1. Knowledge outcome – You will be able to develop your understandings of operations, logistics and SCM in
organisations and how these contribute to organisational success
2. Intellectual /transferable skills outcome – You will be able to consider a complex scenario related to operations,
logistics and SCM and apply quantitative or qualitative techniques to contribute to its solution.
Your summative assessment for this module takes the form of an essay in 2500 words. This is an individual
assignment. You must choose an organisation or business like an automotive company (manufacturing industry)
or a hospital (service sector). You are not supposed to choose any company which we are dealing with in seminars
like Arnold Palmer hospital or Frito Lay. You need to produce an essay elaborating on the key operation, logistics
and supply chain management issues faced by the operations and supply chain manager(s) in this particular
organisation / business.
You can collect data from resources like websites, books, journal articles and grey reports. Some case studies are
available to help you collect required data.
By focusing on the operational and supply chain issues, you should seek to identify and clarify how the operation
functions and supports the market that it serves. What service delivery system (s) or manufacturing process (es)
does it use? What infrastructure does it use to manage these delivery systems? And how, together, do these
support the market (s) that it serves? A critical, detailed and relevant analysis should be made of the various
components.
Based on your analysis, you are expected to make recommendations about how the business can improve its
performance. Consider triple bottom line – described as the incorporation of economic, environmental and social
factors as the three dimensions of sustainability in business practice – in your analysis.
As it might be impossible to analyse all the areas of operations, logistics and supply chain management, you
should also decide which area (s) to cover in your discussion. Therefore, choose two of the following list in
managing operations, logistics and supply chain.
New product/ service development and process
Managing quality
Location and Layout
Managing people in operation and supply chains
Logistics mix: Channels, networks, transportation, managing inventory and capacity
Managing business relationships in supply chains
JIT and Lean
To conduct writing the essay, students need to read and refer to core text books and academic journals as well
as source of their data collection (mentioned before).
The essay will be assessed according to the following criteria:
Introduction (10%)
Review of relevant Operation, Logistics and Supply Chain Management theories (30%)
Critical analytic discussion with relevant and similar example(s) and applying appropriate
solutions of Operations Management (30%)
Conclusion and recommendation (20%)
Clarity of writing, essay structure, correct referencing (10%)
Formative Assessment
You should write down an essay plan (500 words) to introduce
– selected business/ organisation
– two selected areas of Operations and Supply Chain Management
– theories and techniques that should be applied
– potential areas of improvement which need to be reviewed critically
You should email the essay plan to your seminar tutor in week 4. You can book an appointment with your
seminar tutor in week 5 (reading week) to receive individual feedback and discuss your essay plan.