C11OE
Operations Management
Individual Coursework – Assessment II To be submitted by:
4th December 2023 – 12 pm (UK)
1. AssessmentDescription
This is an individual assignment which requires you to produce a piece of academic writing, based on peer-reviewed research and/or industry reports. The focus of the assessment revolves around the principles of layout design. The task you are going to complete required you to incorporate knowledge you obtained in the areas of process and layout design, sustainable operations as well as capacity management.
All of the above should be considered the context of the following setting:
Royal Mail – Mail Centres (hereafter MCs) are the backbone of national letter and parcel sorting and distribution operations within the United Kingdom. Approximately 99% of all letters and 45% of parcels delivered within the UK are sorted and distributed within Royal Mail’s MCs. Volumes fluctuate across each day of the week and furthermore are heavily impacted by seasonal events like Black Friday, Christmas, Easter, or Valentines Day. These events also chance the portfolio of parcels which arrive in the MCs. Valentines Day as an example traditionally led to significantly higher volumes of flowers (fragile and sizable parcels) which in turn can affect the day-to-day sorting operation in terms of available space for storage of sorted and unsorted mail as well as sorting speeds to oversized parcels and extra care which needs to be taken when processing these parcels.
The MC which you are looking to optimise in terms of its sorting operation operates seven days a week and across three shifts per day. The specific processing area you are looking to improve is the sorting operation of all parcels for the wider Edinburgh area. The total volume per week for this area is 123,000 items. During peak seasons like Christmas or Black Friday, this volume increases to up to 250,000 items per week.
Across an entire week the total volume per week can approximately be split the following way:
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday 12% 8% 30% 25% 15% 6% 4%
This distribution stays roughly the same across the entire year with hardly any fluctuation.
As you learned before, the parcel sortation area you are looking to improve is the Edinburgh work area. This area has 14 postcode selections, starting from EH1 to EH14, each of these postcodes receives a specific percentage of parcels which needs to be sorted correctly into a container which can hold up to 250 parcels. The distribution of parcel volumes per postcode area is as follows:
EH1 EH2 EH3 EH4 EH5 EH6 EH7 15% 15% 8% 7% 5% 5% 12%
EH8 EH9 EH10 EH11 EH12 EH13 EH14 13% 10% 2% 1.5% 1% 0.5% 5%
Currently the layout design for the sorting of all EH1-14 parcel work areas looks very similar to the plan below.
PP
A maximum of two members of staff can sort in one of these areas at any given time due to space constraints. Adding additional members of staff leads to reductions of each “sorters” efficiency as they end up crossing over each other, hindering the speed at which sorting can occur.
Sorters pick the parcels from the yellow containers and sort them into the containers which are labelled from 1 to 14 representing the postcodes of the Edinburgh area. Sorters are predominantly facing into the direction the arrows indicate. The sorter is only meant to move to remove full containers of sorted parcels (EH1 – EH14) or to remove empty containers of unsorted parcels in order to replace them with a full container of still to be sorted ones.
Because of these conditions, parcels are commonly thrown into the EH1-14 labelled containers from the position of the individual sorter. Furthermore, in order to sort parcels into the containers labelled other than 1 to 6, sorters need to twist and turn to varying degrees in order to face the direction of the labelled containers. According to previously stated volume distribution of to be sorted parcels per postcode, this can put significant strain on the sorters depending on the frequency they have to twist and turn with. Continuously undertaking such strenuous work will reduce the speed at which sorters can process parcels at. Reducing such strain can be argued for due to various reasons of which operational efficiency is but one.
Last, as with any operations not everything always works as it should. There occasionally are missorted parcels which cannot be processed in the designated EH sorting setup. In order to ensure great customer service these, need to be isolated for further processing in other sorting setups. Parcels could have a PH/DD or EH 18-55 as well as TD postcode. The reduction of double handling is an existing concern even though these volumes of missorted parcels are marginal (below 2%).
Having all this information at your disposal your task is the following:
• Redesign the existing parcel sorting operation for the Edinburgh work area based on the data available to yourself.
• Reasonable assumptions can be made in line with both academic literature and/or information made available to you through this assessment brief.
• Clearly articulate the decisions you are making in regards of the redesign and provide a rationale based on your analysis and/or academic literature for your choices.
• Visualise the new layout design as you see fit, you are free to use hand drawn illustrations or software generated visualisations.
Your report should be between 1,500 and 2,000 words and contain at least 10 references of suitable relevance and quality. Around half of your references should be of a current nature to highlight the relevance and timeliness of your work (less than 3 years old). The word count excludes figures and tables, reference list, and appendices. You should include an introduction, conclusion, and reference list using Harvard formatting. This individual assignment will account for 60% of your final course mark.
Your report will be marked according to the following criteria:
• Understanding and analysis of existing flaws/constraints of the sorting operation (30%)
• Considerate and supported informed design choices and layout (30%)
• Visualisation and viability of design choices and layout (15%)
• Academic writing, referencing and structure (25%)
Assignments should be submitted on Canvas via the appropriate link by 12 pm UK local time on 4th December. Late submissions will incur a 30% penalty. Submissions more than five working days late (11th December 2023 – 12 pm UK local time) will not be marked and will not receive feedback.
Criterion description
Rating Scale
Excellent Good Satisfactory Poor Very Poor 70+ 60-69 50-59 40-49 0-39
Clear understanding by identification of constraints and flaws through analysis of existing setup and information. (30%)
No evidence of clear understanding informed by analysis of the problem setting.
Layout redesign clearly derived from preceding analysis and supported by relevant academic sources. (30%)
Redesign unrelated to analysis or without evidence from academic sources.
Visualisation of redesign is clear, accessible and appears viable for implementation (15%)
No to limited visualisation of layout redesign with limited to very limited clarity. Appears unviable.
Excellent report structure resulting in arguments supported by relevant and correct referencing. (25%)
No to limited referencing, inconsistent structure and flow of writing, incoherent approach to academic writing.
2. Referencing Recommendations
Selected references should be of immediate relevance to the subject area you are discussing, of a contemporary nature (not outdated), specific enough to support your writing and the development of your own understanding regarding the subject matter. Last, your references will be required to be of an appropriate quality for this type of work.
Quality references include peer-reviewed journal articles, books, theses, and videos from top business schools. Wikipedia and The Daily Mail (amongst other similar outlets) should not be included in any coursework unless specified otherwise!
You must cite in text and list references using the Heriot-Watt/Harvard referencing style which is detailed further in the following section.
You must write your Project Report in third person. It will be marked down considerably if you write it in first person. According to Heriot-Watt University coursework policy, late submissions will receive a 30% penalty. 30% of the otherwise achieved mark will be deducted i.e. If your mark would have been 70% but you submitted late, 70% * 0.7 = 49% which would mean your mark now is 49%.
3. Referencing Work
Referencing should allow another person to find ALL the books and articles cited in submissions. The Harvard Referencing System is one of the most widely used referencing system in academic work and is also Heriot-Watt University’s approved system. The referencing system covers all types of written materials, with work taken from the Internet recently covered by an international agreement.
ALL texts referenced within the body of the diary or written report must be fully cited within a Reference section at the end (immediately after conclusions but before any Appendices).
In your assessed work you are expected to use Harvard Referencing whenever you cite a course of information: when you state facts, cite data, or present an argument informed by your reading:
• state which sources support your work
• if you are presenting a critical analysis also cite the sources that you are refuting
The library has some excellent information on how and where to cite using the Harvard Referencing system.
For advice on how and what to reference please visit:
You will need to login with your student account.
4. Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the intentional presentation of another person’s work as your own. This includes copying a piece of literature and/or another source, and claiming it as own work. The university has a very strong policy concerning plagiarism, with the ultimate penalty being expulsion. Any assessments found to contain plagiarised work will automatically receive a mark of ZERO, and the person/s responsible will be referred to the programme leader who may take this to the University for more formal discipline. Plagiarism is a serious academic offence.
See:
Self-plagiarism is also considered a disciplinary offence. Self-plagiarism is defined as using the same piece of work or parts of the same piece of work in submissions for different courses, or in different assessments within the same course.
Please see
Before submitting any assessed or written work, students are advised to read the referencing guidelines. Specifically, they should ensure that all literature used during the writing of the essay is properly referenced using the Harvard Referencing System. This is a marked requirement of submissions
5. AssignmentFormatting
Aspect
‘Word’ Command
Line
Recommended Setting
Language
English (UK)
Word count
Between 2500 and 3000 words
Excludes abstract, references, tables, and graphs i.e., main text only
Paper Size
File, Page setup – Paper.
A4
Line spacing
Format, Paragraph, Indents & spacing
One and a half spacing, not single or double.
Text
Format, Styles & Formatting
Times New Roman, Calibri, Arial
Font
Format, Styles &
Formatting
12-point font
Alignment
Format, Styles & Formatting
Justified (i.e., straight edges)
Introduction
Required
Main Body
Required
Conclusion
Required
Table of Contents
Insert, Reference, Index & Tables
Required
List of Figures
Insert, Reference, Index & Tables
Required
(Note all figures in the main text must be numbered, titled, and attributed)
List of Tables
Insert, Reference, Index & Tables
Required
(Note all tables in the main text must be numbered, titled, and attributed)
Abbreviations
Optional
Glossary of Terms
Optional
Main text Chapter & Section Headings
Format, Bullets & Numbering, Outline numbered
Required,
Chapter title, bold, outlined numbered
e.g., Heading1,
Section title, bold, outlined numbered e.g., 1.1, Sub section title, outlined numbered e.g., 1.1.1
References
Harvard system
Appendices
Optional
Appendix title, bold, outlined numbered e.g., Appendix 1, start each Appendix on new page
Format
Word or pdf
