Unit 4 - Management and Operations Assignment Sample

Unit 4 - Management and Operations Assignment

Introduction - Management and Operations

Need an Assignment Helper in the UK? Native Assignment Help is here to support you every step of the way. Our skilled experts specialize in a wide range of subjects and are committed to delivering high-quality assignments that meet the highest academic standards.

The current report aims to demonstrate the roles and responsibilities of the managers and the leaders in the following key approaches (given in the assignments) that would help the business organisation to accomplish the business objectives. Apart from that, this report also highlights the significance and the effectiveness of these key approaches. This report has also highlighted the importance of the change in operational management that will improve business efficiency. In other parts of the reports, it has been noted that there are few factors that are influencing the business decision-making along with the business environments as well as a wider community. Lastly, it is going to formulate a conclusion based on the operational practices. 

Section 1:

A.

The section outlines the roles of the managers and the leaders in the following key approaches that would help the organisation to gain the business objectives.

Lean Six Sigma:

According to the research of Antony et al. (2017), the lean six sigma is considered an approach that mostly depends on the cooperative team efforts in order to enhance the performance by comprehensively reducing the variations and the removal of waste (Antony, Snee and Hoerl 2017). The managers play a vast role in creating and developing a successful Lean Six Sigma in the organisation. They usually build and stimulate an environment that helps to deposit the phase for the succession of the employee. The leaders help in the clearly defined roles and responsibilities along with communication that conducts the overall efforts through approving the projects undertaken by the BBs in the organisation (Gupta, Modgil, and Gunasekaran, 2020).

Figure 1: Role of Leadership in Six Sigma

(Source: Laureani and Antony, 2018)

Queueing Theory:

This is an approach that helps to solve the problems occurring in the organisation where the role of leaders is to recognise the detain in queuing lines, to recognise the source or the origin of the detain in queuing lines along with recognising the procedures included in the detaining (Bressloff, 2020). Gradually, the role of the managers is to maintain and control the performance along with the enhancements in the products and services with regards to the consumers. The managers mostly oversee the whole procedure and lead the employees towards the reduction of queuing detains.

Figure 2: Queuing Theory

(Source: Shortle et al. 2018)

Total Quality Management:

The role of leaders in total quality management usually helps to create the cornerstone of any development strategy. Gradually, the responsibility of the leaders is comprised and incorporates maintaining and creating the internal atmosphere within the organisation (Alefari, Salonitis and Xu, 2017). According to Sfakianaki et al., (2018), with the help of this atmosphere, the workers are capable of becoming wholly included in terms of accomplishing the aims and goals of the organisation. Correspondingly, as per the research, the role of the manager is pertinent as a mentor at the office. It is the responsibility of the managers to abet and accommodate the workers in executing total quality management (Sfakianaki et al., 2018). They usually take charge of the whole project by hiring accurate people.

Figure 3: Role of Leadership and managers in TQM

(Source: Imran et al. 2018)

Just in Time Inventory:

This is mostly known as the JIT, which is considered as an inventory management method by means of which materials, goods, and labours (mostly utilised in the manufacturing) are gradually scheduled and re-filled in order to make an appearance precisely necessitated in the manufacturing procedures (Chiu, Yang and Lin, 2017). According to Mas' udin, and Kamara, (2018), the role of the manager and the leaders in the Just-In-Time inventory is improving the individuals through administering the workers with the guidance and the support that they required for the succession (Mas' udin, and Kamara, 2018). They usually help the workers to think forward and plan for the future; correspondingly, predicting the requirements of the individuals is considered as the impossible thing with today's interference along with the uncertainties.

Figure 4: Role of Leaders and Managers in JIT inventory

(Source: Oluwaseyi, Onifade, and Odeyinka, 2017)

Continuous Improvement (Kaizen):

This is defined as the strategy in which the workers who are at all tiers of the companies operate and perform together energetically and dynamically in order to accomplish the systematic, cumulative enhancements to the production procedures (Criscione-Naylor, 2020).

Figure 5: Role of Leaders and Managers in Continuous improvements (Kaizen)

(Source: Criscione-Naylor, 2020)

As stated by McLoughlin et al. (2018), the role of the leaders of the continuous improvements is to analyse and to identify the normalisation of the conduct procedure chance across the firms. They help to develop respect and trust in the business organisation by promoting efficiency, cooperation and creativity (McLoughlin et al. 2018). The role of leaders is to establish long and short term strategies for the organisations through integrating the Six Sigma, Agile along with other practices where their aim is to benefit the progression as well as reduction of the costs in terms of workflow effectiveness.

The importance and the effectiveness of these key approaches in order to accomplish the organisational goals.

Lean Six Sigma:

The importance of the lean six sigma strategy involves consumer satisfaction along with the reduction of Costs. This leads to revenue productivity and growth improvements. As per the research, it has been identified that the lean six sigma is an approach that implements the quality improvements in the organisation and takes care of the consumers' satisfaction that helps the organisation to achieve its goals (Laureani and Antony, 2019). They deliver the processed abilities and the prized analytics, mostly relevant to the positions of leadership. This usually helps the business to achieve their goals through enhancing the business procedures by the utilisation of the statistical analysis (a highly disciplined method which makes sure regarding the elimination of defects in any kinds of business procedures) (Laureani and Antony, 2017).

Figure 6: Lean Six Sigma

(Source: Antony, Snee and Hoerl 2017)

Queueing Theory:

The queuing theory is a multi-server analysis that could be utilised in order to predict the average waiting time along with the queue lengths where every business organisation can achieve their objectives (Bressloff, 2020). As expressed by Shortle et al., (2018), with the application of the queuing theory, the business organisation can establish more effective systems, pricing mechanism, procedures, staffing solutions, along with the advent of management strategies in regards to reducing the consumer waiting times along with the optimisation of the consumers who can be served. This leads to the accomplishments of the organisational goals (Shortle et al., 2018). Most companies adopt queuing practices for their best results as it is a competitive advantage for the business. It helps to enhance the safety, service and gaining of consumer loyalty.

Total Quality Management:

It is mostly known as the management approach that helps the business organisation in the longer-term succession through consumer satisfaction. It has significant and advantageous effects on both the organisational advancements and the employees (Sahoo and Yadav, 2018). Through having Total Quality management in the business organisation, every employee will be able to focus on continuous improvements and quality management; this will help the companies to achieve and to develop along with upholding the cultural values which abide to develop the longer-term succession to both the organisation as well as the consumers it has (Honarpour et al. 2018). This leads to the accomplishment of the organisational goals and objectives.

Just in Time Inventory:

It is considered as the scheme that helps the manufacturer to optimise the effectiveness along with the reduction of the waste by sustaining goods while they are required during the procedures of manufacturing, leading to the reduction of costs of inventory (Oluwaseyi, Onifade, and Odeyinka, 2017). It leads to the achievement of organisational objectives as it helps in the reduction of waste along with smaller investment with less space required. The business organisation can be improved by providing the company with great tiers of control over the whole production procedures, which gradually makes it even easier for the companies to respond rapidly to the requirements of the consumers' change (Chiu, Yang and Lin, 2017).

Continuous Improvement (Kaizen):

Kaizen helps to compile the cooperative talents within the business organisation in order to develop a powerful engine for the developments. The continuous improvement is delineated in such a way to empower the workers in order to solve the problems that will generally annoy them, henceforth, optimise the effectiveness of their work procedures (Kumar, 2019). However, having continuous improvements in the organisation will lead to more competitive products and services, lower employee turnover, along with better consumer service and proactive learning culture in the organisation, which lead to the achievement of the organisational objectives (Carnerud, Jaca, and Bäckström, 2018).

C.

According to Garza-Reyes et al., (2018), operational management is known as correlating activities in order to show respect to a business organisation for the accomplishment of well-developed goals (Garza-Reyes et al., 2018). As argued by Raut et al., (2019), it is considered as the cause of the operations management activities in order to coordinate the operations in the business organisations along with the objectives that are specified by the management. Gradually, effective operational management helps the organisation with employee engagement along with defining their roles and responsibilities within the workplace (Raut et al., 2019). It does not matter whether there is an obstacle that the organisation is facing; the strategic, operational management plan requires it to be in place that helps to make sure that the workflow of the employees remains unaffected along with the production of the company.

The operational management usually handles the issues and the challenges related to the business operations, such as the operations, maintenance, designs, along with the improvements and the advancements of the system utilised to manufacture and construct the vital products and services of the company (Lamba, and Singh, 2017). It helps the organisation to accomplish the business goals to optimise the profits along with the shareholders through its pertinent. 

Section 2:

D.

There are few factors that influence business decision making, considered as:

• Corporate Social Responsibility

As per the research, it has been analysed that apart from the possible loss of the socially aware customers, CSR (corporate social responsibility) influences business skills to fascinate the top talents along with influencing the worker's job satisfaction tiers as well as the rate of retention (Agudelo, Jóhannsdóttir and Davídsdóttir, 2019). There are high chances of losing the top talents in the organisation without the implementation of the corporate social risk strategy. Few of the factors of CSR which affects decision making is known as:

• Authorised interventions help the business person to become responsive towards society.
• Market forces help the business person to become accountable in terms of social commitments.
• The emergence of the expertise managers is more like a separation between the management and the ownership.
• Public scrutiny
• Growth of the trade unions

Figure 7: Corporate Social Responsibility

(Source: Wang and Sarkis, 2017)

• Organisational culture, values and ethics

The organisational culture gradually influences the decision-making procedures within the organisation by its own members along with the way where it affects the acceptance and the rejection of its member's decisions (Singh et al. 2019). This highlights that when the managers are making their own decisions, they must be required to consider more things in order to make sure that decisions will be working out even more effectively. The culture is going to affect the business decision making in two ways as it affects the atmosphere and encourages the staff to accomplish their goals (Felipe et al., 2017).

The organisational values can develop a powerful structure for the decision-making procedures. The values can lead the workers to do their jobs more effectively and to communicate with the partners, colleagues and consumers along with the wider community.

The ethical climate of the company or the business organisation is considered as the prime factors that usually helps the business to inform the employees regarding the lawful along with the ethical pertinents within the workplace (Felipe et al. 2017). Gradually, the ethical decisions sustain and give rise to trust, explain respect, fairness, responsibility as well as caring. It usually involves being compatible with good citizenship.

• Sustainability

Sustainability is considered to be the most effective and significant for all the companies around the business industries. Though, sustainability is a business approach that helps to build a longer-term organisational value by taking into consideration how the business organisation will utilise in the social, economic and ecological environments (Štreimikien?, Navikait? and Varanavi?ius, 2019). Sustainability always tends to change the nature of business decisions. Apart from the decision making, the stakeholders help to attract more investors, which is determined as the key to the longer-term business profitability (Chege, and Wang, 2020).

• Influence from stakeholders

According to the research, it has been identified that the stakeholders are considered to be the groups or the individuals who acquire the claim, stake or interest in an organisation. Henceforth, the stakeholders are referred to as the usual consideration, which focuses on the performance of the organisation along with making sure that it remains at an allowable tier (Thomas, Scandurra, and Carfora, 2021).

As stated by Danso et al. (2020), though it has been highlighted that the stakeholders do not have any kind of role in the organisational management, but they do have an impact on the organisational management. They mostly influence the procedures of decision making. Stakeholders mostly make sure that the organisational work atmosphere should remain stimulating, rewarding and dynamic, as well as that there are good operating conditions accessible in the workplace so that the workplace can function well (Danso et al. 2020).

• Developing entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship

The extraordinary categorisation of the entrepreneurial pertinent is inclined to the decision making prejudices in their decisions. As per the research, it has been found that the environmental, individual (personal), along with organisational factors, are determined as the prime categorisation that is having an impact on the origin of decision making prejudices in entrepreneurs (Pandey, Gupta, and Hassan, 2020). At the same time, the intrapreneurs conduct their ideas to the enterprises to give rise to the newest products, procedures or services, henceforth acting as a strength for the change within the business organisation. It mostly adds up the possible innovation in the business organisation.

E.

These factors have an influence on the business environment along with the wider community.

Corporate Social Responsibility: Apart from the possible loss of socially aware customers, CSR (corporate social responsibility) influences business skills to fascinate the top talents along with influencing the worker's job satisfaction tiers as well as the rate of retention (Maqbool and Zameer, 2018). The upcoming generation of the employees who are presently entering the workforce foreseek employers with a transparent and effective CSR strategy where the CSR (corporate social responsibility) can improve the workers' morale and conduct to great profitability and productivity in the workforce (Galant and Cadez, 2017).

Organisational culture, values and ethics: The effect of the social and the environmental situations is uttermost visible in the organisational workforce (wider community) where the industries need to understand well about the role of community and organisation, where the values, strategies and newest techniques are having a purpose of optimising the community-wide interventions (Singh et al. 2019). The ethical philosophy might influence the organisation in different ways involving productivity and the regulations with other significant advantages of the ethical cultures involving the advancements of the wider community and the internal communication through CSR (Felipe et al. 2017). It mostly helps to operate their missions or purpose on a regular basis. It motivates the goals within the organisation.

Sustainability: It helps to attract more investors, which is determined as the key to longer-term business profitability. This leads to the reduction of the business costs, more innovative strategies with an enhanced reputation, along optimising the amount of money (Chege, and Wang, 2020). Sustainability can be stricken by the consumption of natural resources, the uttermost that is why they are at the optimised risk of social wars and unrest. Furthermore, the growth of the population will develop gradual pressure on the non-renewable resources, which give rise to serious threats to worldwide peace (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2017).

Influence from stakeholders: It has been found that the stakeholders have started optimising how the companies usually manage or utilise social responsibilities and community citizenship which are more and more incorporated into the business administration (Thomas, Scandurra, and Carfora, 2021). The employees, business partners, communities, and the consumers are considered among one of the prime group of stakeholders who usually drive out the weight in the business company activities and decisions. Correspondingly, the stakeholders are referred to as the group of individuals who gradually will be authoritative in the succession of their change plans (Danso et al., 2020). It is mostly the abilities within which an individual will be able to consult and to communicate along with including these individuals which will demonstrate the success of the change initiatives.

Developing entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship: In terms of basic knowledge, the environment of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship demonstrates the different aspects within the organisation where the firms can be big, medium, or small or any other kinds of in order to operate or function. The environment henceforth influences the firms in various ways where the environment of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship usually creates the social, political, ecological, economic, legal and national forces (Pandey, Gupta, and Hassan, 2020).

According to Danso et al. (2020), Intrapreneurship is highly required for Entrepreneurship as it helps individuals to bring the newest ideas and creativity to the market, motivating the individuals around them by taking proactive and powerful steps in order to improve the business organisation. In terms of a wider community and better environment, entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship help to create employment opportunities not only for themselves but for the other individual c). It helps to influence and manipulate the finance of the country by bringing out the newest products in the markets, along with some procedures of production or methods.

Section 3:

F.

The paper has concluded a few key approaches and factors that usually influence business decision making, along with a better environment and wider community. By looking into this section, it has been identified that an effective CSR strategy where the CSR (corporate social responsibility) can improve the workers' morale and conduct to great profitability and productivity in the workforce. Apart from that, there are other crucial factors that help the organisation to have a better environment and have an impact on the wider community, such as entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship through creating the social, political, ecological, economic, legal and national forces.

Other than these factors, there are some best operational practices where an organisation can introduce them with the help of the factors mentioned above (Criado-Gomis, Iniesta-Bonillo and Cervera-Taulet, 2018). The up-gradation of the requirements, coordination of communication, collection of the revenues in the organisation along with the training should be required to be introduced in the organisation.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that in terms of a wider business environment, this will help the organisation to improve and to determine their productivity and profitability, and it helps the employees to become more efficient in terms of doing their work and performing well in the workplace. Bringing out the newest innovation with the cutting edge in the organisation are considered the best operational practices for the areas of delivery, inventory controls, supply chain, quality management and information management that helps the business organisation to become successful.

References

Agudelo, M.A.L., Jóhannsdóttir, L. and Davídsdóttir, B., 2019. A literature review of the history and evolution of corporate social responsibility. International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, 4(1), pp.1-23.

Alefari, M., Salonitis, K. and Xu, Y., 2017. The role of leadership in implementing lean manufacturing. Procedia Cirp, 63, pp.756-761.

Antony, J., Snee, R. and Hoerl, R., 2017. Lean Six Sigma: yesterday, today and tomorrow. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management.

Bressloff, P.C., 2020. Queueing theory of search processes with stochastic resetting. Physical Review E, 102(3), p.032109.

Carnerud, D., Jaca, C. and Bäckström, I., 2018. Kaizen and continuous improvement–trends and patterns over 30 years. The TQM Journal.

Chege, S.M. and Wang, D., 2020. The influence of technology innovation on SME performance through environmental sustainability practices in Kenya. Technology in Society, 60, p.101210.

Chiu, Y., Yang, C.H. and Lin, P.C., 2017. A Just-in-Time Inventory Model with Preventive Maintenance and Defect Rate. International Journal of Information Systems and Supply Chain Management (IJISSCM), 10(4), pp.44-60.

Criado-Gomis, A., Iniesta-Bonillo, M.Á. and Cervera-Taulet, A., 2018. Sustainable entrepreneurial orientation within an intrapreneurial context: effects on business performance. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 14(2), pp.295-308.

Criscione-Naylor, N., 2020. Kaizen (continuous improvement) and systems thinking: exploring how kaizen facilitators operationalise values and assumptions. International Journal of Management Practice, 13(5), pp.547-564.

Danso, A., Adomako, S., Lartey, T., Amankwah-Amoah, J. and Owusu-Yirenkyi, D., 2020. Stakeholder integration, environmental sustainability orientation and financial performance. Journal of business research, 119, pp.652-662.

Felipe, C.M., Roldán, J.L. and Leal-Rodríguez, A.L., 2017. Impact of organizational culture values on organizational agility. Sustainability, 9(12), p.2354.

Felipe, C.M., Roldán, J.L. and Leal-Rodríguez, A.L., 2017. Impact of organizational culture values on organizational agility. Sustainability, 9(12), p.2354.

Galant, A. and Cadez, S., 2017. Corporate social responsibility and financial performance relationship: a review of measurement approaches. Economic research-Ekonomska istraživanja, 30(1), pp.676-693.

Garza-Reyes, J.A., Kumar, V., Chaikittisilp, S. and Tan, K.H., 2018. The effect of lean methods and tools on the environmental performance of manufacturing organisations. International Journal of Production Economics, 200, pp.170-180.

Gupta, S., Modgil, S. and Gunasekaran, A., 2020. Big data in lean six sigma: a review and further research directions. International Journal of Production Research, 58(3), pp.947-969.

Honarpour, A., Jusoh, A. and Md Nor, K., 2018. Total quality management, knowledge management, and innovation: an empirical study in R&D units. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 29(7-8), pp.798-816.

Honig, B. and Samuelsson, M., 2021. Business planning by intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs under environmental uncertainty and institutional pressure. Technovation, 99, p.102124.

Imran, M., Aziz, A., Hamid, S., Shabbir, M., Salman, R. and Jian, Z., 2018. Retracted: The mediating role of total quality management between entrepreneurial orientation and SMEs export performance. Management Science Letters, 8(6), pp.519-532.

Kumar, R., 2019. Kaizen a tool for continuous quality improvement in indian manufacturing organisation. International Journal of Mathematical, Engineering and Management Sciences, 4(2), pp.452-459.

Lamba, K. and Singh, S.P., 2017. Big data in operations and supply chain management: current trends and future perspectives. Production Planning & Control, 28(11-12), pp.877-890.

Laureani, A. and Antony, J., 2017. Leadership characteristics for lean six sigma. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 28(3-4), pp.405-426.

Laureani, A. and Antony, J., 2018. Leadership–a critical success factor for the effective implementation of Lean Six Sigma. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 29(5-6), pp.502-523.

Laureani, A. and Antony, J., 2019. Leadership and Lean Six Sigma: a systematic literature review. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 30(1-2), pp.53-81.

Maqbool, S. and Zameer, M.N., 2018. Corporate social responsibility and financial performance: An empirical analysis of Indian banks. Future Business Journal, 4(1), pp.84-93.

Mas' udin, I. and Kamara, M., 2018. Impact of just-in-time, total quality management and supply chain management on organisational performance: A review perspective. Jurnal Teknik Industri, 19(1), pp.11-20.

McLoughlin, C., Miura, T., Junpei, N., Mendez, A. and Homel, W., 2017. True Kaizen: management’s role in improving work climate and culture. Productivity Press.

Oluwaseyi, J.A., Onifade, M.K. and Odeyinka, O.F., 2017. Evaluation of the role of inventory management in logistics chain of an organisation. LOGI–Scientific Journal on Transport and Logistics, 8(2), pp.1-11.

Pandey, J., Gupta, M. and Hassan, Y., 2020. Intrapreneurship to engage employees: role of psychological capital. Management Decision.

Raut, RD, Mangla, S.K., Narwane, V.S., Gardas, B.B., Priyadarshinee, P. and Narkhede, B.E., 2019. Linking big data analytics and operational sustainability practices for sustainable business management. Journal of cleaner production, 224, pp.10-24.

Sahoo, S. and Yadav, S., 2018. Total quality management in Indian manufacturing SMEs. Procedia Manufacturing, 21, pp.541-548.

Schaltegger, S. and Wagner, M., 2017. Managing and measuring the business case for sustainability: Capturing the relationship between sustainability performance, business competitiveness and economic performance. In Managing the business case for sustainability (pp. 1-27). Routledge.

Sfakianaki, E., Matsiori, A., Giannias, D.A. and Sevdali, I., 2018. Educational leadership and total quality management: investigating teacher leadership styles. International Journal of Management in Education, 12(4), pp.375-392.

Shortle, J.F., Thompson, J.M., Gross, D. and Harris, C.M., 2018. Fundamentals of queueing theory (Vol. 399). John Wiley & Sons.

Singh, S.K., Chen, J., Del Giudice, M. and El-Kassar, A.N., 2019. Environmental ethics, environmental performance, and competitive advantage: role of environmental training. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 146, pp.203-211.

Štreimikien?, D., Navikait?, A. and Varanavi?ius, V., 2019. Company’s value creation via customer satisfaction and environmental sustainability influence.

Thomas, A., Scandurra, G. and Carfora, A., 2021. Adoption of green innovations by SMEs: an investigation about the influence of stakeholders. European Journal of Innovation Management.

Wang, Z. and Sarkis, J., 2017. Corporate social responsibility governance, outcomes, and financial performance. Journal of Cleaner Production, 162, pp.1607-1616.