individual report
In this item of assessment you are required to submit an individual report based upon a case study scenario. The case study identifies an organisation and its circumstances; these can best be understood via the application of the principles of logistics and supply chain management, as introduced in the module.
Your task is to critically evaluate the situation presented in the case study and formulate recommendations. You are cast as a consultant, brought in to propose improvements.
For the January 2022 instance of the module, the case study used in this assignment is Nutract, a fictional manufacturer of agricultural equipment.
Your work will be a 3,000 word report.
Additional Guidance:
Your case study organisation may be fictional (or an anonymised version of a real one) but it is still important for you to conduct a literature review as part of your background research. You could learn a lot about the industry itself and use this as evidence to support your arguments. You should include sources such as peer-reviewed academic articles, academic texts, news articles, industry case studies and reputable web resources.
A good piece of work will be attractively styled and logically structured, with a good standard of written English. Some recommendations on report structure are provided below.
Please do not simply reproduce the information presented in the case study. Try to provide analysis using appropriate tools and methodologies. Apply what you have managed to find out about the sector as a whole, and construct reasoned arguments that lead to workable solutions. Ideally your recommendations will be detailed enough that the reader will know exactly what to do, and in what order. Keep in mind the topic of the module you are studying, and do not introduce too many themes from outside logistics and supply chain management.
Do not cut and paste phrases or paragraphs from published sources without citing your sources. You should seek to use your own words to explain concepts and theories, while acknowledging the work of other scholars.
Suggested Structure:
A recommended structure for your report follows. be sure to structure your report logically, and to cover all requested elements. Use numbered sections, with decimals for subsections.
Ideally, your report will include the following:
- A brief Introduction to the report, stating its purpose. (Do not expend too many words on descriptive writing and context-setting. Keep it clear and simple.)
- Application of methodologiesto evaluate the supply chain and the industry. Where appropriate, use some of the tools covered in this module. (For example, PESTLE, Porter’s Five Forces, Porter’s Value Chain, the theory of order winners and order qualifiers, ABC analysis or the Kraljic Portfolio. Choose those relevant to the problems you wish to solve.)
- Review and evaluate the organisation’s current supply chain in terms of the relevant issues, such as the location of operations, capacity of various operations, company transportation and storage arrangements, etc. Please identify any additional areas where improvements might be made, e.g. skills, information systems or relevant performance measures. Note: since this is a fictional organisation, you can state reasonable assumptions, based upon real-world practices and observations.
- Recommend actionsand/or changes to the present-day arrangements with reference to the criteria you discussed in Section 3, e.g. location of operations, capacity, etc. Make sure your recommendations relate to (or are substantiated by) the work you have presented in earlier sections.
- Provide a brief conclusionto the report.
- Add a list of Harvard references. Ideally, you will have cited 15+ sources within the text. This section does not count towards your word limit for the assignment.