Operations and Project Management: A Review and Critique of Unilever's Operations Management Principles

This article reviews and critiques the implementation of operations management principles within Unilever, a British consumer goods entity. It analyzes the extent to which the operations management of the organization meets the requirements of the organization and discusses continuous improvement as a philosophy and describes the Lean principles. A continuous improvement plan, including justified recommendations for improvement, is also provided.

ID
Unit Number and Title Unit 187 –
Operations and
Project Management
Title Review and Critique
of Operations
Management (Part
1

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
Unilever Plc is a world renowned British consumer goods entity having its
headquarters in London. The product varieties at Unilever include food products,
cleaning agents, beauty products and personal care. It is one of the top most brands
as the biggest producer of soap worldwide. The accessibility of the Unilever products
is based across 190 different countries. The company is goruped into three divisions
primarily: food and refreshments, home care and beauty and personal care (Chen,
2019). The company has instituted upon its research and development facilities in
countries like India, china, the Netherlands and the UK. In the year of 2010s, the
organisation went on to shift its focus and developments towards more healthy and
beauty and personal care brands. The company brought a halt for the food products
which showed slow growth. Unilever has an objective of supplying the safe dairy and
farm products that provide customers with a healthy diet.
2. An explanation of operation vs operations management
Operations in business terms to the set of operations which are incidental to
manufacturing, productions and supply. These accumulate the set of processes
performed in each and every entity to aim and attain their standards of profitability.
The operations area includes taking note for the quality of products, making plans for
business engagement and resource utilization. It also focuses to provide for all the
customers demands and requirements in the market.
Operations management: It is the administration of the business practices that
intents at insuring the maximum efficiency within an entity that assists then to
upgrade and upsurge the profitability. It tends to utilize and manage all the
organizational resources to maximize the organizational efficiency. It considers all
the different resources that the business owns such as labour, materials, employee
staff, technologies and the physical equipments to use them in generating an
efficient and effective output in the business on all the various levels in the
organization. Applying operational management in the organization in the
standardized way assists it to achieve better output, to have a competitive advantage
and increased higher profits (Chevallier and et.al., 2021). The overall objective of
operational management is ensuring efficient usage of all the resources of material,
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labor, techniques and equipment's in order to make the organization able to match
supply and demand for the products manufacture.
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Operations Operations Management
 Operations involves the daily
tasks relating to the daily
practices which are regarding
the development of any goods or
products of the business, the
management of sales and stock
materials in the business
(Ciancio, 2018).
 The Unilever in relation to its
operations of selling their
products and services in the
market to earn the business
revenue and profits in an
efficient manner.
 Operations management entirely
connects to the tasks that include
managing and maintaining the
production efficiency in the
business. As the management of
operations provides the
organisation with the capability of
maintaining overall business
efficiency and the faults or issues,
if any that the management feels to
remove from the business.
 For example, Unilever imparts
changes and modifications in its
products in any of the category that
they deal in utilising some better
usage of raw materials and labour
of the organisation. The usage of
better factors of production helps
the company to generate higher
revenues as compared to pervious
years.
3. A review and critique of the implementation of
operations management principles within the chosen
organization
An environment management system is significantly created with the intention
of ensuring that the company's environmental goals and targets can be met in
accordance with its environmental regulations. In order to achieve business
objectives as effectively as possible, operations management is important. The
suggested business process concentrates on a continuous process of improvement
actions to obtain the results much better ways, including quicker delivery, equipment
utilization, improved workforce, and higher-quality items. Unilever's growth plan
involves vertical integration and diversification (Gatto, 2020).
Lean Production:
The goal of the management strategy refer as lean production is to eradicate
waste while maintaining quality. This method may be used across all areas of a firm,
including design, manufacturing, and distribution. By increasing a company's
productivity and responsiveness to customer requirements, lean manufacturing
seeks to reduce expense. This strategy aims to eliminate or reduce operations like
stock holding, fixing faulty goods, and pointless movement of people and goods
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inside the company that do not add value to the manufacturing process. Due to
Unilever's involvement in the fashion sector, there are a number of advantages to
employing this approach at the operational level which implies that there will be more
waste that has to be taken into account. The firm has thus adopted leaner production
practices in its operations to reduce waste at the manufacturing level in order to deal
with such situations (Gosavi, 2018).
Agile Manufacturing:
Rapid customer reaction is given top priority in the agile manufacturing
process, which elevates speed and agility to a crucial competitive advantage. It
provides a really intriguing strategy for creating a competitive edge in the quickly
changing industry of today. Quick shifts in client demand and small windows of
opportunity may both be exploited significantly more effectively by an agile business.
In order to modify the production process, precise data will be essential. With the
implementation of changes in market circumstances, the primary goals of this are to
increase efficiency and reduce costs.
4. An analysis of the extent to which the operations
management of the organisation in the case study meets
the requirements of the organization
Unilever operates in accordance with its ideals of simplicity, sustainability,
beauty, and usefulness in order to provide for the requirements and wants of its
consumers in the quickest manner possible. In order to achieve the most significant
strategic goals that were set for the long-term plan, the company's objectives are
primarily short- to medium-term aims and goals. Through their department of
operation management, Unilever has placed their sights on providing high-quality,
sustainable manufacturing at the lowest possible cost in order for the business to
accomplish the goals and objectives that the organization has established. Operation
management is essential and even more effective for an organization's profitability
(Hagan, 2019). Since there are many different Unilever goods on the market,
choosing the proper ones might involve a number of hazards and obstacle.
 Quality is the first and most crucial need for brand Unilever. Since everyone
wants to purchase sustainable things. This will encourage businesses to
market their high-quality goods more effectively and bring in more customers.
 Unilever adopts a cost-effective strategy in their operation management. As
customers demand high quality sustainable products, companies take this
into account and provide high quality and sustainable products. The company
is eliminating superfluous purchases while providing its clients with a fair
product made from high-quality materials. It is the fundamental reason why
customers are devoted to the brand.
 Unilever does an excellent job of maintaining their workplace. This will
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maintain their cooperation, alignment with their objectives, and use of quality
control in their work. In order to make the maximum use of their workers'
abilities and goods at once, the company maintains solid relationships with
both its worldwide suppliers and employees (Huntington, Gordon and
Plamping, 2018).
 Unilever may produce their goods in accordance with current market trends
by using the operation management concepts. As clients are extremely
happy with their operational decisions, the manager searches for market
demands and tries to meet them.
5. Discussion of continuous improvement as a philosophy
and describe the Lean principles
Continuous improvements are that which involve an ongoing Improvement
and betterment of the company products, services or the organizational processes of
the business for the purpose of implementing breakthrough improvements and
increments. These efforts of the organization which aim at continuous improvements
can either lead to incremental improvements in a period of time or a breakthrough
improvement all at once. It is based on the idea that slow and steady improvements
which are executed diligently can result in transformational changes in an
organization.
Lean methodologies is mainly related to control the unnecessary wastage
which occurs in an organization. These principles assists in decreasing the
production cost and fix for a minimum products price.
The five lean principles are:
1. Defining value: Value is what the customer aims to pay in return of the
product or service that the organization provides to the customers. The main
focus of the customers is to have satisfaction which can be termed in
monetary terms. Hence Unilever always succeeds in giving its customers
worthwhile experience with a launch of exclusive products that satisfies and
fulfills the demands of its customer base.
2. Mapping of value stream: In this second lean principle, the aim is to find the
different factors that when combined together constitute the entire value of the
product which the customer wants to pay. It finds the activities which
contribute in the value and those which do not (McKenzie, 2021). Unilever
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then aims to reduce all such activities which are adding to the unnecessary
production cost.
3. Create flow: After the successful removal of all such steps which are
unnecessary, it is ensured through this principle that all the other steps in the
production run smoothly without any conjunction in the system.
4. Establish Pull: In this pull based principle, it is ensured that the inventory and
the WIP in the production is limited only to the required amount and that the
requisite amounts of processes relating to inventory and wok in progress runs
smoothly. This basically ensures that the products are manufactured in the
needed quantities at the place where they are required creating efficiency in
the organization (Muñoz-Izquierdo, Segovia-Vargas and Pascual-Ezama, 2019).
5. Pursue perfection: The waste in the entire production system is removed
with the help of above mentioned four steps. But the step of perfection is the
most important among all the steps given. This assist to apply lean thinking
and continuous improvement in the organization a part of the enterprise and
its culture. It states that a business organization should always be in the
learning phase and should search for ways to make the organization a little
better with each process.
6. A continuous improvement plan, including your justified
recommendations for improvement, based on your review
and critique of operations management principles within
your organization
Continuos improvement plan is important to solve quality related issues if
occurs during the production of product and services. This possible to achieve
through applying PDCA approach in reference to Unilever.
Plan– Making budgets and reports which guides the workers from manufacturing to
delivering product in the market. This helps in identifying market need and
opportunities available in the market. Unilever is working towards improvising its
customer experience across all functional area of its business.
Do- The next step after planning is to start doing activities that amounts to
modification and changes. This innovative changes bring a lot of difference in the
organisation effectiveness. A continuous improvement in organisation match the
standards set by the organisation. Unilever keeps on modifying its information
technology to provide its user best experience.
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Check- The changes, modification made should be checked and analysed. Once
such changes takes place the outcome should be compared with estimated result. If
the results are desirable the improvisation must be accepted otherwise should
further look for changes.
Act- The diversion in plans and process results must be analysed. The reason for
deviation must be studied to get the desired result ahead. Corrective measures are
to be applied. Unilever suppliers are provided with different implementation of
artificial intelligence which is regarded as the best implement-ion of continuos
improvement management in a business entity (Oussii, and Taktak, 2018).
7. Conclusion
Unilever can rely on its operations effectiveness in its innovation in inventory
management, in store customer services satisfaction and amazing treatment of
employees in reference to their job capabilities, fitness condition, and position in the
company. The organization have lot of dependency on technology and information
technology. Now it is applied improvised implementation of the just in time inventory
management system. The twinning of technology and work planning process helps
the company to be ahead of market competition.
References
Chen, H., 2019. A pilot study of business travelers’ stress-coping strategies. Tourism and
Hospitality Research. 19(2). pp.252-258.
Chevallier, J., and et.al., 2021. Green finance and the restructuring of the oil-gas-coal
business model under carbon asset stranding constraints. Energy Policy. 149.
p.112055.
Ciancio, S., 2018. The prevalence of service excellence and the use of business process
improvement methodologies in Australian universities. Journal of Higher Education
Policy and Management. 40(2). pp.121-139.
Gatto, A., 2020. A pluralistic approach to economic and business sustainability: A critical
meta‐synthesis of foundations, metrics, and evidence of human and local
development. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental
Management. 27(4). pp.1525-1539.
Gosavi, A., 2018. Can mobile money help firms mitigate the problem of access to finance in
Eastern sub-Saharan Africa?. Journal of African Business. 19(3). pp.343-360.
Hagan, P., 2019. Higher Business Management. Hachette UK.
Huntington, J., Gordon, P. and Plamping, D., 2018. Managing the Practice: whose business?.
CRC Press.
McKenzie, D., 2021. Small business training to improve management practices in developing
countries: re-assessing the evidence for ‘training doesn’t work’. Oxford Review of
Economic Policy. 37(2). pp.276-301.
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Muñoz-Izquierdo, N., Segovia-Vargas, M.J. and Pascual-Ezama, D., 2019. Explaining the
causes of business failure using audit report disclosures. Journal of Business
Research. 98. pp.403-414.
Oussii, A.A. and Taktak, N.B., 2018. Audit report timeliness: does internal audit function
coordination with external auditors matter? Empirical evidence from
Tunisia. EuroMed Journal of Business.
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
The aim of the organization is to reduce unproductive movement of the
employee in the premises and provide them healthy food by starting a onsite
canteen (Chen and et.al., 2020).
An overview of the case study you have been given
The case study aims at an organization consisting of 1250 employees as a
mid-sized organization. The objective of the organization is to reduce the congestion
that takes place due to continuous movement of the company staff during the lunch
hours in the premises. As it impacts the organizations image due to the continuous
disturbances and congestion's and affects the working efficiency and the working
environment of the organization. The case study also deals with maintaining a
healthy lifestyle for its staff members and employees as it is the Corporate social
responsibility of the organization and will also assist the company in reducing the
absenteeism of employees in the organization. The company need to formulate upon
a project structure to deal with this issue and to improve the working environment in
the organization. It also needs to bring upon some strategies and a suitable plan of
action to help th employees in imploring their lifestyle and working efficiency.
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
This is a starting phase of the project life cycle in which companies observed
new ideas, techniques and insights in order to achieve respective objectives. BSS
Industrial services needs to analyse its requirements and resources and after taking
everything into consideration then, initiate a plan which helps in attaining the success
of the firm in a particular time period. As the staff will assemble, policies will be
developed, and a strategy will be created. For the purpose of offering canteen
amenities inside their site grounds, the BSS Industrial services has its own scope,
resources, and objectives. The firm that provides employees with the proper
guidance to assist them achieve the goals will benefit from this initiative (Childs,
2020).
 Project planning
Project planning involves the creation of detailed goals and targets of a
project to create a road map to be followed in future. It is the measure where the
organization defines this step and divide it into two further steps as setting for the
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company specific and measurable objectives, what it will deliver and the project road
map. It contains a set of defined set of time frames with defined stages and selected
resources. Planning pertains to accumulation of resources, fixing the budgets and
analyze the risk related with the project. The project planning for the organization in
the case study starts with setting up a budget for the project. Then to decided on the
planning process how the plans will be taken into action with the company
employees ensuring maximum contribution from their side (Fairhurst, 2020).
 Project execution
When all the arrangements are done according to the plan, resources
planning and allocation is completed the plan is all set to be executed. In the
execution stage plan need all resources required to execute the plan is gathered.
Risk factor is minimized and the risk that would make the plan unsuccessful is
eliminated. The organization will execute the plan by assigning duties to people and
assigning task to competent people. Project execution should be properly done with
all the tools and techniques required. Triumph Motorcycle can execute the plan by
opening the canteen on site and providing best quality food and some entertainment
area. An place which can attract the employee to stay in the premises only such as
Gym, games and T.V. So that employees get all under one roof and do not feel to go
outside. The urgency of the project execution is high because it is affecting the
productivity a lot.
 Project closure
This step of project closure involves debriefing with the shareholders of the
company. It involves the actual and final result of the project that was initiated as the
project life comes to an end. The final result is faced by the owner of the business
whether it is beneficial or in loss. After getting the results in the project closure, the
clients check upon the project deliverables with the desirable outcome and give upon
their decisions. This step will be the most important for the organization in the case
study as it will decide upon whether the project and the plannings benefited the
organization to reach its aimed targets and achieve the objectives decided. The
project will be termed as successful for the organization only when the absenteeism
of employees has reduced and the congestion taking place due to the continuous
movement of employees has been stopped with the help of project plannings. All the
project targets must be closed in an effective manner and employees must be
satisfied with the final results (Jurado-Arroyo, 2021).
Work Breakdown Structure:
Work may be made more manageable and accessible by using a common
productivity strategy called task breaking. The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), one of the
most significant project management papers, is the instrument that applies this method to
projects. It does it on its own, integrating scope, cost, and schedule baselines to guarantee
project plans are in sync. In order to carry out leading actions, this requires effective
management support. The BSS Industrial services needs this tool to make it simple for its
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personnel to carry out project work. Confusion will be reduced as a result, and the project's
objectives will be achieved (Liu and Jiang, 2021).
Gantt Chart:
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Analysis of the project methodologies and tools used
Project Methodologies: A project management methodology constitutes a set of
principles and activities that provide for a set of plans which assist the organization in
organizing the projects to ensure an effective and optimum performance.
The project methodologies utilized while planning, initiating and executing this
project are:
 Waterfall methodology: It is the traditional approach to project management
as a concept. In water methodology, the tasks and phases are divided and
completed in a linear and sequential manner and ensures that the previous
step of project is finished before the next step of the project begins. In
waterfall method of project management, the room of error is very high as
everything in the project is already planned. So, in case the expectations do
not match with the results the project can not be then termed as effective as it
was expected to be(Nanayakkara, 2020).
 It is hard for this traditional methodology to adapt with the changes that occur
as and when the project progresses.
 Agile methodology: This methodology involves short spans of work which is
constantly dealt with frequent testings, reassessments and suitable
adaptations necessary in the project. The key principle of this methodology is
it is very collaborative and quick as compared to other methods of project
managements and it is also very open to the data driven changes that are
needed in the project accordingly.
These are the two project methodologies that the organization mentioned above in
the case study uses to aim for effective adaptation and success of the project and to
ensure that the project is initiated, executed and closed in the best way possible with
positive results.
Project Tools: The project tools used by the organization for effective initiations and
completion of the project are tools such as network diagrams, project evaluation and
review techniques and project documentation tools. These tools help the
organization to keep an effective check on the project and its developments which
take place with time. These also assist the administration and the project managers
of the organization to apply the suitable review and rectify with the necessary
changes as an when they are needed in the project (Li, and et.al., 2021). The network
diagrams is used to connect the different steps which are required in the completion
of the project. It also shows the inter dependencies in the different steps of the
project. The project evaluation and review techniques assist the project managers to
review for all such areas where the project is not going as planned and apply the
necessary rectification policies and steps.
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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
The project life cycle refers to the sequence of the steps which are necessary
for the progress and completion of a project (Roeth, Spieth and Lange, 2019). It is
basically the arrangement of all the steps required by a project manager to
successfully start and finish a project. The sequence for the project life cycle is of
initiation, planning, execution and closure. For the case study given above, Project
life cycle played an essential role to plan, initiate, execute and review the project of
establishment of on site catering services, maintenance of a healthy lifestyle in the
employees and reduce staff of the organization. The project life cycle helped the
organization to analyze, evaluate and review any problems or deviations from the
planned project and work on those areas to improve the final result of the project as
desired. The project methodologies used by the organization of Waterfall and agile
methodology. The waterfall methodology is the one which helps the organization to
plan and divide the project into small phases to complete the tasks in the project
suitably. It also applies many frequent testings, reassessments through the agile
methodology to check upon whether the project is going in the desired way or not
(Stan and Băbuț, 2022).
References
Chen, C., and et.al., 2020. Best-case scenario robust portfolio for energy stock
market. Energy. 213. p.118664.
Childs, D., 2020. Performance portfolio David Richard Peter Childs DMA 2020 (Doctoral
dissertation, University of Salford).
Fairhurst, B., 2020, July. The perfect unconventional resource portfolio. In SPE/AAPG/SEG
Unconventional Resources Technology Conference. OnePetro.
Jurado-Arroyo, E., 2021. The design of an E-portfolio as an interdisciplinary tool to promote
autonomy in a CLIL context (Master's thesis).
Li, B., and et.al., 2021. An optimistic value–variance–entropy model of uncertain portfolio
optimization problem under different risk preferences. Soft Computing. 25(5).
pp.3993-4001.
Liu, C.A. and Jiang, T., 2021, December. Smooth Multiobjective Portfolio Optimization
Model and Its Solving Method. In 2021 International Conference on Information
Technology and Biomedical Engineering (ICITBE) (pp. 183-186). IEEE.
Nanayakkara, A.U., 2020. Sri Lanka: Improving Project Readiness and Portfolio
Management-Phase II.
Roeth, T., Spieth, P. and Lange, D., 2019. Managerial political behavior in innovation
portfolio management: A sensegiving and sensebreaking process. Journal of Product
Innovation Management. 36(5). pp.534-559.
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Stan, L.A. and Băbuț, T.M., 2022. PORTFOLIO AS AN EVALUATION TOOL USED IN
KINDERGARTEN. TEACHERS'PERSPECTIVE. In INTED2022 Proceedings (pp.
7502-7507). IATED.
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