Assignment Sample on 7BUS2042 Analytics for Operations and Logistics Management
Introduction
Supply chain management is important for the logistic company to enhance their productivity and to reduce their cost. Logistics is considered to be the entire process of handling how resources are stored, transported and acquired to their final destinations. This study will give a clear understanding of the operation and logistic management by identifying the prospective suppliers and distributors and by determining their accessibility and effectiveness. It will also evaluate the process of operation management which helps Hertfordshire Catering ltd. to effectively Supervise, manage and control people, services and goods. Moreover, the primary aspect of logistic and operation management involves a systematic control and direction of the process which transforms their resources into finished products or services for their clients or customers.
The role of analytics and data information
The role of Data analysts in Hertfordshire Catering ltd. is to optimise the performances in the business. It is done by implementing an appropriate business model which will help the business to reduce costs by investigating efficient ways of doing business. Hertfordshire Catering Ltd. is a school and education catering services and corporate catering for education clients all across the United kingdom. This catering company can use data analytics to make beer decisions related to business. This will help the company to analyse the customer’s satisfaction and trends which can lead to better and new services and products. However, the role of data or information will empower the catering business leaders to make effective decisions that are based on trends, facts as well as statistical numbers (Papadopoulos et al. 2017). By contrast, it is important to investigate the information that is out in the market and get the appropriate information. This is because the leaders of the catering business can construct the best decisions about growth and strategy. On the contrary, business analytics will help Hertfordshire Catering ltd to minimise risks. This will help them to make the right decisions that are based on the data or information available. This involves customer trends, preferences and many more which will help the company to curtail long term and short term risks. In this case, data analytics can minimise the logistics costs on several numbers of various levels as it facilitates great daily operations. However, it is identified that predictive analytics is one of the effective implications of data analytics in the business. This plays a crucial role in logistics for maintaining a balance between supply and demand.
Importance of coordination and integration of data information
In the supply chain, the coordination process is distinguished from information sharing which states that the sharing of data majorly facilitates the exchange of information between different parties. It is the process through which coordination enables optimal solutions and joint decision making for the entire system (Sodero, Jin and Barratt, 2019). However, the process of coordination and information sharing is considered to be the distinct integrative mechanisms with various capabilities but each of these plays is an important aspect in terms of integrative relationships. The resources that are based on integrative partnerships involve non shared and shared resources which together constitute integrated resources. Moreover sharing information within Hertfordshire Catering ltd. will enable the communication much better and all these are based on the shared pool of information. The process of coordination will enable non shared resources like capabilities and tacit knowledge that are to be exploited and linked through the process of decision making and mutual involvement in activities.
Integration of data information within this logistics business will access two major aspects like social aspects and technical aspects. It is the concept of consolidating data from several disparate sources into a single dataset. It has a single dataset with the desired goal of delivering data and consistent access all across the spectrum of structure and subject kinds. The main aspect is to meet the requirements of the information of all business processes and applications. Integrated data in the logistics business will give people the flexibility to use information in various internal systems in whatever manner they want. Thereby it allows the business to understand and address data clearly and abruptly so that they do not face any issue (Wu and Lin, 2018). Data consolidation is the combining, storing and corralling of varied data in a specific place. It lets the users attract different kinds of information from a single point of access. Thus it will help to turn the raw data into insights that will drive faster and better decision making.
The need for competence in operations and logistics management
The individuals who are associated with the logistics business not just only perform transitions based on information or material. However, they also tend to support product development, bringing new or innovative ideas, price promotion, support marketing functions to provide service to the customers. They make sure that Hertfordshire Catering ltd can provide accurate, quality and first service to their customers. The professionals of competent logistics business create opportunities and drive increased revenue for greater cost savings in operation as well as simplify the complexity in the entire network of distribution. On the other hand, logistic management follows some of the logistic competencies to perform their respective job function at their best practices (Anitha and Patil, 2018). Management and sourcing, distribution design is considered to be a knowledge of great practices that are involved in managing and setting up distribution networks and centres which involves value-added services, likely reverse and kitting logistics. However, the logistic competency also involves the ability to design and analyse the network of new distribution and also tends to optimise their existing networks. There are some of the skills that are needed to develop the specification of managing warehouses of logistic business in an appropriate way. Logistic management of Hertfordshire Catering ltd needs to have the ability to design the business processes with their distributing partner so that they can support the SIOP process. However, they also provide support to the distribution oriented analytical projects so that the business can gain new proposals and opportunities for their company. On the other hand, the compliance of global trade is considered to be a knowledge of the physical movement of goods as well as the process through which products leave and enter a particular country. It is entirely accessible with all regulations and laws in order to mitigate and manage the risk of foreign businesses. Therefore the competencies of logistics and operation management of Hertfordshire Catering ltd involve the basic understanding of the responsibilities and duties within the area of export or import for an organisation. It is also important to identify the role of government bodies of the United Kingdom in mandating trade compliance.
Use of business analytics to support operational decision making
Data analytics of Hertfordshire Catering ltd will allow the executives to conduct decisions that are based on several statistical facets. Each of these aspects can be used for guiding the choices that are made about the company growth for the future which evaluates the long-term view of the competition and the market. However, the analytics of this catering company will investigate the decisions of executives. They will streamline the process of identifying productivity and will visualise each area in the company which involves employee management (Gunasekaran and Subramanian, 2018). They will investigate actionable insights and the executive of the company will determine the major effective approach or strategy which will help to enhance the productivity of the employee, reduce employee turnover or streamline the process of recruitment. The data analytics of Hertfordshire Catering ltd will allow the managers to funnel each of the facts in making critical operational decisions. Thereby using data analytics will identify each of the opportunities and problematic areas which will allow for the catering company to construct decisions that will find their inventory management. In this case of logistics and operation management, the decision taken by the executives will reduce excess inventory, simultaneously it will also reduce the cost to manage and maintain it. Therefore with greater visibility, the catering company can conduct better decisions based on when to order and how much to order. Acknowledging the ordering patterns of the product along with the great prices, quantities and time to buy will also allow the executive to change the tiers of price by capitalising on each of the opportunities and increasing the profit margin (Schlegel, Birkel and Hartmann, 2020). Data analytics of Hertfordshire Catering ltd needs to offer an updated view of the financial picture of the organisation. The executive can view the figures of the balance sheet, profit and loss as well as general ledger through features like Phocas financial statements.
Recommended application of analytical techniques for HCL
Organisational
The process of applying analytical techniques within the organisation will appraise the personnel operation, working environment and growth of the entity. Undertaking the organisational analysis is considered to be beneficial because it will enable the management of Hertfordshire Catering ltd to investigate each of the areas that are facing issues and will find appropriate approaches for mitigating the issues. There are several essential aspects of organisational analysis which involve the assessment of external elements that can influence the entire performance of the organisation (Webber and Zheng, 2020). Moreover, the organisational analysis will involve strategic evaluation of organisational resources and potential base.
Human Resources
The analytics of human resources is a data-driven approach that manages people at the workplace. In this case, the role of HR analytics is designed to clarify the obligation and expectations of the team members to enhance the team effectiveness within Hertfordshire Catering Ltd. In this catering business, there are several individuals who have a specialised role through which they can manifest specific behaviour (Akter et al. 2019). Moreover, the division of function and labour within this company facilitates the performance of the entire organisation. The team of human resources will help this catering company to shape each of the aspects related to employee experience and will recruit the best HR professionals.
Cultural
Analytical culture is integrated as a soft element that encourages the process of decision making within the organisation based on robust and rational assumptions. Additionally, it enhances the rigger of analytical culture, decision-making process empowers the innovators to develop the performance for the long-term within the organisation. The structure of leadership, core values and missions, office environment, communication system, team engagement and interpersonal relationship plays an important role within Hertfordshire Catering Ltd. It is important for this catering business to foster the culture by embracing each of the changes that are accessible and relevant to the professionals of logistic and operation management.
Operational process
Logistic operations consist of several processes of moving finished products or goods which initiate from the manufacturer of a distribution centre to the end-user (Koot, Mes and Iacob, 2021). The entire logistics process takes place in Hertfordshire Catering Ltd. It consists of fulfilling orders, shipping packages and managing inventory. It can be also emphasized that order fulfilment, inventory management and warehousing also plays a major role in optimising the operations in the logistics business. Thereby the logistic operation can also be enhanced by optimising aspects of the entire supply chain. On the other hand, the managers of logistic operations also head up into the distribution centres and tend to oversee the order fulfilment and shipping operations. It mainly ensures that the right products are delivered to the end consumer in an affordable and quick manner.
Conclusion
From the study, it can be concluded that logistic management plays an important role in Hertfordshire Catering ltd. that imbed of an efficient and effective flow of products and materials from the factory to the end-users. This study has given a clear understanding of the role of analytics and data information. It states that the entire process of managing the resources of this catering business involves identifying prospective suppliers and distributors and determining accessibility and effectiveness. Hence, it can be noted that logistics and operation management is considered to be the department that takes care of the flow of goods between the point of origin as well as the point of consumption in order to acquire the requirements of corporations or customers.
Reference
Papadopoulos, T., Gunasekaran, A., Dubey, R. and Fosso Wamba, S., 2017. Big data and analytics in operations and supply chain management: managerial aspects and practical challenges. Production Planning & Control, 28(11-12), pp.873-876.
Sodero, A., Jin, Y.H. and Barratt, M., 2019. The social process of Big Data and predictive analytics use for logistics and supply chain management. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management.
Wu, P.J. and Lin, K.C., 2018. Unstructured big data analytics for retrieving e-commerce logistics knowledge. Telematics and Informatics, 35(1), pp.237-244.
Anitha, P. and Patil, M.M., 2018. A review on data analytics for supply chain management: a case study. International Journal of Information Engineering and Electronic Business, 10(5), p.30.
Gunasekaran, A. and Subramanian, N., 2018. Sustainable operations modeling and data analytics.
Schlegel, A., Birkel, H.S. and Hartmann, E., 2020. Enabling integrated business planning through big data analytics: a case study on sales and operations planning. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management.
Webber, K.L. and Zheng, H., 2020. Data Analytics and the Imperatives for Data-Informed Decision-Making in Higher Education. Big Data on Campus: Data Analytics and Decision Making in Higher Education.
Akter, S., Bandara, R., Hani, U., Wamba, S.F., Foropon, C. and Papadopoulos, T., 2019. Analytics-based decision-making for service systems: A qualitative study and agenda for future research. International Journal of Information Management, 48, pp.85-95.
Koot, M., Mes, M.R. and Iacob, M.E., 2021. A systematic literature review of supply chain decision making supported by the Internet of Things and Big Data Analytics. Comput. Ind. Eng., 154, p.107076.
