Project Management Assignment

This assignment is based on a collection of references related to project management. It involves analyzing various sources, including academic journals, books, and online articles, to provide a comprehensive overview of key concepts and practices in the field. The assignment requires students to identify and summarize relevant information from each reference, highlighting important points and discussing their implications for project management.

Running head: OPERATION AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Operation and Project Management: John Lewis Improves Online Customer Experience with
Oracle Commerce
Name of the student:
Name of the university:

1OPERATION AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
P1.A. Operation Vs Operations management..................................................................................2
1.1 Operation as a concept and Function Vs management as strategic oversight.......................2
P1.B. Operation as a concept...........................................................................................................4
1.2.1 Different approaches to operation management.................................................................4
P2: Preparation of a Continuous improvement plan for John Lewis Partnership............................6
P2.A. Improvement of the effectiveness and efficiency of operation management....................6
2.1 Policies and processes for cost reduction and quality improvement.................................6
2.2 Continuous improvement in terms of lean principles within continuous improvement
cycle.........................................................................................................................................7
P2.B: Improving quality..............................................................................................................8
Defect reducing through Kaizen concept and process reengineering......................................8
3. Part 3A: Project Life cycle planning...........................................................................................8
P3.A.1. Phases and activities of project life cycle.......................................................................8
P3.A.2. Project plan to develop the business.............................................................................10
P3.B The theories and practices of project management...........................................................11
4. Part d: Effectiveness of PLC in application to the chosen project............................................12
P4.A. Impact of project alongside a detailed analysis of the application of Project Life Cycle. . .12
P4.B. Performance measurement for John Lewis Partnership..................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................13
References......................................................................................................................................14

2OPERATION AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Introduction
This report depicts the importance of developing an appropriate E-commerce platform for
John Lewis Partnership, headquartered in London (based in UK). With the successful
implementation of the platform the company will be able to obtain high commercial benefits and
competitive advantages as well (Galvan-Cruz et al. 2015). The company is currently focused on
improving its Ecommerce platform, from their online experiences. The improved security
services of the company will give enhanced searching capabilities and positive resultant as well.
Though the first E-commerce platform was developed by the company in the year of
2012, but due to lack of managerial aspects it fails to meet customer commitment. In order to
implement the project on “Development of Oracle Commerce in john Lewis partnership” the
project life cycle and simultaneous continuous development plan that has been considered are
elaborated in this report. Apart from this, different theories, business practices and time schedule
designed for developing this project are also effectively discussed in this report.
P1.A. Operation Vs Operations management
1.1 Operation as a concept and Function Vs management as strategic oversight
Business operation is referred to as a set of business functionalities; those are essentially
required to be adopted by different business organizations to meet the requirements of the
consumers. Every those functions take places in an organization required proper operational
support to run the business successfully (Serrador and Pinto 2015). For example it can be said
that, the business operation of a telecommunication company varies from the operation of a retail
company. John Lewis Partnership, a well known retail store use Oracle E-commerce platform for

3OPERATION AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT
their consumers to make the online marketing approach beneficial. Different elements of the
company those can be analyzed with the help of various operations include process, staffing,
location and equipment or technology.
Operation is somewhere different from operation management. It can be said that with
the help of operation management, the business operations can be managed accurately. The
operation management is an art or science that can transform ideas into beneficial business
actions (Walker 2015). In the competitive market, cost efficiency, customer responsiveness,
operational flexibility has become a crucial part to be managed properly. John Lewis Partnership
has different business operations and at the same time those operations are managed by Oracle
E-commerce platform.
There are different approaches that help to manage business operations effectively. It can
be said that, John Lewis Partnership, also utilized different functional and motivational activities
to meet the requirements of the consumers. Operation is concept whereas; management is a
strategic oversight. Operation management is a process that helps to create values for different
companies and their consumer’s need (Schwalbe 2015). This process allows the inputs such as
resources, materials, services to transform. On the other hand the management strategies include
different components under consideration.
The hierarchical approach of management strategy has some levels. It helps to define the
responsibility and roles of the general managers and executive managers. The other influencing
components are operating strategies, corporate strategies, business strategies and also functional
strategies (Turner 2016). As the business strategies and processes keeps on changing thus,
certain guidelines should have to be followed by John Lewis Partnership to utilize the most

4OPERATION AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT
suitable operation. This operation is completely focused on the customer services. In order to
deliver both the external and internal operations successfully, good operational adoptability
should be planned and implemented. It helps to incorporate additional values to the business for
managing large set of information effectively (Verzuh 2015). Thus, it can be said that, operation
and operation management are complimentary to each other.
P1.B. Operation as a concept
1.2.1 Different approaches to operation management
Implementation of Taylor’s theory
In order to meet the requirement of the consumers of John Lewis Partnership, it is
necessary for the company to adopt accurate leadership and motivational theories as well to
make the project team members engaged to their job roles. The scientific theory of Taylor’s
management is a theory that defines and analyzes the workflow for improvement of labor
productivity. In the year of 1880 and 1890 the ideas of the theory have been evolved by F W
Taylor (Todorovic et al. 2015). While observing the business operations, he has identified the
serious flaws and for John Lewis Partnership some of those flaws are required to be followed
accordingly. Due to lack of clear understanding of the workers, the roles and responsibilities of
the employees belongs to different departments are failing to meet the consumer’s expectations.
Due to the unscientific decisions of the management, the company may also face major failure
thus proper and effective activities should be adopted by the employees of John Lewis
Partnership. According to Taylor’s principle the four different principles of scientific
management include the following:

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 Collecting traditional knowledge from the employees
 Scientific selection of the employees and their development progress report
 Integration of trained employees and the necessary scientific approaches
 Proper teamwork between the employees and the management
Flexible specialization
Flexible specialization is a competitive strategy that an organization equips with adopting
different multiuse equipments, skilled employees, creative executives etc (Sanchez 2015). In
order to adjust all these activities quickly, frequently changing business environment and
marketplace are very much important.
For John Lewis Partnership, flexible working is very important. In most of the cases,
flexible specialization is defined as a part of business plan which is dedicated to the system,
relevant equipments, people and processes for making the business operations successful
(Pemsel and Wiewiora 2013). According to the type of a business, flexible environment should
be adopted to implement the modified Oracle based E-commerce.
Lean production
This assembly line methodology also known as manufacturing of automobiles is
basically developed by Toyota. It helps to eliminate the wastage through minimizing the
inventory. It can maximize the operational flow to meet the requirements of the consumers. The
can empower the workers of John Lewis Partnership for designing the rapid changeover. Besides
this, it can also create a culture needed or continuous improvement.
Mass customization

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It helps to provide wide range of market service and goods to the consumers those are
specially designed to satisfy customized consumers (Ahern et al. 2014). This manufacturing and
marketing technique combines the flexibility and custom made personalization together. It also
helps to estimate the unit cost for the mass production.
Agile manufacturing
Agile manufacturing is referred to as a technique that combines the processes, tools and
other trainings to enable the response as per the consumer’s requirement. In order to control the
cost and quality of a product agile manufacturing approach is very helpful. From the context of
John Lewis Partnership, this is very helpful.
P2: Preparation of a Continuous improvement plan for John Lewis
Partnership
P2.A. Improvement of the effectiveness and efficiency of operation management
2.1 Policies and processes for cost reduction and quality improvement
In order improve the quality of products and services it is necessary for the company to
reduce the cost of different resources (Physical, human etc) and other requirements as well
(Boud, Cohen and Sampson 2014). There are certain policies through which the product quality
can be improved with a minimum amount of cost. The lists of such policies are as follows:
 Development of information management system
 Considering consumer’s feedback
 Quick response to customer invoice
 Technical verification management

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 Promotion of front loading
 Arrangement of proper training and development program
2.2 Continuous improvement in terms of lean principles within continuous improvement
cycle
After analyzing the functional and operational activities served by John Lewis
Partnership, it has been found that, in order to resolve their managerial and business strategic
issues they should consider lean process for building continuous improvement. This is four
phased process and the phases include plan, do, check and act.
After experiencing the business problems, a hypothesis testing should be done. Firstly,
proper planning should be prepared for making the necessary modifications (Conforto et al.
2014). Then the steps to be followed are analyzed and finally after checking that whether those
modifications are possible or not proper actions are to be undertaken by John Lewis Partnership.
Figure 1: Continuous improvement plan considering lean process
(Source: Joslin and Müller 2015, pp-1379)

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P2.B: Improving quality
Defect reducing through Kaizen concept and process reengineering
According to the current competitive market, whenever an organization wills to integrate
their economic status with the global economy, the word that interrupts much is restructuring
(Heldman 2015). Thus, for business activity revitalization reengineering and Kaizen concept
stands very helpful. The four strategically combined components are as follows:
 Process redesigning and improvement
 In order to build cross functional team organizational restructure is helpful
 Development of new information system
 Developing a quality driven new value system
For Kaizen leadership commitment the phase to be followed by John Lewis partnership
include work standardization, highlighting the problem, developing counter measure,
determining root cause, hypothesize solution, testing hypothesis, implementation of the solution.
3. Part 3A: Project Life cycle planning
P3.A.1. Phases and activities of project life cycle
In order to develop the project about “development of Oracle based E-commerce
platform”, for John Lewis Partnership, certain phase are effectively needed to be maintained by
the project team members (Hornstein 2015). It is expected that if all of these phases are followed
then the project will be successfully implemented by the company within estimated and budget
as well. The phases that must be followed for this particular project include the following phases:

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Initiation: After analyzing the background of John Lewis Partnership business the
management should identify the problem domain those are needed to be modified rater
developed accordingly. It has been found that, before making modification in oracle E-commerce
platform, the management should develop an accurate feasibility to make sure that, the outcome
f the project will be beneficial or not. In this phase, all necessary resources should be identified
and accordingly, a risk register must be developed to identify the risks. It will also help to design
proper strategies to manage the risks.
Planning phase: In this phase the features of the existing Oracle E-commerce platform
are analyzed. Based upon those features additional required features are estimated those will be
incorporated to the system to implement the modification (Joslin and Müller 2015). Thus, in this
phase the initiatives undertaken are organized in a structured manner that has to be implemented
in John Lewis Partnership.
Execution phase: In this phase, the designed E-commerce system for John Lewis
Partnership are executed by the project manager and project team members.
Monitoring and control phase: This is the second last phase of project development.
During this period the project managers are responsible to control and monitor the implemented
changes. They should also measure that whether the implemented E-commerce platform is
beneficial for John Lewis Partnership or not.
Closure: This is the last phase of project development where, the project manager should
conclude that the project has met its expected outcomes. A formal document should be presented
in this to present the project review (Kerzner 2013). Besides this, lessons learned and the details
of project resources are also developed in this phase.

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P3.A.2. Project plan to develop the business
Figure 2: Gantt chart of the project
(Source: created by author)

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P3.B The theories and practices of project management
According to the Agile methodology, the project management tools those are used for
managing the business activities and as follows:
1. Agilean
2. Wrike
3. JIRA
4. Planbox
5. Pivot tracker
6. Assembla etc
Again, there are some other project management tools are available those help the
business organization to gain effective competitive advantages and economic incomes are: Gantt
chart, PERT chart, network diagram, project task tracking and on-time reporting.
In order to engage the project team members to their technical and managerial job roles,
proper leadership should have to be served by the Oracle E-commerce based system
development project manager (Joslin and Müller 2015). The qualities of a leader that must be
possessed include:
 Integrity and honesty
 Decision making abilities
 Creativity and innovation power
 Accountability
 Good communication skill

12OPERATION AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT
4. Part d: Effectiveness of PLC in application to the chosen project
P4.A. Impact of project alongside a detailed analysis of the application of
Project Life Cycle
For designing any project, it is necessary for the project manager to maintain any of a
suitable project life cycle. It will provide a structured approach to the project manager including
effective communication that helps to define the job roles and responsibility of each project team
member. It also allows the project managers to establish direct link with each project
development phase (Larson and Gray 2013). Moreover, broken down project phases minimizes
the workloads thus the project is expected to be completed successfully within estimated time
and budget as well. Therefore, John Lewis Partnership Company should adopt agile PLC to
implement the Oracle based E-commerce platform.
P4.B. Performance measurement for John Lewis Partnership
During the Oracle based E-commerce project implementation phase the project manager
should highlight project milestone, the target of each and every project team members, project
deliverables etc. For John Lewis partnership the objectives and deliverable of the project is to
modify or improve the existing E-commerce platform (Conforto et al. 2014). If proper
modifications are implicated then, the company will be able to gain measurable economical
income and competitive advantages as well.
In addition to this, the activities represented in the project schedule should be
benchmarked for implanting the business strategies. They set of key performance indicators
(KPI), considered for this project include cost, revenue Vs target and costs of sold products.

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Conclusion
From the overall discussion it can be concluded that, in order to support the online
growth it is necessary for any business organization to implement modern business approaches
whether in terms of E-commerce or Information system. John Lewis Partnership developed its E-
commerce platform based on Oracle in 2012 however it failed to reach the expectations of the
consumers. In order to gain high commercial benefit they decided to modify their Oracle
platform to grab new consumers and also to retain the existing consumers over other retail
companies of United Kingdom (UK). After the development of continuous improvement plan, it
has been found that the latest Oracle deployment can drive online business growth and also
supports the aim of John Lewis Partnership to deliver an appropriate omni-channel experience to
their customers. It is also found that the new business functionalities can also improve the
consumers with enriched type ahead and increased brand searching capabilities. The E-
commerce platform developed by Oracle allows the users to create better navigation and search
resultant. Additionally, it can also significantly streamline the search optimization regulations
and also can cut down the index timing. From the continuous improvement plan it will be able to
invest in commerce with consistency for engaging experience with the consumers.

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