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Operations and Project Management: A Critical Analysis of Principles and Applications in WH Smith

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Added on 2024/06/28

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This report critically examines the principles and applications of operations and project management within the context of WH Smith. It explores key concepts such as Six Sigma, Lean principles, and the Project Life Cycle (PLC), analyzing their effectiveness in enhancing efficiency, productivity, and customer satisfaction. The report also delves into the rationale for specific project methodologies, tools, and leadership styles within the PLC, highlighting their relevance to both large and small-scale projects. By applying appropriate theories, models, and frameworks, the report provides a comprehensive understanding of how operations and project management can be strategically implemented to drive organizational success.

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Operations and Project
Management

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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................1
LO1..............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Critical review of different principles of operations management....................................1
M1 Review and critique the implementation of operations management in relation to Six Sigma
................................................................................................................................................ 2
methodology and Lean principles...........................................................................................2
LO2..............................................................................................................................................4
P2 Continuous improvement plan..........................................................................................4
M2 Analyse the effectiveness of a continuous improvement plan using appropriate theories, 5
concepts and/or models...........................................................................................................5
LO3..............................................................................................................................................7
P3 Application of difference stages of the organisation.........................................................7
M3 Analyse the rationale for the project methodologies, tools and leadership within the PLC for
................................................................................................................................................ 8
the given project..................................................................................................................... 8
LO4..............................................................................................................................................9
P4 Review of the effectiveness using appropriate models and theories.................................9
M4 Critically analyse how the use of appropriate theories, concepts and models in the PLC will
.............................................................................................................................................. 10
differentiate between large and small-scale projects............................................................10
CONCLUSION......................................................................................................................... 12
REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................... 13

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: PDCA Cycle to Support Continuous Improvement.........................................................1

LIST OF TABLES
Table 2: Difference between large and small-scale projects...........................................................1

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INTRODUCTION
Operations and project management is considered as the combination of various practices that
can help the business in achieving an increased amount of efficiency. There are some factors
associated with operation management and these include maintenance, controlling and managing
different activities (Haniff and Caldwell, 2019). Operations management holds a very important
role in an organisation because it involves various processes including planning of the whole
network, handling all process and procedures. Analysis is being done and then on that basis,
concepts of operations management are being used for making an evaluation that can help WH
Smith to grow faster and more efficiently.
1

LO1
P1 Critical review of different principles of operations management
Operations can be considered as the activity where the employees are functioning according to
the work requirements (Slack and Brandon -Jones, 2018). There are various principles of
operation management that can be applied by WH Smith as well in order to achieve a sort of
efficiency on their onsite as well as off site operations. Some approaches of the same are
discussed as following:
Taylor’ theory of scientific management
The basic aim of this theory can be considered to make improvements in the efficiency of
various operations of the company but special focus is being made on the productivity of the
employees. This theory basically runs on four basic factors (Papachristos, Jain and Davies,
2018). Some common examples of the same includes the fact that before implementation of any
new process or operation, WH Smith should ensure to have a proper knowledge of the same in
order to avoid any further risks or challenges. Providing proper training and sessions also acts as
an important factor. WH Smith can also ensure one of the basic elements, which includes the
costing system for the company in which WH Smith can arrange various combinations of the
areas where they are using and where they have to use. Therefore, Taylor’s theory can actually
help WH Smith in achieving a maximised rate of production in the market place by providing the
customers, a standard rate of services.
Use of six sigma and lean principles
Involving methods and principles like lean, six sigma can actually help WH Smith in analysing
and implementing the basic aspects of operations and project management, thus also resolving in
major issues of the company. The basic aspects of the same include defining, calculating,
evaluating, modifying and then controlling. Six sigma is considered as a data driven
methodology that can be introduced by WH Smith in order to remove the defects in the product.
After that these defects are being analysed and proper modifications are being done in order to
make it better. Similarly, lean also focuses on the same by involving its basic principles. The
basic aim of this includes the fact that with continuous effort of the team, WH Smith can see
improvements in the work by minimising variation.
1

M1 Review and critique the implementation of operations management in relation to Six Sigma
methodology and Lean principles
There are various operations management methods and principles that can be used by WH Smith
for enhancing the efficiency and production in the organization. The operations management
helps the WH Smith for managing different functions and operations for enhancing the
operational efficiency, productivity and profitability of the business. An effective operations
management will be helpful for the project managers in the WH Smith to develop effective plan,
forecast and perform various business tasks such as production, marketing, selling and
distribution of the quality products or service to customers for satisfying their needs on-time
efficiently.
There are various types of approaches and methods such as Six Sigma approach and lean
principle approach that can be used by the project managers in the WH Smith for ensuring the
success of the project and enhancing the efficiency of onsite as well as off site operations within
the organization. These approaches and methods will be helpful in reducing the wastage in the
production process and hence enhance the productivity and deliver quality products or services
to customers.
Six Sigma approach: This approach can be followed and used by the project managers in the
WH Smith for eliminating the wastage and defects in the production process, products,
employee’s performance and services for ensuring effective operations of the business. this
approach defines five different stages that can be used by the project manager in the WH Smith
such as define, measure, analyze, improve and control for identifying any defect in products,
services as well as employees performance so that necessary actions can be taken to improve the
quality and overall performance of business organization (S. Reosekar and D. Pohekar, 2014).
By using this approach, various defects and problems can be identified and defined, measuring of
the current performance, analysis of root causes of the defects and problems and then necessary
improvement actions can be determined and implemented to overcome the problems and defects
and last the improved process is maintain and control for satisfying needs of customers and
ensuring the growth of the business.
Lean approach: This approach can be used by the project manager in the WH Smith for
minimizing the wastage in production, efforts of employees or other personnel while serving
customers and delivering products or services. As per lean approach, WH Smith can mainly
2

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focus to understand the customer value and to make continuously efforts for increasing the
customer value. The WH Smith can focus to produce and deliver quality products to customers
for creating customer value and satisfying their needs on-time efficiently (Jasti and Kodali,
2015). The lean approach will be useful for the WH Smith for eliminating the wastage in the
production process as well as employees efforts without sacrificing or impacting the productivity
of the business organization. Therefore, WH Smith can enhance productivity, profitability and
customer service within the organization by delivering quality products or services and creating
customer value.
3

LO2
P2 Continuous improvement plan
In an operational context, WH Smith can introduce various aspects so that they can deal with
majority of the challenges in the work place. There can be various ways and many of them are
discussed as following:
Cost reduction
Cost reduction can help WH Smith in enormous ways as nowadays what customer wants is a low
cost deal (Eyers and Naim, 2019). So, if the firm remains successful enough in providing the
customers, an efficient quality and that too with affordable costs, then there is a higher
probability of the company to attract and gain more employees.
Customer relationship management (CRM)
CRM is classified as a strategy that WH Smith can use for maintaining different operations of the
company by handling efficient relations with the employees as well as with the customers. It is a
very important step to be included in an organisation because while dealing with various
processes and operations, it is equally essential to maintain the relationships within or outside the
organisation. Therefore, WH Smith can ensure implementing the tool for gaining different
objectives and that too at a rapid rate.
4

M2 Analyse the effectiveness of a continuous improvement plan using appropriate theories,
concepts and/or models.
It is essential for the WH Smith to develop appropriate plan, policies and strategies for reducing
and minimizing the cost of production and enhancing and improving the quality of products or
services so that business can satisfy the customer needs and hence improve the productivity and
profitability. The effective plan can be developed for making continuous improvement in the
products or services quality so that customers need be satisfied and sustainable business growth
can be ensured (Dessinger and Moseley, 2015). The continuous improvement plan will include
the continuous improvement in the production process, product and service quality and
employees performance so the business productivity and profitability can be improved by
improving customer service and satisfaction.
PDCA Cycle to Support Continuous Improvement model can be used for analyzing the
effectiveness of the plan in WH Smith for improving overall quality of the products, services,
processes and resolving various problems. By applying and using PDCA cycle, possible
solutions to the problems can be tested, result can be assessed and then best one solution can be
implemented to resolve problem and improve the quality and overall performance of the business
organization. PDCA cycle provides effective approach for managing the change and resolving
various problems. Following are given below components of the PDCA cycle i.e. Plan-Do-
Check-Act that can be applied and use for developing plan and improving products or services,
processes and resolving various problems:
Figure 1: PDCA Cycle to Support Continuous Improvement
5

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(Source: www.assetivity.com.au, 2019)
Plan: This stage involves developing plan for gathering data and identifying problems and root
cause of problems. The project manager in the WH Smith can identify the main root cause of the
decrease in customer service and sales of the business so that appropriate hypothesis can be
developed to overcome this problem (Backlund et.al, 2015).
Do: In this stage, the project manager in the WH Smith needs to develop appropriate solutions
and implement it into the workplace so that the customer service as well as the sales of the
business can be enhanced. It will be essential for the WH Smith for developing effective business
and marketing strategies for improving customer service and sales of products.
Check: After the implementation of appropriate business and marketing strategies, the next step
is to check the effectiveness of the strategies in increasing and improving customer service and
sales of the business.
Act: After implementation of the appropriate strategies and analysis, it has identified that there is
any gap or ineffectiveness in the business and market strategies then next step will be to take
corrective action and develop more effective solution to improve and increase customer service
and sales of the business (Backlund et.al, 2015). And if the developed strategies are successful
then recommend it for the future problem.
6

LO3
P3 Application of difference stages of the organisation
The application of project life cycle on WH Smith can be discussed within a few steps and these
are discussed as following:
Initiation is considered as the first step in which WH Smith can start thinking and discussing
about the areas which needs to be included or improved in the work place. The business
environment of the WH Smith can be analysed because after that it can actually get clear that
what the areas that needs some sort of improvement are. After that, a proper planning can be
made in which the management at WH Smith can decide the ways to implement or improve the
required factors (Slack and Brandon - Jones, 2018). After a proper and complete planning,
execution of the same takes place where it is ensured that the factors have been executed
successfully. Then closure of the same is done so that now the firm can focus on further
operations in the betterment of the company.
Business Case
There are various project management tools such as lean principles, six sigma, customer
relationship management etc. that can help WH Smith in an improved version of the factors.
Some theories and practices can be added in order to implement an efficient and advanced
business case for WH Smith which acquires all the basic and required factors. While managing
the documentation of the project, a complete planning is required which enquires different basic
factors such as cost planning, benefits evaluation and the work breakdown structure (Eyers and
Naim, 2019). The activities and operations that WH Smith is planning to include should be cost
friendly so that it can attract much number of customers and that too at a rapid rate. Therefore,
some factors while managing operations in WH Smith include analysing the cost benefits for the
customers, providing them an efficient amount of services, taking care of employees by dividing
all the work equally among all. Therefore, these factors can be considered as the essential ones
that can help WH Smith in including ways that can actually help them in attracting major
customer ratio, thus providing them an efficient and better service rate. It is important because on
that basis only, further evaluations can be done accordingly. Therefore, these factors can be
implemented and evaluated efficiently for achieving better outputs.
7

M3 Analyse the rationale for the project methodologies, tools and leadership within the PLC for
the given project
After the discussion and analysis of different approaches and methods of the operations
management, it has identified that the lean approach and methodology will be more helpful for
the WH Smith for removing or reducing any wastage in the products, processes and services
qualities and hence enhancing and improving customer satisfaction, productivity and profitability
of the business organization. The project manager in the WH Smith can apply and use this
methodology for enhancing customer satisfaction and profitability as this method involves the
centralized routine and the project manager can change their processes and procedures anytime.
It is essential for the project manager in the WH Smith to use appropriate methods, approach,
tools and techniques for executing, performing and accomplishing the project successfully (Vom
Brocke and Rosemann, 2014).
Before executing the project, it is essential for the project manager in the WH Smith to develop
and estimate appropriate cost budget, timeframes, milestones and work breakdown structure so
that project can be performed systematically by making optimum utilization of technical,
financial and human resources and accomplishing the project successfully within the estimated
time duration. It is also essential for the project manager to use and apply appropriate leadership
style and approach for directing and performing the project in the right direction for gaining the
positive outcome. There are different leadership styles and approaches that can be used by the
project manager in the WH Smith but democratic leadership style will be more appropriate and
effective to perform the project systematically and accomplish successfully. The democratic
leadership style will enable the project manager to encourage maximum employee participation
in the decision-making process and allow employees to share their ideas and suggestions for
enhancing and improving customer satisfaction, productivity, sales and profitability of the
business (Iqbal et.al, 2015).
8

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LO4
P4 Review of the effectiveness using appropriate models and theories
The application of stages of PLC can help WH Smith in analysing the broader aspects of the
factors that are being included in the firm for delivering better customer experience.
Measurement for the performance while processing of these operations acts as a very important
role because the firm should decide what are the actual milestones that they need to achieve in
the future. On that basis, the firm can make their targets and specified goals which should be
along with a particular deadline. Various benchmarks how to provide an efficient amount of
satisfaction to internal as well as external environment, means the employees and customers
should be taken care of (Tonchia, Tonchia and Mahagaonkar, 2018). Project monitoring should
be done continuously because if in the on going only, there are some processes that are taking
more than expected time or there are some faults, in that case, modifications or replacements can
be done instantly so that it cannot affect the whole quality of the project. Reliability and
validation plays a very important role because on that basis, a proper evaluation about the
operations and procedures can be done and that too more effectively. Therefore, it can help WH
Smith in analysing and implementing the required features so that the company can be able to
achieve all the milestones in the market place.
9

M4 Critically analyse how the use of appropriate theories, concepts and models in the PLC will
differentiate between large and small-scale projects.
Table 1: Difference between large and small-scale projects
Different phase of PLC Small project Large project
Initiation  Establishing reference
terms
 Appointing Project
Team
 Creation of Business case
 Analysis of feasibility
 Establishing reference terms
 Setting-up of Project Office
 Appointing Project Team
 Performance review
Planning  Preparing Project
Plan
 Preparing Quality plan
 Preparing Communic-
ations plan (Kerzner,
2018).
 Preparing Project Plan
 Preparing Procurement plan
 Planning for resources
 Planning for quality and risk
 Preparing Communications
plan
 Preparing work statement
 Performance review
Execution  Generating deliver-
ables
 Monitoring the per-
formance
 Generating deliverables
 Monitoring the performance
 Supervising the procedures
 Cost and time management
 Change and quality manage-
ment
 Communications(Memon
et.al, 2014) management
 Risk and issue management
 Performance review
Closure  Project closure
 Project completion re-
 Project closure
 Documentation
10

view  Project completion review
11

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CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the report that operations and project management plays a very
important role in maintaining the business operations of WH Smith. Whether it is about
discussing about the principles such as six sigma, lean, every method has been discussed in the
research. Application of the project life cycle and its various stages has also been discussed in
the report along with the evaluation of the stages in WH Smith. Review and recommendations
have been discussed providing the firm, a better vision and goals. Along with this, an efficient
project documentation involving all the basic entities such as reduced cost, improved efficiency,
WBS has been discussed in the report. The ways how the milestones can be analysed and on that
basis, how modifications are being implemented are discussed in the report as well.
12

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
 Backlund, F., Chronéer, D. and Sundqvist, E., 2015. Maturity assessment: towards
continuous improvements for project-based organisations?. International Journal of
Managing Projects in Business, 8(2), pp.256-278.
 Dessinger, J.C. and Moseley, J.L., 2015. Confirmative evaluation: Practical strategies
for valuing continuous improvement. John Wiley & Sons.
 Eyers, D. and Naim, M., 2019. Project Management for Effective Operations
Management. In Contemporary Operations and Logistics (pp. 11-27). Palgrave
Macmillan, Cham.
 Haniff, A. and Caldwell, N., 2019. The 24th International Annual Conference: Inspiring
Operations Management. International Journal of Operations & Production
Management, 39(3), pp.382-384.
 Heldman, K., 2018. PMP: project management professional exam study guide. John
Wiley & Sons.
 Iqbal, N., Anwar, S. and Haider, N., 2015. Effect of leadership style on employee
performance. Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review, 5(5), pp.1-6.
 Jasti, N.V.K. and Kodali, R., 2015. Lean production: literature review and
trends. International Journal of Production Research, 53(3), pp.867-885.
 Kerzner, H., 2018. Project management best practices: Achieving global excellence. John
Wiley & Sons.
 Memon, A.H., Rahman, I.A., Abdullah, M.R. and Azis, A.A.A., 2014. Factors affecting
construction cost performance in project management projects: Case of MARA large
projects. International Journal of Civil Engineering and Built Environment, 1(1), pp.30-
35.
 Nair, A. and Reed‐Tsochas, F., 2019. Revisiting the complex adaptive systems paradigm:
Leading perspectives for researching operations and supply chain management
issues. Journal of Operations Management, 65(2), pp.80-92.
13

 Papachristos, G., Jain, N. and Davies, M., 2018. Project management operations and
building performance in the construction industry: A multi method approach of applied in
a UK public office building. System Dynamics Society.
 Papachristos, G., Jain, N. and Davies, M., 2018. Towards the low carbon transition in the
construction industry: A multi-method framework of project management operations and
total building performance. System Dynamics Society.
 S. Reosekar, R. and D. Pohekar, S., 2014. Six Sigma methodology: a structured
review. International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, 5(4), pp.392-422.
 Slack, N. and Brandon-Jones, A., 2018. Operations and process management: principles
and practice for strategic impact. Pearson UK.
 Tonchia, S., Tonchia and Mahagaonkar, 2018. Industrial project management. Springer.
 Vom Brocke, J. and Rosemann, M. eds., 2014. Handbook on business process
management 2: strategic alignment, governance, people and culture. Springer.
Online
 Continuous Improvement plan, 2019 [Online] [Assessed through]
<https://www.assetivity.com.au/article/maintenance-management/continuous-
improvement-in-planning-and-scheduling.html> [Assessed on 8th June, 2019]
14

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