Creating and Delivering Operational Plans

Hence, in this context the report below is based on Bentley Motors, which is one of the most prominent and recognised organisations within the United Kingdom. The firm has several operations such as manufacturing, marketing, R&D and so forth, which must be analysed through formation of effective plans. Thus, the report in this regard contains understanding of the principles of operational planning within the firm. Along with this, the report also undertake demonstration of effective skills and behaviour which is directed towards creation of operational plan. Another aspect that is inclusive within the report is associated with knowledge project, which involves managing and leading delivery of an operational plan.

LO 1

1.1. Assessment of relationship between organisation's strategic objectives and operational planning

It is very necessary for an organisation to assess the relationship between the strategic objectives of the firm with the operational planning adopted by the company. This is because the operational planning of the company is developed in a way which supports the objectives and goals of the company, which makes it necessary to relate these factors appropriately.

In this context, below is the assessment of relationship between the strategic objectives of the company and its operational planning based on several factors:

Vision and Mission Statement:

The firm's vision is to create the most powerful and luxurious cars in the world. On the other hand, the mission of Bentley is to build in high performance vehicles which supports the luxury it is willing to provide in its vehicles.

Objectives:

There are certain main strategic objectives which the company abides by. Some of them are discussed below:

• The firm has produced almost 9,115 cars within 2018 as reflected by several surveys. Hence, in this regard the objective of the firm is to enhance its production and sales to up to at least 20,000 units annually.

(Source: Number of passenger cars manufactured by Bentley Motors from 2009 to 2018, 2020)

• Another prominent objective of the company is to build a supportive, as well as highly competent workforce that would be offering more better insight to the operations of the firm.
• Enhancement of diversity is another objective of the organisation, which relates to producing vehicles in a competent manner to ensure accomplishment of diverse demands.

Values:

There are several core values which the firm abides by. These values are Collaboration, Innovation, Authenticity, Integrity, as well as Sustainability. The company works in a way which contributes within these values to the highest extent.

Based on the above aspects, the relationship of the objectives above are related to operational planning by describing the roles of prominent functional areas within the firm:

• Finance: The major role of this department within the operational planning of the company in alignment with the strategic objectives is to fund and acquire latest technologies, equipments and other resources which would help the firm in enhancing the capacity of production of vehicles effectively (Vidgen, 2020).
• Human Resource: This function is related to all the other functions of the company and its role is to manage the individuals within the company in a way which increases the productivity and profitability within the organisation.
• Manufacturing: Within the operational planning, manufacturing is the functional area that would be responsible towards building in advanced cars, that are in adherence to the objectives set above, which provides high quality performance to its customers. Need Assignment Samples.Talk to our Experts!

1.2. Evaluation of use of approaches to operational planning

There are several approaches within operational planning of an organisation that are required to be determined and evaluated in order to choose the most beneficial concepts into practice for the company and its operational plan. Hence, several approaches that could be used by Bentley is evaluated below:

• Key Performance Indicators: One of the widely used approaches within operational planning is Key Performance Indicators (KPI). This is technique that is used for monitoring the overall operational plan through setting up several indicators associated with the performance. As for its usage, it contributes in providing the company with insights associated with the performance of the plan on the basis of those indicators, that whether the same has been achieved or not. These indicators as for operational planning could be profitability, revenue, number of units produced and so forth.
• SWOT Analysis: This framework is associated with determining the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities as well as threats that are related to the firm. Its use is that it allows the organisation into determining and evaluating its competencies, along with measuring the level of threat and opportunities that is available for the firm in the outside environment. The extent to which its usage contributes within the operational planning is very high as the plans could be made for mitigating the weaknesses and threats and enhancing strengths and opportunities.
• Continuous Improvement Approaches: This aspect is related to continuously evaluating and improvising the operational plans and techniques in order to keep up with the consistency within the planning and its outcomes. The techniques that are used within this aspect is risk analysis and contingency planning. These are associated with identification of risks, along with their mitigation through planning for the same. Their usage within operational planning is highly valued, considering the fact that these are directed towards mitigation of risks that are related to the operations of the organisation.
• Quality Management (Lean): This is another prominent approach of continuous improvement which is subjected upon the quality of operations. With Lean technique, the organisation reduces the waste and improvise the quality of production as per the requirements of the market, which enhances its scope of usage (Englund and Graham, 2019).

LO 2

2.1. Examination of impact of legal and organisational factors on an operational plan

It is necessary that several legal and organisational factors are taken into account while developing an operational plan for the firm's different work areas. For Bentley, the plan would be created for the Manufacturing area of the company. Hence, below are the legal and organisational factors related to the same.

Legal Factors:

It basically includes the various provisions and legal act, proper compliance of which are necessary for every organisation thus, also lead a significant impact on operational plan. The various legal factors and description about their impact on operational plan of Bentley is provided below:

• Health and Safety Act, 1974: This act is proposed by the parliament of UK and is mainly associated with provisions that define the fundamental structure and authority of an organisation to provide and encourage a safe and healthy workplace environment for staff. This legal factor create an impact on operational plan of Bentley as it make necessary to have a proper planning and workplace structure that provides a safe and healthy work environment for employees through having effective control and safety measures like a fire fighting system, low emission of harmful gases, proper maintenance of machine and equipments, etc.
• Consumer Protection Act, 1987: This act basically provides a right to customer to claim compensation and have legal action against the organisation in vase of defective product is offered that cause any kind of damage or injury to health of consumer. Thus, consumer protection act has created a significant impact on operational plan of Bentley as it need to have more emphasis on design and techniques used in its cars and other products while its manufacturing to ensure delivery of a safe and good quality product (Distanont and Khongmalai, 2018). Want to get Assignment writing service? Talk Our Expert Now!

Thus, it can be examine that the legal factors have adequate amount of impact on operational plan of Bentley as it made it necessary to have effective planning in order to provide a safe and healthy workplace environment to staff together with manufacturing of an product that does not lead any harm to customers to meet its objectives in an effective manner and to avoid legal consequence in future.

Organisational Factors

The organisational factors are basically the sum total of goals, objectives and priorities of organisation that have significant impact on its operational plan. The organisational priorities and objectives of Bentley includes various performance and quality standards together with risk amassment and lean production in order to achieve the objectives of developing a best quality product for consumer with maximum level of cost efficiency in order to improve its productivity and profitability (Denning, 2017). Theses organisational factors has created an impact on operational plan of Bentley through emphasising on lean production that includes various steps like customer focus, value stream, creating flow, pull and perfection in order to minimize the amount of waste. The organisational factors of Bentley has lead to an operational plan that aim at eliminating unnecessary activities and expenses to achieve the objective of cost efficiency and meet the quality standards. Beside this, proper quality standards and performance measures are also lead by Bentley that has created a positive impact on operational plan of Bentley through ensuring efficiency in performance of employees and delivery of better quality products to meet the objectives and desired standards of Bentley.

Thus, on the basis of above discussion it can be examined that the organisational factors and priorities of Bentley has lead to an positive impact in operational plan through facilitating effective planning through use of various approaches such as lean production to meet the objective of cost efficiency and better quality standards.

Resource and Talent Planning

2.2. Assessment of ethical requirements that influence operational plan

Ethics is one of the most prominent factors within an operational plan of a company, which refers to all the values, morals and behaviours of the individuals on a justified and lawful manner (Blanchard, 2018). Hence, several ethical requirements for the Manufacturing Operational Plan are associated below:

• Sustainability: One of the key ethical requirements for Bentley Motors in its operational plan is that it must ensure enhancement and contribution towards sustainability. For instance, the influence this would have on the plan is that it must be having techniques that reduces pollution and waste and must contribute towards ecologically friendly ways of production.
• Corporate Social Responsibility: This refers to the ethical conduct and expectations from an organisation that are necessary to be included by an organisation to fulfil its responsibility towards its stakeholders. This would be having a variety of impacts on the plan, as for human resources, the firm is required to ensure equality and diversity in inclusion of individuals. Moreover, for community and government, the plan must address the reduction of carbon footprint from the manufacturing process.

2.3. Creation of an operational plan in line with organisational objectives

Manufacturing is one of the key operational area of Bentley, which is associated with development of a range of vehicles in an appropriate manner (Beare, Caldwell and Millikan, 2017). However, to meet the organisational objectives mentioned above, the operational plan for the next 3 months within Bentley Motors is discussed below:

Aim:

The aim of Bentley Motors is to enhance the competence of the Manufacturing operation of the company within 3 months.

Current Capability Assessment:

It is necessary that the current capabilities of Bentley is appropriately assessed to analyse the competence of the company. hence, there are several points below which helps in analysis of the same:

• Production Quantity: Each year, around 10,000 cars are manufactured within the company's manufacturing headquarters.
• Suppliers: The firm has around 700 suppliers globally, majority of which are situated within 50 mile radius of the firm's production outlets
• Production Timing: The vehicles manufactured within the organisation take around 100 to 399 Hours to be completed, where majority of the time is devoted to hand craft-ship.
• Employees: Almost 4,000 people are currently working within the organisation and supporting its manufacturing operation.
• Supply Chain: The firm is having an internal production and logistics division where majority of the parts required for its vehicles are manufactured and almost 80 external suppliers are involved by the company for further parts.
• Environmental Sustainability: The firm operates with solar PV panels on the roof of its operational quarters which saves up to 40% of overall power demand of the firm and an annual reduction of around 2,500 tonnes of CO2 emission (Bentley Motors Development Framework and Masterplan, 2017).

Gap Analysis:

Despite one of the most appropriate layouts for manufacturing, there re several gap within the required targets of the firm that are described below:

• The firm's production capacity is required to be increased up to at least 5,000 cars in the next 3 months to successfully accomplish its objective of 20,000 cars annually.
• The allotted time to production of a car is quite high for which technologies are necessary to replace hand craft-ship for quicker production.
• Additional 500 employees are needed to indulge into the operational plan of the company for the next 3 months.
• Waste reduction is also required to be enhanced.

SMART Targets:

It is necessary to determine the smart targets of the company in order to reach to the desired outcomes and accomplish the objectives (Buell, Kim and Tsay, 2017). For this purpose, 10-Step Target Setting Option is being utilised by the company that is described in brief below:

(Source: 10-Step Target Setting Process, 2020)

• Stakeholder Expectations: Employees within Bentley demand more effective technologies and techniques to work with, while the customers require better and more technologically advanced vehicles. Community expects contribution of the firm towards environmental protection (Mann, 2017).
• Strategic Objectives: The strategic objectives of the company are to enhance the production capacity of the firm, increase the workforce, include more diverse and sustainable models.
• Success mapping: It is necessary that the success map is created for the organisation in order to provide the structure to the plan.
• Objectives Prioritisation: The first objective would be hire HR for manufacturing, then the focus would be on diversity and finally on production capacity.
• Operationalisation: The KPI for the plan would be the production timing, quantity, as well as environmental sustainability.
• Data Collection: Primary and Secondary data would be collected by the company for the map.
• Target Setting: The smart targets as per the above process are mentioned below:
• Enhancement of production capacity by 5% in the next 3 months.
• Hiring of at least 500 competent individuals in 1 month.
•  Reduction in carbon footprint by further 10% by the end of 2 months.
• Action Plan Design: The action plan would be inclusive of stages such as, Objectives, Collaboration, Improvement, Scheduling, Checking and Implementation.
• Action plan Agreement: For this, a meeting would be set up with the top management to ensure their approval of the same (Aldrich, and Kyota, 2017).

Assessment of Supply and Resources:

The required resources, as well as the roles of the same are described below:

Risk Management:

 Budget Allocation:

Production Methods:

There will be several methods that would be used during production, that are elaborated below:

• Lean Manufacturing: This is one of the main production methods in order to mitigate the waste and enhance improvement. It relates with identification of value, mapping value stream, creation of flow, establishing pull and ensuring perfection within the manufacturing process (Warner, 2017).
• PDCA Cycle: This method is directed towards ensuring a prominent structure to the overall plan. Its stages are inclusive of Planning the tasks, Doing them effectively, Checking the outcomes and Acting upon the deviations.

Communication Plan:

Performance Measures:

There are several performance measures that the firm would be using which are listed below:

• Total Quality Management: this method is subjected towards quality control of the manufacturing process for which, the analysis was provided to the safety, performance and diversity of the models in question. For this, Key Performance Indicators are being used which would be effective enough to measure the performance against the indicators of the plan (Dumont, 2018).
• Root Cause Analysis: This is a decision making tool which has been been used within the operational plan in order to determine the root of the problems and its causes for making proper and imperative decisions.

LO 3

3.1. Assessment of methods of managing and leading delivery of operational plan

It is necessary that each method for managing and leading delivery of operational plan is evaluated and assessed to determine their effectiveness against the set plan. Hence, these methods in context of the operational plan of Bentley are discussed below:

• Budget Allocation: This method has been utilised to segregate the investment into different sectional requirements and allotting the same to different functions so that the outcome can be reached effectively (Reaburn and McDonald, 2017). As per the plan, majority of the funds are invested in setting up the plant and acquisition of equipments and technologies, which includes Artificial Intelligence, Automation, as well as Performance Testing Software for employees' productivity. Moreover, emphasis has also been given to allocating to employees salaries, their training and development.
• Supply Chain Management: Since the firm is situating the plant in is operational quarters, an internal division has been formulated to manufacture and develop the raw materials that are being supplied by external suppliers as well, which will contribute towards reduction of carbon footprint (Camasso and Jagannathan, 2018).
• Contingency Arrangements: Effective mitigation strategies which range from performance testing to training has been given effectively in order to ensure that each resource is actively managed and risks related to these are assessed effectively.
• Availability and Quality of Supplies: The supplies include AI and automation, which would be replacing the hand craft-ship, which would be contributing to better and more quantity of production. Moreover, the supplies also include quality metal and appropriate tyre parts for better and sustainable manufacturing, which would be providing durability and variety to the design.

3.2. Examination of techniques for problem solving and decision making

There is one appropriate problem solving technique which has been used within the overall process, which is Root Cause Analysis. The method would be used as definition o the problem, acquisition of data, identification of issues, determination of root causes and provision of recommendations and solutions associated with the same.

Moreover, to support this technique, Fish Bone Analysis is also utilised by the firm. This technique is applied on aspects such as problems related to manufacturing technique, competence of individuals, processes used for production, time lapse, as well as issues associated with logistics and supply functions. For this aspect, the process used in this process is associated with brainstorming several ideas, detailed display of causes on main arrow branches, and then providing with suggestions for the same. As for this technique, it would be helpful for the individuals to take effective and appropriate decisions which would lead to better solving of problem and higher productivity (Limatahu, Sutoyo and Prahani, 2018). Get online Finance Coursework Help to boost your grades!

LO 4

4.1. Evaluation of methods to monitor progress and measure outcomes of operational plans

The whole operational plan has several appropriate methods in order to measure the progress and outcomes of the same. One such method within the same is Total Quality Management, which would be related to quality control within the production system. This would be subjected upon the quality of the products and the processes that has been implemented within the plan. For instance, quality of raw materials, equipments, technologies and processes that are being used for the plan. Moreover, Key Performance Indicators are also being used under this where the indicators of success of this plan are production targets, carbon footprint quantities, productivity and performance levels and so forth.

Another method that would help the company in monitoring its manufacturing processes is the PDCA model. Within the same, the monitoring is being done through performance audits. This would be providing a better and more structured growth and accomplishment of the plan as per the planned considerations and the organisational objectives set above (King and King, 2018).

Conclusion

Thus, it is concluded by the report above that creation and development of an operational plan is very necessary in order to improvise the operations within the organisation. It is essential to assess the relationship between organisational strategic objectives and operational planning and evaluate use of different approaches to operational planning. Moreover, examination of impact of legal and organisational factors, along with ethical requirements on operational plans is important to determine the influence of these factors upon the plan. Creation of operational plan is necessary by implementing several techniques that are important to attain organisational objectives associated with the same. Lastly, Assessment of methods of managing and leading delivery of a operational plans, along with techniques for problem solving allows in analysing and monitoring the effectiveness of this factor.

Read More :- Managing Projects to Achieve Results

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