Assignment:
Purpose of the Assessment
This assignment is designed to enable you to show an understanding of key strategic performance objectives of organisations in general. It also enables you to apply theory into practice by discussing operations performance improvements in a specific real-life business scenario with basis on key strategic performance objectives of operations.
Assessment Task
A) You are required to write a report based on a specific organisation of your choice. You can choose an organisation of any type (manufacturing or service), sector (private or public, e.g. a government agency or department) and size (small, medium or large corporation).
B) The report should address key theoretical and practical aspects related to the subject. The theoretical part of your report should provide a complete characterisation of the 5 key strategic operations performance objectives of organisations in general, namely: Quality, flexibility, speed, dependability and cost. Discuss the internal and external perspectives of these performance aspects, i.e. what they represent for organisations what they represent for customers.
C) The practical part of your report should be developed through a specific discussion of how these performance aspects apply to the organisation of your choice, i.e. what each performance aspect mean in the specific business context of the organisation.
Finally, you are expected to identify performance shortcomings in the organisation being discussed in the light of the performance objectives being considered and propose possible improvements. Discuss the challenges you think the organisation may face to implement the suggested improvements.
Assessment Breakdown
1.Introduce the company you have chosen to focus your report on. Describe
a) Which organisation is it?
b) What are the main products and/or services provided by the organisation?
c) Who are the main target customers and competitors?
2.Provide a literature review on the subject of Operations Performance focusing on quality, flexibility, speed, dependability and cost aspects. You should draw from academic publications, books and business articles that are no older than 10 years. Address the question: Why are these performance objectives strategic for organisations in general? What are their internal and external perspectives?
3.Use the theoretical aspects characterised above as a basis to discuss practical aspects of your chosen organisation. Key issues/questions to be addressed in this part are:
a.) Characterise quality, flexibility, speed, dependability and cost aspects of your chosen organisation. The key question to address in this part is: What are the key quality, flexibility, speed, dependability and cost aspects of the company's operations?
b.) Point out the relative importance of the performance aspects for your chosen organisation, i.e. from the 5 key operations performance objectives, which ones are most critically important for the organisation?
c.) With basis on the performance aspects being discussed, point out organisation's weaknesses, suggest improvements and discuss potential challenges to implement the improvements.
Assessment Submission
The required word limit should be 2500 words.
Assessment Guidance
1) The quality of your presentation and academic referencing is very important. Please, use the Harvard Referencing System.
2) Within your assignment your tutor will be looking for content that addresses the key elements of the assignment brief.
3) Try not to overcomplicate your answers by choosing a company that you know little about. Keep to simple processes that you know well.
4) Look at the Check list at the end of this brief. It shows the subheadings to use and offers a guide as to how the marks will be distributed.