Challenges Facing The Assessment Answer

Internal Code : MAS479

Management Assignment

Business Report :

 The argument should be presented in a business report format and the business report needs to be supported by academic references. For this assessment, select an organisation (either your current employer OR one that you are able to access primary or secondary information from OR an organisation that you wants to get employed in the future).

Then, identify and describe any two (2) business operational issues/challenges facing the organisation within any of the 4 main action areas (Direct, Design, Deliver & Develop) of the operations management (see page 7 of your study guide) and discuss how these issues may impact on the organisation’s business activities. You are also required to critically review the identified issues and suggest recommendations to overcome these issues.

Some examples of operational issues/challenges (although this list is not exhaustive) include:

– Operational strategy: Operational strategy defines the direction and scope of an organisation over the long-term in order to match the resources to the changing environment and the market needs.

– Design of goods and services: Designing goods and services defines much of the transformation process. Costs, quality and human resource decisions are often determined by design decisions. What good or service should the organisation offer? How should they design those products and services? Does the products meets the marker requirements, etc,?

– Managing quality: The customer’s quality expectations must be determined; and policies and procedures established to identify and achieve that quality. How the organisation defines quality? Who is responsible for quality? etc.
– Process and capacity design: Process options are available for products and services. Process decisions commit management to specific technology, quality, human resource use and maintenance. These expenses and capital commitments will determine much of the firm’s basic cost structure. What process and what capacity the products require? What equipment and technology is necessary for these processes? etc.

– Location strategy: Facility location decisions for both manufacturing and service organisations may determine the firm’s ultimate success. Errors made at this juncture may overwhelm other efficiencies. Where should they establish the facility? On what criteria should they base the location decision? etc.

– Layout strategy: Material flows, capacity needs, personnel levels, technology decisions and inventory requirements influence layout. How should they arrange the facility? How large must the facility be to meet their plan? etc.

– Human resources and job design: People are an integral and expensive part of the total system design. The quality of work life provided, the talent and skills required and their costs must be determined. How do the organisation provide a reasonable work environment? How much can they expect their employees to produce? etc.

– Operational planning and control: This involves matching the capacity of the organisation with customer demand and it is vital in enabling the organisation achieve its strategic objectives. How does the organisation achieve intermediate and short-term schedules? How the job sequencing and priority rules were implemented? etc.

– Inventory and material requirements planning: These decisions can be optimised only when customer satisfaction, suppliers, production schedules and human resource planning are considered. Some of the questions may involve: How much inventory of each item should they have? When do they re-order? etc.