BTEC HND: Operations Management Review & Project Life Cycle Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive review and critique of operations management principles and the project life cycle, with a specific focus on Marks & Spencer. The first part compares operations and operations management, critically evaluates the adoption of operations management principles within M&S, analyzes how well the firm's operations management meets company needs, explains continuous improvement in relation to lean principles, develops a continuous improvement plan, and suggests actions based on an evaluation of operations management principles. The second part summarizes a case study, applies each phase of the project life cycle to a chosen project, evaluates project methodologies utilized, and reviews the effectiveness of the project life cycle. The report also includes analysis of lean production, Kaizen techniques, and agile manufacturing within the context of Marks & Spencer.

Learner Name
Programme Name Pearson BTEC Higher National Diploma in Business Management
Unit Number and Title Unit 16 – Operations and Project Management
Credit Value Unit Level
Academic Year Cohort
Assessor
Project Title Review and Critique of Operations Management (Part 1)
Project Life Cycle (Part 2)
Issue Date
Submission Deadline
IV Name
IV Date
Statement of Authenticity:

Operations and
Project Management

Table of Contents
PART-1............................................................................................................................................1
OVERVIEW OF SELECTED ORGANISATION..........................................................................1
Comparison between operations and operations management .......................................................1
Critical evaluation of adoption of operations management principles in the selected company
..........................................................................................................................................................1
Analyzing the degree to which operations management of the firm fulfill needs of the company 3
Explanation of continuous improvement in relation to philosophy and description of lean
principles................................................................................................................................3
Development of continuous improvement plan ..............................................................................5
Formation of course of action for continuous improvement based on critical evaluation of
principle of operation management in relation to the company......................................................7
Analysts of continuous improvement plan......................................................................................8
Preparation of continuous improvement plan along with suggestions with justification on the
basis of evaluation of operation management principles.................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
PART-2..........................................................................................................................................10
Project title.....................................................................................................................................10
Summary of the case study............................................................................................................10
Application of every phase of PLC to the chosen project along with required documents: .......10
Evaluation of project methodologies utilized................................................................................18
Review and critically evaluate the effectiveness of the PLC ........................................................19
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................20

PART-1
OVERVIEW OF SELECTED ORGANISATION
Marks and Spencer is a British multinational company which has its headquarter in
London, England and deals in retail sector. The company was founded in the year 1884 by
Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer. The organisation is specialised in trading clothing sector,
home and food products. It serves on international level along with becoming market leader in
the UK. It offers quality products on both online and offline channels to its potential customers.
The following report includes principles of operations management and development of
continuous improvement plan.
Comparison between operations and operations management
The thoughts about business operations mainly pays its focus on management of internal
functions of an organisation so that business could be operated smoothly. Business operations is
related with modifying basic resources in trading goods which could be easily offered to
customers(Monitoring, 2020). In an organisation, operational department plays very crucial role
as it helps in supporting achievements of business goals by performing certain functions which
generally involves human resource management, monitoring activities, finance department and
others.
Operation management is defined as business practice which assist in developing
companies in attaining highest level of efficiency. This mainly focus on developing new plans,
controlling and supervising production activities, management of business functions and many
others. Operational management is also associated with delivering which ensures that companies
transform input into output of products in very effective manner.
Operational management of Marks and Spenser generally involves beginning and closure
of outlets at specific time period along with managing outlet space.
Critical evaluation of adoption of operations management
principles in the selected company
Lean Production: This is a technique which focus on reducing wastes in producing
systems while regularly maximizing productivity. The main advantage of lean production is that
it helps in improving quality of products and reduce time as well as costs.
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Benefits: Lean production lowers the levels of inventory and provide higher efficiency of
manufacturing products. It also assist in improving morale of employees and also helps company
in gaining high profits by producing large number of products in lesser time(Vivek and
Nanthagopan, 2020).
Drawbacks: The main disadvantage of Lean production is that at the time of equipment
or labor failure, the company could face major inconsistency along with failure of project.
Another disadvantage is that sometimes employees might not agree to adopt such drastic changes
which could result in less productivity.
Kaizen techniques- This is the strategy where employees of all level work together to
achieve their organizational aim and improve their productivity and skills. Here, main aim of the
company is to improve the manufacturing process of the company. There are dual nature of
Kaizen system, one is about organizing events where companies specifically focus on one area
within the company for improvement. Second nature is that this method will allow active
participation of employees in suggesting improvement strategies for their production process to
their senior management.
Benefits: It help the company to maintain their internal relations effectively because
when a strategy is made within a company related to improvement of organizational performance
than company will allow the participation of almost all employees and make sure that they will
represent their idea and communicate well with each other. Hence, this will help them to
maintain their organizational culture.
Drawbacks: The biggest disadvantage of this technique is that, here employees are
unable to adopt any change within their organization. Secondly, providing training to employees
while they perform their job within the organization is also tough.
Agile Manufacturing: This is method of operations management which is utilised by
companies to execute manufacturing products that mainly focus on rapid response by customers.
It helps company in quickly reacting to modification or trends in the market while maintaining
quality of offered products or services. For instances, during COVID-19 the demand of online
trading increased which the selected company applied by offering its products on its website.
Benefits: This manufacturing method helps organisation in offering best and quality
products to customers by evaluating their needs.
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Drawbacks: While adjusting to demands and needs of customers the life cycle of
products become short. Employees of the company also needs some training and development
programs in order to manufacture products according to market trends.
Analyzing the degree to which operations management of the firm
fulfill needs of the company
In order to meet demands of organisation, certain aims are required to be accomplished.
The main aim of Marks and Spencer is to implement lean manufacturing in order to eliminates
wastage and use time productively. This manufacturing method helps in enhancing productivity
of employees as they try to produce more products in less time. To develop awareness among
employees and customers, the selected company implements mass communication method. The
company utilise mass communication to convey information regarding new products in the
market among customers (Shenoy and Haley, 2020). The respective company also use agile
manufacturing so that it could understand new market trends and demands of customers
according to which it could produce goods. This would helps the company in enhancing its
customer base as they will get goods according to their desires.
Operation management also supports in accomplishing organisational objectives
effectively as company would be implementing agile and lean manufacturing approaches. The
respective company would be able to fulfil demands of customers by evaluating their buying
patterns and understanding their behaviour. These manufacturing approaches provide
organisation an opportunity to develop products effectively and based on requirements of its
potential customers. Mass communication also assist the respective company in developing large
customer base by providing them relevant information about new products along with taking
continuous feedbacks from them about the what changes they want in offered services.
Explanation of continuous improvement in relation to philosophy and description of lean
principles
Lean Principles- It refers to create more value of products toward customers by using least
resources as much as possible. This will help Marks and Spencer to save their cost and identify
their most productive activities so that they will invest more on that and eliminate to invest in
unproductive activities (Mahzun and Kalalo, 2019). Few of the lean principle of M&S is given
below-
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Identification of worth- This will help to identify what customer actually need from the
company in market. Here, M&S conduct marketing research and analyze the basic expectation of
their targeted customers.
Creating map of the value stream- This will help to determine all those activities of a
company which will help to achieve organizational goal and fulfill customers needs.
Building flow- This is the stage where whole plans are divided into independent
deliveries. It follow step by step procedure to follow the whole process.
Establish pull- This will help to identify different sources of wastage and the company's
value in lean inventory. This is the main step of saving cost for company by establishing pull.
Pursue perfection- Here, employees must focus that they have to perform well and
deliver good quality of merchandise and services to their customers so that they will fulfill their
customers needs and wants to achieve company's success.
In context of M&S, they follow Lean manufacturing which will further help them to develop
their productivity and profitability. This principle help to develop supply chain analysis for the
company. Secondly, they are also able to maintain good relationship with their customers and
suppliers. The basic aim of following lean production by M&S is that they can save their time in
production process and develop their communication activities with their customers and
suppliers.
Six Sigma- The main aim of this approach is to improve the quality of goods and services within
the organization and cut down the cot which is inured in unproductive activities by monitoring
the business regularly (Lehohla, 2019). The process of this approach is given below-
Define- This is the stage where company will identify the issue which they face. The
quantitative and qualitative approach is used here which means company will analyses issue with
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actual facts and figures which provide proof that actually problem exist in the company. This
will help to understand the problem well.
Measure- Here, company measure the impact of problem upon company and analyze
which resources will be used well to mitigate the issue.
Analyze- This will help the company to examine the process and the information which
was collected to improve company's performance.
Improve the process- This is the stage which will help to describe the fixed solution for
the issue by analyzing pros and corns of the solution which is opted. It is good for the company if
the opt those solution which are having more advantages over disadvantages.
Control- This will help to to regularly monitor the process and solution which they
opted to develop their productivity and profitability (Lester, 2018). In context of M&S, they will
continue to measure the progress of their solution and make changes in case they required.
Development of continuous improvement plan
This mainly concentrate on executing small changes pitch helps in resulting broad
improvements. It involves PDCA cycle which helps in identifying improvement opportunities.
Plan
At this phase various issues will be determined, evaluated and experiment for testing purpose.
Do
At this step companies execute solutions OPS identified problems and meet some
adjustments.
Check
At this stage experiments are evaluated and reviewed along with determining impact of
these changes.
Act
This is the last step of the cycle during which companies inform others about the changes.
Advantage
The main advantage that this cycle offers to Marks and Spencer is that it is able to solve
any issues together with their employees. This helps in strengthening the relationship between its
employees and management.
Disadvantage
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In order to inform employees about changes the respective company has to organised
training programs for its employees which might interrupt there workflow.
Benchmarking
this helps companies in determining performance gap and assist them in setting correct aims
along with providing them competitive advantage in the market. To implement this method
companies have to follow some steps that includes process, determining an selecting of study
and measurement of best practices along with analysing benchmark results.
Advantage
Through implementing benchmarking Marks and Spencer would be able to determine its
own important activities that would improve its productivity (Aghdaee and Husseinzadeh
Kashan, 2018).
Disadvantage
In case of respective organization it’s competitive market will be enhanced as the rival
firm observe its business activities.
TQM
This is defined as total quality management which is a technique that is executed in order
to make sure quality of products has been maintained by companies. The main purpose is to hold
all entities which involves in the procedure of manufacturing products for their final result.
Advantage
The main benefit that this approach will provide to the respective company is that it will
lower the cost along with ensuring effective communication between different departments.
Disadvantage
There is a very limited creativity in this approach for the developers as they will be not
able to create more innovative products.
Enterprise Resource Planning
This approach is a resource planning where organization handle and integrate fighter
aspects of their business operations. Many EPR software application an important is the help in
executing resource planning by connecting all the process which are needed to run companies.
Advantage
This will help the company in gaining a white picture on financial area.
Disadvantage
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The employee of the respective company would get training which will be time
consuming and might distract them from their daily business operations.
Formation of course of action for continuous improvement based on critical
evaluation of principle of operation management in relation to the
company
Kaizen- It is emphasis on completing business activities in a very consistent and
proactive manner along with improving skills of employees and providing them flexible
environment where they could express their issues and concerns (Salo, 2020). Modification in
the organization occurs when lean method is applied together with this approach. Lean
manufacture will concentrate on reducing waste and enhancing efficiency with the help of
continuous improvement.
Total Quality Management
This helps in building strong relationship and effective communication between
employees and management. This approach depends on communication which flows in all the
direction and also include external resources such as customers and suppliers.
Benchmarking
Lean manufacturing mainly focus on reducing waste and dropping weight on the other
hand agile manufacturer mainly concentrates on using present resources.
Enterprise Resource Planning
Lean production reduces work pressure ERP has its contribution in such a way that it
gives information.
Analysts of continuous improvement plan
Regular improvement plan has been developed in order to improve employees for
resolving their conflicts along with improving their efficiencies at workplace. This also assist in
lowering employee turnover and provide them competitive advantage in the market. The
company which will execute lean production would be able to align its commodities with the
value of customers. Feedbacks also helps companies in enhancing quality of products. It is
decided that Kaizen technique is used for regular improvement where Marks and Spencer will
allow participation of their employees and take their suggestions for improvement of process and
products. Secondly, monitoring the whole process is also essential which means when a strategy
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is adopted by the company and employees get trained to adopt the change then supervisors are
suggested to monitor whether their employees are working as per the plan or not and in case they
found any error than they must make changes on the spot before it impacts negative upon
productivity and profitability of the organisation.
Preparation of continuous improvement plan along with suggestions with
justification on the basis of evaluation of operation management principles
Mass communication
Advantage- This will help the company in enhancing its customer base and provide
competitive advantage in the market.
Disadvantage- The company has to use various resources to enhance the level of
collaboration.
This could be resolved by adopting vertical integration and enhancing control of the
company over its suppliers. 6 Sigma put spread progressive procedure but is not necessarily
helps in cost saving.
TQM
Advantage This approach will help the companies in improving quality of products in the
industry.
Disadvantage- The high cost of executing might take various years to implement.
This could be considered as a long term investment in order to execute it effectively
(Akbari, Valizadeh and Hafezalkotob, 2021) .
Benchmarking
Advantage This will assist the company in identifying internal abilities and areas which
needs to be improved in order to gain competitive advantage.
Disadvantage -This procedure might contain the idea that other companies utilise and for
that they could check the feasibility in their own firm.
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CONCLUSION
From the above discussion it could be concluded that quality management is very essential for
business because it helps in supporting development of commodities with outstanding value.
Quality management also helps in developing products which could wait demands and needs of
customers. It has also been evaluated that determining the sustainability of operation
management principles with regular improvement is crucial.
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PART-2
Project title
On spot cooking project
Summary of the case study
A manufacturing company which is located in Midlands is facing major issue because of lack of
on site cooking facilities for about 1250 employees. This has resulted in overcrowding as large
number of consumers move out from the organization to gain lunch. The organization wants to
execute a project which will resolve this issue of overcrowding along with decreasing absence of
employees and act as CSR initiative by improving health of workers.
Application of every phase of PLC to the chosen project along with required
documents:
 Project initiation
This is the first step of project life cycle which mainly involves determining of main
objective that is required to accomplish along with viability (Salo, 2020). The management off
the company at Midlands is required to secure permission from superior authority and make sure
the selected project fulfil needs of employees.
Title on spot cooking project
Brief description the main purpose of this project is to offer nourishing diet to the
employees during lunch. The firm will contact to experience caterer company.
Background
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A firm based in Midland is facing issues related to absence of employees during lunch
hours because it is enabled to provide proper diet to them in company premises.
Goals
 To avoid jamming in surrounding
 To influence proper eating habits in employees.
 To minimises absence of employees in the company.
Scope
The range in context to catering project is wide as the project mainly focus on providing
nourishing lunch to 1250 employees on daily basis.
Influence on commercial agreements and elements
This catering project will introduce abroad modification in the diet of employees by
providing cooking facilities within the firm for them (Isiko, 2021). This project would have
positive influence on other business system.
Stakeholders
It is very essential to identify stakeholders of the project and inform them about the
progression. The primary stakeholder of this project includes Employees of the company as they
will be highly influenced due to this project (Iravani, 2021). Another stakeholder includes
cooking dealers because they are accountable for offering high quality nourishing diet.
Government authorities are also considered as stakeholders of this project because they are
essential To supervise that all the safety laws has been followed by the firm.
Milestones
Project milestone is defined as certain project in the project life cycle which is utilised to
evaluate the progress of projects toward primary objective. The milestone off this catering
project includes reviewing needs, gaining permission on designs and informing different
stakeholders.
Budget:
ACTIVITIES SUB-ACTIVITIES SUB-ACTIVITIES
AMOUNT AMOUNT (£)
Catering Starters 3000
Drinks 2000
Main Course 4000
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Dessert 1000 10000
Human Resource
Event Planners 18000
Decorators 12000
Waiters 5000
Cleaners 5000
Technicians 10000 40000
TOTAL 5000
Dependencies and risk
Project constraint further on site cooking project is mainly associated with project cost.
The budget of the project is approximately €4500 pitch would be required to complete all the
tasks under this project. Assumptions of this project includes suppliers providing service utensils
which would be delivered on specific time (Pestana, Neves and Daly, 2019). The dependency of
this project includes arrangement of lunch for the employees one hour before the actual time.
The risk of this project is that employees might delegate to eat outside from the company as they
might feel tasteless cooking services. If this nourishing diet would be disliked by the employees
they might start going outside for their lunch which will further result in overcrowding problems.
Success measurement
It is very essential to develop project success which help in evaluating how the project
has been completed. The five project success measurement for on spot cooking project includes
stakeholder fulfilment, charge, timetable, eminence and presentation.
 Project planning
This is the second stage of project life cycle which mainly includes planning of all the
aspects it pearled in it (Hintsch and Turowski, 2019). In case of an spot cooking project the
process of project planning has been mentioned below
Scope planning
This involves determining of purpose, capital, budget, region schedule. Developing scope
for on spot cooking project assistant making sure that resources has been utilised properly. The
scope of an sport cooking project is to provide nourishing diet for 1250 workers on daily basis.
Developing the breakdown structure
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WBS involves segregation of project in small part. The work breakdown structure in
terms of on spot cooking project has been mentioned below
 Project schedule development: The timetable of on spot cooking project develop to
make sure that quality diet has been provided in less time. The project schedule
development in terms of respective cooking project includes demands of employees,
determining of suitable cooking services, identification of suitable suppliers for recycle
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utensils and creating safe food zone where employees could eat there lunch in hygiene
manner.
 Resource planning: This part of project planning includes prediction, identification and
distribution of several capitals. Each project team member was dedicated appropriate
properties according to competencies in order to fulfil purpose of on spot cooking project
(Kreitzer and Mahmud, 2020). In the project the finance manager would be responsible to
provide financial resources. The project supervisor is accountable for completing
research on the demands of employees. The project manager would be accountable for
finding suitable cooking service provider and suppliers for utensils
 .Budget planning: The budget allocated for the respective project is approximately
€4500 which will be used to provide quality food services for employees.
 Procurement planning: This involves determination and alliance of requirements along
with identification of timetable in order to track down all the activities. In terms of on-
spot cooking project it is very essential for taking regular updates from cooking service
providers (Awange, 2021). Procurement planning for this project also includes
identification of suitable supplier who can provide recyclable utensils under the budget.
 Risk management: This term is defined as process of determining and evaluating
coverage to failure to reduce financial impact of the risk related with project failure. In
case of the respective project this part will help in developing project plans which will
help in minimising risk associated with it. Inter risk management strategy would include
controlling performance and making sure that quality foods had been provided to the
employees which could satisfy their needs.
 Quality planning: This includes supervising several responsibilities of project in order to
attain desirable goals.
 Communication planning :The plan for communicating for on spot cooking project
include using of digital mediums in order to make sure that information has been
provided to employees. Senior authorities will directly communicate with each employee
through email and instant messaging applications. Employees will also be able to provide
their feedback through messaging apps.
 Project Execution
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This section of project life cycle mainly focus on implementation of plan of the project
and organising expectations of stakeholders.
 Project deliverables: This the specific section that results in attaining by taking actions
on particular time period. In case of respective project, the actions which needs to be
improved includes health and enhancing efficiencies of employees by giving them
nutritions diet.
 Change requests: This is described as formal proposal made by clients in order to make
changes in project. In case of respective project the changes requested are related to
providing proper diet to employees which must be nutritious (Skimson, 2018).
 Performance data: This section of the project life cycle is associated with providing
broad amount of information on employees' performance. The plans in terms of selected
project could be used to manage employees effectively.
 Issue log: The problems that could negatively impact progression of project comes under
issue log.
Issue Title Reporte
d on
Reported by Severity Priority Status
Communication
defect
30/06/22 IT staff High Urgent New
Cost exceeding
budget
02/06/22 Finance
manager
Medium Low Closed
Diet wastage 05/06/22 Project
supervisor
Critical Low On hold
 Project closure
This is the last step in project life cycle that indicates that project has ended. In terms of
respective project, this step includes providing all facilities to employees and giving relevant
information about project to stakeholders.
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Work breakdown analysis
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17

Evaluation of project methodologies utilized
Agile methodologies are described as project management approaches under which
solutions related to collaborating between inter-department arises. The advantage of
implementation project management includes assistance in providing overall control on project.
The disadvantage of this involves it might lead to ineffective resource planning.
Gantt chart and Work breakdown structure are project management techniques that have
been applied in the respective project. The advantage of using Gantt chart is that it assist in
representing activities of project which becomes easy to understand. The drawback that Gantt
chart involves it does not provide regular update regarding requirement of project (Gaspar and
Julião, 2021). The benefit of using WBS is that it could be utilised to determine issues or dangers
that might be faced by the project in future. The disadvantage of implementing WBS include it
provides hierarchy structure that minimize scope of project.
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Review and critically evaluate the effectiveness of the PLC
From the above discussion about project life-cycle in on-spot cooking project, it has been
identified that it helped in managing all the activities effectively and improving satisfaction of
employees. It is essential for firms to determine facilities which could provide nutrition diet to
employees in order to reduce absence of employees during lunch. The advantage that PLC
provides include progressive evaluation of the project (Carydias and Gregory, 2019). Whereas,
the disadvantage includes that the project might face some uncertainties and risks.
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