Operational Issues Impacting Performance (Essay Sample)

Identify an operational issue that impacts on performance within somewhere you work or have worked or, alternatively, you can use one of the videos provided in Video Resources. Evaluate suppositions and propositions about how operational performance can be explained and improved through the application of operations and service management theory.
You are required to write a piece of evaluative written work that uses recommended sources of knowledge to justify propositions about how operational performance can be explained and improved in a real-life context (2,500 words).
Briefly, you are to analyse the issue by applying theory from operations management to explain its cause(s) and how it impacts on performance. You must then evaluate the application of appropriate theory from operations management that will result in a resolution of the issue and an improvement in performance.
By operational issue we mean something that is happening in the operation that is having a negative impact on performance. Examples could include a process that doesnt meet the needs of customers, excessive waiting times for customers, inconsistent food quality or something that is affecting the ability to achieve a performance objective.
You may feel that your chosen context already performs very well and has little need for improvement, in this case you can identify and analyse a feature of the operation that can explain why it performs so well.
By evaluative written work we mean that that you do not have to present the work exactly in an essay or report format. It can contain headings, diagrams and tables but it does not need a contents page, executive summary or recommendations section.
By recommended sources of knowledge we mean that you are to mainly use texts and sources recommended by lecturers and in the MDRS, if in doubt you must check with your seminar lecturer.
By suppositions we mean that your explanations of (reasons for) operational performance remain opinion or assumption unless you support them by reference to reliable sources.
By propositions we mean suggestions, recommendations or claims about what needs to be done to achieve operational improvement.
By justify we mean that you need to mainly use the tested knowledge (theory) contained in texts and sources recommended by lecturers as validation for how and why the propositions, when enacted, will (or will not) result in the expected operational performance.
It is suggested that, in the introduction, you briefly justify your choice of issues. You need to very briefly describe the operation and set out the points that you are going to make.