Operations & Supply Chain Management
This Paper should be based on Human Resources Generalist specially in the compensation area, I work for a Public (State) University
Project
This paper is meant to help you understand your company’s operations in some detail. If your company is a large company focus on the division in which you work. If even that is too big focus on your department or profit-center or function.
For this company or business unit:
Operations
Identify its products or services. What does it do? Who are its customers?
Identify the inputs (labor, material, information, technology, etc.) that go into this product/service. What value does your company add to the inputs?
Identify capacity – how many units does it make or customers does it serve in a day/month/year? If there are multiple products, pick one product or product family. Is demand for your product/service seasonal?
Forecasting
How does forecasting work in your company? Is there a formal process? Is there a formal method? Who does it and how often? Who uses the forecasts and for what purposes? Where does the data come from? What kind of data? Are forecasts revised? How often? Does your company keep track of forecast accuracy?
Inventory
What kinds of items does your company keep in inventory? How is inventory managed in your company? Who manages it? Who does the ordering? Is there a formal process? Are there systems like SAP? Are inventory-related costs like holding cost or ordering costs quantified? Is ordering centralized or de-centralized?
Quality
Quality management in your company. How is quality defined? Is there a formal process for quality management? Who’s responsible? Steps taken by company to ensure good quality of product or service. Assessment of different costs associated with quality. How do they deal with complaints? Quality measures with vendors? Quality specifications with customers?
Supply Chain
For one major product or product family, identify and map out its supply chain: go as far back upstream as you can to multiple tiers of suppliers and downstream to distributors, wholesalers, logistics vendors, all the way to the ultimate customer.
Is this supply chain typical of your company’s industry?
How vulnerable is this supply chain to disruptions in supply? Have there been recent examples?
Suggested Outline of the Report
A one-paragraph introduction to company, products and services – rationale for their business, how they compete, competitors, some measure of scope of operations: local, regional, national, or multinational, some measure of scale of operations – revenues, unit volume, number of customers, market share, etc.
After this you should have a section for each of the topics listed on the previous page. No section should be more than one single-spaced page.
A concluding paragraph.
Use diagrams and schematics as needed. They should serve a purpose and be discussed in your report. Avoid heavy graphics and cute pictures pulled from your company’s website.
Make it professional. Spelling and grammar do matter.
The report as a whole should give you (and me) a clear and concise picture of operations in your company or business.
Please do not include any material that your company might consider confidential.
