Instruction
This project is addressing a real-life business challenge from an Operations Management perspective. Your team should define the specific problem(s) relating to Operations, analyze the situation given the tools and concepts from the text and lectures, generate options to address the problem(s) and assess risk to the company. Review this from a COO perspective and make recommendations on the best ways to manage or resolve the situation, and how you can best protect, maintain and even improve your company’s bottom line and market share. Your final report should include:
Executive summary – (maximum 250 words)o What happened or is happening?o What activities are happening now and will be done in the next few weeks, 2-3 months?o What are the major issues, challenges and concerns related to Operations? What are the biggest risks or risk areas??
Overview of the situation / background – assume that the company has recently hired you as the new COO, and you are just coming up to speed. Include all the significant issues from a manufacturing perspective and discuss how these might affect the company’s overall health – financially and in terms of brand / market size. Focus on topics covered in this class. (~ 1 page)
Analysis of the problem(s) / challenges – identify specific areas of major challenge for Operations, choose tools and concepts that are appropriate and can be applied to the situation. Describe your approach, and why you chose the that approach. Include facts, figures, available information, and include information you may need, have requested but is not available or not yet available, in order to complete the assessment. Identify decisions made, and those key decisions that still need to be made. Include a (rough) schedule or timing for making those key decisions. (~ 2 pages)
Recommendations – Summarize your top 3-5 recommendations but include other options you considered and discarded for each aspect of the situation. Make recommendations on actions to be taken for both short and medium timeframes. Include risks / benefits for options, cost estimates or indicate what information you would like to have, and where you might obtain the information needed. (~ 2 pages)
Summary – This section should include “lessons learned”, risks still not addressed, and preventive actions taken and to be taken to avoid or mitigate this type of issue in the future. Use industry information, learnings from other companies, your own experience or your best judgement based on class learnings to complete this section. (~ 1 page)
In ‘n Out Burger– A particular favorite of customers, with lots of competition. In’n Out’s supply chain and values make it a unique company but growing quickly. From an Operations perspective, what are some of the biggest obstacles to expansion, possible alternatives, changes or modifications to current practices, and results of these actions? Do you recommend retaining the current practices and policies, or what changes do you suggest, and what impacts might those have?