Task: Provide a work-in-progress version of the final paper of 1’000 to 1’500 words max.
This will allow the tutors to assess the direction in which you are heading and allow them to provide formative feedback on the quality of your presentation, understanding of the brief, and plan for addressing the full brief.
At the very least, your draft should contain:
– the cover page
– the executive summary (even if written for just the draft itself, this will give us information on your understanding of the concept of executive summary)
– the (automatically generated) table of contents, showing the structure for the full paper (that is, start writing your paper by creating first the sections and subsections that will address the brief)
– in-text citations and list of references at the end of the paper
– in terms of content, try to at least set out a plan for each of the major sections, underpinned by the learning you will have done up to that point.
This task is not graded, but should be completed
Assessment task details and instructions
AlphaCo is a medium-sized company that produces high-quality handmade furniture for customers in their own country. Most of these customers are small boutique furniture retailers who have used AlphaCo for a number of years, normally placing orders by telephone and paying by cash on delivery. There is little visibility of future orders, which means that the lead time for delivery can be over four weeks, and this means that some orders are cancelled at short notice due to changes in customer demand. Although AlphaCo has a strong brand image, it has seen the market for its products reduced by nearly 30% over the last year, as consumers react to the increasing rate of inflation and the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. Currently, AlphaCo relies on a small number of local suppliers for their raw materials (woods, plastics, etc) and struggles to maintain effective relationships due to their difficulty in managing the supply and demand of their own products.
AlphaCo has recently appointed a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) who can see future opportunities in competing in global, more price-sensitive markets. This will require a change in strategy to one that focuses on the efficiency of production and the development of stronger and more professional customer and supplier relationships. A new focus will be needed to improve AlphaCo’s manufacturing, marketing, and supply chain capabilities and capacity. The CEO is prepared to invest significantly in making these changes, particularly through digital transformation, as its initial market research shows that there is a sizeable market for quality products, but costs need to be managed effectively and efficiently.
Your task
You are a technical consultant and have been appointed by the CEO to review AlphaCo’s operations and information management processes and ways of working. This review takes the form of a report that includes the different tasks shown below with mark weightings against each one.
- Develop a SWOT analysis of the current situation at AlphaCo (10 marks).
- Based on your SWOT analysis, discuss how a more effective and efficient management of capacity, quality and both suppliers and customers could help AlphaCo meet its new performance objectives (40 marks).
- Select one of the process areas from part 2 (e.g. capacity, quality, supplier or customer management) and, using Business Process Model (BPM) techniques, develop and present two BPM models that show how these could be improved by capturing the existing and the proposed business processes (20 marks).
- Conduct research into a suitable Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software solution and develop an evaluation table, which shows a set of evaluation characteristics and the analysis of two commercial/off-the-shelf products and two Open Source Software alternatives (20 marks).
- Select one Industry 4.0 technology and discuss the benefits of implementing this into AlphaCo (10 marks).
Additional instructions
- Follow a report format, with a title and contents page, Executive Summary (that gives a brief and complete summary of your paper for an executive to read), brief introduction, individual sections and sub-sections that address the assignment brief tasks, page numbers, brief conclusions and appendix section (if used). If you are uncertain about how to present and structure a report then visit the university library and ask for assistance.
- Use diagrams, illustrations, tables, graphics etc. wherever these are helpful. If you do use these, please do not put them in the appendices if they are part of your discussion. Appendices are the appropriate places to put supporting material, however, remember if the reader is satisfied with the main points of your discussion; the supporting information within the appendices may not even be reviewed.
- Try to use theory explicitly at all stages, but do not spend too much time describing a theory. While you must be explicit about the theories, models, techniques etc. that you use, you can assume that the reader is familiar with them. What the reader requires is evidence of your ability to understand and apply the theory and learn from it in order to support the development of your findings and/or ideas.
- You must cite all sources on which you have relied, for example textbooks, journal articles, web pages etc. using the Harvard Bibliographic referencing system. If you do not cite all sources, then you may be accused of plagiarism, and that may endanger your success in passing the module. If you are in any doubt about how to reference your work, please obtain guidance from the library and/or your academic librarian(s) for this module.
- All submissions should be word-processed (letter size 12, times new roman, 1.5 space) and fully referenced.
- The word count for each task of the assignment brief should be based on the mark weightings for each one.