Assignment on Operations

Management in Business









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Table of Contents
Sl
No.
Particulars Page
no.
1.1 Explain the importance of operational management to WH Smith. 2
1.2 Explain the need to produce safely; on time; to cost; to quality and within the law
in WH Smith
3
1.3 Explain the link between Operations Management and Strategic Planning as it
concerns WH Smith.
4
1.4 Produce a system diagram to illustrate a typical business of WH Smith 5
2.1 Explain the Three Es in WH Smith 6
2.2 Explain the tension between cost minimization and quality maximization at WH
Smith.
6
2.3 Evaluate the significance of the five performance objectives that underpin
operations
7
3.1 Explain Linear Programming using any WH Smith operation. 8
3.2 Evaluate critical path analysis and network planning using any WH Smith
operation
8
3.3 Explain the need for operational planning and control using any WH Smith
operations.
9
4.1 Produce a clearly defined set of operational outcomes using any WH Smith
operation
9
4.2 Produce a network plan and and indicate the resultant critical path using any WH
Smith operation.
10
4.3 Explain how quality could be defined and maintained using any WH Smith
operations.
14
Reference 15










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Task 1: Produce a document explaining the nature and importance of operation
management and its key elements
1.1 Explain the importance of operational management to WH Smith.
Answer:
To be able produce professional managers capable of fulfilling strategic roles within business
and government enterprises the need for the practice of operations management cannot be
forgone. Operations management is very important in business operations since it forms the heart
of the organisation by controlling the system of operation. Operations management deals with
the design, operation, and improvement of the systems that create and deliver a firms primary
products and services. Like marketing and finance, operations management is a functional field
of business with clear management responsibilities. WH Smith is a well known book retailer and
news agent in the UK.
In a business entity like WH Smith the use of operations management is very necessary in every
fabric of the companys activities. WH Smith uses operations management to ensure and sustain
efficiency and effectiveness in the organisation. Efficiency in WH Smith is concerned with how
well resources such as human expertise and inputs are put in use irrespective of the purpose for
which they were deployed in the company. The company through its activities ensures that the
primary objective for its establishment to make profits and maximize shareholders value is
realized. The company reduces its cost by cutting down the less profitable projects. This is a
situation where the company carries out effectively its objectives to be the market leader using
minimum resources to achieve maximum output. The measures of effectiveness and efficiency in
WH Smith leads to productivity, yield, capacity fill working capital utilization and the efficiency
of production systems.
Management Control and Coordinating Function cannot be forgone in operations management
especially in a company like WH Smith. Management control and coordination includes a broad
range of activities to ensure that the companys goals are consistently being met in an effective
and efficient fashion. Basically, organizational coordination and control is what the company
uses to take a systematic approach to figuring out if it is actually doing what it wanted to be
doing or not. Some of the major approaches to the companys organizational control and
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coordination include product evaluation, product distribution, advertising and promotion, sales
and service and product development.
1.2 Explain the need to produce safely; on time; to cost; to quality and within the law in
WH Smith
Answer:
Need to produce safely:
The safety of the personnel should be given maximum priority. The efforts of the employees play
the most important role behind the success of an organization. So, ensuring their safety in order
to safeguard their right. It is also needed to be ensured that with the business operation nobody
else is affected.
Need to produce on time:
WH Smith has earned reputation in own field throughout a decade. The customers want a good
service from them. To serve the customer efficiently and retain loyalty, WH Smith should adopt
measures to serve the customers on time.
Need to produce to cost:
The key to success of WH Smith is its cost effectiveness. It helps to save money by not investing
less profitable areas and creates opportunities to invest them in more resourceful projects.
Need to produce to quality:
Quality of service is another factor behind the success of WH Smith. In order to retain the image
and customer loyalty, WH Smith has made no compromise with the quality and as long as this
practice continues the company will get going.
Need to produce within the law:
Any unlawful act by the company may cost incredible loss. This may make the company
financially looser and its goodwill will be ruined as well. That is why WH Smith should operate
within the law.




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1.3 Explain the link between Operations Management and Strategic Planning as it
concerns WH Smith.
Answer:
Operations management focuses on carefully managing the processes to produce and distribute
products and services. Major, overall activities often include product creation, development,
production and distribution. The process is strategic because it involves preparing the best way to
respond to the circumstances of the organization's environment, whether or not its circumstances
are known in advance; nonprofits often must respond to dynamic and even hostile environments.
A great deal of focus is on efficiency and effectiveness of processes. Therefore, operations
management often includes substantial measurement and analysis of internal processes. On the
other hand, strategic planning is a management tool that helps an organization focus its energy,
to ensure that members of the organization are working toward the same goals, to assess and
adjust the organization's direction in response to a changing environment. It involves
intentionally setting goals (i.e., choosing a desired future) and developing an approach to
achieving those goals. The process is disciplined in that it calls for a certain order and pattern to
keep it focused and productive. So, it can be said that both the process are interrelated and
contributes a lot to the company like WH Smith.













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Books
eBooks
Kobo eReaders
Stationery and office supplies
Pens
1.4 Produce a system diagram to illustrate a typical business of WH Smith
Answer:




















WH Smith
High Street
Stores
Online
Store
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Task 2 Produce a document explaining the relationship between OM and strategic
planning
2.1 Explain the Three Es in WH Smith
Answer:
Economy
Economy means doing things as cheaply as possible, avoiding spending more than is necessary.
By taking different measures, WH Smith has cut down its unnecessary costs. It has given up
several less productive projects which save them a good amount of money. This has provided
economy to WH Smith
Efficiency
Efficiency means doing things as smoothly as possible, eliminating processes and activities that
do not lead closer to the finished product.
Through proper management, WH Smith has been achieving consisting growth is business. By
taking necessary and brave decisions, the company has reached that level. It can be considered as
its efficiency.
Effectiveness
Effectiveness means doing things as well as possible, making sure that the end result is a close
match to what the customer actually wants.
By taking different proactive decisions, WH Smith has exceeded its competitors. Allowing the
opportunity to shop online and attracting customers by different promotional activities can be
considered as sign of effectiveness.
2.2 Explain the tension between cost minimization and quality maximization at WH Smith.
Answer:
At the beginning of the earlier decade when WH Smith was struggling to survive in the business,
minimization of cost had become very necessary. But minimizing cost in an unplanned could
have been very risky for the company. So, considering the need of economy, the management
took a proactive decision to cut down less growth oriented projects. This allowed WH Smith to
save a significant amount of money without affecting its major profitable businesses. By
adopting various promotional activities and taking the risk of setting up stores at various
locations, the company had helped itself toward earning much more revenue. This economic
strength has helped WH Smith in improving the quality.
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2.3 Evaluate the significance of the five performance objectives that underpin operations
management of WH Smith.
Answer:
Performance Objective: 1 Reducing Cost
The cost reduction strategy of WH Smith has leaded the company to achieve economic strength.
Cutting down the cost of running less growth oriented projects saved money for the company
and created the opportunity to invest more to the profit oriented fields.
Performance Objective: 2 Digitalization
Coping up with the changing trend is a key determinant of success of a company. Recognising
the demand for digital mean of purchasing, WH Smith brought online shopping option in its
website. This has also played a significant role behind its success.
Performance Objective: 3 Reaching More Customers
By setting more stores in a variety of locations, WH Smith has gone closer to the customers. It
provided the customers access to more WH Smith products as the stores are available. It has also
allowed the company to create a group of new customers.
Performance Objective: 4 Promotional Campaign
By promoting the products using attractive banners and in other ways has helped WH Smith to
increase sales. Such campaigns attracted more customers and thus contributed to the growth.
Performance Objective: 5 Focusing on efficiency
Running the company efficiently has been another key to WH Smiths success. By adopting
proper strategies speed has been brought among the employees of all level. Taking different
proactive decisions management has shown efficiency.







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Task 3 - Based on the scenario, produce a document explaining how to organize a typical
production process.
3.1 Explain Linear Programming using any WH Smith operation.
Answer:
Linear programming is a mathematical process that has been developed to help management in
decision making, and it has become one of the most widely used and best known tools of
management science and industrial engineering. Linear programming is a very important tool in
managerial decision making. The reason is that it helps the company in minimizing the costs and
maximizing the profits. Through linear programming managers can calculate the prices and the
sales units which can maximize the profits of the company. Therefore, there are various issues
which the company incurs regarding their costs and prices therefore, tools like linear
programming can help the managers in decision making progress.


Use of Linear Programming is WH Smith operation:

Purchasing. Company wants to purchase a maximum of 5 new cargo vans that will provide at
least 12 tons of additional shipping capacity. A model A van holds 3 tons and costs $5,000. A
model B truck holds 4 tons and costs $8,000. How many trucks of each model should the
company purchase to provide the additional shipping capacity at minimal cost? What is the
minimal cost?
Problem of such type can be solved using linear programming.

3.2 Evaluate critical path analysis and network planning using any WH Smith operation
Answer:
Critical Path Analysis (CPA) is a project management tool that:
Sets out all the individual activities that make up a larger project.
Shows the order in which activities have to be undertaken.
Shows which activities can only taken place once other activities have been completed.
Shows which activities can be undertaken simultaneously, thereby reducing the overall
time taken to complete the whole project.
Shows when certain resources will be needed for example, a crane to be hired for a
building site.
CPA is a planning and project management tool. Using this tool WH Smith can ensure a project
is completed as quickly as possible, and resources used as efficiently as possible, it does depend
on the accuracy of the information used.

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3.3 Explain the need for operational planning and control using any WH Smith operations.
Answer:
Even after the operations system has been successfully designed and placed in to actual use,
considerable managerial discretion remains. This is because decisions must be made on a shorter
term basis month to month, day to day even hour to hour as to how the system will be operated
and controlled. Operational planning and control decisions involve scheduling and control of
labor, materials, and capital input to produce the desired quantity and quality of output most
efficiently.
Operational planning and control is needed by WH Smith to forecasts of future demand. But
even with the best possible forecasting and the most finely tuned operations system, demand
cannot always be met with existing system capacity in a given time period. Unexpected market
trends, new product developments, or competitors actions can throw the forecasts off, and
problems in the operations system can reduce capacity. At these times, shorter term managerial
decisions must be made to allocate system capacity to meet demand.
Task 4 Base on the scenario apply relevant techniques to the production of an operational
plan.
4.1 Produce a clearly defined set of operational outcomes using any WH Smith operation.
Answer:
Operational outcomes of innovative marketing technique by WH Smith
Attracting more number of customers:
When the other competitors are focusing on based business expansion, WH Smith increased
number of outlets. This marketing trick clicked and it is considered as one of the keys of WH
Smiths success.
Attracting teenage customers:
Through innovative promotional techniques, WH Smith has been able to attract more teenage
customers than others who are competing in the same field.
Making the products easily available:
As a result of increasing the number of stores, the products of WH Smith has become easily
available to the customers which resulted a huge increase in the sales revenue.


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4.2 Produce a network plan and indicate the resultant critical path using any WH Smith
operation.
Answer:
Use of critical path analysis and network planning using any WH Smiths advertising
campaign
Example of the tasks involved producing an advertising campaign for WH Smith will be used,
they are:
A plan the advertising campaign;
B make a TV video;
C design a poster;
D test market the TV video;
E test the suitability of the poster;
F present campaign to the board of directors;
G Communicate the campaign to all company personnel.
The estimated length of time for each task and the order, i.e., the tasks that depend upon others
being completed are shown below.
Tasks Order/dependency Estimated time (hrs)
A Must be done first 4
B Can only start when A is completed 6
C Can only start when A is completed 7
D Can only start when B is completed 8
E Can only start when C is completed 10
F Can only start when D and E are completed 9
G Can only start when D, E and F are completed 5


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These activities can be shown on a network; a generalised network is shown overleaf followed
by a network for the advertising campaign.

The advertising network shows the order in which the tasks can be completed.

EARLIEST START TIME
If we assume that the earliest start time for A is 0, then B and C can not start for 4 hours (0+4),
these figures are shown in the top right hand corner of nodes 1 and 2. Task D cannot start until
A and B have been completed, this takes 10 hours (0+4+6), which is shown in node 3. Task E
cannot start until A and C have been completed, this takes 11 hours (0+4+7), which is shown in
node 3. Task F cannot start until E and D are completed, the EST for task F is 21
(0+4+7+10). It is important to choose the longest route when calculating the ESTs. The route
A, B, D is only 18 (0+4+6+8), the EST of the longer route is shown in node 5.
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LATEST FINISH TIME
The next step is to calculate the latest finish time (LFT) of each task without extending the whole
project. We must start at node 7 and work back. Task G must be completed by the 35
th
hour and
this is shown in node 7. To calculate the LFT for task F, we subtract the time it takes to
complete task F from the previous LFT (35-5=30) and place it in node 6. When choosing
between two LFTs, such as for task A we choose the route that gives the lowest LFT, in this case
4 (11-7) rather than 7 (13-6).
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THE CRITICAL PATH
Once all of the LFTs have been identified it is possible to outline the critical path. This can be
drawn through all of the nodes where the ESTs and the LFTs are the same. This means that there
can be no delays between completing the previous tasks and starting the next one without
prolonging the advertising campaign. The critical path in this case is A, C, E, F, G is shown by
striking two short lines across the critical activities. If the manager sees that there is a possibility
of a task on the critical path overrunning he or she can considering shifting labour across from a
non-critical task.

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THE FLOAT
B and D could be delayed for up to 3 hours without affecting the total time of the task, this is
called the float. The total float is found by subtracting the EST and the duration from the LFT,
so for task B it would be 3 (13-6-4), this is the total float up to that activity. The free float is
found by subtracting the EST at the start of the task and the duration from the EST at the end, so
for task B it would be 0 (10-6-4). This is the free float for the task, i.e., its delay will interfere
with other tasks, in this case D.
Task Duration EST LFT Total Float Free Float
A 4 0 4 0 0
B 6 4 13 3 0
C 7 4 11 0 0
D 8 10 21 3 3
E 10 11 21 0 0
F 9 21 30 0 0
G 5 30 35 0 0

4.3. Explain how quality could be defined and maintained using any WH Smith operations.
Answer:
Alongside book retailing WH Smith also sells stationary products. To define the quality of those
products a standard of the product is to be set at first. Then comparing with the product standard,
the quality of the available products can be assessed. If any product seems not to be up to the
mark, necessary steps should be taken. This is how quality of products can be maintained.






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Reference
Business for Higher Awards, 2
nd
edition (Martin Coles, Rod Harris, Dave Needham).
Operations Management by William J. Stevenson 8
th
Edition
www.managementhelp.org
www.operationsmanagement.com