Operations and Project Management Review & Critique: Marks & Spencer

This report provides a comprehensive review and critique of operations management principles within Marks & Spencer. It begins with an introduction to the organization, followed by an explanation differentiating operation and operations management. The report analyzes the implementation of operations management principles, assessing how well they meet the organization's requirements. It discusses continuous improvement as a philosophy, describing Lean principles and providing a continuous improvement plan with justified recommendations for improvement. The analysis covers planning, organizing, leading, staffing, and controlling functions, highlighting the importance of effective strategy and risk management. The report also touches upon the importance of continuous operations, lean methodology, and the five principles of lean methodology, value, value stream, flow, pull, and perfection. The ultimate goal is to maximize efficiency, reduce waste, and enhance the quality of products and services at Marks & Spencer.

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
2

Introduction
Operation mangmnet play a important role in the organisation without this company are not able to
achieve their target efficiently. It helps to focus on those areas which impact the performance of
company and ensure that company successfully turns inputs to outputs in right manner. In this project
report it discuss that operation mangmnet and their principles it is divide into two sections A and B.
(Le and Zhu, 2022). Company need to operate their business properly otherwise they face lost of
problem which impact negative to their performance. Along with they need to focus on this features
such as planning, organising, leading staffing, controlling.
1. An introduction to chosen organization
Marks and Spencer is the multinational retail company which was found in 1884 and their main
headquarter was in London. They dealing with numerous products such ass home products, clothes,
electric appliances, food and many more. Marks and Spencer always try to doing some innovative to
win the market and try to attract the new customers. It is the first British retailer company who set up
their own investigation laboratory in 1934 they believe that customer satisfactions play a crucial role
to compete in the market. So they always provide many offers to their customer such as credit card
adeptness, offer saving accounts,financial services and many more (Ongkasuwan and Sookcharoen,
2018). Along with they always try to fulfil their social responsibility effectively. Marks and Spencer
ap many brand strategy to promote their product and services and find the structure the work with the
one- third part brans like investment, wholesaler and many more. At the time of 1948 Marks and
Spencer company lunch the technical mangmnet and chief for the food division and they introduce the
new items and they sale frozen chickens to their customers and it is the first retail company who sale
frozen food in UK.
2. An explanation of operation vs operations management
The term operations are referred as the practical work and something involving the practical
application of various principles and processes. The Operations are considered as an important part
which are managed on a daily basis so as to increase the functional ability and the working capacity of
the individuals. The operations are referred as the actions and decisions that are made by the
participants and other members of the Business that can Affect the production and service
management which are needed for the company so as to maintain the Functions that requires the use
of resources and assets.
The term Operations management is referred as an area of management concerned with the designing
and controlling of the processes of Production and redesigning of the Business operations in the
production of goods and services (Shao, Huang and Yang, 2021).
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The term Operations and operational management are different from each other as Operation is a
balanced and an optimum output from contrary inputs. Operations governing body is a
multidisciplinary area because there are different point or inputs in an business activity. For example,
unprocessed goods , manufacture systems, quality control and investigation, finance, marketing,
company policies and so on.
3. A review and critique of the implementation of operations
management principles within the chosen organization
Marks and Spencer company need to make proper strategy planning. If company wants to
operate their activities properly ,so manger need to understanding the five functions which
helps to focus efforts on activities to increase the efficiency. The five basic operation
management principles which are given below:
 Planning- Firstly Marks and Spencer manager need to make a proper planning, they
need choosing the appropriate goals and cations to process Along with they need to
determining that what strategies they use or what actions they take to achieve their
target effectively and efficiently (Tang, 2019).
 Organizing- This process is related to established the working relationship between
the workers, manger need to provide the proper planning to their employees, so that
they are able to doing their work properly.
 Leading- This functions involves the articulating the visions and encourage the
employees to achieve their objective and motivate them to develop their skills and
knowledge.
 Staffing- This process is related to recruiting or selecting the employees for the
positions thing the company. It is very important process because choice right
candidate for the right job support the company to improve their performance.
 Controlling- This process is related to directing and controlling the all business
activities and analysis the daily activity of the business.
4. An analysis of the extent to which the operations management
of the organization in the case study meets the requirements of
the organization
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Operation management is a very important part of the company helps the company to set the new
principles which include effective planning, quality control and many more. This thing helps the
company to providing useful and essential guidance to the company, so that they can identified the
risk and achieve their target properly.
 Marks and Spencer company need to assure that, they should put their focus to identified the
problem which is faced by the company and try to resolve the problem accurately according
to their business needs.
 Manger need to set the clear mindset that what plan they made and what things the consider to
be successful for the company and what problem company face. This process helps the
employees to develop their skills and knowledge so that they are able to achieve their
organization goals
1. Manger need to examine the various activates and distribute the work the employees in proper
manner, so that they achieve their target efficient manner. Along with subordinates are well
aware their task and responsibilities to accomplish their respective task (Unzueta and
Eguren, 2021).
 Marks and Spencer need to utilize the effective advance techniques properly so that it helps to
reduce production costs and sale their product to the customer in reasonable price. Along with
it also focus to eliminate the unnecessary purchase so that customer are not face problem.
5. Discussion of continuous improvement as a philosophy and
describe the Lean principles
Continuous operations is a process which helps the firm for running its business around the clock,
with downtime only for repair and maintenance in production facilities. It is the the activities which
helps the company to sustained the event of business disruption. This operation define that company
operate twenty four seven work. Along with it gives many benefits to the company such as higher
output, reduce wastage, lower productions cots, improved the quality of the product and services.
However they also have some limitations such as high capital expenditure and low production
flexibility. Marks and Spencer also follow the continuous operation in their company they provide
many facilitates to their customer to satisfied their needs and wants (van Dongen, Frunt and
Martinetti, 2019). They apply twenty four seven business activities to their users, user are able to ask
a questions or any query in middle of the night.
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 Lean Methodology- It is the process which helps to implement and optimization of the
resources. The main purpose of lean methodology is reduce or eliminate the waste and try to
bringing the new innovative and creative idea which helps in continuous improvement. There
five principles of lean methodology which are given below:
 Value- The main aim of this principles is that understanding the value will be valued by the
consumers of product and services which is given by the company. It helps to generate the
customer satisfaction which can measured by the users in monetary terms.
 Value stream- This principles which is related to finding that what is the proposition which
is require to maximize the vale of the products and services. Along with they need to analyses
that who they reduce the waste and cost to achieve their target.
 Flow- It helps to company that work is done in proper manner and if any problem they face,
so they can solve this.
 Pull- This principle is related to the flow of accessible or take any action which helps to
generate their plan which is related the product necessity.
 Perfection- This principle says that company can easily take the concepts of perfections in
their working environment and constant engaged itself into the process of problem solving.
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 is the process that main aim is achieve their target effectively and
efficiently and also doing changes and modification according to their business need. It helps to
improving the quality of product and services. Marks and Spencer need to formulated this in their
business operation (Wen-Si and Jia-Long, 2019).
 Planning- This is the first step which helps to identified the many opportunity and benefits to
the company along with they need to doing suitable change in their policy which helps to
achieve their target properly. Marks and Spencer need to doing proper research work of the
current market and identified the customer taste and preferences. Along with they need to
change their strategies according to the customer demand, so that they are able to achieve
their target and earn more profit.
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 Organizing- After make a plan Marks and Spencer need to implement this plan in their
policies and projects so that they are able to maintain their working environment and social
responsibility properly. It includes the execution of the plan or action which is formulated by
the company and analysis they trading marketing situation which helps to compete in the
market (Xinmeng and Yajuan, 2021).
 Checking- Marks and Spencer need to doing continuous checking of all the actions or plan
which is implement by the company. If they check actions on daily basis, so they are able to
doing changes according to their need and it helps to reduce the risk and save the time. Along
with this process support the Marks and Spencer company apply the new changes according
to their need and examine those area which impact negative to the company performance.
 Act- Marks and Spencer need to observe all this which they change in the policies. They need
to ensure that all work is done properly or not. The main aim for implementing these policies
and plans on the higher scale to maximize their efficiency and earn more profit.
7. Conclusion
In this report it discuss the topic which is related to operation mangmnet, it is very important for the
company to mange their activities and helps to generating the maximize efficiency also assist the
management business practises. This project report discuss the various concepts of continuous
improvement plan and lean methodology which conclude the principles which is helps the company
to achieve their target Along with it also justify the recommendations for improving their business
operations.
References
Le, T. and Zhu, Z., 2022. Digital Operation Management based on Value Co-creation: A Case study
of ShangPinZhaiPei.
Ongkasuwan, M. and Sookcharoen, W., 2018, May. Data analytics for service and operation
management improvement in medical equipment industry. In 2018 5th International
Conference on Business and Industrial Research (ICBIR) (pp. 370-375). IEEE.
Shao, L., Huang, F. and Yang, Y., 2021. Design of logistics operation management algorithm based
on information technology on internet. International Journal of Information Technology and
Management, 20(3), pp.299-315.
Tang, X., 2019, February. Application of the Big Data Technology in the Chain Operation
Management. In The International Conference on Cyber Security Intelligence and
Analytics (pp. 345-350). Springer, Cham.
Unzueta, G. and Eguren, J.A., 2021. Training in higher education in the Covid-19 context: A case
study of operation management training in a Business Innovation and Project Management
Master.
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van Dongen, L.A., Frunt, L. and Martinetti, A., 2019. Smart Asset Management or Smart Operation
Management? The Netherlands Railways Case. In Transportation Systems (pp. 113-132).
Springer, Singapore.
Wen-Si, H. and Jia-Long, X., 2019, November. Sci-Tech Business Incubator-Favorable Network
Operation Management Mode for Small and Medium Enterprises Development. In 2019
IEEE International Conference on Service Operations and Logistics, and Informatics
(SOLI) (pp. 65-69). IEEE.
Xinmeng, K. and Yajuan, G., 2021, April. Research on the Application of Third-Party Enterprise
inquiry Website and Civil Aviation Data Website in the Teaching of Airline Operation
Management Courses. In 2021 2nd International Conference on Big Data and
Informatization Education (ICBDIE) (pp. 339-344). IEEE.
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 title of this given project is management of employees in a company about which a detailed
discussion has been conducted in the case study. The administration of the company should
concentrate on attaining such kind of goals in the firm. This will assist in giving the better
performance of the employees by providing productive working environment.
An overview of the case study you have been given
This case study is about a manufacturing organization which is consist of almost 1250
employees who are involved in the complete operational activities of the firm (Zhao, Zhang, and
Wang, 2021). Different type of duties has been assigned to the staff who are responsible to perform all
the functions in an efficient manner. It has also included the role in the Project and Programme office
who can perform any kind of alteration in the activities of the company. A duty has been assigned by
a line manager in respect to the development of project to solve some issues which are related to the
movement of employees outside the company in the lunch break which is creating some complexities,
along with this it must be concerned improvement in the lifestyle of the workers and decrease in the
absenteeism at workplace.
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
It is the first and the foremost stage of any project, in which companies works on deciding the
various factors which will be useful in setting up the base for the effective management of particular
project till its completion. This phase of the project depicts the overall idea of the project with this aim
and target which company wants to achieve in future (Zavyalova, 2019). It also analyse the various
types of sources which can be used by the team for the smooth functioning of the other stages. In the
context of given case study, project will focus on identifying the reasons which is creating the
movement of the employees during lunch time and examining the ways through which they can stay
inside the company in this period of time. For this company can arrange a specific area where all the
employees can come together for the lunch. And for the other objective of project which is related to
the healthy life of the employees, company can focus on construction of some internal campaigns
which will present the importance and necessity of the exercise, balanced diet and fitness secret. By
this workers will understand the benefits of following such rules in their life as it helps in good
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performance at work place. Appointment of fitness coach to whom workers can consult if they are not
feeling well. Implementation of such programs in the company will result in the elimination of
absenteeism.
Project planning
The next step is connected with the preparation of certain plan of action that is needed to fulfil
the objectives which has been decided by the line manager of the company. In this several activities
has been mentioned by the team with the time period for its completion. It also include the different
aspects which can be used by the company at the time of changes. Some plan of action which can be
taken into consideration during this project are mentioned below-
 Scheduling for the each task- To decide the timeline for the completion of the activities is
very important, as it will define the amount budget which can be used by the project team.
With this company can also procure the enough sources which will support in accomplishing
the goals in the given period of time (Seraya, Kasparyan, and Chanda, 2019). Time is an
important instrument for the business who are working on any kind of project it also help in
evaluating the task which are supposed to be the part of the project and it benefits in
achieving the target.
 Appointment of professionals- It is for creating awareness among the employees about their
fitness. For this company can hire a gym instructor and a yoga trainer who will conduct some
sessions at some specific time of the weeks. It could be related to the cross questioning of the
employees with these individual, through which they can analyze the changes which
employees have to implement in their daily life. On the other hand, company should focus on
building fun environment in the premises, so that workers will stay there in lunch timing.
 Decision regarding the budget- Company must focus on the budget which is needed in the
completion of the given project. Company should assign the funds in each activities of this
project in systematic way. The preparation of budget should be align the decided timeline of
this project so that company does not have to face the extra cost in the management of the
project.
 Organizing meetings with workers- As it is mentioned in the case study that over-crowding
has been seen when employees went outside the premises at the time of lunch. In order to find
out the solution for this situation it is necessary to communicate with the employees, so that
management will get some suggestion and ideas to eliminate this situation through this
project. With the help of this activity which is related to relevant discussion on some issues
which is leading to the absenteeism of employees, and because of this overall productivity of
the company is being affected (Macêdo Barbalho, Duarte, and De Souza Luz, 2021).
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Project execution
This stage is connected to the implementation of planning which has been constructed by the
team in the last phase of the project. Every person who is .involved in this project will closely follow
all the guide line that is mentioned during the starting of this project. It is necessary to work according
to the strategies formed by the team to avoid any kind of confusion during the functioning of this
project in the company. The main objective of the team is to fulfill all the task which has been
assigned to the individual should be completed in the given period of time. Certain activities which is
included in this phase of project are listed below-
Distribution of work- Under this activity head of the project will divide the work among the
team members as per the skills and abilities they have. For the success of the project it is necessary to
do such actions, because it will ensure the better presentation of task from the people.
Identification of weaknesses within the management- During the process there are lots of
obstruction will have to face by the company which might be evolve within the management. It is
necessary to resolve such hindrances, either it could become very difficulty for the firm to achieve the
target which have been mentioned in the case study.
In this stage management will also focus on examination of all the activities by considering
various aspects. It is necessary to check that whether the task are going as per the planning of the
team.
Project closure
It will be the last stage of this project where company will compare the changes which have
been occurred after the completion of all the activities which are decided in this this project. It is an
important part of this project as it will tell the efficiency of the team and how effectively
administration solve the issues of the organization (Haass, and Azizi, 2020). There are various
activities which are involved in this stage such taking feedback of employees in respect to the
alteration which have been conducted by the project team.
Analysis of the project methodologies and tools used
To find out the ways in which a project should be done, a framework has been consider by the
team which will support the team to select the correct standards of the activities. There are mainly
three types of methodologies which can be used project management team for the successful
completion of the task for which this particular project has been designed-
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 Work Break Down Structure- In this method, difficult task of the project will sub divided
into various small units. Through which it will become easy for the individuals to understand
each activity of the project and can perform it in a better way. There are several benefits of
this structure as it allow the company to identify the areas of improvement and how it can
become better to increase the success of targets which are set under this project.
 Agile Methodology- Under this method, company will start distinguishing the work
according to the preferences. All the activities which are distributed in the each phases of this
methodology are connected with each (Baker, Akka, and Glass, 2018). If company is not able
to conduct the work well in the last stage of the project then it can affect the functioning of
others too.
 Waterfall Methodology- All the task in this methodology has been structured in a proper
systematic way. In other words, team is not able to do any changes in the activities if they
have started another one.
Project Tools- For the evaluation of the work, various tools can be used by the team which will tell
about the various attributes of the functions performed in the project management. Few examples of
such tools are like Gantt chart, time-sheet, reporting, dashboard, etc. In project management
utilisation of these tools are very important to maintain the all activities under the given budget and
enhance the profitability of the company by opting various innovative methods to complete the
project.
Review and critically evaluate the effectiveness of the PLC in application to
your project using the appropriate theories models and concepts
To check out usefulness of the project lifecycle in the given case study can be measured in
several ways. Firstly, company must focus on comparing the standard and actual timeline of the
project as it will be enough to tell the overall success of the this particular project. In addition to this,
it will also shows the complete cost which has been incurred in this project. Another aspect through
which company is able to examine the quality standard of the project that how effectively it will work
against the complexities which are currently present in the company (Alexander, Ackermann, and
Love, 2019). It is mandatory to use such success metric after accomplishment of the project, as it will
give a brief idea about the progress of the company to achieve the objectives which have been set by
the team.
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