Operations and Project Management: A Case Study of Jaguar Halewood Plant

Operations and Project Management
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Introduction
Operation management is that area of management, which deals with the designing and
controlling the production in an organization. It helps to formulate production strategies and
thereby influence the business strategies. Project management is the knowledge, processes,
methods, skills and experience to achieve objective of the project.
This assignment will help to understand the definition of operation and its difference with the
process of management. It will discuss the different operational theories; it advantages and
applications in the operation of Jaguar manufacturing unit. The understanding will also help
to design a project in order to modify and improve the operation at Jaguar.
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Task 1: Report on the effectiveness of Operations Management principles.
To: Line Manager
From: Ana Da Silva
Date: June, 18
Subject: Review and critique of the effectiveness of Operations Management principles
and application of the concept of continuous improvement to improve efficiency at
Jaguar Halewood Plant
Executive Summary:
LO 1
Task 1A Conduct a review and critique of the implementation of operations
management principles within Jaguar.
An introduction to Jaguar
Jaguar is the manufacturer of luxurious car brands of Jaguar and Land Rover. It has its
headquarters in UK. Since the merger of Land Rover and Jaguar, all the facilities of both the
organization manufacture both types of cars.
An explanation of operation vs operations management
Operation is the manufacturing of product by utilization of raw material, in order to meet the
customer need. The process requires, processing, inspection, transport, and storage. Operation
management is about the administration of practices to convert material into goods and
labour into services. The process involves high level of coordination between multiple teams.
Another important function is to minimize cost to maximize profit of the organization. The
difference between operation and operation management is that operation is the process of
production and operation management is planning and controlling the process.
Operations as a concept
Number of theories has been proposed for effective management of operation and the most
used it the Taylor’s Theory of Scientific Management.
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Taylor’s Theory of Scientific Management states that, scientific management is the technique
of knowing what to be done in the best possible way and in low cost. In order to redesign the
work process to achieve a higher efficiency, a scientific study of relationship between people
and task is required (Hill, et al, 2014). “Time” and “Motion studies were designed by
Frederick Taylor in the late 1800’s to analyze and synthesize the work flow. The purpose of
the study was to motivate the workers for higher productivity.
 Time –This measures the time taken by a normal worker to complete a particular task at
normal pace.
 Motion- This is used to determine the best method to complete a repetitive work.
The principles of Scientific Management are based on four principles (Waring, et al, 2016).
They are-
 Replacing the usual rule of work that is “rule of thumb”, by scientific method
 Select, Train and develop each worker in a proper and scientific way rather than leaving
employees to learn by them.
 Collaborate with the labours to ensure the scientific method is implemented.
 Division of work between managers and workers is important. This was to facilitate the
managers to plan the work scientifically and allow the workers to concentrate on the
actual task.
Lean Production is the method of proper utilization of the resources minimizing wastage.
The focus is on quality of the work rather than only quantity (Timans, et al, 2016).The theory
deals with the waste created through overburden and waste created from unevenness in
workload.
Flexible specialization is competitive strategy where, re usable machines, multi skilled
labour and innovative executives are used to adjust to the changing business demand
Mass Customization is the technique that utilizes the low cost units to manufacture custom-
made products.
Agile manufacturing concept is used for unpredictable environment when the volume of
the production is low whereas the market demand is of high variability.
Operations Management
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