MGMT2026 - PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT SAMPLE

QUESTION 1

Sales forecasting is the method of estimating the sales of a company in the foreseeable future. It helps companies to make informed business decisions to predict sales to predict the short term and long term performance of the business. Sales forecasting are of 2 types Quantitative and Qualitative methods.

The Quantitative methods of sales forecasting are:

1. Historical growth rate: This method is used by using the historical sales values to forecast the sales for the next period be it weekly, monthly or yearly.

2. Run Rate: It is the average from the past historical sales data and is represented by (Total revenue/ past sales period).

3. Simple moving average: it requires us to extrapolate sales data for the period only from the set period.

4. Linear extension: to put it simple it requires us to draw a chart by plotting the historical sales data in a chart and drawing a straight line from the middle of the chart.

Figure 1: Sales Forecast

(Source: Created by Author)

QUESTION 2

The process of evaluating and selecting a location for a business is determined by location factor analysis. There are various steps to determine the location of a business as location is one of the primary factors to determine whether the business will be successful and sustainable both in the long and medium term.

Techniques used for Selecting Best Location:

Following are the few important techniques used to decide best location from the available alternative locations:

1. Subjective Techniques:

(a) Industry precedence,

(b) Preferential factor and

(c) Dominant factor.

2. Qualitative Techniques (Factor ranking system)

3. Semi-quantitative Techniques (Factor weight-rating system)

4. Quantitative Techniques (Operation Research Models):

(a) Break-even analysis.

(b) Economic/cost analysis, and

(c) Transportation model.

Procedure for Selecting a Site:

For selecting a site following procedure should be followed:

1. Constitution of a site selection committee.

2. Determining the company needs.

3. Deciding criteria for selection.

4. Accumulate the data.

5. Analyze the data.

6. Evaluate the alternatives.

7. Reduce number of alternatives.

8. Investigation in detail.

9. Collect and analyze further data.

Factor Rating Method for Location Planning

The process of selecting a new facility location involves a series of following steps:

1. Identify the important location factors.

2. Rate each factor according to its relative importance, e., higher the ratings is indicative of prominent factor.

3. Assign each location according to the merits of the location for each factor.

4. Calculate the rating for each location by multiplying factor assigned to each location with basic factors considered.

5. Find the sum of product calculated for each factor and select best location having highest total score.

Therefore from the above example we can conclude that location 2 will be more suitable for business as it has a rating of 106 compared to 96 of location 1

QUESTION 3

With the evolution of technology it’s very important to embrace and inculcate the changes taking place in any industry to survive and growth sustainable. There ice cream manufacturing has also went through a transformation. There are certain new methods which the company should practice and inculcate in a phased manner.

Low temperature extrusion

 For storage and distribution the ideal temperature is around -20ºC.This can also be achieved by the process of continuous freezing, to avoid the requirement of the cumbersome  step. By the decreasing the temperature we can increase the viscosity of the ice cream and for a typical formulation a temperature of -6 to -7ºC represents the viscosity limit for processing in a SSHE (Geven et al. 2017). It increases the perception of creaminess as well as improving the quality of ice cream. It also allows the reduction of the level of ingredients such as fat without loss of quality. Last but not the least it allows shape retention and promotes sophisticated innovative product shaping.

Ultra High Pressure Homogenization

This method reduces the size of fat droplets, increasing the perception of creaminess. It also gives product stability by decreasing the rate of fat agglomeration. The salient feature of this process is that it increases the total surface are per unit thus effectively making the better use of the fat pressure. This also inculcates low fat products which are healthy (Sevenich and Mathys, 2018).

Cryogenics

The introduction of Zero Adhesion technology is used for making complex 3D structure ice creams which is looks very attractive. The cryogenic fluid coupled with the formation of very small ice crystals makes the ice cream soft and smooth in texture

Pre-aeration

Ice cream contains 60% of air. The method gives the ice cream firmness and stiffness. It also gives the perception of creaminess and smoothness and helps in shape retention.

QUESTION 4

Assembly line is the whole process of manufacturing a product. Right from procuring the raw materials to producing and going through, various production lines are making it ready for use (Li et al. 2016). For any process there ought to be normal and abnormal wastages. Thus to mitigate the wastages the efficiency of the assembly line is very important.

We must have a good relationship with the raw material supplier so that we can introduce JIT (just in time) inventory measures to reduce the holding cost. Generally JIT companies are not provided with discounts but we can leverage the good relationship with the supplier to provide us with discounts.

The workers should be kept motivated and should be trained on a frequent basis this will increase the efficiency of the employees. This can be done by giving overtime payments and also keeping them happy and making a conducive environment.

The distribution and sales management team should always try and cross their limits. Supply chain management is one of the salient features of a successful business (Schönsleben, 2016). We must also keep a regular check on the production facilities of the company and mitigate the wastage in the production process as much as we can.

References

Geven, M.A., Sprecher, C., Guillaume, O., Eglin, D. and Grijpma, D.W., 2017. Micro?porous composite scaffolds of photo?crosslinked poly (trimethylene carbonate) and nano?hydroxyapatite prepared by low?temperature extrusion?based additive manufacturing. Polymers for advanced technologies, 28(10), pp.1226-1232.

Li, D., Zhang, C., Shao, X. and Lin, W., 2016. A multi-objective TLBO algorithm for balancing two-sided assembly line with multiple constraints. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, 27(4), pp.725-739.

Schönsleben, P., 2016. Integral logistics management: operations and supply chain management within and across companies. CRC Press.

Sevenich, R. and Mathys, A., 2018. Continuous Versus Discontinuous Ultra?High?Pressure Systems for Food Sterilization with Focus on Ultra?High?Pressure Homogenization and High?Pressure Thermal Sterilization: A Review. Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, 17(3), pp.646-662