Evaluation of Planning and Control Activities at Unilever (Logistics)

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Unilever's logistics and operations management, focusing on planning and control activities across long, medium, and short-term objectives. It evaluates the company's strategies, including sequencing, loading, scheduling, and monitoring and control stages. The report highlights Unilever's approach to achieving performance objectives, emphasizing the importance of aligning planning with customer needs and leveraging tools like Gantt charts and pull/push systems. Recommendations include utilizing electronic customer relationship management systems and focusing on customer preferences to enhance product quality and overall organizational success. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and emphasizes the need for continuous improvement in planning and control to meet performance goals.

LOGISTICS AND
OPERATIONS
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................................................1
1. EVALUATION OF PLANNING AND CONTROL ACTIVITIES OF UNILEVER...............................................1
Long Term Planning and control ..............................................................................................................................1
Medium term planning and control...........................................................................................................................2
Short term planning and control ...............................................................................................................................3
2. STAGES OF PLANNING AND CONTROL ACTIVITIES OF ORGANISATION................................................3
Sequencing................................................................................................................................................................3
Loading......................................................................................................................................................................4
Scheduling.................................................................................................................................................................4
Monitoring and Control.............................................................................................................................................5
3. DISCUSSION OF PLANNING AND CONTROL ACTIVITIES AND RECOMMENDATION............................6
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Logistics and operations management is one of the essential field of multidisciplinary
activities that comprises the disciplines such as development of product, management of quality,
human resource management as well as system of information. There are various number of
tools and techniques which are used by the manager of the operation of an organisation in order
to attain the performance objectives of the company. The current research project is based on the
logistics and operation management of an organisation of UK an this report is based on the
Unilever Plc that produces food, beverages and cleaning agents and personal care products. The
organisation focuses on the management of operation at the time of manufacturing of various
products and services as they manage the quality of the products and con the different activities
of the organisation(Bichou, Bell and Evans, 2013). Further, the report also covers and focus on
the planning and control on the various activities which plays an essential role in attaining the
objectives of performance. This study also provide the stages of planning and recommend proper
strategies for the aligning control activities and planning with the performance objectives
1. EVALUATION OF PLANNING AND CONTROL ACTIVITIES OF
UNILEVER
In order to improve the performance of Unilever by developing an effective plan and
control and so that the organisation required to focus on the various types of planning and control
activities such as long term, medium term and short term. The evaluation of planning and control
the activities of Unilever in order to attain the performance objectives is mentioned below:
Long Term Planning and control
Long term planning and activities of control are based on the mission, vision and the long
term objectives of Unilever which are described below:
 To maintain the sustainability in the various activities of the operation and logistics
management.
 To increase the profitability of the organisation by 20% in the coming years.
 To be a market leader in the industry of consumer goods and manage the competitive
advantage in an appropriate manner.
 To achieve the goals of the organisation in proper time frame.
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In order to attain this objectives in effective manner, Unilever have to focus on the
different activities of planning and control. There is reduction in the extra cost and wastage of
the raw materials in order to increase the profit by 20% so that the organisation required to
develop the appropriate plans(Brown, Bessant and Lamming, 2013). Allocation of resources in
an optimum manner it helps in reducing the extra cost of the company and so that resource
allocation plays an essential role in reduction of the cost in the organisation. The stated
organisation have to focus on the monitoring and controlling the activities of the plan as it is long
term process of planning. The company also required to introduce the new and unique products
to be a market leader in consumer goods so that it helps them n leading all other organisations.
These all strategies plays an essential role in forming various products from the existing
competitors ad so that it helps them in attaining competitive advantages.
Medium term planning and control
In order to attain the long term planning and control Unilvere have to focus on the
medium term planning and control and for that there are some of the objectives of the
organisation which are mentioned below:
 To increase the revenue of the sales in upcoming year.
 To enables the employees as they achieve the superior standards of performance of work.
 To make the necessary arrangement of the training and development programmes in
order to increase in the skills and knowledge in an effective manner so that it helps
employees in identifying the appropriate knowledge(Christopher, 2016).
The objective of performance of Unilever as the employees to achieve the superior
standards, the organisation gives proper working environment and technologies as it helps the
employees in improving the performance with the superior standards. Further, to increase the
revenue of sales is another major objectives of the company and for this objectives they have to
use proper techniques of promotion of the products so that customers are attracted towards the
product and hence there is increase in the revenue of sales. Moreover, the management of
Unilever have to make proper arrangements of training and development programmes according
to the requirement and needs of the employees. So that it helps in maintain the knowledge and
skills of an individual is plays an important role in order to attain the medium term objectives.
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Thus, it can be said that the medium term objectives attained by the proper arrangement of the
planning and control.
Short term planning and control
Short term objectives of Unilever focuses on the day to day operation of the organisation
which are described below:
 To make proper communication between the team members and employees.
 To improve the performance the employees(Dekker, Bloemhof and Mallidis, 2012).
 To motivate the employee for providing their best performance.
 To complete the daily activities according top the production and operation planning.
In order to increase the performance of employees there is requirement of planning and
control different activities of Unilever. To complete the activities in an appropriate manner the
management of the organisation make proper arrangement of guiding and supervising the team
members in an effective way. Fir managing the day to day performance of the organisation they
have to focus on the process of communication which is managed by them as per the
requirements. The use of technologies such as mobiles, emails, video conferencing and
telephones these all helps in making an appropriate coordination between the team members of
the organisation. Thus, all these activities of planning and control helps in performing the short
term objectives of Unilever.
2. STAGES OF PLANNING AND CONTROL ACTIVITIES OF
ORGANISATION
Planning and activities of control of Unilever concentrate on long term, medium and
short term objectives of the organisation and there are the following stages of planning and
control which are as follow:
Sequencing
In order to attain the objectives of Unilever it focuses on various planning and acontrol
activities but determining these activities not only important as the organisation requirement to
decide the priority of the activities is know as sequencing process. The principle of these
includes the physical constraints, due date, first in first out, customer priority and longest
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operation time. Unilever can decide the sequence of the activities according to the needs of the
customers so that the priority of customers is considered as the most essential method for the
planning and control the activities(Fernie and Sparks, 2014). The stated organisation can decide
the sequencing the activities according to requirement and needs of customers. In addition to
this, there are some of the physical constraints for the consumer goods products such as needs of
organisation to do design the products as per their needs. LIFO is one of the important model
which focus on the concept for deciding the sequence. The stated organisation requires to
complete the activities which need longest operation otherwise this affect the total time of the
project. Therefore, all these tools must be used by the management of Unilever in order to
manage the sequencing of planning and control activities.
Loading
This stage focuses on the proper allocation of work to each and every activity and loading
is the process of the allocation of the work as part of the planning and control of operations. This
is based on the capacity of the machinery and available working time and theory capacity of the
skills and knowledge. There is reduction on the quality of products due to the overloading and so
that underloading can impact the speed of the planning and control the operations. The
management of Unilever can use appropriate tools for the allocation of proper time and cost.
There is increase in the total time of the task as the waiting time, lead time and extra time.
Unilever required to take some safety time in order to manage the tasks in effective
manner(Gunasekaran and Ngai, 2012). Thus, all these considerations helps in improving the
overall loading of work and activities of planning and control.
Scheduling
Scheduling is one of the most important stage that helps in determining the time table
each and every task and activities. With the help of this stage at Unilever they can decide the
schedule of proper activities which helps in completing the various activities on appropriate time.
Further, these also includes the Gantt chart and evaluation of the project for scheduling the
activities and review the techniques(Ivanov, Tsipoulanidis and Schönberger, 2016). In addition
to this, backward and forwards scheduling is also necessary for deciding the time for the path in
order to complete the project. Thus, this stage is considered as the important for scheduling the
activities in an appropriate manner.
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Monitoring and Control
Monitoring and control is also one of the important stage in planning and control
activities and to determine the progress of the entire operation. It helps in assuring the quality of
the products and determining the changes which are required in the process of manufacturing of
products and services. The management of Unilever also require to monitor the sequencing,
loading and scheduling stages for completing the planning and control the activities in an
effective manner(Langabeer, and Helton, 2015). The tool of pull and push is also an important
aspect which is used by Unilever for the input and monitoring the output of the organisation so
that the organisation compare and re-plan the activities in an effective way. Thus, Gantt chart
and the structure of work breakdown also can be used by the organisation for controlling and
planning all the activities in an appropriate manner.
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Illustra
tion 1: Stages of Planning and control activities

3. DISCUSSION OF PLANNING AND CONTROL ACTIVITIES AND
RECOMMENDATION
According to the above discussion each and every activities of planning and controlling
of Unilever helps in attaining the performance objectives of the company in an effective manner.
With this, all the activities are effective in order to attain long term, medium and short term
objectives in effective way(Rushton, Croucher and Baker, 2014). As sometimes inappropriate
activities of planning and controlling can impact on the quality of the products and services so
that it also affect the overall sales and profit of the organisation. In order to resolve this issues the
management of Unilever has to focus on the needs and requirement of the customers so that the
products according to the preference of customers helps in achieving the goals of the
organisation. In addition to this, the stated organisation required to use the electronic customer
relationship system of management that helps in making strong level of communication with
their customers which plays an effential role in identifying the needs of customers which is
helpful in attaining the goals towards the consumers(Tayur, Ganeshan and Magazine, 2012).
This also plays an important role in order to develop various strategies to manage such things in
effective manner. Further, the management also use various tools and techniques to develop the
activities of planning and controlling. The company can also use Gantt chart, push and pull
system for loading, sequencing, scheduling and monitoring and control the activities in effective
way. Therefore, these all recommended strategies help to manage the activities of planning and
controlling in a proper manner so that the organisation can achieve the performance objectives in
more effective manner which is beneficial for the stated organisation(Schönsleben, 2016).
CONCLUSION
From the above study it is concluded that planning and control the activities of Unilever
required to focus on long term, medium and short term objectives in order to accomplish the
performance objectives of the company. Further, for the process of sequencing activities required
to focus on the LIFO, FIFO and customer priority methods. In addition to this, PERT and Gantt
chart is a appropriate tool for loading, scheduling and monitor and controlling the activities in an
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effective manner. Therefore, the report has recommended that Unilever should use management
of operation tool for the planning and control the activities in order to attain the performance
objectives of the organisation.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Bichou, K., Bell, M. and Evans, A., 2013. Risk management in port operations, logistics and
supply chain security. CRC Press.
Brown, S., Bessant, J.R. and Lamming, R., 2013. Strategic operations management. Routledge.
Christopher, M., 2016. Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson Higher Ed.
Dekker, R., Bloemhof, J. and Mallidis, I., 2012. Operations Research for green logistics–An
overview of aspects, issues, contributions and challenges.European Journal of
Operational Research. 219(3). pp.671-679.
Fernie, J. and Sparks, L., 2014. Logistics and retail management: emerging issues and new
challenges in the retail supply chain. Kogan Page Publishers.
Gunasekaran, A. and Ngai, E.W., 2012. The future of operations management: an outlook and
analysis. International Journal of Production Economics. 135(2). pp.687-701.
Ivanov, D., Tsipoulanidis, A. and Schönberger, J., 2016. Global Suppy Chain and Operations
Management. Springer,.
Langabeer II, J.R. and Helton, J., 2015. Health care operations management. Jones & Bartlett
Publishers.
Rushton, A., Croucher, P. and Baker, P., 2014. The handbook of logistics and distribution
management: Understanding the supply chain. Kogan Page Publishers.
Schönsleben, P., 2016. Integral logistics management: Operations and supply chain
management within and across companies. CRC Press.
Tayur, S., Ganeshan, R. and Magazine, M. eds., 2012. Quantitative models for supply chain
management (Vol. 17). Springer Science & Business Media.
Toth, P. and Vigo, D. eds., 2014. Vehicle routing: problems, methods, and applications (Vol.
18). Siam.
Van Wassenhove, L.N. and Pedraza Martinez, A.J., 2012. Using OR to adapt supply chain
management best practices to humanitarian logistics.International Transactions in
Operational Research. 19(1-2). pp.307-322.
Online
McQuerrey, L., 2016. The Basic Steps in the Management Planning Process. [Online] Available
through:<http://smallbusiness.chron.com/basic-steps-management-planning-process-
17646.html> [Accessed on 28th November, 2016]
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