Optimal Operation Management of Microgrids

The provided assignment focuses on the optimal operation management of microgrids, a crucial aspect of modern power systems. It delves into the complexities of managing these small-scale power grids efficiently, considering factors like fuel cell power plants, wind turbines, and distributed generation systems. The assignment presents various research papers and studies that have employed techniques such as multi-objective optimization, fuzzy adaptive chaotic PSO algorithms, and stochastic model predictive control to achieve optimal operation management in microgrids. It highlights the importance of these methods in ensuring efficient energy production and distribution while minimizing environmental impact.

OPERATIONS
MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
A. State-of-art-review of inventory planning and control in operations management...............1
Task 2 ..............................................................................................................................................4
Analysis of Mark and Spencer retail industry.............................................................................4
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
This is a field of management in which considered the process of production as
designing, controlling of whole business operations to produce goods and services. Its main
objective is to ensure that resources are using properly in productions process and getting
maximum outputs with minimum inputs in respect of meeting customer requirements (Bahmani
and Azizipanah, 2014). In this involve activities of managing and controlling an entire
productions system in which included the activity of converting inputs into outputs. Mark and
Spencer is the British multinational retailer in London and it is selling various products such as
clothing, home appliances and luxury food products in the market. In this report, state-of-art-
review of inventory planning and control in operations management is explained.
TASK 1
A. State-of-art-review of inventory planning and control in operations management
Operations management is the process of converting input such as man, machine,
material, money and method into output (finished goods) for final consumption. In this
procedure, manager allocate available resources in an effective manner to achieve the best
outcomes and fulfil consumer's demand and needs.
Inventory planning and control are the functions of business operations as they are related
to available stocks or goods within firm. It determines optimum quantity of products or inventory
and its timing for the purpose of alignment with sales and production capacity. Inventory
planning and control directly impact on the business's cash flow and profits margins and helps in
forecasting to determine that how much inventory must be on hand to fulfil customer's demand
and expectations. It is a process by which managers maintain and count inventory items in the
business. It can be controlled by undertaking several things for the benefit of company such as:
Facts: Firm’s owner create policies and procedures for stock planning and control as well
as all people who are working within organisation have to follow these rules and regulations
while handling company's stock (Bazmohammadi and Bazmohammadi, 2012). As it helps to
organisation in maximise profits as well as increase the revenue from sale of inventory.
Better cash flow: It can help companies in managing the cash flow. Manager make
policies and procedure to reduce the expenses and control over the extra charges in production
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process. It comes from purchasing the lowest cost products which are available in market and
helps to generate revenue or income within firm.
Higher profits: Inventory planning and control contributes in profit maximisations as it
generates higher profits. Purchasing right type of material for making goods that will satisfy
consumer needs and wants will lead to higher business profits. It also helps to limit the amount
of obsolete inventory in company which must be disposed and written off by firm.
There are some latest trends of inventory planning and control that helps the
organisation in maintaining goods or stock in an effective manner and manage it according to the
demand of customers like:
Radio frequency Identifications (RFID): It is the current inventory management system
which is based on microchips to get signals from employees and connect with chip to retrieve
location. In this, locations or areas will be tagged with microchips that receive radio waves
(Chen, 2011). In the future, it will also support in preventing over or under stocking, stock
security from pilferage, ensure quality control on perishable goods, etc.
Data on the cloud: It is also the latest or new trend for inventory management that all
organisations whether small, medium or large are moving towards cloud based system for their
inventory management process which offers flexible scalability in affordable pricing.
Analytics to drive efficiency: Optimisation and analytics of inventory have been linked
with metrics like stock level, EOQ and stock cycles which help managers in storing optimum
stock quantity. Combination of cloud technology and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
reports as well as analytics will help company to get sufficient inventory data for making
decisions regarding the production. It helps the business by carrying out certain metric findings
related to new trends in inventory management. It includes spares management, demand forecast,
period expiry of stock, etc.
Benefits of inventory planning and control:
There are several benefits of the stock management in business operations such as
maintaining inventory system effectively help to increase in warehouse space and manages the
goods in a right way (Cruz and Rincon, 2012). Company can use the new inventory control
software for better management as it will support to utilise the proper space or surface area for
available stocks. So, it is opportunity of an organisation to develop and balance demand as well
as supply in the market by proper supply chain management. It support in increasing the sales
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volume and providing goods and services to consumers whenever they demand and fulfil their
needs and wants while maximising the wealth. There are various opportunities of business in
order to manage inventory planning and control such as:
Business expansion: There is an opportunity to expand the business in several areas to
reach at potential buyers as well as company can extend at other geographical areas where
business can increase its sales and earn more profits (Moghaddam, 2011). It also supports in
maintaining inventory as well as provide products to customers timely before expiry of goods to
satisfy their needs and wants as well as maximise wealth among competitors.
Business intelligence: Proper planning and controlling of inventory system helps to
organisation in making decision regarding products that what they should sell in market that
other companies are not selling for fulfilling customer needs and desired expectations.
Profit maximisations: It is another benefit of the inventory planning and control that
business can earn more money as well as control over the operating expenses that helps to
generate the profits within the firm. It is because of storing inventory in warehouses effectively
which helps in proper management of stocks and supply it to the right customer according to
their needs for maximise the profits.
Challenges of inventory planning and control in operations management
It is big problem for the manufactures, operations efficiency and customer's satisfactions
that there may be some factors and challenges that directly affects on these areas. So to
overcome all these, it required inventory management software which support in profitability,
calculation of stock level etc.
Integrating demand and inventory planning: In this manage or balance demand and
supply as well as there planning for the organisation for sell of the products in the market. With
the help of its software it can be plan effectively and it is related to the system such as Enterprise
Resource Planning that support in inventory management (Mohammadi, 2014). Vendors are
spending time to integrate their software for supply chain management systems.
Change management: It is also a challenge that systems have changed so organisation
required to provide training to their employees regarding inventory software as well as its
management that have to perform by the workers. Provide guidelines and educations of the
information technology to manage the inventory systems by using devices.
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Establish inventory visibility: It is must to store inventory or make available for the
customers at different place as well as cover the areas for supplying goods to the right customers
so it can be big factors of the business as due to unavailability of goods can decrease the sales.
So it is defined that inventory planning and controlling play important role in business operations
because it helps to make decisions regarding the productions of goods and services. And it also
helps to reduce the costs as well as minimise the resource wastage and utilise it in effective
manner by proper allocations to produce the goods and supply those into the market to satisfy
consumer needs and meet their desired outcomes.
Task 2
Analysis of Mark and Spencer retail industry
Background
It is a British multinational retailer and its headquartered in the city of Westminster,
London. This company has listed in London Stock Exchange which is component of FTSE 100
Index. It is selling several products such as clothing, home appliances and luxury food products.
Company was founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer. Its presently has approx
979 stores across the UK. In few years its food product's sales have increased rather than clothes
after change of brand name that is St. Michael's. In this company, approx 84,939 employees are
working at there. Its generated revenue is around 10,622 million euro and profits gained approx
115.7 million according to recent financial data of the company (Nakayama, 2012). Company is
focusing on customer satisfactions while earning profits as it made good quality of products and
services for targeted audience. As M&S sells high quality, stylish, great value of clothing and
home products as well as outstanding quality food which responsibly sourced from around 2000
suppliers globally. It is unique company as it selling only its own label products and control on
its supply chain that helps to achieve high level of innovation in product development as well as
its use of technology.
Overview of the M&S company
This company is dealing with three types of products in which include clothing, home
products and food. It covered wide area across the United Kingdom as there are many stores of
the company in different countries. It serve best quality of products in the market and its main
aim is to satisfy customers by providing them right products and services as well as it is
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customer oriented company which focused on consumer satisfactions and believes in fulfilling
their needs and wants or demand. It use several tools and techniques for effective marketing and
promotions of the business's products and its development. It also undertake CSR activities for
social welfare as its owner spend money for society developments and organise events and
programmes to promote the business. Company use advertising policy to create awareness
among the customers. It provide employment opportunities to the people and support them by
providing training and motivations for increasing work productivity.
Operations transformations of the food products :
M&S is selling various products in the market as clothes, home appliances and food
products in the global market. This company has good brand image in the market as it is
adopting best marketing strategies that helps to capture the market and achieve competitive
advantages. Now this company is focusing on product life cycle management technology which
is the part of a transformations as it support in international expansions of organisation by
implementing product life cycle management to develop product (Niknam and Meymand, 2011).
This company is planning to expand the business in which owner is focusing on food business as
well as increasing its franchise in other countries for growth of the organisation.
Compared with clothes, food is M&S functional product. So company can expand in this
field as maximise wealth by opening stores at various countries. They may be use partnership
form for transformations that will help in bearing risks. They have to focus on product's quality
by inspecting to serve best then competitors.
Objectives of operational performance
in this defined company's corporate strategies for meeting objectives. In this enterprise
ensure about utilisation of resources to obtains goals as well as configure operating environment
to accomplish operational performance objectives. There are some elements involved in it such
as:
Quality: In this considered product's characteristics and features as well as reliability that
how products are durable for the customers to satisfy their needs and wants. It is the
responsibility of the company to produce qualitative goods for the end users.
Speed: It defined that how company is growing rapidly through selling or delivering
products to customers. It refers to issue regarding time for manufacturing and providing at
market as soon as possible to meet customer's expectations.
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Dependability: In defines the measurement of producing products and deliver to
customers on time or according to agreed to costs and prices. It also measures dependability of
the products which manufactured and sell in reasonable amount.
Flexibility: It is required when produce products of different levels of quality and with
various design modifications as it helps a company to adapt operations new technologies and
changes to increase productivity (Zeinoddini, 2011).
Cost: It refers to the variations in unit costs or increasing expenses due to changes in the
volume in manufacturing process. Objective of operational performance is to reduce cost as
much as possible and get maximum outcomes in limited resources.
Recommendation:
M&S must be consider all these objectives in productions process and produce goods or
products according to customers. As they need to undertakes operating costs within procedures
and control those by using effective tools and techniques. Retail manager also required to focus
on product's qualities for final consumptions because poor quality of food can harm the human's
life and it can be impact on the business. Company can increase sales volume by delivering
goods in market which must be on time and they should adapt strategies regarding all over
changes in environment which can affect to the organisation.
Inventory planning and controlling by Mark and Spencer
M&S company sell its products by considering proper inventory management system that
helps to the organisation in making decisions regarding supply as well as manufacture of
products and services and manage those stock accordingly (Parisio, 2013). Company is using
various places or warehouses for storing stocks and maintain all records in respect of production
and sales.
It is the responsibility of the retail manager to keep inventory safe as well as in good
environment for protections from damages. There are many trends and opportunities in the
inventory planning and control that help to the organisation in managing all records by using
technologies, devices or gadgets. To manage the stock within the firm M&S use software for
effective operations. There are several tools and techniques such as Enterprise Resource
Planning, EOQ, Material Resource Planning for inventory management. They focus on three
following areas such as minimize inventories, necessary stocks for unpredictable market
requirements and minimise functional components inventory.
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Tools and techniques for complex operations management
In this defines the several techniques which helps to overcomes all factors and challenges
and make organisation effective. It also support in making best decision for business
development. M&S company use some tools and techniques in operations for producing
maximum outputs. These are as follows
Defining business strategies and implementation: In this define strategy that made to
achieve goals and objectives of the organisation (Sedaghati and Kavousi, 2014). So manager will
ensure about implementation or executions of plans and work on it effectively for meet desired
outcomes.
Use of advance technology: M&S company adopt new technologies for improving
productions process and produce good quality of products for the customers.
Utilisations of available resources: It must to allocate properly of resources for best
outcomes and work for it to achieve competitive advantages. Enterprises try to optimise and
divide the materials among several activities to get outputs as much as possible.
Cost minimisations: Company always try to minimise or reduce the overhead charges
that occur while manufacturing products and services. So it is basic requirements for all
organisation that they focus on cost reductions
CONCLUSION
Above this project report it has been concluded that operations management is the
process in which include the activities of productions such as converts input into output. Mark
and Spencer company which is British multinational retailer in London undertake. It is a retail
company that sells various products such as cloths, home appliances and luxury food products in
the market ans its stores are available at various countries (Stoppato, 2012). So they focus on
inventory planning and control system to manage stocks and arrange properly for supply in the
market. In this report explained about company's background and how they are managing
inventory as well as delivering products and services in the market to satisfy needs and wants of
the customers.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Bazmohammadi, N., Karimpour, A. and Bazmohammadi, S., 2012, May. Optimal operation
management of a microgrid based on MOPSO and Differential Evolution algorithms.
In Smart Grids (ICSG). 2012 2nd Iranian Conference on (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Chen, C., and et al., 2011. Smart energy management system for optimal microgrid economic
operation. IET renewable power generation. 5(3). pp.258-267.
Cruz, A.M. and Rincon, A.M.R., 2012. Medical device maintenance outsourcing: Have
operation management research and management theories forgotten the medical
engineering community? A mapping review. European Journal of Operational
Research. 221(1). pp.186-197.
Moghaddam, and et al., 2011. Multi-objective operation management of a renewable MG
(micro-grid) with back-up micro-turbine/fuel cell/battery hybrid power
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power plants. Energy. 36(1). pp.119-132.
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the optimal operation management of distribution feeder reconfiguration considering
wind turbines. Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems. 26(4). pp.1711-1721.
Stoppato, A., 2012. Energetic and economic investigation of the operation management of an
Organic Rankine Cycle cogeneration plant. Energy. 41(1). pp.3-9.
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