Operational Management Analysis: Unilever's Principles and Improvement

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Unilever's operational management practices, focusing on key principles such as lean production and Taylor's scientific principles. It begins by defining operations and project management, setting the stage for an examination of Unilever's approach to waste reduction, supply chain efficiency, and employee motivation. The report explores the advantages and disadvantages of lean management, including its impact on productivity, quality, and customer service. It also discusses the application of Taylor's scientific principles, considering their influence on employee training, skill development, and cost reduction. Furthermore, the report evaluates the critiques and reviews associated with these management principles, addressing challenges such as implementation costs, supply chain issues, and employee acceptance. The analysis extends to continuous improvement plans, suggesting strategies for Unilever to enhance employee learning, foster social learning opportunities, and address specific areas needing focused attention. The report concludes by summarizing the importance of operational management in improving organizational effectiveness, performance, and profitability, highlighting the potential of lean production and Taylor's principles, while also acknowledging the need to mitigate negative reviews to drive continuous improvement.

OPERATIONS AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT
INTRODUCTION
Operations management is the process of planning and executions of the day to day as well as
dealing with the strategic business issues, while is Project management is the process of planning,
motivating, organizing and also controlling the resource which are required for the completion of
project. In this report Unilever is taken an organisation which is a British-Dutch consumer goods
company. It is the one of oldest and largest multinational company in the world and its products
are available in more than 190 countries across the world. This report discusses about the
operational management principles of Unilever and what are its reviews and critiques. This report
also discusses about the improvement plan on the reviews and critiques on the operational
management principles of Unilever.
P1 Operational management principles and their critique and reviews
Principles of operations management offers the companies the best and effective approaches in order to
develop and educate the employees of an organisation regarding the basics of management operations.
Principles of operations management is developed in order to provide the employees of an organisation
with the detailed knowledge and information within the field of operations management. This process
provides the employees of an organisation with the improved skill sets which helps employees in decision
making and helps in improving their level of performance in the organisation. Unilever's operational
management is based the responsibility of increasing the productivity of the organisation across the world
within the consumer goods business. Unilever's operational management principles are as follows
1. Lean Production
Lean production is the process in which the organisation is focusing on the reducing the waste of the products while
ensuring the quality. This process is been applied by an organisation form designing of product till distribution of
the products. The main objective of an organisation is to develop the type of products and services that will suit the
organisation. Unilever's management operations are now dealing with issues and the challenges regarding the
product development. Unilever wants to achieve the success through innovations. Unilever's is focusing on the total
productivity maintenance by enhancing the manufacturing performance. Unilever is increasing their manufacturing
operations performance in order to decrease the wastage of their resources. Now Unilever is using the systems and
software which allows the organisation to improve their production process of the goods an also the organisation is
looking for the increase in the efficiency of their supply chain. As per the view of Azcarate, Mallor and Mateo,
(2017) lean management is the business improvement philosophy that helps to focus on what are the true needs of
the customers, and also helps an organisation to prevent the wastage of resources that is been present in the
organisational system. According to views of Baumgartner (2014) Lean production helps an organisation in
improving the customer service as company delivers exactly want the customer wants.
2. Taylor's scientific principles: There are 5 principles of Taylor which includes
 For increasing the efficiency an organisation has to follow the rule of thumb, i.e. an organisation has to
substitute its methods by the scientific analysis of the work. Unilever should apply scientific methods while
working in an organization like rule of thumb instead of simple working environment.
 An organisation should prevail harmony and peace within an organisation which will increase the
performance of employees within the organisation.
 An organisation should change the attitude of workers as well as the management towards each other. Both
should have respect for each other and should work in cooperation.
 An organisation should focus on the mutual cooperation between the workers which will lead to the
increase in the performance of employees. This can be done by building teams in an organisation.
 An organisation should develop the employee’s skills and capabilities through training and development
programs as the efficiency of an organisation depends on the employees skills and capabilities.
 Unilever can apply these principles by making the working environment more scientific instead of simple
habits and common sense and replace workings by rule of thumb.
Lean production improves the productivity as well as the quality of the organisation, it helps in reduction of wastes
and improves lead times and stock turns. As cited by Falkowski and et.al (2014) lean production has some
disadvantage like it has got high cost of implementation, there may be a supply problems, lack of acceptance by
employees. As per views of Azcarate, Mallor and Mateo, (2017) Taylor's scientific principles help an organisation
to provide the trained employees in achieving the organisational goals. It will make an organisation to sell quality
goods and services at low prices, it also provides the employees a chance to avail proper scientific training and
education in order to increase the skills and efficiency. As cited by Markel, Shamir and Green (2014) it proves
costly for the company, it is not suitable for the small firms, it leads to the loss employee's initiative, and it also
results in unemployment.
P2 Continuous improvement plan
Continuous improvement plan is the set of designed activities in order to bring the improvements in the products and
services by continuously reviewing, measuring and by taking the necessary actions whenever required. It is used to
improve the capabilities of an employees to solve the problems related to work and this will improve the performance
of the employees within the organisation. Continuous improvement plan is the ongoing efforts to improve the quality
of the products, services and processes. CIP provides the mindset for the improvement but it doesn’t provide the action
plan of managing and measuring the level of improvements in the efforts of an employees along their regular work.
This effort will help an organisation in gaining the competitive advantages over other companies. CIP enables the
employees of an organisation in sharing the knowledge, skills in an organisation. CIP helps the organisation in
recognizing the needs for improving the quality of products, increasing the customer satisfaction and also works for
improving the productivity, efficiency and the profits of an organisation. The levels of continuous improvement plan
are as follows:
1. Plan: A CIP plan is designed to improve the processes, products and services of business. An organisation must
identifying the opportunities and formulates the plan for change. Organisation should find the areas of improvements
in which the organisation is lacking and formulate the plan for improvements. Organisation should select the challenge
or problem which an organisation wants to improve.
2. Do: In second step an organisation should implement the change. An organisation should work according the plan
and any further challenges while implementing the change should be addressed. Proper steps of continuous
improvements should be followed while implementing the change. This will help in improving the overall
performance of an organisation. An organisation should implement the change on small in order to check its
effectiveness and only after the results it can be applied on the larger scale.
3. Check: Third step in continuous improvement plan is the check the accuracy and effectiveness of the developed
plan. An organisation should use the gathered data for the analysing the results of change and also check whether it
made the difference on the performance of an organisation or not. This is a vital as this steps decides the results of the
continuous improvement plan.
4. Act: It the change has proven successful for an organisation, then an organisation should implement this plan on the
larger scale and also the organisation should keep on continuously assessing the results. If the change implemented does
not work the organisation should start the complete cycle once again.
So these are the 4 levels of the continuous improvement which will help the organisation in improving its performance on
the continuous basis. Based on the critiques and reviews on the operational change an organisation should focus on both
advantage and disadvantage of these principles. An organisation should implement these principle like lean management
as it will improve the performance of the organisation by reducing the wastage of entire production process and an
organisation should overcome these challenges of lean management and make further improvements in the lean
management process and organisation should focus reduction of cost of lean management, improve their supply chains
methods and motivate the employees for the changes in the lean production. Based on the reviews and critiques scientific
principles can prove beneficial for the organisation and will improve the performance of an organisation so it is a best way
of improving the organisational performance but while applying this principle an organisation should take care of their
employees satisfaction, and also enhance the employee participation in decision makings this will improve the performance
of an organisation and also organisation should focus on decrease the costs implementation of scientific principles in an
organisation which will prove effective for an organisation.
Unilever can improve CIP by making the employees realize the importance of continuous learning, an organization should
create opportunities of social learning in the organization. Employees should be motivated for the CIP in order to make this
process more effective. Unilever should find the areas of improvements in an organization which needs to be deeply
focused on should formulate independent plans for such special areas. Unilever should quickly check and clear the errors
whenever it will arise during the process and while implementing the plan Unilever should be cautious in order to make
CIP more effective and should be confident on plan.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the report the operational management is an important part for an organisation by which an
organisation can increase its effectiveness and its performance and it will prove profitable for the organisation. In this it is
concluded that two management principle like lean production and Taylor’s scientific principles can prove effective for an
organisation which will help the organisation in increasing their performance by reduction of waste and make use of
scientific ideas to improve the skills and knowledge of the employees in an organisation. It is also concluded that there are
both positive and negative reviews of these two principles but negative reviews can be checked in order to increase the
performance of an organisation.
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