Review and Critique of Operations Management and Project Life Cycle at Tesco

This report provides a review and critique of the implementation of operations management principles within Tesco, including an analysis of the extent to which the operations management of the organisation meets the requirements of the organization. It also discusses continuous improvement as a philosophy and describes the Lean principles.

ID
Unit Number and Title Unit 187 – Operations and Project Management
Title Review and Critique of Operations Management (Part 1)
Project Life Cycle (Part 2)
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Table of Content
Part 1: Business Report
1. An introduction to chosen organization p
2. An explanation of operation vs operations management p
3. A review and critique of the implementation of operations
management principles within the chosen organization p
4. An analysis of the extent to which the operations management of
the organisation in the case study meets the requirements of the
organization p
5. Discussion of continuous improvement as a philosophy and
describe the Lean principles p
6. A continuous improvement plan, including your justified
recommendations for improvement, based on your review and
critique of operations management principles within your
organization p
7. Conclusion p
References p
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1. An introduction to chosen organization
Tesco is a British multinational organization that is engaged in supply of
grocery items and merchandise. It is situated in the Welwyn Garden City of England.
There are many shops that are located in the other placed which are away from the
town known as hypermarkets. They stock their shops with all the essential items to
attract their customers. The supermarkets generally keep large amount of product
range with them as compared to the amount of product range with the hypermarkets
(Bueno, 2019). It is known for its highest market share in the country and also listed
in the London stock exchange.
2. An explanation of operation vs operations management
Operations can be termed as the process of managing and operation
management can be the methods and schedule that are used to carry out the
operation for business. Examples of operations can be raw material, system of
production, analysis, marketing tools etc. operations are done internally in any
business and helps the business to grow in a long run. This also helps the
businesses to run effectively and achieve their goals within limited time period. Day
to day activities in an organization can be termed as its operations depending upon
its size and nature (Dawaliby and et.al., 2020). Whereas, operation management is
related to production and distribution of products and services. Tesco will the help of
operation management can focus on increasing brand loyalty, customer satisfaction
and sales that can further increase overall profitability. The company can create
proper plan on how to carry out the function of production to reduce the cost and
increase the revenue for the firm.
3. A review and critique of the implementation of operations management
principles within the chosen organization
The process of operation management is concerned with the conversion of
input into output. Tesco makes use of operation management as a tool to make
positive impact on the sales that is to increase the sales and use different marketing
mix to make the business successful. The company tends to maintain a competitive
edge in the market by offering its customers with wide range of products for their
benefits. It is offering products like clothing, food products and finance services for
which the prices generally differ (Feng and et.al., 2021). However, Tesco presently
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keeping the prices for its commodities similar to the prices prevailing in the market.
Most important component of the company is to adopt best and suitable
methods of monitoring the performance of the business and getting frequent
feedback that can be valuable to run the firm. They also try to indulge more number
of workers in the shops to manage its day to day operational activities.
According to Taylor's Scientific Management theory, proper training to the
workers of the organization can increase the overall productivity of the business and
further increase the profitability. If the organization of Tesco do not follow operational
management then it increases its dependency and there is no coordination between
the various departments in the organization. This can be termed as major
disadvantage for the multinational company. If proper strategies are not made for the
business, then it can create problems and failure in the operations. For example:
errors done by humans in the production of products for Tesco. It is essential to
know that operation management is collaborating with the different areas like
finance, marketing and accounting areas (Ivanov and et.al., 2021). Often it is seen
that there is issue of transformation from production to sales which has to be
properly examined by the company.
4. An analysis of the extent to which the operations management of the
organization in the case study meets the requirements of the organization
There are many departments in the organization of Tesco and it focuses on
maintaining a hierarchy in its organization. The reason behind its success is this
hierarchical structure that consist of different layers. Each and every member in the
organization works effectively and collaborate with each other to achieve group
goals. Each is assigned with particular tasks, and they are responsible for
performance of their work. The company works in order to achieve customer
satisfaction and gain competitive edge in the marketing techniques of marketing are
used to promote their products. It will adopt more technologies that are advancing
and this will ultimately decrease the costs and increase the overall profitability ( Janjić
and e.al., 2019). The company can do so by focusing on target markets and target
consumers. Operational management can provide satisfaction to the stakeholders
and mainly the investors so that they can feel interested in investing in the
operational business of the company. In order to achieve this the company can
contact the local outlets and assign more workers in the shops. This would reduce
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the waiting time for the customers in queues and will benefit them with fast and easy
access to the products. By using operational management as a tool, company can
easily fulfill all the fundamental and demands of customers and stakeholders as well.
Tesco can take preventive action in order to improve its operational management
process. In order to increase the customer base and satisfaction among the
consumers the company looks for the process of automation that can create quick
sales for products in different stores.
5. Discussion of continuous improvement as a philosophy and describe the
Lean principles
The continuous process of improvement of goods and services in the
company with the help of internal breakthrough improvements is known as continual
improvement or continuous improvement (Moyano-Fuentes and et.al., 2020). The
valuable efforts have made tremendous improvement in the recent times and also
the breakthrough transformations. In this context, six sigma is an approach that is
used by the company that includes different quality management tools for
improvement. Under this the infrastructure of the individuals are termed as trained
experts which trained according to the work assigned to them. Six sigma s a process
that reduces the deviations and errors in the manufacturing process.
There is another model of continuous improvement in lean production which is
known as the Kaizen continuous improvement. It is often considered as the
combination or blocks of building for all the lean production methods. It is mainly
concerned with waste management in the organization, enhancing the overall
productivity and make sustainable and continuous improvement. There are five main
parts in the model which are namely, team work, quality circles, improved morale,
personal discipline and more suggestions for overall improvements. Tesco takes up
this model in the organization to make their employees who are working for them to
involve in the activities and perform the tasks assigned to them effectively. It also
provides the company to get feedback from the employees and talk about various
opportunities and the problems of the workers. The morale of the employees is
improved so that they can work effectively and good results can be obtained from
their working activities (Oswald and et.al., 2019).
Six sigma model can allow demonstrating techniques that are helpful for
continuous improvement because it consists of five different components that
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reduces the problems in the process of change. However, there exists several
benefits in this model which makes Tesco use this model as the most favorable one.
This can help to monitor the requirements of the customers and fulfill their needs and
wants. In order to make changes, a change for reducing the waste is also important
for the company to increase the productivity and providing good experience to the
customers. Lastly, these methods can be useful for making the process of change
more flexible and ease the operation process of the company.
6. A continuous improvement plan, including your justified recommendations
for improvement, based on your review and critique of operations
management principles within your organization
Continuous improvement plan for organizations like Tesco can be studies with
analyzing the impacts of different types of theories and models along with the merits
and demerits.
The merits and demerits of the theory for the organization are discussed below:
Taylor's Scientific Management theory – This theory is related with doing the right
task effectively that is on time. Whenever any task is assigned to the workers they
are expected to complete it on time in a given time period. This theory allows the
company to take control such activities that can be useful in running the business
effectively. Moreover, it helps in increasing the production, have control over the
workers and reduce the operational cost of the business and also improve the
payment mode with reducing the accuracy. Whereas the demerits of this theory can
be the fact that it puts so much pressure on the employees to complete their work
fast and it requires huge investments (Popović and et.al., 2021). The process of
planning often decreases the productivity of the employees which is a threat for the
organization and overall profits of the company. This also creates bad image of the
company. It should be improved in order to offer the best service to its employees
and improve the overall process for further change. It should be essential for the
company to use such strategies effectively to make the process better.
Kaizen – this is the model which aligns with the continuous improvement process
which creates advantage for the company to enhance the quality in teamwork as this
is termed as the quality enhancing tool and is applicable to each member in the
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organization. Further, it creates better working efficiency because it is termed as
standardization of work.
The disadvantage of this model is that it is sometimes difficult or impossible in
current scenario in which is important for the managers to be aware about making
any further considerations. Workers need to be trained which also takes huge
amount of costs and time. In order to make improvements, company must take
actions to create proper strategy for improvement and carry out better
understanding. It would be beneficial for the company to use such a methodology
and can improve the functioning.
Six sigma – it is a method that can be used by the organizations as a tool to
improve the capabilities of the process of business. Increase in performance level
and decrease in defects in the process can create increment in the profits and can
boost the confidence of the employees and also by offering better quality products
and services.
Focus of organization that sues six sigma is to reduce the waste and to take
up actions to decrease the overall waste in the company. Moreover, it increases the
efficiency in the company, decreases defects which can be termed important for
business to run successfully (Sharif, 2020).
Major disadvantage for this process is that it requires huge amount of
implementation time and number of workers for its implementation. It is applicable to
limited areas like limited industries and suitable for particular industries.
Bench marking – bench marking is the process which includes measurement of
products and services for organizations that are known to be the leader in different
aspects for their operations.
It is considered suitable because it allows making improvement in the
environment which is internal to the organization and increase the understanding
level for performing tasks in the company. Similarly, these aspects can be measured
and performed effectively. Reduced cost of operations can create overall productivity
for the business. Most of the organizations which work for the purpose to grow can
be served with these activities as this creates more customer retention in the
business.
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The disadvantage for this can be less information or insufficient information
can impact the performance. Benchmarks can be sued to improve the performance
of the company. Micro and macro factors both need to be favored to gain competitive
edge.
7. Conclusion
The above report was based on how Tesco implement its operations in the
organization. To maintain a competitive edge in the market, the company focus
mainly on customer satisfaction and enhancing their performance. The report
highlighted the principles of management by using Taylor's Scientific Management.
The organizations cater to the needs by managing the operations adequately. Also,
there are some negative aspects in the models and theories of operational
management. These theories and models were discussed in the above report along
with its advantages and disadvantages. Further it has been concluded that how
operations can help the organization to enhance its day to day activities and
increase the productivity of the employees which ultimately results in increment of
profits.
References
Bueno, D.C., 2019. Evaluating the institution’s philosophy and objectives towards
continuous improvement. CC The Journal: A Multidisciplinary Research
Review, 14, pp.1-7.
Dawaliby and et.al., 2020, September. Blockchain-based IoT platform for
autonomous drone operations management. In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM
MobiCom Workshop on Drone Assisted Wireless Communications for 5G
and Beyond (pp. 31-36).
Feng and et.al., 2021. Operations management of smart logistics: A literature review
and future research. Frontiers of Engineering Management, 8(3), pp.344-
355.
Ivanov and et.al., 2021. Researchers' perspectives on Industry 4.0: multi-disciplinary
analysis and opportunities for operations management. International Journal
of Production Research, 59(7), pp.2055-2078.
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Janjić and e.al., 2019. Kaizen as a global business philosophy for continuous
improvement of business performance. ekonomika, 65(2), pp.13-25.
Moyano-Fuentes and et.al., 2020. Extending lean management along the supply
chain: impact on efficiency. Journal of Manufacturing Technology
Management.
Oswald and et.al., 2019. Communicating health and safety on a multinational
construction project: Challenges and strategies. Journal of Construction
Engineering and Management, 145(4), p.04019017.
Popović and et.al., 2021. IMPLEMENTATION OF INTERNAL CONTROL WITH
REFERENCE TO THE APPLICATION OF" IT" IN COMPANIES
OPERATING ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE GREEN
ECONOMY. Agriculture & Forestry/Poljoprivreda i Sumarstvo, 67(2).
Sharif, R., 2020. An in-depth review of Operations Management.
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Table of Content
Part 2: Project Portfolio
Project Title p
An overview of the case study you have been given p
An explanation of each stage of the PLC that applies to your
selected project, including supporting documentation for each
stage (e.g., business case, the project plan, cost-benefit analysis
and work breakdown structure):
 Project initiation p
 Project planning p
 Project execution p
 Project closure p
Analysis of the project methodologies and tools used p
Review and critically evaluate the effectiveness of the PLC in
application to your project using the appropriate theories models
and concepts p
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Project Title
On-site catering
An overview of the case study you have been given
A large organization is situated in the midlands and consist of 1250
employees. They work towards achieving the goals of the organization and are
responsible for conducting their day to day operations (Torkanfar and et.al., 2020).
Presently, the issue with the organization is lack of catering services for the
employees who go out for lunch during break time. The motive of this case is to
make the employees healthy and for the safe environment. As the employees eat
outside from local shops which are near the organization which upset their health
and causes absenteeism. In order to solve this problem, the organization creates
On-site Catering to offer the employees healthy food in the organization itself at
affordable prices.
An explanation of each stage of the PLC that applies to
your selected project, including supporting documentation
for each stage (e.g., business case, the project plan, cost-
benefit analysis and work breakdown structure):
 Project initiation
Title - On-site catering
Brief Description - On-site catering is introduced in the organization in order
to fulfill the needs of the employees and make them healthy. Health is the important
criteria that every organization should fulfill. Also, to manage the time of the
employees and make the environment safer by reducing the traffic outside the
organization, it is important to open a cafeteria in the organization (Han, 2021).
Background – The prime need for opening a cafeteria and initiating this
project of on-site catering in the organization is to make the employees healthy. The
major reason of employees’ absenteeism is their health issues like stomach upset
that happens because of eating outside from local shops. Also, the employees often
lose much of their time in going out and have lunch, the project will also solve this
problem.
Goals – The goal of the project is to fulfill the corporate social responsibility
by providing the employees with healthy food in the organization.
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Scope – The scope is to cover all the employees of the organization. There
are 1250 employees and each should be provided with healthy food.
Effect – With the help of this project, organization can easily build an
environment which is effective in nature and increase satisfaction among the
employees which will ultimately benefit the organization (Rianty and et.al., 2018).
Key stakeholders – There are some stakeholders like management,
employees, suppliers and members of boards which have direct and indirect control
over the decision-making process of the company.
Budget – The expenses which are required in order to complete this project
are all included in the budget and it will help to evaluate the overall cost for starting
and maintaining this project.
Responsibilities – The responsibility of this project is to provide each
member of the organization with equal opportunities and provide food at reasonable
prices.
Milestone – Major milestone is to reduce movement of employees and provide them
healthy food at the workplace itself and decreasing the overall absenteeism in the organization.
With the help of this certain milestone can be achieved (Tereso and et.al., 2019).
Assumption – Certain assumptions are made regards to the projects that
there can be defects sometimes like the quality of the product or ingredient might
sometimes differ which may cause problems in the health of employees.
Evaluation – Absenteeism, level of satisfaction, retention level of employees
in the organization can be frequently measured and the health of the employees can
be regularly monitored which will help in measuring success for the organization.
 Project planning
Scope planning – The project is mainly concerned with providing all the staff
members with healthy food in the organization. This will reduce their movement from
the workplace which is further helpful in retention of employees and help them grow.
Work breakdown structure
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Project schedule development – A proper schedule is essential so that the
project can be completed in the prescribed time period. The project will be including
the days required to complete the tasks successfully.
Gantt chart
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On-site
catering
Initiali
zation
planni
ng
execu
tion
Monit
oring
contro
l
closur
e
Providi
ng
quality
food
Reduce
absent
eeism
Budget
plannin
g
Risk
manag
ement
Assign
ment of
tasks
commu
nicating
Monito
r of
perfor
mance
measur
es
Releasi
ng
resourc
es
docum
entatio
n

Resource planning – The resources which are available in order to initiate
the project and help it grow are planned under resource planning and further they
are managed in order to maintain optimum utilization of resources (Robles, 2018).
Budget planning – Following is the planning of budget for knowing About the
expenses that will be incurred to execute the project:
Particulars Budgeted cost (amount in £)
Raw materials 1550000
Cost of planning 25000
Salary of employees 700000
Cost of management 8000
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Kitchen equipments 500000
Research and development 100000
Expert advice 550000
Cost of project management 300000
Miscellaneous expenses 100000
TOTAL £3833000
Procurement planning – Suppliers and the vendors need to be properly
shortlisted by getting knowledge about the prices they offer and which are helpful for
benefitting the process procurement (Abyad, 2018).
Risk management – The risks is management by carefully testing the chefs
before they start making food for the employees. Their work is practically observed
before hiring them in the workplace.
Quality planning – The quality of the raw materials and ingredients used for
making food will be checked regularly to avoid any kind of deviations. Proper
standards will be maintained in order to prepare the best quality food items.
Communication planning – To make the project a successful one, methods
will be used to create effective communication between each department in the
organization and among the staff members as well. In order to reduce confusion and
chaos digitalization in the communication process will play a major role.
 Project execution
Project deliverable – The tangible outputs are carefully examined in this step
that which are the tangible results of the project. This help the organization to have
an idea about the befits or failures of the project. Prime focus will be on providing
quality food to the employees.
Change requests – Sometimes there is a change in the demand of the
employees and this change is carefully taken care of by the management. By proper
strategies, this change can be implemented.
Performance data – The progress of the project is evaluated and carefully
examined and then implemented in order to know any deviations in the project.
Proper measures are taken to overcome these deviations.
Issue log – Any kind of issue or bug is recorded here so that further it can be
examined in case any kind of deviations occur.
Documentation updates – If there occurs any change in the planning
process or the scope planning then these are documented in the step of
documentation updates (Galli, 2018).
 Project closure
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Project closure is the last step of the project life where it will be completed and get
closed taking considering each aspect of the project. It is important to undertake
certain activities post this project in the current financial year:
 Contract cancellation – This is the first step where all the contract with the
suppliers are canceled. As soon as there is a closure of the project it is
mandatory to inform it to the suppliers who are engaged in supplying raw
materials and ingredients to prepare food. This will make the suppliers not to
expect orders from the organization and can focus on fulfilling the dues if any
with the organization.
 Transferring all deliverable – It is important that the company should
carefully transfer all the key deliverable and should examine whether the
goals are achieved successfully. This can be evaluated by checking the level
of satisfaction among the employees. A good completion of the project can
easily be termed as the successful project.
 Discontinuation of the staff – The staff which has been assigned to work in
the cafeteria and all the equipment like machines which were engaged during
the project need to be discontinued. This will make optimum utilization of
resources and further the resources can be put to some other use.
 Documentation of the project – Proper documentation has to be done in
order to close the project. Documents related to the raising of funds and
different salary related documents of the staff need to be properly examined.
This is a very crucial step to avoid any kind of chaos or confusion at the time
of overall closure and the process can be done smoothly.
 Informing Stakeholders – All the stakeholders like the investors,
management and the employees need to be aware about the closure of the
project. The investors who invested in the project should know about the total
earning that have been made as their money was invested as capital for the
project. The employees of the organization should know to get proper
knowledge on the closure of the project (Akinshipe and et.al., 2019).
Analysis of the project methodologies and tools used
Project management Tools - The tools used for managing this project are work
breakdown structure and Gantt chart. This will help in simplifying the work and
assigning the tasks effectively.
Work breakdown structure – It is a tool that defines the overall project and helps in
managing the whole project by properly managing it. It also helps in finding any
deviations in the project and check if anything is missing.
Benefits
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 It boosts the productivity of the employees and make them interested to work
for the organization.
 It will cover every little detail of the project which will be helpful to the
organization in running the project successfully.
 It will help to allocate the cost and time of the organization as the goals will be
prescribed and budgets are prepared in order to achieve growth.
Drawbacks
 It is a step by step process which is sometimes considered as time-
consuming and a tedious process.
 It includes number of tasks that need to performed which can cause more
competition as the work is to be completed within the, limited time period
(Narasimhan and et.al., 2021). It is process which gets outdated fast and there will be need of new tool for
managing the project.
Gantt chart – Gantt chart can be helpful in knowing about the completion of the
project. It provides overview of the project and what are the activities and measure
the progress of the product.
Benefits
 it provides a higher level overview about the project and total knowledge
about the project.
 It is very easy to understand and be easily assessed by just looking at the
chart.
 With the help of Gantt chart, the management can easily measure the
efficiency level in the organization and the resources can be managed easily.
Proper allocation of resources will ultimately result in overall success of the
project.
 Complex information can be simplified and can be made easy to understand.
Drawbacks
 The setup of a Gantt chart can be time-consuming and can cost a huge
amount of time which is sometimes considered a drawback.
 It is not easy to align the tasks from one section to another acting as a major
disadvantage.
 Often, it is believed that the aggregates or the totals are not easy to calculate
and requires a lot of time.
 It is not possible to mention each and every task in the chart and there is
possibility that some tasks remain and do not get mentioned.
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Review and critically evaluate the effectiveness of the PLC
in application to your project using the appropriate
theories models and concepts
Performance management – Project management is the combination of activities
that are concerned with completion of work and the project successfully. There is
some process which are performed which will be held accountable for the completion
of the project (Alam, 2019).
Merits
 The first merit of performance management is that kit helps in allocating the
resources.
 The problem of mismanagement is reduced with the help of performance
management and the methods can be used effectively. There are certain important and major projects which need to be completed
carefully, performance management can help in performing this task.
Demerits
 Performance management is considered rigid and it is does not provide
flexibility. This can result in greater influence on the financial outcomes of the
project.
 There are some assumptions which are sometimes cannot be held true. This
creates problems as the performance management is based on the
assumptions and cannot be easily trusted for its accuracy.
From the above project it has been concluded that all the components like
backgrounds and targets are important for the completion of the project with the best
product quality indication. Some internal and external factors have been discussed
which can measure the level of satisfaction among the employees and the retention
level of the employees. The project is responsible for maintaining the corporate
social responsibility.
WBS and Gantt chart are being used to evaluate the overall project. The
prime aim is to get proper understanding about the project. Lastly, it can be said that
the project is undertaken properly and it is done properly by taking care of all the
necessities of the project.
References
Torkanfar and et.al.2020. Quantitative similarity assessment of construction projects
using WBS-based metrics. Advanced Engineering Informatics, 46, p.101179.
Han, X., 2021. WBS-free scheduling method based on database relational
model. International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and
Management, 12(3), pp.509-519.
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Rianty and et.al., 2018. Development of risk-based standardized WBS (Work
Breakdown Structure) for quality planning of high rise building architectural
works. In MATEC Web of Conferences (Vol. 159, p. 01019). EDP Sciences.
Tereso and et.al., 2019. Project management practices in private
organizations. Project Management Journal, 50(1), pp.6-22.
Robles, V.D., 2018. Visualizing certainty: What the cultural history of the gantt chart
teaches technical and professional communicators about
management. Technical Communication Quarterly, 27(4), pp.300-321.
Alam, S., 2019, August. An Innovative Project Management System. In 2019
International Conference on Information Management and Technology
(ICIMTech) (Vol. 1, pp. 180-185). IEEE.
Narasimhan and et.al., 2021. Incorporating Security Planning During Project
Initiation.
Akinshipe and et.al., 2019, November. Premature Project Closure: The Part Played
by Clients. In IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and
Engineering (Vol. 640, No. 1, p. 012028). IOP Publishing.
Galli, B.J., 2018. Can project management help improve lean six sigma?. IEEE
Engineering Management Review, 46(2), pp.55-64.
Abyad, A., 2018. Project management, motivation theories and process
management. Middle East Journal of Business, 13(4), pp.18-22.
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