Operations and Supply Chain Management Audit Report

As part of the formal assessment for the programme you are required to submit an Operations and Supply Chain Management audit report.

Please refer to your Student 

Handbook for full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments. 

After completing the module, you should be able to: 
 
1. Evaluate how operations management delivers products and services that meet a firm’s objectives. 
2. Assess how operations managers make decisions in the design of processes and layouts. 
3. Analyse how supply chain logistics bring products from raw materials to finished products on a global scale. 
4. Deploy analytical and evaluative skills in the analysis of and critical evaluation of operations management scenarios. 
5. Develop and synthesize effective and logical strategies to maximize the effectiveness of supply chains. 
6. Apply quality and performance measurement tools and techniques to operations and supply chain management. 
7. Graduate Attributes: Discipline Expertise 

Possess a range of skills to operate within this sector, have a keen awareness of current developments in working practice, being well positioned to respond to change.

You should produce an audit of the operations and supply chain strategy and management of an organisation with which you are familiar. A suggested structure and breakdown of  content for the audit is set out below.

Subjective: To evaluate how far the organisation has a clear strategy linked to business expectations and focused on effectively meeting customer requirements. 
 
Scope: A brief overview of your chosen organisation. An overview of the strategic direction of your chosen organisation and an evaluation of how the organisation’s operations and supply chain management and strategy reflect that. Also, a discussion of how the organisation seeks to meet or exceed its customers’ needs and expectations and an assessment how that impacts upon its operations and supply chain management and strategy.

1 The big picture: strategic direction 
2 The impact of organisational strategy on the organisation’s operations and supply chain management and strategy 
3 Customer service strategy and the effect of that upon the organisation’s operations and supply chain management and strategy.  

To evaluate how far an effective structure exists both enabling effective operations management and helping the organisation to work with its partners to achieve its supply chain goals.

• Key operations management roles and responsibilities 
• Key supply chain management roles and responsibilities 
• The nature of the supply chain structure or network 
• The nature of relationships with supply chain partners Objective:

   To evaluate the organisation’s approach to process design and  layout,embracing all plan-source-make-deliver operations.

Learning Outcomes

To evaluate how far the organisation has reliable information and enabling technology to support effective operations and supply chain planning, execution and decision-making.

Scope: Evaluation of how the organisation’s management of information and IT facilitates effective operations decision-making and utilises appropriate tools to enhance operations and supply chain management.

• Information infrastructure 
• The effectiveness of information systems for operations and supply chain planning and decision making Performance

To assess how organisation measures its operations and supply chain performance and to identify trends in that performance. 

• Means of operations and supply chain performance measurement 
• Key aspects of performance over time Finally, an action plan is to be developed based upon the above analysis to make recommendations to improve practice and performance within the chosen organisation.

The structure suggested above is provided for guidance and you may adopt a different approach if you wish. It assumes that you will audit a commercially oriented organisation but an audit of a non-profit organisation is acceptable.

Clearly the organisation you decide to audit should be one with which you have significant familiarity and can access relevant people and papers. A recent or current employer would potentially be very suitable.

Your audit should be presented in report format but, as it is an academic as well as a practical piece of work, should include a good deal of theoretical underpinning,referenced to a range of relevant sources.  

Formative feedback will not be given to work submitted after the above date Student Guidelines 

You Must underpin your analysis and evaluation of the key issues with appropriate and wide ranging academic research and ensure this is referenced using the AU Harvard system.

The My Study Skills Area on iLearn contains useful resources relating to referencing.You must use the AU Harvard Referencing method in your assignment. Additional notes:  Students are required to indicate the exact word count on the title page of the assessment.The word count excludes the title page, tables, figures, diagrams, footnotes, reference list and appendices.

Where assessment questions have been reprinted from the assessment brief these will also be excluded from the word count. ALL other printed words ARE included in the word count See ‘Word Count Policy’ on the homepage of this module for more information.

Submission Guidance: Assignments submitted late will not be accepted and will be marked as a 0% fail. Your assessment should be submitted as a single Word (MS Word) or PDF file. For more information please see the “Guide to Submitting an Assignment” document available on the module page on iLearn.

You must ensure that the submitted assignment is all your own work and that all sources used are correctly attributed. Penalties apply to assignments which show evidence of academic unfair practice. (See the Student Handbook which is on the homepage of your module and also in the Induction Area).