OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT

OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Introduction

The operations management in a business is the planning, organising, supervision and control of business activities to enhance the quality of production processes. In this project, the operations management principles have been considered to review and critique the operations management practices of Costa Coffee. The scientific management theory and the lean principles have been used to determine the operations management practices by the company. The continuous development plan has been devised to satisfy the improvement needs of the business. The six sigma model has been used to determine the implications of the continuous improvement strategies of the business.

Costa Coffee is a British coffeehouse chain that is headquartered in Dunstable, England, UK. The company is a subsidiary of the Coca-Cola company. The company has been found by Bruno Costa and Sergio Costa. Costa Coffee has a heritage of over 50 years and is present in over 3883 locations worldwide. The company employees over 18412 people to serve their products in their supreme quality. Costa coffee specialises in serving coffee, tea, sweets, snacks and iced drinks (Costa Coffee, 2021).

Cross rail is a railway construction project that is branded as the Elizabeth line. The project has 41 stations and the status is opened due to the underway constructions. The service is a national rail that had opened in May 2015. Operating speed of the rail service is 140 km/h (90 mph). The locations of this project are in Greater London, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Essex (Crossrail, 2021).

P1 Conduct a review and critique of the implementation of operations management principles within an organisational context.

Operational management principles integrate the process of planning and functional methodologies for enhancing the product/service quality. The operations management principles increase the profitability of the organization by improving the efficiency of business operations. The operations management principles are essential for ensuring the set of standards that have been aligned with the company’s goals and objectives. The application of operations management principles on the operations management model of Costa Coffee has been done to review and critique the implementation.

Scientific Management

Scientific management is a business decision-making process that integrates research data to improve business processes. The scientific management theory was given by FW Taylor which focuses on more efficient workers that produce work without flaws. The scientific management theory synthesis the workflow for improving the economic efficiency in the business environment. The process and functions of scientific management theory in the organisational context of Costa Coffee has been evaluated below

Piece rate

Piece rate is a wage determination system that allows the company to create a unit of creation. The piece rate determines the employee satisfaction and motivation within the business environment. Costa Coffee has to consider the piece rate determination to establish a concern for employees that will ensure maximum productivity within the business environment. The piece rate will determine the output produced by the company that will enhance the sales and job satisfaction within the business environment as well as the profitability of the organisation.

Quality improvement

The constant experimentation for integrating new technologies make work easier and efficient. The application of old techniques for innovation ca not always work in the business environment. Innovation in business processes improves quality. Costa Coffee has implemented a self-service technology that allows the customers to place orders from their mobile device (Mottl, 2021). This technology allows the company to digitise its front operations service.

Work standardisation

Taylorism theory stated that the two important entities of business, Labour and management should be considered imperative to each other. This makes the entities interdependent of each other causing a Mental revolution where the conflict resolution is best for the entire organisation. The employees of the Essex franchisee of Costa Coffee has accused the company of unfair deductions in the payroll. The company declared this matter as a matter of urgency and informed the franchise manager to take corrective actions for the same (Yusuf, 2021). The work standardisation of labour and management is necessary for conflict resolution in the operations management of the business.

Teamwork

The cooperation in determining the set standards of production and service quality will help enhance the responsibility factor among the employees of the company. The manager and workers should work together for achieving profitability for the company. Costa coffee believes in the collective passion which is one of the major competitive advantages for the company. This cooperation between the management and employees of the company has led to the company being described as a gold standard (British Baker, 2021).

Training and development

Costa coffee believes that training of their employees is a huge factor for investment in the business. The company has also launched a costa academy that provides online training programs for their staff (British Baker, 2021). The training and development of employees are essential for the company to gain a competitive advantage in the market.

Disadvantages of Scientific management theory

The implementation of the scientific management theory in the business operations entails a high capital requirement. The capital investment and the costs will be high which make the business accustomed to higher costs of operations. The standardisation of processes and planning the departmental activities will increase the costs for the company. There is a lack of flexibility in the implications of scientific management which makes the business model less adaptable to environmental factors. The business operations can get monotonous for the workers as the worker are trained to be specialised in the only thing. Moreover, democratic leadership and management cannot exist with the application of scientific management principles in the business model.

Learning program

During the pandemic as all the coffee shops were closed and there were no programs that could be held offline (Le, 2020). To tackle this Costa coffee came up with multiple online programs to provide training and improve the knowledge of all the employees. The baristas were given specialized training and information about the upcoming products online so that after the lockdown is lifted, they can get back to working with new recruits having prior training. They also had to make all the staff accustomed to follow all the safety guidelines provided by the government authority after the pandemic. As sustainability has become the prime focus of people and a vital part of any corporate social responsibility all the organizations are forced to take steps towards them. In pursuit of becoming sustainable and reducing the carbon footprint to zero that company made many changes in the operations. All the equipment was updated and replaced the old ones and training was provided virtually.

Lean Principle

The principle of Lean operations signifies waste management techniques in the company. The efforts taken by the company for a leaner operations management process determine the quality of the production process and profitability of the company. The elimination of waste according to the lean principle influences the quality of products that are produced by the company (Marodin et al.,2018). The lean operations of Costa Coffee have been assessed by applying various tools and techniques below

Waste elimination

The waste elimination in the business operations starts with the planning process where the company redirects its strategic directions towards focusing on managing waste from its business operations. The inputs required by the company are reduced by implementing waste reduction strategies. Costa Coffee is managing the waste generated by introducing lean operations in its packaging and material used for serving the customers (Rutherford, 2020). The company started accepting reusable cups to eliminate the water generated from serving the customers in plastic or paper cups. The customer bought reusable cups will reduce the input required by Costa Coffee.

Behaviour

The flow of value is shortened to eliminate the waste generated and have better visual control on the business operations. The flow of value of Costa Coffee is made into a sustainable chain through the sourcing of raw materials that are sustainably grown. The visual control of the supply chain will give the company better access to control the quality of products produced in their system (Pfanner, 2021).

Synchronisation

The synchronisation of the business process enables the company to reduce the time required to produce products. The operation cycle of the company is reduced with the synchronisation of processes leading to a faster capital realisation. The just in time techniques reduce the flow time required by the distribution channels leading to a synchronised operations process. Costa Coffee has introduced a street-facing counter on the street of London where the customers can also order their coffee from the Costa Coffee Club app (Leader, 2020). This has reduced the time taken by the company to serve its customers.

Customer focus

The customer-centric approach focuses on building a business that dedicates its operations towards what the customer wants. The goals of the business are aligned with the needs and want of the customer. Costa coffee has integrated its lean operations for serving the customers in a better way. The company has introduced an anti-bacterial reusable cup lid for the hygiene conscious customers (Milan, 2020). This enhances the business operations and sales of the company.

Disadvantages of lean principles

The lean principles give the business very little margin to make any errors. The optimism in the projection of errors might lead to disruption of business operations. Primary customer relationship can be harmed with the breakdown of operations management systems. The timely shipments to primary customers can take time to produce products in the line management of the company.

P2 Prepare a continuous improvement plan based on the review and critique of operations management principles within an organizational context.

Continuous improvement plan

Improvement in marketing: The main strategy used for promoting and marketing by Costa coffee is by using digital marketing campaign. Social media marketing is the main source of marketing used by all the organisations as it is the most convenient and effective way of reaching customers. The marketing manager has to make strategies so that the financial resources are used effectively. Improvement in HR: Effective and convenient ways of communication are essential within the business environment. Best way to achieve this is by using software and developing it according to the requirement of the organisation. The IT officer and the HR manager have to sit and decide a strategy according to the need of the business. Improvement in manufacturing: Continuous updating is needed to the manufacturing process in order to be in line with the modern trends and also increase the profitability. This can be done by the application of the kaizen technique to continuously achieve improvement and keep increasing the efficiency of the plant. Various employee training activities can be held to make sure everyone is aware about their responsibilities and work efficiently. Improvement in technology: In todays modern world the needs of the consumer keep changing which has forced all the organisation to invest a lot of sum in researching and development of new products. Costa has allocated around £2 million for the research and development. Skills workers need to be recruited who can work and make changes according to the customer feedback. It is the work of the production director to lead this and analyse the effectiveness of it.

Six Sigma Model

The six sigma model is also known as the DMAIC model. The six sigma model includes five dimensions that ensure the continuous improvement of the business process for enhancing the quality of production control (Antony et al.,2017). The six sigma model has been applied to the business processes of Costa Coffee to analyse the operations management processes of the company.

Define

The problem is defined in this dimension where the definition of goals leads to a clear picture of what the issues faced by the company are. Costa Coffee has been facing a huge problem of changing customer behaviour in recent times (Lewis, 2021). The company has rightly defined this problem to further measure and analyse the actions that can be taken to solve the issue.

Measure

The complexities and intricacies of the organisation's operations management process are defined to establish a computed presentation of the problems. The problem defined earlier had been the changing customer behaviour which can be overcome by analysing the customer sentiments through leveraging loyalty data (Lewis, 2021). This will help the customer get information access from their primary customers.

Analyse

The analysis of the problem is necessary for the implementation and execution of business processes. The analysis of consumer understanding is easier with the leveraging of data. This will be a power to control the understanding of what the customers want.

Improve

The business processes should be constantly improved to serve the customers in a better way. Costa Coffee will be able to improve its business processes by improving its products and services according to the needs of the market. Analysing the consumer data Costa coffee has introduced 3 new products in their menu that will better serve the needs of the market according to the season (Lewis, 2021).

Control

The control of the implemented innovative strategy is necessary for ensuring the smooth operations of the business. The Control function of the six sigma model helps the company avoid contingencies for the future. The constant analysis of the segmented data will ensure control on understanding the consumer behaviour in the market.

P3 Apply each stage of the PLC to a given project, producing necessary supporting documentation for completing the project

Project life cycle

Business case: The service of the London Underground Network has become unreliable and with causing discomfort to the passengers it also has an impact on the economy as the sectors that generate wealth are concentrated heavily in the areas within central London. The Crossrail project is in order to curb the overcrowding on the current rail services in and around London (BBC News, 2021). Without upgrading the current network, the financial community and the status of London as the major center for finance is under threat. Crossrail with have a significant and lasting impact towards improvement in the services and the experience of people travelling in London as it will increase the capacity by about 7% in the central areas. It will cut down the travel time and also improve the connectivity as well as make travelling by trains much more convenient.

Project initiation: Crossrail is the biggest infrastructure investment in UK and also Europe. In 2007 the Department for Transport and TfD agreed to funding the project by following certain terms. Crossrail limited was made the delivery vehicle and the construction work was started on May,2009. The initial fund that was assigned was of 15.9 billion pounds but after extensive value engineering and mitigation of the risk they were able to revise the budget to 14.8 billion pounds in 2010. There were various meetings held with the local authorities to understand their concerns and come up with solutions for them. The public consultation was planned to be carried out for 12 weeks.

Project definition: sustainability has become the primary concern in the world after the pandemic this is also to be brought into practice in the transportation industry. To promote sustainable choices of transportation and sustainable development the project presented the benefits of the new railway. It also showcased the provisions for future development in the sustainable operations.

Scope of the Project: The construction of the ticket hall and tunnelling under Central London are the main engineering difficulties to be faced in the construction of Crossrail. Unexpected problems can arise at any time even after using technology that is reliable and established. This can disturb the time table and also increase the costs drastically. As most of these problems would arise during the operations it cannot be anticipated and to tackle them careful planning and management is needed. To turn such a big project into reality innovative programs for finance and funding needed to be applied. The main sources for funding Crossrail are:

• Revenue that will be generated from future passengers will roughly cover two thirds of the total cost of the project.

• European unions

• Voluntary or mandatory contributions from individuals and businesses from London

• Property revenues

• Direct Exchequer support

Project planning: To perform Trial Runs for testing and improvement Crossrail has increased efforts for completing the constructions that is remaining. This was done by a 6-week blockade in September and also an 11-day blockade in the month of November and some more during the festive season (Horgan, 2020). All the blockades were highly productive and turned out to be successful. This time was used to finish the work in the central section as this is usually busy and the productivity of work performed here is low during normal operations. Elizabeth line is the most complex parts of the final stages and the completion of this has come up at a time when there is a lot of uncertainty as the risks have increased by Covid-19 outbreaks (Reuters, 2020). Plans and strategies had to be made to tackle the additional problems created by the pandemic so that the work does not get delayed and the costs are under control as the funding is limited. The duration of the nationwide lockdown stopped the operations completely and had drastic impact on the project.

P4 Review and critique the effectiveness of the PLC in application to the chosen project using appropriate theories, concepts and models

The critical review of analysing the effectiveness of the project life cycle has been performed with the help pf appropriate theories and models. The analysis will be utilizing the waterfall methodology to critique the effectiveness on the stakeholders of the company. The following matter will discuss the same with an analytical view on results achieved with the strategic implementation of the PLC.

Waterfall methodology

Waterfall methodology is a model that follows a linear project methodology. The model is a systematic approach that establishes a modern perspective on progress that is sequential. The linear project management process states the requirements, design, implication, verification and maintenance in the respective order (Andrei et al.,2019). The project life cycle that has been mentioned above distinctly satisfies all the phases in the waterfall methodology. Requirement of resources has been defined in the business case that has been prepared for the operations of Crossrails. Project design has been stated in the project definition of the PLC. The implications of the project have been predicted in the scope of Crossrails in the PLC. Verification and maintenance from the project initiation to the project execution has been well resources in the PLC. The consideration of waterfall methodology to analyse the effectiveness of the PLC has critically reviewed the effectiveness of the Crossrails project.

Agile methodology

Crossrails is a project that has exemplified as a perfect example of utilizing the agile methodology for the company’s benefits. The repetitive working pattern that has been undertaken in the project management creates short cycle for the completion of the project. The team that has executed the project has unfolded the iterative approach with the deferred logic. This reduced the time taken in the project initiation phase of the project life cycle. The enhanced communication played a huge role in the familiarity of the project with the community and stakeholders. Adoption of the agile methodology has propagated teamwork and enhanced the productivity in the internal environment. The collaborative relationship that ensured the employees that they are paid for the same. Increased transparency is the aim of the cross rail website. There are videos that have provided the key statistics of the company. Crossrails has projected a revenue and boost in economy with £42 billion that will be earned with additional 1.5 million people that are projected to commute around Central London. The project was able to secure a loan from the government to survive in the pandemic. Additional loan that was approved amounted to £825 million (Talora, 2021). The above financials will be a result for huge benefits that will be secured in Central London and South east. Cloud based system of the entire process simplified the operations of the project. Within Crossrail, the effort to speed up the process with automation and software examine the project agility in the market.

Conclusion

From the above discussion it has been concluded that Costa Coffee has made operational efforts for managing their quality and production through integrating innovation and technology in their business processes. The application of operations management principles like the scientific management theory and the lean principles have given an insight on how the company has managed to maintain their marketing and operational efforts throughout. The continuous development plan is a detailed structure for determining the needs of the market and implementing activities in the specified timeframe. The Six model highlights the quality development process of Costa Coffee. It has been observed that the Cross rail’s project is an effective project with a clear and distinct project lifecycle that has been outlined in this report. The report outlines the business case, project initiation, project definition, scope of the project and project planning for the analysis of PLC. The effectiveness of the project was examined by using the agile and waterfall models and methodologies.

References

Andrei, B.A., Casu-Pop, A.C., Gheorghe, S.C. and Boiangiu, C.A., 2019. A study on using waterfall and agile methods in software project management. Journal Of Information Systems & Operations Management, pp.125-135.

Antony, J., Snee, R. and Hoerl, R., 2017. Lean Six Sigma: yesterday, today and tomorrow. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management.

BBC News. 2021. London Underground: 'Measures in place' to prevent overcrowding. [online] Available at: <https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-55676630> [Accessed 8 February 2021].

British Baker. 2021. Out Of Home Business Of The Year 2020. [online] Available at <https://bakeryinfo.co.uk/events/out-of-home-business-of-the-year-2020/652298.article> [Accessed 23 January 2021].

Costa.co.uk. 2021. Our History. [online] Available at: <https://www.costa.co.uk/behind-the-beans/our-story/history> [Accessed 23 January 2021].

Crossrail. 2021. Welcome to Crossrail. [online] Available at: <https://www.crossrail.co.uk/> [Accessed 8 February 2021].

Horgan, R., 2020. Crossrail enters another construction blockade ahead of train testing - New Civil Engineer. [online] New Civil Engineer. Available at: <https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/crossrail-enters-another-construction-blockade-ahead-of-train-testing-25-11-2020/> [Accessed 8 February 2021].

Le, T.T., Andreadakis, Z., Kumar, A., Román, R.G., Tollefsen, S., Saville, M. and Mayhew, S., 2020. The COVID-19 vaccine development landscape. Nat Rev Drug Discov, 19(5), pp.305-306.

Leader, A., 2020. Costa Coffee Trials Street-Facing Counter For First Time At London Store. [online] The Grocer. Available at: <https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/store-design/costa-coffee-trials-street-facing-counter-for-first-time-at-london-store/647795.article> [Accessed 23 January 2021].

Lewis, A., 2021. Costa’S New Lattes Sound So Delicious We Could Cry. [online] Delish. Available at: <https://www.delish.com/uk/food-news/a35159961/costa-coffee-lattes/> [Accessed 23 January 2021].

Marodin, G., Frank, A.G., Tortorella, G.L. and Netland, T., 2018. Lean product development and lean manufacturing: Testing moderation effects. International Journal of Production Economics, 203, pp.301-310.

Milan, A., 2020. Costa Coffee Releases Reuseable Antibacterial Coffee Cup Lids. [online] Metro. Available at: <https://metro.co.uk/2020/11/12/costa-coffee-release-reuseable-anti-bacterial-coffee-cup-lids-13582491/> [Accessed 23 January 2021].

Mottl, J., 2021. How, Why AI Is Driving Innovative Vending Operations. [online] www.vendingtimes.com. Available at: <https://www.vendingtimes.com/articles/how-why-ai-is-driving-innovative-vending-operations/> [Accessed 23 January 2021].

Pfanner, E., 2020. Now, Drink Coffee Without Milk To Cut Your Carbon Footprint, Starbucks Says. [online] ThePrint. Available at: <https://theprint.in/environment/now-drink-coffee-without-milk-to-cut-your-carbon-footprint-starbucks-says/352903/> [Accessed 23 January 2021].

Reuters. 2021. London's Crossrail delayed again until 2022 after COVID-19 disruption. [online] Available at: <https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-crossrail-idUKKBN25H1B8> [Accessed 8 February 2021].

Rutherford, O., 2020. Campaign Urges Reopening Cafes To Accept Reusable Cups. [online] Resource Magazine. Available at: <https://resource.co/article/campaign-urges-reopening-cafes-accept-reusable-cups> [Accessed 23 January 2021].

Talora, J., 2021. Covid-19 adds to risks of Crossrail delay warns new London Assembly report - Hackney Citizen. [online] Hackney Citizen. Available at: <https://www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2021/02/05/london-assembly-crossrail-report-light-end-tunnel/> [Accessed 8 February 2021].

Yusuf, H., 2019. Costa Coffee: Employees Call £200 Deductions For Training 'Unfair'. [online] BBC News. Available at: <https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-49292051> [Accessed 23 January 2021].