Operations and Project Management: Review and Critique of Operations Management and Project Life Cycle

This report discusses the implementation of operations management principles with the organisation, continuous improvement philosophy and lean principles. It also includes the project life cycle and its stages, rationale for the project methodologies, tools and leadership within the PLC for the given project, and critical evaluation of the PLC through a practical and theoretical exploration of its effectiveness.

Unit 16 Operations and
Project Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................4
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................5
Assignment 1.............................................................................................................................5
1. Introduction of organisation.............................................................................................5
2. Explanation of operation vs operations management........................................................5
3. Implementation of operations management principles with the organisation..................6
4. Analysis of the extent to which the operations management of the organisation in the
case study meets the requirement of the organisation............................................................7
5. Discussion on continuous improvement as a philosophy and describe the Lean
principles................................................................................................................................7
6. Evaluate the continuous improvement plan, prepared on the basis of review and
critique of operations management principles........................................................................9
7. Using continuous improvement plan, make at least two justified recommendations
which could improve the operations functions detailed in the case study..........................10
Conclusion............................................................................................................................10
ASSIGNMENT 2 – PROJECT LIFE CYCLE ......................................................................11
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................11
Overview of the case study...................................................................................................11
Description of Project Life cycle and its stages...................................................................11
M3 Analyse the rationale for the project methodologies, tools and leadership within the PLC
for the given project..................................................................................................................14
Analysis of the project methodologies and tools used..............................................................14
Evaluate the effectiveness of PLC in application to the project theories and models..........14

M4 Critically analyse how the use of appropriate theories, concepts and models in the PLC
will differentiate between large and small-scale projects.....................................................15
D2 Critically evaluate the PLC through a practical and theoretical exploration of its
effectiveness. .......................................................................................................................16
CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
Operations and project management are interrelated factors of the organisation but both
having different functions in the organisation. Operations management deals with day to day
working in a strategic business issues where project management works on planning, organizing,
motivating and controlling business resources to achieve desired business goals. The operations
management help organisation and individual to improve the operational and performance
assessment. Project management provides tools and techniques to create a product and services ,
its a temporary process differs from project to project. While operations management is a
continuous activity that builds repetitive and long term outputs. This report is being made on the
context of Tesco company which is a retail super market, having its head quarters in England,
UK (Caramia, 2020). The aim of this report is to highlight operations management principles ,
implementation of principles with six sigma methodology and analysation of theories and
concepts which provides continuous improvement in the organisation.
TASK
Assignment 1
1. Introduction of organisation
Tesco is a British based multinational groceries and merchandise retail store which is
having its head quarter in Welwyn Garden City, England. The founder of Tesco is Jack Cohen
and the company founded in 1919 in Hackney, London. They are having more than 4673 stores
in all over the world and employing over 326,000 people (Chirumalla, 2018) . They sales much
diversified product such as nooks, clothing, electronics, toys, petrol, telecoms, software, internet
and financial services. They are on online and offline platform both and provide home deliveries
also. Tesco provides affordable products to their customers.

2. Explanation of operation vs operations management
Operation in management is used for one company having overall operation, its a
balanced and required output from various inputs. Its an act of operating with the exertion of
power, physical, mechanical and moral with a aim of generating profit.
Operations management is a management in the various areas of the organisation which
uses principles and theories in managing day to day activities. This involves a complete cycle of
planning, designing and supervising. It comprises management of production and the
administration process of the business.
3. Implementation of operations management principles with the organisation.
Operation management is the the capability of the firm to control its resources which are
important ant contributing in the production of product and the transferring the products and
services. The implementation of operations management of Tesco with six sigma principles are
given below:
 Define- Tesco strategies includes the process of understanding and gathering the
information from the card scheme and evaluate their purchasing habits and patterns,
which is very useful for the segmentation of the customers on the basis of their needs.
 Measure- To analyse the growth of Tesco, they use application of 4Cs which consist
customer benefit, customer cost, customer communication and customer's convenience.
By examining these 4Cs Tesco evaluate their growth rate (Eyers and Naim, 2019) . In
the growth measure theory also included the consideration of operations, customer,
finance and people in strategies goals.
 Analyse- Tesco is facing many issues on market and customer basis. As in market it is
continuously fails to select the right place for their stores and because of this they are
losing their share and revenue. The enhancement in the growth of internet trends and
convenience stores affects tesco's big stores, many of the customers are are switching
their market source.
 Design- Tesco design its products on the basis of customer needs and by the
analysation of market but their promotional strategies involves attracting customers
through its low price strategy. They make great use of print and media to advertise and

reach their potential customers with that they continuously offers discounts on both the
platforms.
 Verify- This is the last process as in the organisation, Tesco should ensure that their
product and services are liked and used by customers. This will build customer
satisfaction and develops market share.
4. Analysis of the extent to which the operations management of the organisation in the
case study meets the requirement of the organisation.
Tesco's strategy is to manipulate the aspects of the marketing mix to get competitive
benefit to get positive impact on the sales of the company. Operations management consist
planning, organising and controlling in the organisation that influence company's performance.
 Planning- This process of operations encompasses the planning related to goods and
services that retailed in the market. This includes sources of goods and the required
warehouses for the goods. Planning also consist delivering of goods to the relevant shops
and stores with the proper packaging(Kaswan, and Rathi,2020) . The process of making
strategies of transformation of raw material into the finished goods and to reach the
product to the potential buyers within time is refers to planning of Tesco.
 Organising- The most essential aspect of operations management is to organise the
strategies that satisfy needs and demands of the customer with achieving objective with
correct price and right timing. In the context of Tesco , organising involves managing
superstores which includes sales team that made sure that customers are guided well by
the promotion activities and the selection process of the product and services.
 Controlling- It involves the management of all the activities and strategies by the
management in order to achieve the desired goals of the organisation. In the context of
Tesco there are various activities that that needs to be controlled, which includes
controlling smooth operations, controlling in the expense in disbursements to suppliers
and productions expenses, controlling in offering services and managing the course of
labour. Operations system that are correctly controlled enable the company to measure
performance from its component systems (Mustapha, Hasan and Muda, 2018) . From
the control of the basic inputs (raw material, human resources, energy , information) to

the transformation of that good within the departments stores, Tesco has managed to
utilise its operation management well.
5. Discussion on continuous improvement as a philosophy and describe the Lean
principles.
Continuous improvement is a philosophy that encourages all the employees of the
organisation to grow constantly on a personal and professional basis. The importance of
continuous improvement is that it make possible improvement and positive changes in the
organisation. This includes some basic aspects which are given below:
 Empower everyone in the team to be part of the problem solving.
 Discard rigid fixed ideas.
 Think about how to do it and makes things happen.
 Use creativity before capital.
 Never stop improving.
 Choose simple solution,not the perfect one.
Lean principles
 Define value- Understanding customer value with respect to value what customer is
willing to pay for the product is very important. Sometimes customers does know ehat
they want in regards with products and technologies (Priya, Jayakumar and Kumar,
2020) . There are many techniques that can be used to define value such as interviews,
surveys, web analytics and demographic information.
 Map the value stream- It considers to identify and mapping the value stream. The main
aim is to identify customer value and all the related activities that contribute in it.
Activities that do not help in adding value in customer increment considered as waste.
 Create flow- To make ensure that the flow of functions remains and runs smoothly
without any interruptions. This includes making strategies that ensure that activities flow
smoothly without any delays.
 Establish pull- The aim of this principle is to pull inventory wastes in the production and
make work in progress. It creates a pull based system that allows timely delivery and
manufacturing, where products are build in time with the needed quantity.

 Pursue perfection- Following all 4 steps, this step peruse perfection is the most
important among all as this implies continuous improvement process for organisation
culture. Every worker should strive towards perfection while delivering products and
services based on customer needs.
6. Evaluate the continuous improvement plan, prepared on the basis of review and
critique of operations management principles.
Despite Having success in the foreign markets, Tesco is only in few countries. Therefore
company needs to diversify its market. The following principles that are required by Tesco in
managing their operations as well as require for improvement in its management are given
below:
 Educating and training management- Making improvement in the management
requires to consider the the education and the training factors of the employees.
Many operations needs the employees to be trained and educated well to handle
them such as regular technology up gradation, handling new equipments and
many more (Psomas, Antony and Bouranta, 2018) . Thus, for the improvement
education and training is very important.
 Leadership management- Lacking in the proper management system can affect
the operations for the quality improvement. Improvement in the management
requires effective leadership. Involving employees in the decision making and in
management so that they can make improvement in the quality. Tesco should
make decision prescribed downward to the employees.
 Strategic planning management- To make improvement in an organisation
requires an strategic vision. Tesco needs to evaluate the after effects of the
planned improvements in the organisation because some changes can backfire and
results in undesired outcomes which may lead the organisation in its failure.There
is a need of scenario analysis to anticipate outcomes.
 Employee's management- The operations management should also consider
employees in making any improvement in the organisation. Because employees
can be resistant to any strategies for enhancing the efficiency of operations. Tesco

should assess that whether it is essential to introduce incentives such as
promotion, rewards and higher pay among the employees in order to make
changes to any resistances to strategies that are build to improving the operations
of the organisation.
7. Using continuous improvement plan, make at least two justified recommendations
which could improve the operations functions detailed in the case study.
Tesco is always ahead in the market, by using strong customer-focussed strategy the
company adopted low pricing policy. Providing goods and services at low cost make possible
through cost cutting approaches. With all these strategies Tesco still needs continuous
improvement plan to be in the competition and to make profits. They should make improvement
in various management systems:
 Process Management- It involves improvements in the management process and
techniques that Tesco should focus on to make the lead in success and to minimize the
failures. The improvement that they can make in the methods that strives on promoting
innovation and making ways to improve and optimize processes (Wilson, Bhakoo and
Samson, 2018). The benefits the organisation in adding value, quality and capabilities of
their employees which as a result reduced working cycle time and increase efficiency.
 Customer focus Management- The satisfaction of the customer is the basis of the long
term success of the organisation for this improvement that a company can make in terms
of their customers are very much essential. Tesco should meet the specific expectations
of the customers with the improvement in management approach that inclined towards
the high sales and generate revenue for the company. Enhancement in the customer's
satisfaction results in increased sales and profits.
 Prioritize employees- Tesco should focus on their employees and remember that build
strong relationship with their employees builds a business. Prioritizing employees by
providing training to them, giving incentives, increase working retention. To keep labour
focussed results in enhancement in efficiency and productivity.

Conclusion
From the above report it is concluded that the operations management is the process of
converting raw material into finished goods and services. This includes implementation of
operations management and the theory of six sigma which have define, measure, analyse, design
and verify as its points. Then it defines continuous improvement philosophy and lean principles.
Lean principles consists define value of product, mapping the value system, create flow,
establish pull and pursue perfection. It analyse operational management principles which are
educating and training employee, leadership management, strategic planning management and
employee's management. The improvement plan which can be used by Tesco are process
management, prioritize employees and customer focus management.
ASSIGNMENT 2 – PROJECT LIFE CYCLE
INTRODUCTION
Project cycle management refers to the process of planning, organizing , controlling and
monitoring the project efficiently across all its stages for effective execution of the project
planned. Project Lifecycle includes the steps to be performed by the project manager to
effectively achieve the objectives of the project (Wang and et. al., 2022). The following report is
based on the case study of Change program for the manufacturing organization in which the
project manager is provided with the task to plan and manage an in-house project to translate the
business objectives into developed projects. As part of change program for the organization, the
report will cover the project life cycle stages based on the case study. It will also cover the
business case, project plan, and methodologies implemented within the PLC of project.
Overview of the case study
This case study is about the change program for a large manufacturing organization. The
case study tells about a site which has 1250 employees and no onsite catering . The company has
different employees including those in office staff and and factory workers. The project manager
is tasked with managing an in-house project to translate the business objectives into specific
development projects. The business objectives for the current financial year include reduction in

the movement of employees during lunch break to avoid congestion issues and developing a
healthy lifestyle in the organization. It is the task of project manager to apply the project life
cycle on the identified projects based on the organizational objectives.
Description of Project Life cycle and its stages
The project life cycle includes the stages that are required by the project managers to
effectively manage the project from beginning to end. In context with the change program and
application of PLC to the identified projects in manufacturing organization, its project life cycle
includes four stages . These stages help in determining the progress of the project as below:
 Project Initiation : This is the first stage of project life cycle that helps in the
visualisation of outcomes of the project. It is performed to get approval on the projects
and programmes by the sponsoring body so as to ensure alignment of the projects to the
strategic objectives of the organization. The main elements of the project charter include
Business case, project scope, Deliverable, cost estimation, risks assessment etc.(Zhao and
et. al., 2022). The business objectives of this organization in the case study include
Reduction of staff movement to avoid congestion issues and promoting healthy life style.
Based on these objectives, the project manager has initiated a project to ensure visibility
and transparency of the employees. It needs to organise the in-house medical campaign
for the employees for which the manager needs to include costs of this campaign to the
company. The project manager is also going to create a clear attendance policy and a
healthy food onsite catering as part of their project so as to reduce outside catering and
save time. It will include the business case which is described as under :
Business case
◦ Vision and Objective : The vision and objective of this project is to ensure reduction
in the staff movement to avoid congestion issues and to promote healthy lifestyle to
reduce absenteeism.
◦ Executive Summary : The organization is going to initiate the project to ensure
safety of employees and to promote healthy lifestyle at the factory premises. It will
help the company in gaining employee satisfaction as it will provide a positive and
healthy working environment for the employees.

◦ Resources : Financial and human resources and assets to organise medical campaign
and develop a healthy onsite catering.
◦ Cost : The cost of organising an in-house medical campaign and to build an onsite
catering for the employees will involve 500000 pounds.
◦ Advantages : This project will help the company in developing a positive and
healthy working environment in the organization and satisfied employees that will
help in reducing their absenteeism that is the main objective of these projects.
 Project Planning : It is a crucial stage of the process of project life cycle that provides
support to the stakeholders in undertaking the project. The project deliverables and needs
are defined and schedule of the projects is prepared. The created plans help the project
manager in managing the time, cost, quality, risks etc. of the project undertaken. It
includes the project infrastructure in terms of project management plan, project scope and
work breakdown structure (Rahman, 2022). It helps the company in implementation and
closure stages of the project. In this project, the project manager is planning to complete
the project i.e. to organise medical campaign within 15 days and to develop onsite
catering within next 2 months. It will require the cost of 500000 pounds. It will also
include the work breakdown structure as mentioned below :
Work Breakdown structure
It ensures the distribution of work in different activities so as to complete the project in time. The
given organization will breakdown the work structure for effectively planning the execution of
activities of onsite catering and medical campaign.
 Project Execution : This stage includes the implementation of the plans created in the
previous stage. It aims at achieving the desired outcomes of the project undertaken. It
requires various resources as it is the stage that requires the plans to be put into action. In
this stage, the project manager and the team take into consideration all the schedules,
procedures and templates that were formed at the earlier stages (Zhao and et. al., 2022).
Everything does not go as per the plans , there are chances of unexpected events against
the planned projects that the project manager needs to deal with. This phase also includes
stakeholder engagement and quality assurance activities. In context with the given
organization, the project will be executed by engaging the required human , physical and
financial resources so as to achieve the outcomes of the projects. In this, the project

manager will use the schedule such as 15 months in case of medical campaign and 2
months in case of onsite catering.
 Project disclosure : It is the Final stage of the project life cycle. It includes the formal
close of the project and getting approval from customers, stakeholders and the project
sponsors etc. It includes delivering of project, archive the project records and releasing
the project team, giving documentation to the owners, rescinding the suppliers contracts
and informing all the stakeholders about the closure of the project (Nordin and et.
al.,2022). In this case, on the organization of medical campaign and complete
construction of onsite catering, the employees engaged for catering preparation will be
released and after the tests of employees , the camp will also be closed and all the related
documentation will be give to the owners and the contracts with catering suppliers will be
cancelled.
M3 Analyse the rationale for the project methodologies, tools and leadership within the
PLC for the given project.
Project methodologies are the principles that are applied by the organisation in the
context of certain project. By considering factors of the project and their complexity and
simplicity and by examining the rigidity or flexibility of working environment. Project
methodologies considers what aspect of strategies delivers the most value in context of
completing organisational goals. A system of practices that provides techniques, procedures and
rules to conduct discipline in the organisation. For reducing movement of staff during lunch
break organisation should apply alternative breaks to team members which reduces the
congestion issue in local area.
Analysis of the project methodologies and tools used
 Agile methodologies : It is a people-focused and results-focused approach and an
adaptive approach associated with planning and managing of the business (Kraut and
Transchel, 2022). It helps in detecting and addressing the uncertainty and unexpected
events related to the projects.
 Rational Unified Process : It consists of various stages like Inception, elaboration,
Construction and Transitions that can be adopted by the given organization for its newly
launched projects.

 Project Leadership : The effective project leadership helps in directing the employees
and in inspiring them to increase their productivity and achieve the outcomes of the
project.
Evaluate the effectiveness of PLC in application to the project theories and models
Performance management
It is a tool for corporate management that helps the managers in monitoring the work of
their employees. Its goal is to create a positive and healthy working environment so as to achieve
employee satisfaction and enhance their productivity (Scott and Boyd, 2022). The project life
cycle will help in application of the above modules by facilitating performance management in
the organization.
Key Performance indicators
They are the quantifiable measures of performance for the accomplishment of objectives
of the project. They can include Revenue Growth, Customer and employee satisfaction,
Reduction in employee turnover etc. In case of the given organization, it can use these indicators
to analyse the performance of its employees and can reduce the absenteeism of employees by
achieving employee satisfaction.
Importance of Reliability and validity
These concepts are used to evaluate the project execution. Reliability refers to the
consistency of measure and validity is about the accuracy of a measure i.e. project in this case. In
context with the given organization, it needs to ensure reliability of its project by project
monitoring and control (Mendez and et. al., 2022). It is also required to validate the project by
getting it approved from the sponsors and stakeholders of the organization.
M4 Critically analyse how the use of appropriate theories, concepts and models in the PLC
will differentiate between large and small-scale projects.
The use of appropriate theories and concept in project life cycle describes the linkages
between project input, activities and outcomes, and provides a basis of how programs are used to
work for the analyses of program performance. Theories helps in establishing the system target
and establish project management system within its matrix in the large scale project.

Determining the main task activity and evaluating the link between different activities of project
management helps in large scale projects.
The use of concepts in theories and concept have separate perspective on small scale
projects as each pattern has to be explored in differently in the limited knowledge and scope.
Contribution of leading theories in small scale projects helps in building different aspect of the
projects and expands that limited knowledge in the context of development of that project.
D2 Critically evaluate the PLC through a practical and theoretical exploration of its
effectiveness.
The life cycle of the project is a series of the steps that a project go through from very
start to the finish. There are no. of patterns in the cycle that is determined by the management
with the help of theoretical exploration and practical application. It can be defined as the changes
according to the needs and aspects of the company. A project life cycle consist four step
framework which is initiation, planning, execution and closure. Organisation has to expand their
marketing strategies as organising medical campaign to aware general public about the company
and establish on site catering for the employees who are going outside of the premises to get
food for themselves. PLC is design to help project managers to guide their project succesfully
from start to finish.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it has been concluded that project lifecycle helps the project
manager and the organization in effectively initiating and implementing the project on the basis
of desired objectives of the organization regarding the projects. It includes various stages for
successful implementation of the project. It is required to use various tools for executing the
project and ensuring reliability and validity of the project undertaken.

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