Operational Management

The purpose of this assignment is to identify and apply OM (Operations Management) concepts/tools to solve operational problems and improve operational performance. To this purpose, you should find an interesting operational problem from the real business world and think about how you can apply the OM concepts/tools that you learned in this course to solve the problem. More specifically, should: • Find an operational problem from the real business world (from his/her own work or from any company) • Identify specific OM concepts/tools that can be applied to the problem • Apply an appropriate OM concept/tool or a set of appropriate OM concepts/tools to propose a solution to the problem

• Analyze the expected results that may be obtained when the solution is implemented. The report should be 8 – 10 pages in length including the cover and appendices, with 1” margins on all sides, double-spacing, and 12 point font. The report must follow the outline below: 1. Executive summary (no more than one page) – Summarize what is the problem, what OM concepts/tools have been applied to the problem, and what are the expected results of the proposed solution. 2. Background information – Clearly state whether the problem is from your own work or from business articles/cases. If it is from business articles/cases, provide its source (title, author, name of the journal, date published).

– Briefly introduce the company background (e.g., name, products, business size, location, internal/external interesting facts, etc). 3. Problem Description – Describe the problem clearly and specifically. – You should focus on a single OPERATIONAL problem, although you can introduce several other issues for informational purposes. General management problems are not acceptable. – The problem may involve either operational decision-making or process improvement.