Operations and Project Management

This study material provides an overview of operations and project management, focusing on the current operational system, recommendations for improvement, and project planning. It discusses the issues faced by Luton Town Residence and suggests tools and methodologies such as data management system, Yammer, and continuous improvement plan. The material also covers the functions of different departments, internal communication, and data storage and sharing issues.

Operations and Project
Management

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
1) Overview of current operational system............................................................................4
2) Reasoned Recommendations to improve and to add these operational systems...............6
3) Prepare a project plan.........................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13
Appendix A: Diagram of WBS......................................................................................................14
Appendix B: Network Diagram and CPA.....................................................................................14

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The project and operation management facilitates an organisation to efficiently manage
their day to day activities as well as various projects for specific purpose. In this report Luton
Town Residence is taken into consideration which has been facing issues related to internal
communication, data storage and sharing. For dealing with such issues various tools and
methodologies are recommended to the organisation which includes data management system,
use of Yammer and implementation of continuous improvement plan. With the help of all these
tools and techniques along with project management plan they can achieve their desired
outcomes. Project management plan techniques with the help of which implementation of project
supported includes work breakdown structure, risk management plan, network diagram and
budget.
INTRODUCTION
Operations and project management is the planning and implementation of various operations
within the organisation. It enables the organisation in managing their day to day operation
efficiently in such a manner that they can achieve their organisational targets within the time
limit and with optimum utilisation of resources (Zhou, 2016). Also it enables them to manage
various strategic issues that are faced by the organisation. The project management enables the
managers of the organisations in planning for their activities, organising resources for
undertaking the same, by controlling and monitoring them to achieve specific goals and
objectives. In this report Luton Town residence is taken into consideration which is a hotel
situated in Luton Town Centre. They provide well equipped rooms which are self catering
rooms. The hotel has been facing with the issues of data storage and sharing along with internal
communication and collaboration. These problems affect the day to day operations of the hotel
and this has impact on the services that they offer to the customers. The issue of data storage and
sharing has impact on the trust of the guest as it leads to sharing of their personal information
due to which the hotel may face legal proceeding, while the issue of internal communication also
has impact on their services because it affect the services of different department to the
customers due to lack of information to them. It can be efficiently be achieved with the help of
collaboration among all the departments of the hotel. To deal with these issues this project is
undertaken which includes overview of the current operational system, internal communication

of the hotel along with their functions. Apart from this a project plan is developed for the hotel
with the help of which they can get over the issue efficiently.
1) Overview of current operational system
Operational system is software which is used for data warehousing to which the system can
be referred for processing the day to day operations of the organisation. Such system is adopted
by the organisation with the aim to improve the processing of their transactions and the
operations. Also it enables to improve the efficiency as well as to integrate the transactional data
that has been preserved by the organisation (Van Wassenhove and Martinez, 2012). Various
operational systems which are often used in the hotel industry include the data management
system, resource management system which is responsible for front-desk operations,
reservations, channel management and many more.
Overview of internal communications and related Issues:
Internal communication is the process with the help of which employees of the
organisation interact with each other so that the command can be given to others and
organisational culture can be managed. The success of the organisation is dependent upon the
efficiency in the communication. In the hotels information about relevant factors must be
communicated to each and very so that the overall experience of the customer can be improved.
The development of the hotel industry had direct impact on the communication system within the
hotels due to the changing need patterns of the customers. It had lead to the crowning of the
communication. The employees are responsible for communicating to the customers as part of
their duty. Generally, structured communication is used by the hotel with the help of which they
aims to achieve their desired goals and objectives. It supports the business operations as with
sales and inventory reports are generated by the employees and such report are provided to the
management on the basis of which they take various decisions. The internal communication is
supported by various formal and informal communications channels in which the information
flows within the organisation (Beringer, Jonas and Kock, 2013).
Model and Theory adopted by the Luton Town Residence for internal communication: The
internal communication that has been adopted by the Luton Town Residence is downward and
horizontal in which the flow of the information is restricted to some direction. The departmental
heads in the Luton Town Residences informs their subordinates regarding their targets and
important information without considering their needs and expectations. This affects the

productivity of the employees which has impact on the overall performance of the hotel
residence. Apart from this the model that they consider for some of their level of management is
linear model. Linear model of communication has some defined set of components with the help
of which the communication is established. The components include: Sender, Encoding,
Decoding, Message, Channel, Receiver and Noise. In addition to the model consider one way
communication due to which the suggestions and opinions o the employees of the hotel are not
considered by the management of the organisation. The theory that the manager at Luton Town
Residences has adopted includes system theory (Schniederjans and Triche, 2013). As per this
theory the events of communication occurs within the organisation on the basis of the external
environment. Elements of this theory include input, throughput, output, outcome, feedback and
environment. With the help of this theory the manager of the Luton Town Residences
systematically manages the internal messages and external feedbacks.
Operations of LTR functions:
The major functions that are performed by various departments of the Luton Town
Residence are given below:
Front Desk: The front desk employees of Luton Town Residence support the guest upon
their check-in and check-outs. Also they ensure that their experience is better by addressing the
issues that are faced by them. This department work with administration department for
managing the data and information in context of its security.
Cleaning functions: This is one of major function that is being performed by staff of the
hotel as with they provide better, safe and clean environment within the hotel premises which
enables them to attract new guests.
Facilities Management: This department of Luton Town Residence ensures the
maintenance of the various parts and premises of the hotel. This process is an ongoing process
with the help of which the hotel focuses upon improvement of their entire services to their
guests. With this they also ensure that in self catering rooms the guest do not face any issue
(Parisio, Rikos and Glielmo, 2016).
Marketing: This function of Luton Town Residence ensures to attract more and more
customers to the hotel by way of various promotional activities that are undertaken by them.
They also ensure customer relation management so that they can attract them in future as well.
Specific data silos, issues, problem:

The data is crucial for the operations of the hotel residence due to which they are kept safe
and secure by breaking it down as big data, small data, structured data and unstructured data. For
ensuring this the hotel residence uses various data managements systems such as POS systems,
PMS system etc.
Luton Town Residence has been facing various issues related to the data storage and
sharing along with internal communication due to which the operations of the organisation have
impacted. Such problem is faced by them because of lack of communication and data silos. Data
Silos is considered to be a situation in which the access to the data is provided to only one
department or the group. It can be developed within the organisation due to cultural factors,
competitive factors and lesser integrity among the departments. Due to these issues the problems
which the Luton Town Residence has been facing includes:
 Due to poor internal communication the management of the resources and the employees
is not efficient. This has direct impact on the productivity and profitability of the hotel.
 Due to data storage and sharing or data silos, lack of integrity exists among the different
departments. This leads to delay in the decision making and thus impacting the overall
services to their customers (Harrison and Lock, 2017).
2) Reasoned Recommendations to improve and to add these operational systems
For the organisation it is important to consider various options with the help of which they
can get over the issues and problems so faced by them. They need to adopt various
methodologies and tools so that they can get over such issues. On the basis of the identified
problem various such methodologies and tools that are recommended includes:
Continuous improvement Plan: A continuous improvement plan is the one with the help
of which the organisation can design a set of activities with the help of which they can gradually
improve their activities and thus the performance. In this the continuous review of the products,
services and processes is done so that they can measure its impact on the overall performance of
the organisation. In the service industry the implementation of this plan will enable the
organisation to improve their efficiency and strengthen the quality of the services that they offer
to the people. It can be used by the business with the help of PDCA cycle (Enshassi,
Kochendoerfer and Al Ghoul, 2016). It will enable the businesses to identify the opportunity and
accordingly to develop a plan with which improvement can be made. Then such plans need to be
implemented with the help of which the result can be measured on small scale. The results so

identified can be evaluated and accordingly can be made in the plan. At last such plan is
implemented on the large scale and the results can be monitored from the improved plan.
Benefits:
 With the help of continuous improvement plan the management of Luton Town
Residence can increase their productivity and quality of services because they can adopt
the changes as per the changes in the taste and preference of the customers regarding
various facilities in the self catering room.
 It will also enable them to improve their processes and communication among people of
different departments by adopting new methods. This will ensure better services as
customer will get their services booked on time due to proper communication of the
marketing department to the administration.
Drawbacks:
 Due to consistent changes and improvement, the cost of managing the hotel residence
will increase which will have a direct impact on their profitability.
 Consistent improvement is difficult to implement in Luton Town Residence because they
offer self-catering rooms in which more services of the employees services will not be
acceptable to the clients as it will increase the cost of residence for them.
Focus on the use of Yammer: Yammer is an enterprise that offer social networking services
with the help of which private communication can be facilitated among the employees within the
organisation. It can be operated by the employees with the help of internet domain where they
can join the network with the help of approved email addresses. It will facilitate the Luton town
residence to improve their internal communication. It will ensure collaboration and engagement
by improving communication among the employees with seamless integration in their efforts.
This is cost effective technique for the organisation improve their internal communication and
enhance connectivity among all the employees (Garofalakis, 2016).
Benefits:
 With the help of Yammer employees in Luton Town Residence can send or receive
messages with which they can get to know about an actual situation such as the front desk
manager can take quick information from the conveyance manager regarding the arrival
of the guest. This will enable them to improve their services.

 As information can be shared frequently by the employees through messages, it will
enable them to make decisions quickly and with this they can improve their delivery of
services.
Drawbacks:
 The use of this tool is complex for some employees as a level of understanding of each
and every employee is not equal regarding such technology. Due to this the complexity
for some of the employees in Luton Town Residence may increase which will affect
entire communication system.
 Integration of Yammer with other systems is not possible due to which the employees
may face issues while transferring the data during their communication.
Implementation of Data management system: Data management is considered to be a policy
or practice with the help of which an organisation can manage and share their valuable data
efficiently with other departments of the organisation. The system that the Luton Town
Residence must focus upon is Property Management System in which the data related to all the
bookings can manually be updated by the front desk manager and also it will synchronize with
reservations through online sources. For procuring various resources e-procurement system must
be focused as with this day can easily collect store and analyse the information about their
suppliers and other channel partners. This will reduce the manual work and will facilitate the
easy sharing of data with other departments. In addition to this enterprise data warehouse must
be used where they can store large amount of data into manageable form. This will facilitate the
easy storage of large data at one place that can be access all the employees having authority to do
so (Li, 2017).
Benefits:
 With the help of management system sharing of the data is possible among all the
employees of Luton Town Residence as it will be located at a centre place. This will
improve the decision making of the hotel residence.
 Storing of data at one place ensure data integration with the help of which Luton Town
Residence can easily determine an exact number of vacant rooms and rates of the room as
per their occupancy rate.
Drawbacks:

 The complexity for the management of use of the data management system increases as it
involves the use of a significant level of technology with which the employees of Luton
Town Residence may not comfortable without any pieces of training.
 It will increase the requirement of sophisticated hardware and software along with skilled
personnel who can efficiently manage them and this will increase the cost to a greater
extent for the hotel which can impact their profitability significantly (Subramanian,
2016).
3) Prepare a project plan
Project plan is a document with the help of which the each and every activity related to the
project can be identified and it is served as a roadmap for undertaking the project. The project
plan for improving the performance of Luton Town Residence by managing various issues and
problems is given below:
WBS: The work breakdown structure is a technique with the help of which the project
deliverables are organised into small manageable sections by decomposing it into manageable
chunks. It defines the scope of different manageable sections that the project manager has to
achieve (Li and Lu, 2017).
Purpose and Importance: The purpose of preparing WBS is that facilitates allocation of
time and cost to different identified activities. When the project executes, the performance of the
activities can easily be analysed in terms of cost and issues faced while execution. In addition to
this, the scheduling of the projects and the formation of the budget are also facilitated. It can be
used for determining the potential risks associated with the project to be undertaken and identify
various communication points so that information can be provided to each and every end.
Key Features: The key features of WBS for project management of Luton Town Residence
includes:
 The activities that are to be undertaken while implementing the project are classified into
hierarchical structure due to which role and responsibilities can be allocated among
different employees as per their capability and competence.
 The activities are not overlap which ensures that the redundancy of the activities is will
not take place due to improper communication (Won, 2018).
 The WBS so developed is outcome focus as after completion of the project the problems
faced by Luton Town Residence can be resolved, as with the help of these activities the

abilities of the employees in terms of using various technologies can be improved. Also
the communication will also improve by involving each and every employees in the
process.
Network Diagram: Network diagram is a graphical representation of the project that is to be
undertaken. In this various activities identified by the project managers are connected with the
series of arrows and boxes that describes the interrelation among different activities. In a
network diagram the boxes represents the activities that are to be undertaken while the arrows
represents the relationship among connected activities (Adafin, Rotimi and Wilkinson, 2020).
Purpose and Importance: The network diagram faciliate to understand the interrelation
among various activities since the beginning of the activities till the end. Identification of the
critical path for the projects facilitates to determine the total duration for undertaking the project
effectively. All the activities are placed in sequence with the help of a network diagram which
ascertains the flow of the project and facilitates proper execution of each activity. In addition to
this, the order of the activities of the project enables to determine the progress of the project.
Key Features and Analysis of Critical Path: With the help of a critical path so developed
for the project, the beginning and the end of the project are identified. Along with this, different
box in the diagram represents the activities that are to be undertaken by the employees of
different departments of Luton Town Residence, while the arrows used represent the link
between different departments and their activities. With this effective communication can be
established among all the employees as they all will be able to develop an understanding of
Yammer and various data management systems on the completion of the project.
Risk Management: For managing the project efficiently it is important to determine the risk
related to the project. The risk management strategy to determine the strength, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats of the project so that risk management and controlling plan can be
developed to mitigate such risk (Hopkin, 2018).
Role of Risk Management: The role of risk management in a project is to formulate
various risk policies for the enlisted internal and external risk. With risk management plan the
chances of delaying the project can be reduced as with this the impact of various risks can be
proactively. Such plan also contributes to the success of the project as a probability of occurrence
of an adverse event during the project can be identified along with their impact on cost, schedule,
and performance.

Key Risks: The risk related to this project includes budget risk, resistance to change,
technological risk, integration risk and scope creep.
How plan can control such risk: With the help of appropriate plan, the managers of Luton
Town Residence can manage the risk such as resistance to change risk can be managed by
making their employees understand the benefit of such change to them as well as to the
organisation. While the technological risk can be meet with sufficient training to the employees
so that they can understand the technology and its importance in an appropriate manner. For
managing the cost risk an appropriate budget will be prepared and funds will be so that risks can
be mitigated.
Budget: Budget is financial plan with the help of which revenue and expenses can be
estimated for a particular project and for a particular period of time. Budget can be prepared for
determining the sales volume, revenue, resources etc. Project budget is generally used by the
project manager for estimating the total cost that will be required for undertaking a project
(Hubbard, 2020).
Purpose: The purpose of preparing a budget is that with this they can determine the
requirement of funds before starting the project so that procurement for the funds can be made.
Also with the help of this performance of the project can be monitor as the planned expenses are
compared to actual expenses whereas planned incomes are compared to actual incomes.
Key Elements: For undertaking, this project budget is prepared in which cost estimation is
done by Luton Town Residence which is 1000 pounds. Elements include expenses such as
expenses related to the training of the employees, fees to the project manager, making
technologically advanced devices available to each and every employee, procurement of
resources for implementing the change, and many more.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above that it is important for the organisation to determine various
issues and problems so that they can improve them and ensure the profitability and productivity
of the organisation. For this the organisation must analyse their existing processes and functions.
In context to this report with the help of various project management tools and methodologies
such as continuous improvement plan, data management system etc. With this the company can
easily manage their inefficiency in internal communication and data storage issues. Apart from
this, project management plan techniques such as work breakdown structure, risk management

plan, budget etc. is developed so that projects can be completed efficiently and its outcomes can
be achieved.

REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Adafin, J., Rotimi, J.O. and Wilkinson, S., 2020. Risk impact assessments in project budget
development: quantity surveyors' perspectives. International Journal of Construction
Management. 20(1). pp.13-28.
Beringer, C., Jonas, D. and Kock, A., 2013. Behavior of internal stakeholders in project portfolio
management and its impact on success. International Journal of Project
Management. 31(6). pp.830-846.
Enshassi, A., Kochendoerfer, B. and Al Ghoul, H., 2016. Factors affecting sustainable
performance of construction projects during project life cycle phases. Factors Affecting
Sustainable Performance of Construction Projects during Project Life Cycle Phases.
7(1).
Garofalakis, M., Gehrke, J. and Rastogi, R. eds., 2016. Data stream management: processing
high-speed data streams. Springer.
Harrison, F. and Lock, D., 2017. Advanced project management: a structured approach.
Routledge.
Hopkin, P., 2018. Fundamentals of risk management: understanding, evaluating and
implementing effective risk management. Kogan Page Publishers.
Hubbard, D.W., 2020. The failure of risk management: Why it's broken and how to fix it. John
Wiley & Sons.
Li, D. and Lu, M., 2017. Automated generation of work breakdown structure and project
network model for earthworks project planning: a flow network-based optimization
approach. Journal of construction engineering and management. 143(1). p.04016086.
Li, R., and et. al., 2017, November. A cloud-based trajectory data management system.
In Proceedings of the 25th ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in
Geographic Information Systems (pp. 1-4).
Parisio, A., Rikos, E. and Glielmo, L., 2016. Stochastic model predictive control for
economic/environmental operation management of microgrids: An experimental case
study. Journal of Process Control. 43. pp.24-37.
Schniederjans, M .J., Cao, Q. and Triche, J. H., 2013. E-commerce operations management.
World Scientific Publishing Company.
Subramanian, M.B. and Rao, S., International Business Machines Corp, 2016. Data
synchronization between a data management system and an external system. U.S. Patent
9,311,378.
Van Wassenhove, L .N. and Martinez, A. J. P., 2012. Using OR to adapt supply chain
management best practices to humanitarian logistics. International Transactions in
Operational Research. 19(1-2). pp.307-322.
Won, J., and et. al., 2018. The development method of IFC extension elements using work
breakdown structure in river fields. Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial
cooperation Society. 19(4). pp.77-84.
Zhou, B., 2016. Lean principles, practices, and impacts: a study on small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs). Annals of Operations Research. 241(1-2). pp.457-474.

Appendix A: Diagram of WBS
Appendix B: Network Diagram and CPA