in the market important in ensuring demand arising is well catered for (Hoorfar & European Commission. 2011). Competition can also be enhanced relevantly by ensuring proper storage of documented data about the product in question.

Any adopted trend in the market or in product development structures is faced by various problems. In traceability process of products, various problems can be addressed, some of these problems include; unhealthy production issues, incompatible measures of the products cited, use of outdated raw materials among others.

Traceability is a factor of business used for product verification. Factors affecting traceability are issues to do with management of the process (Karadgi, 2014). Some of these factors include: lack of adequate skilled personnel to carry out the process, lack of support from the stakeholder’s lack of adequate capital to carry out the process, poor management skills among others.

The questionnaire developed below is a self-completed and open ended, where the respondent is supposed to give his or her own view as required by the questions. In completion the respondent is supposed to give or hand over the questionnaire to the researcher or rather the interviewer.

Is the process of traceability of any value to the product and to the company distributing the product? Yes or No. Please give a detailed explanation for your answer.It’s important for the researcher to ask this question as it gives an insight of how different individuals understand traceability and its importance to both the product and the company involved. The preferred subjects for these question are the customers. This is because customers value the need of having that product and how better it should be developed to satisfy their needs. In general, I would prefer, other people other than the manufactures of the product to participate in the pilot study as they understand the difference between the product given and what fits the desire of the buyers.

Role of Traceability in Product Development

How can traceability be strategically improved to benefit the enterprise of the product? Please give a well explained answer.It’s important for the researcher to ask this question to help understand the views on how better to improve traceability process to benefit enterprise. Business personnel’s are best suited to answer these question. This is because, the business personnel understands the depth and value of selling a well-developed product to the customers. I would prefer experienced business individuals to give their views as they understand the need of valuable products in the market.How can healthy competition be enhanced while using traceability? Give a comparison of befits and failures of enhancing traceability in the market.

The researcher should ask this question to help understand both benefits and failures of traceability in improving the market structure in terms of competition. Business experts are best suited to answer this question, this is because, they can easily identify the benefits as well as the failures of the process in the market. In general, I would prefer business people who clearly understand the differences between benefits and failures of a product in the market and best measures in which the failures can be improved to enhance competition.

What are the general problems that can be addressed by impacting the process of traceability in the market? Please outline at least four problems.The researcher should ask this question most importantly to get an outline of the various existing problems that needs to be solved by impacting traceability in the market. Both business personnel’s and the customers in the market of the product can answer this question. This is because both understands their needs and the quality of the product they require to satisfy their needs. In general, I would prefer producers of the market to take a pilot study of the questionnaire to help them understand what is required of the products taken to the market.

What are the main factors that can be traced to have negative effects on traceability process? Clearly describe how the factors affect the process to limit its requirements in the market.

The researcher should ask this question to help understand the factors limiting traceability process to help develop appropriate solutions. Manufacturers and producers of the product as well as business experts are the best ones to answer this question. This is because, they understand the reasons why the intended success is not achieved as expected in the market and how best these issues can be solved. In general, I would prefer the manufactures of the products to pilot over the questionnaire, this is because they have ideas on how the process should be carried out and how best the impacting problems can be solved.

The maximum time required to collect this data is 12months. This is differentiated as follows;

Four (4) months for preparation

Two (2) months to identify appropriate subjects

Six (6) months to administer the questionnaire and get feedback from the subjects.

References

Aparicio, R., & Harwood, J. (2013). Handbook of Olive Oil: Analysis and Properties. Boston, MA: Imprint: Springer.

Armbruster, W. J. (2012). US programs affecting food and agricultural marketing. Berlin: Springer.

Espi?neira, M. (2016). Advances in Food Traceability Techniques and Technologies. Elsevier Science.

Hoorfar, J., & European Commission. (2011). Food chain integrity: A holistic approach to food traceability, safety, quality, and authenticity. Oxford: Woodhead Pub. Ltd.

ICCIP (Conference), Zhao, M., & Sha, J. (2012). Communications and information processing: International Conference, ICCIP 2012 Aveiro, Portugal, March 7-11, 2012 Revised selected papers. Berlin: Springer.

Karadgi, S. (2014). A reference architecture for real-time performance measurement: An approach to monitor and control manufacturing processes.

KIRITSAKIS, P. A. U. L. (2017). OLIVES AND OLIVE OIL AS FUNCTIONAL FOODS. S.l.: JOHN WILEY.

Wuest, T. (2015). Identifying product and process state drivers in manufacturing systems using supervised machine learning.