The purpose of this assignment is to assess your knowledge and understanding of key operations management concepts covered in the course so far.
A company that manufactures clothing (DTKs Kidzone) for children is growing fast. The CEO has decided to reconfigure the supply chain in order to cope with growing customer demands and to take advantage of potential cost savings overseas. The manufacturing operations are being moved to China while some distribution centres are moved to Eastern Europe to provide better service to a growing market there. While these changes are being made the CEO is targeting an improvement on stock-holding costs and has requested some data on inventory turns. The following data has been provided for the previous year’s trading.
Production materials £1,360,000
Work in progress £3,250,000
Finished goods £5,010,000
The total cost of goods sold last year was £25 million.
The industry average for inventory turnover is 3.1.
Compile a report for the CEO outlining how DTKs Kidzone compares to other companies in the industry. (10%)
Outline how DTKs Kidzone could improve their inventory turnover. In your report explain the relationship between inventory turnover and stock-holding costs. (20%)
The CEO of DTKs Kidzone would like to understand how the move to China might affect the inventory holding costs but you know of other supply chain key performance indicators that will be critical to DTK Kidzone’s success. (30%)
In your report to the CEO, discuss the issue of inventory turnover as well as two other supply chain key performance indicators advising the CEO how the move might affect DTKs Kidzone in these key supply chain measures. (40%)
To submit your work, please go to the ‘Submit your work’ area of the Module NILE site. It is important that you submit your work to the correct module NILE site, and that your work is submitted on time.
Your assignment must be word-processed and presented in a report format with simple sub-headings. The word count should be 2000 words±10% (tables, diagrams and appendices are excluded from the count).
The Assignment report should have a Front-Cover showing your name, your student number, the module name, the module number, the assignment title, the module tutor’s name, the date and the word count.
All assignments will be submitted, graded and fed back electronically via TURNITIN. Several submissions will be permitted before the Hand-in date in order to enable you to refine the content in your report.
If you click on the “Submit Your Work” button on the Module NILE site you will find an explanation of the Submission and Grading Electronically process there.
Feedback on assignments, in general, will be provided to the whole group when marked assignments are returned.
Feedback on assignments for each individual will be provided electronically via TURNITIN.
A student may request an individual appointment to discuss feedback with the tutor by requesting an appointment at the end of a class or by email.
It is important that students properly research this assignment and provide accurate and appropriate referencing. As a rough guide, a student should provide 3 (three) appropriate references to support the description of each of the concepts and identify organisations that have successfully implemented the concepts.
The quality of your presentation and academic referencing is very important. Please, use the Harvard Referencing System.
Within your assignment, your tutor will be looking for content that addresses the key elements of the assignment brief.
Look at the checklist on the preceding page; it shows the subheadings to use and offers a guide as to what the marker will be looking for.
Use the percentages as a guide to how to distribute your word count.
This is an individual/group assignment. The University of Northampton policy will apply in all cases of copying, plagiarism or any other methods by which students have obtained (or attempted to obtain) an unfair advantage.
Support and guidance on assessments and academic integrity can be found from the following resources
SkillsHub: http://skillshub.northampton.ac.uk
CfAP: http://tinyurl.com/UoNCfAP
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