Operations Management

 
This assignment requires you to develop an individual case study dealing with aspects of operations management based upon your own personal experience assuming to be working for an IT reseller company (software solutions).

You need to apply key concepts of operations management to your experience and discuss the associated implications. In so doing you will need to draw on operations, systems and project management concepts.

You can choose any relevant organisation that you have sufficient first-hand knowledge of and one that lends itself to being discussed in this way. (This may be a family business, an organisation you have worked at or a college or university you have studied/are studying at).

You MUST following case study format and contain the following sections:

• Executive Summary: you should summarise your entire case study briefly (hopefully on no more than one page of A4 paper).

• Case study organisation: you should give the name of the featured organisation and the reasons for you choosing it

• Introduction: you should provide some background information on the chosen case study organisation and the aspects of operations management that are relevant

• Literature Review: you should conduct a review of relevant academic literature and provide a critique of the current issues/concepts that are relevant to your case study. You must include Operations Management Concepts, Project Management, Information Technology and Systems, Role of Operations Manager, and Project Management.

• An application of theory to practice: you need to compare actual practice at your case study organisation with the key academic thinking established in the review of literature. It may point out similarities and differences, agreements and contradictions, and suggest explanations for these relationships. The focus of this section needs to be on: (1) Operations management concept (2) a critical evaluation of project management to business situations of your case study organisation (3) the role of information management and technology on the role of operations management in the case organisation.

• Conclusions and Recommendations: you should summarise the main findings and their implications and provide recommendations that directly relate to this analysis.

• Implications for practice: you should critically evaluate how your recommendations are likely to impact on the role of Operations Manager including the ‘soft skills’ required by the Operations Manager to implement your recommendations.

• References: you should use the Harvard referencing convention.