You will write a concise business report (2500 words) aims to report the latest issues of operations management (OM) and technology development. We all face that industry has changed dramatically in the past two decades since the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) revolution, which has ushered in the era of Industry 4.0. Under Industry 4.0, mobile computers and machines are connected through the Internet, and smart enabling technologies (i.e. Cyber Physical System (CPS), Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, etc.) are created through automatic identification physical sensors equipped with tiny computers. Data stored and located in physically separated places are processed and analysed quickly by numerous computers and applied to manufacturing and/or services, for example, computer- embedded machines and equipment enable the production of the right products/services to be delivered to the right customers at the right time. On the other hands, from the business perspective, Industry 4.0 drives management research towards creating new concepts and methodologies to realise synergy effects across industries that work together on the same business platform and/or system. To stay competitive, all firms need to consider and adopt new approaches of innovation, manufacturing, procurement, and logistics.

Relevance (why am I doing this and how is it relevant to my learning?)

The task will develop your skills and the application of latest OM concept and theory in a real world context or firm (manufacturing or service industries) in which you are regularly involved. Specifically, you are expected to select and answer one of the following core questions for Industry 4.0 and smart enabling technologies (choose one):-

Q1: How do firms exploit smart enabling technologies and digitisation to yield competitiveness?  

Q2: How do firms utilise Big Data to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of production and services?

Q3: How does Industry 4.0 implementation influence the design of manufacturing and service systems, and the workplace?

Prepare details for your report

The business report represents a combination of your insight, observation, reflection, literature review and understanding of Industry 4.0. The following guidelines are as follows:

1. Try to explore first about Industry 0 initiative and smart enabling technologies.
2. Select appropriate  refereed  sources  to  frame  and  understand  the  above  core question of report’s
3. Take stock of Consider the evidence. Confirm the nature of the core question based on selected refereed sources (i.e. Journal articles, Conference Proceedings, Book Chapters, etc.).
4. What findings do you reach when gathering the insights and evidence from refereed sources and/or your work experience if any?
5. You may include tables/figures/charts if
6. Selected refereed sources must be between year 2005 and 2018/19 (inclusive).
7. You should include at least 15 references (preferably refereed journal articles) and no more than 50 references in your All sources must be highly credible and fully referenced using the APA referencing style.
8. The summary, table of contents, reference list and appendices are excluded from a report’s word
9. Use MS word to write your report and submit your assessment online using Assessment 1 link in Moodle, on or before the due
10. Please note that the Turnitin Plagiarism Software in Moodle will check all of your submissions – we will recommend you to write the OM report in your own
11. If you have any concerns, please contact directly your campus

Reading (how to get started?)

Please read carefully the following articles, for example (just suggestions only),

• How do they construct their arguments?
• How do they gather the insights (i.e. using tables/figures/diagrams) to demonstrate their understanding of the selected aspects?
• How do they express their convincing ideas clearly?
• Think about comparative studies and case studies that may be useful to answer the core questions, g. the current movement and/or status in Big Data, IoT and Industry 4.0 – Australia, New Zealand, United State of America, Germany, Japan, Denmark, Sweden, United Kingdom, India, China, etc.

1. Saarikko,, Westergren, U. H., & Blomquist, T. (2017). The Internet of Things: Are you ready for what is coming? Business Horizons, 60(5), 667-676. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2017.05.010
2. Wang,, Gunasekaran, A., Ngai, E. W. T., & Papadopoulos, T. (2016). Big data analytics in logistics and supply chain management: Certain investigations for research and applications. International Journal of Production Economics, 176, 98-110. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2016.03.014
3. Xu, D., Xu, E. L., & Li, L. (2018). Industry 4.0: state of the art and future trends. International Journal of Production Research, 56(8), 2941-2962. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2016.03.014
4. Zhong, R. Y., Newman, S. T., Huang, G. Q., & Lan, S. (2016). Big Data for supply chain management in the service and manufacturing sectors: Challenges, opportunities, and future perspectives. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 101, 572-591. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2016.07.013