Building High Performance Organisations Assessment
Your task is to read the below case and articles and conduct research to address the assignment brief below:
• Kennedy, I., Plunkett, A., and Haider, J., (2013), Implementation of Lean Principles in a Food Manufacturing Company, in Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering, Advances in Sustainable and Competitive Manufacturing Systems, pp 1579-1590
• Christopher, M., & Peck, H. (2004). Building the Resilient Supply Chain. The International Journal of Logistics Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under homework for you course hero writing service – Manage ment, 15(2), 1-14.
Background to Simply Intolerant Foods (SIF): ‘Simply Intolerant Foods’ (SIF) provides the finest fresh meat & meat products (i.e. Burgers, Sausages) to commercial companies, restaurant chains and to supermarkets using the brand “Simply ‘free from’ Sausages”, “Simply ‘free from’ Burgers” in Scotland. They cater for customers with food intolerances (i.e. gluten free, lactose intolerance) and are concerned with the integrity of the ingredients in the product. At SIF there is no compromise, no cross contamination and full transparency of the supply of ingredients into its Leith processing operation. All beef and lamb are processed on site in SIF own abattoir with all carcasses inspected, stamped & labelled by HMC Inspectors. They have the latest technology and comprehensive traceability system to ensure products will reach the consumer with the highest standards of food safety and integrity. Product quality and standards are crucial to the highest of standards set by customers demand (i.e. a supermarket chain, restaurant chain). SIF are proud of their record on animal welfare & livestock procurement. This includes offering full traceability from farm to fork, sourcing locally from approved suppliers and livestock markets who are committed to raising livestock to the highest possible standards of Animal Welfare and Husbandry. SIF have a long history of support for British farmers and only sells 100% British beef & 100% British lamb. The staff at SIF who handle Livestock have all received animal welfare training and together with the full time vet and Food Standards Agency team, ensure that the highest welfare standards are maintained at all times.
The Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs in Jan 2015 – Research Paper Writing Help Service, audited the current site to appraise the animal welfare standards & livestock procurement process and gave the site full DEFRA approval.
With kind thanks to Nigel Weaver, Managing Director of NPD Services (a meat industry consultancy) for providing industry knowledge into the food processing industry and kind permission for using this knowledge to develop the fictional case above.
Building High Performance Organisations Assessment One:
Report Brief: The Managing Director of Simply Intolerant Foods (SIF) has invited you to write a report so to gain a greater understanding of the concept of lean, it’s applicability in the food processing company and potential implications when adopting and implementing lean in an increasingly global business environment. You can assume that the Managing Director’s knowledge and understanding of the latest thinking in operations and supply chain management is limited. You are acting as a consultant specialising in lean thinking, process improvement and performance measurement and been invited to address the brief below.
There is an expectation that your research goes beyond the Kennedy, Plunkett and Haider (2013) case notes on implementing lean principles in a food processing company, Christopher and Peck’s (2004) article and the material presented on the module.
This implies a need to conduct your own research into the key themes underpinning the questions below using academic literature available (e.g. journal articles).
Part A – Lessons Learnt for Simply Intolerant Foods (SIF) [approx. 2,000 words]
1. Discuss the development of the philosophy, principles and process of lean in the context of its contribution to manufacturing industries and applicability in the food processing industry
2. Critically evaluate the implications and challenges that may arise when implementing lean in the company ‘Simply Intolerant Foods’. Pay particular attention to SIF’s need to manage and mitigate risk by creating more resilient, traceable and transparent supply chain operations (i.e. as a result of “leaning-down” and/or the increasing complexity of its supply chain in a global business environment).
3. You are expected to offer a set of recommendations to the Managing Director of SIF as a result of your responses to questions 1 and 2.
Part B – Reflections within the context of an organisation familiar to you (e.g. your Current or previous employer; or an organisation of interest) [approx. 1,000 words]
1. Critically reflect on the principles driving Lean implementation and discuss whether an organisation familiar to you:
A) Understands the complexity of their systems
B) Improves processes/activities collaboratively or in isolation
C) Understands the concepts of flow and waste and how these are applied
D) Is able to evaluate the benefit(s) of implementing lean on its business
You will need to briefly introduce your chosen organisation to familiarise the reader with appropriate context to address part B. There are no marks for detailed background to the company. You are being assessed on your reflections, interpretation and application of theory in practice and analytical reasoning using accepted academic practice and literature.
Report Specifications: Your report should be 3000 words approximately excluding title page, references, and appendices. Sticking to a strict word limit is difficult and an important skill for you to acquire, so make sure that you write in a concise and focused manner. It should be typed font size 12 and 1.5 line spacing and must be presented in portrait format, not landscape. You should not be able to complete this task in any less than 3000 words minimum. Please provide an Executive Summary and Contents Page.
An essential feature of the report is to illustrate how theoretical constructs or models can be critically analysed and applied to organisations in practice. You are therefore advised to read widely. In fact, unless you have read and referenced at least 10 discrete references, it is unlikely that you have done sufficient reading. Beware of sources from the Internet (no Wikipedia!): apart from reputable and academic references that can be downloaded through the Internet (commonly via the library catalogue); most Internet references are not considered reliable for an academic piece of work. Academic journals generally offer a better source than textbooks.
You must use the Harvard referencing system. This requires you to state the surname of the author(s) in the text of your report, followed by a comma and year of publication e.g.: “Kraljic (1983) states that….” If you use direct quotes, then the page number should follow e.g.: Kraljic (1983: 112) “The profit impact of a given supply item can be defined in terms of volume purchased, percentage of total purchase cost or impact on product quality or business growth”. Failure to reference properly constitutes a violation of university regulations i.e. plagiarism and is a serious offenc
