MGT 361, Fall 2021: Project [30% of course grade]
This is an opportunity to put all the knowledge and concepts you gained throughout the semester into a practical perspective. You will follow the flow of the course to apply what you learned in class with what takes place in a real business. You will need to select a firm that delivers a service or product within the UAE and collect data on their operations. An on-site visit and interview with the operations manager would be the best way to collect the data, but if you find this difficult due to the pandemic, you may rely solely on secondary data [news articles, publicly available information, etc]. Your job is to prepare an operations report that accomplishes three main tasks:
- Describes the current state of operations of the organization in relation to the concepts discussed in the course, identifying any problem areas you find along the way.
- Proposes detailed solution[s] to the problem area in their operations that you believe should be of most concern for the company. The solution must demonstrate a new way of doing the operation and have an impact of several areas of their operations.
- Gives evidence of the potential improvement in operational efficiency and effectiveness the solution[s] could have.
You may choose to focus your efforts on a subset of the products or services offered. Your report should be structured as follow:
- Executive summary [2.5%]
- Company background/brief review [2.5%]
- Current observed state of operations for the company. This should include efficiency measures [e.g. productivity], strategy, forecasting, product/service design, process design, capacity, facility layout, quality, location, inventory management, and supply chain management. Any observed problem areas are to be highlighted. [7.5%]
- Proposed solution to a selected problem area of the organization with evidence of the potential impact [quantitative as well as qualitative evidence must be provided; e.g. highlighting evidences of operational cost reduction and increase in value to both internal as well as external customers]. Also discuss any potential drawbacks to the proposed implementation. [7.5%]
References: Be sure to include a list of any references you used for the report as well as citing them within the paper itself.
You may work in groups of minimum 2 and up to 4 students. The paper is due on the last day of class [i.e. our last class before the final exam].
If you need a guideline for a minimum length, I will say 10 pages, single-spaced, 12-point font. However, I am not focusing on the length of the paper but that you fully address each of the above points. You may wish to use diagrams, graphs, flow charts, etc. in order to help make your paper more clear.
Presentation: You will make a presentation of no more than 10 minutes, summarizing the most important aspects of your project. The grade for this [out of 10 points possible] will be based on the clarity of the presentation and that its content highlights the main points of the project within the given time frame.
