Industrial Operations Management Assignment - Supply Chain Management and Logistics

Module Learning Outcomes

The following module learning outcomes and professional body learning outcomes are tested in this assessment:

1. Demonstrate an in-depth understanding of key operational issues and management challenges in a modern engineering company.

2. Investigate and critically evaluate the technical and managerial aspects in an engineering company which can improve its productivity and overall performance.

3. Establish a competitive benchmarking and recommend suitable strategy and steps to improve a company’s performance and profit.

Assignment title: Industrial Operations Management Assignment (individual) – 50% of module marks:

The assignment is a great opportunity for you to investigate how logistics and supply management

techniques are used in practice, especially in a worldwide multi-billion companies, also its wider

applications in other operations management and non industrial tools, such as, public sector,

economy, transportation, resources, distribution, climate change and IT.

In addition to the lecture materials, students are expected to carry out their own further research and literature reading through books, journals, articles, and internet platforms.

You need to research on relevant case studies, and work through some suggested headings related to supply chain management, logistics, and operations management within ONE specific organisation. Also you are expected to widen your literature reading in other areas of investigation to support the overall case.

Based on the areas of investigation above, you should write an essay complete report to discuss the efficiency of operations of the chosen organisation, and make recommendations for future improvement. Were appropriate, you also need to discuss the productivity concept within your report conclusions. Depending on the research materials you can find, you may also discuss other issues if they are relevant.

The minimum standard of the report should contain the following structure: Executive summary, Table of content page, Introduction, Background, Discussion, Investigation, Proposed solutions in each chosen area with recommendations, and a final conclusion.

There are two approaches you may consider using – 1) either discuss the company as a whole, or

2) identify a specific department group within that company. Where appropriate, explore how their current supply chain and logistics operations functioning, and how they can be made more efficient by implementing the SCOR and Mapping process techniques.

Scenario

You are a respected supply and logistics management consultant and been asked to advise how to improve the overall supply chain and logistics management effectiveness. The new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) believes that, effective organisations must adopt a continuous improvement approach that develops system, employee, skills and capability, while at the same time the organisational management procedures and policies may be amended to reflect the new strategy of the organisation.

The chosen organisation case study must be related to one of the following industries:

1. Public services sector (e.g. retail, post office, hospitality, health, government, education)

2. Manufacturing industry (e.g. Food, cars, aerospace, smart phones, electronics, computers) Your report will need to include the following sections within your overall discussions:

1. Criticise and challenge, what the company should/could do better in the first instant (based on the case study).

2. The CEO has asked you for a top level executive summary (bullet points) on how to initially review and develop the organisation’s supply and logistics functions to become more effective.

3. Discuss the problems they had before implementing that supply and logistics techniques.

4. Provide some details how they applied the technique, and what benefits they experience after adopting the technique.

5. It will be useful to show some measurable evidence of the results (Before to After) if any data is available in the case study. You may also discuss the steps they took during the implementation process.