Operation Management Essay
Assessment Task
The purpose of this assessment is to assess your written skills in both an academic and business context. It will also provide you with the opportunity to demonstrate relevant professional skills that employers will expect to see fr
You are to prepare a briefing report addressing a current operations management process/topic that is an issue for customers of a local SME. Within the report, you are to provide evidence of your investigations into the issue, identify the challenges that the issue poses and propose relevant solutions/recommendations that are relevant and appropriate to the evidence presented.
Your target audience will be senior management personnel of the local SME. Within your briefing report, they will want to see evidence of current research, both industry related as well as relevant academic research.
When writing your briefing report for the company that you have identified, you must ensure that:
• Within your report there is also a focus within the field/industry that you are studying as part of your course (i.e. the company and report must be related to Operations Management & Quality Management).
• The briefing report is written in such a way that it will be of interest and relevance to the sector(s) as a whole.
• The company you choose is not one that you have used within previous assessments, nor an issue you have previously investigated, for any other Level 4 or 5 assessments.
Assessment Information
Students will be required to investigate and research additional information to that covered in lectures and seminars in order to make practical recommendations and demonstrate application of relevant concepts and theories. This means that you will be expected to provide evidence from a range of sources. You will also need to identify an issue that is substantive enough (i.e. a major operational issue) for you to research and make credible & relevant recommendations about.
Formative assessment opportunities will be provided during the seminars through the completion of case study exercises, presentations, draft online submissions etc.
This must be your own work; i.e. you cannot submit work that is the same as other students or those that you may be working with for other assessments. If you do so, then any such work will be subject to our academic misconduct guidelines & procedures
The briefing report should be written in the 3rd person.
At a minimum, the briefing report should contain the following sections:
• Background Information (company)
• Identified issue (industry & academic research into issue)
• Challenge(s) facing company (as a result of issue or potential issue)
• Evaluation of the appropriate operations & quality management theory to address the issue
• Conclusions
• Recommendations
Specifically you will need to include the following:
• An understanding of how to identify company stakeholders and their requirements
• An understanding of how to apply and improve quality standards within the company
• A description of how a quality audit should be conducted within the company
• An understanding of how to promote continuous improvement & change within the company
Depending on the nature of the issue you identify and how you want to present the information, you may feel that you want to include additional sections.
om potential employees.
