PART A – OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
Companies need to make strategic decisions on selecting an appropriate process and facility layout to manage the way production of goods or services will be organised. Based on the above, you are asked to take as an example a product or a service from an industry that you are familiar with (e.g., food, technology, healthcare, retail, services, automotive), and critically:
Examine the process design and facility layout and present a flow chart to justify the above.
PART B – INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
The recent Covid lockdown period has been a difficult time for all SMEs and particularly those in the music and events industry. However, many in this industry are still committed to the progress of their businesses. Therefore, they need appropriate ideas and specific information regarding the potential of technology to support, develop, and future-proof their livelihoods.
Charles and Christina are both classical musicians and music teachers who play at local events and parties. They want to get more private work both as teachers and musicians. They would like to publicise their talents via a website and deal with booking arrangements via the internet for both teaching and playing. At the moment arrangements are made by telephone. Their present clients pay by cash on the day of the lesson or event. They want to appear as professional as possible by providing information, bookings, and payment options online.
They need a business strategy where they take responsibility for their own; social media marketing, online business accounts, an up-to-date calendar of events, and keeping track of the communications between themselves and the clients.
They realise that technology will play an important part in the future business. They have read about Customer Relationship Management software and Enterprise Resource Management software, but just don’t know what kind of information technology support they really need as a small business partnership. They require professional digital business advice before they can make any final decisions about investing funds in business software. Also, they have heard that they may be able to save money by using Open Source Software, but don’t understand if there are any implications, so they need advice about this too.
Charles and Christina have no technical experience and therefore require information that can be easily understood. You are the IM consultant who is responsible for researching this business and providing relevant information.
Your Task
You are a consultant who has been employed to advise on the effective implementation of strategic changes. You are required to produce the following for the case study:
Part B1: BPMs and Strategy Analysis
In this section you should develop
1. A series of at least two Business Process Models (BPM), which capture the existing and the proposed business processes. The models should follow the BPM notation shown in the lecture slides. You can utilise Microsoft Visio, Word, PowerPoint or any appropriate alternatives to create the models.
2. Strategic analysis: You should use at least one recognised analysis technique such as SWOT, PESTLE etc
3. Discussion on an overview of the current situation of the business (based on existing BPM and SWOT/PESTLE) and outlining what may be the benefits/challenges of proposed changes to the business (based on proposed BPM).
Part B2: Software Comparison and Recommendation
In this section, you should conduct research into a suitable software solution. You should develop:
1. An evaluation table: you should decide on the set of characteristics which you will use to evaluate the software and your research should consider 2 commercial/off the shelf software and 2 Open Source Software alternatives.
2. Recommendation of software based on the table, with suggestions and a roadmap outlining how the proposed software can be deployed in the business.
