Operations Management

Select an operation (a process) with which you are familiar. The process could be one from a past or current place of work, one that you are able to observe and collect data from. The organisational process should not be drawn from a published case study.

Apply the Hayes and Wheelwright strategy framework to the organisation where your selected process sits. This will help you identify at which maturity stage the organisation is in, and will help you identify changes that need to be made within organisational processes to progress to the next stage.

Produce a detailed map of the current process, populated with appropriate data, with explanatory notes, and with a key to the symbols used

Analyse the process for possible improvements, using operations management tools, techniques and frameworks

Produce a ‘future state map’ of the redesigned process, and provide recommendations for the implementation of the process redesign

Critically discuss the benefits, quantitative and qualitative, of your ‘improved’ process. Compare your observations of the organisation selected with the operations management literature.

Examples of issues that might be discussed include the following themes:

What does process improvement mean to an organisation (Lean, Agile or Resilient)?

What factors influence the future state?

What mechanisms exist to ensure continuous improvement?

Are these mechanisms adequate and if not, how could they be improved?

The word count is a maximum of 3,000 words.