The purpose of the project is to demonstrate your depth of understanding of the course concepts. This applications project will also help you to retain the key material of this course for years to come.
This is an individual project.
Option #1:
Find a business who would like your help! This may be the company that you work for or a company where you know a senior manager. Offer to conduct a Supply Chain Management process assessment! The process is shown on Figure 13-3 in our textbook – your responsibility will be to get through the Gap Analysis with recommendations for improvements (note – there will not be time in this course to actually implement your recommendations nor validate their successes!). See also Figure 10-3 for details to prioritize your findings. For step #1, "Select Process", the suggestion is to start with CRM or SRM with a customer or supplier with whom the company is having problems or is expanding business. Any other process would work well if there is a "burning bridge" problem that Supply Chain Management could support. Note – you will need to start early on this! By the end of Week One, you'll need firm commitment from the company's leadership, or you'll have to default to Option #2 below. Should you gain approval, the sponsor will need to quickly assign a team of experts and schedule two meetings below:
1- Review sub-processes (where you give a short training session on the process selected), EXTRA CREDIT.
2- Assess performance (this can be done individually in a virtual survey–see the appendices in your textbook).
NOTE: You will NOT have time for a consensus building session to discuss scores and implementation ideas. Therefore, just present your average scores and ranges with your recommendations to your sponsor.
Option #2
If you do not have access to a sponsor for data collection, contact your instructor with the following:
1- Select your ideal company: provide name and product lines
2- Identify the supply chain process of greatest importance to your company
Your instructor will provide you a data set to analyze! You will also need to add your own "estimated assessment" as one additional participant in the assessment.
Your report will consist of:
1- All the materials you provided to the company,
2- All of the resulting assessments (should the sponsor allow confidential viewing by your instructor, or a summary of the results, or a signed memo from your sponsor stating what you accomplished),
3- A statement from your sponsor stating his/her impressions of your efforts, and
4- A formal report:
1.
a. Executive Summary (in lieu of Abstract)
b. Introduction of your project, company and SCM process (1-2 pages)
c. Summary of your actions with the client (minimum 1 page) – NOT applicable for Option #2 (simulated data)
d. Your analysis to include Prioritized assessment results (minimum 2 pages with tables/charts)
e. Recommendations to the company with supporting details (minimum 2 pages)
f. Lessons that you learned through the project
g. Conclusion (summary of key findings for action)
h. References
Documenting your project
Reports must be in 12-point font, double spaced, and APA guidelines should be strictly followed, with the exceptions of NO Table of Contents and writing an Executive Summary (in lieu of Abstract). Project work will be graded on a number of criteria, including: conformance to prescribed content and format, grammar, readability, and the use of technical notations and diagrams. See rubric for details of assessment.
All written assignments must be the students' original ideas and own work. Students' work will be checked for plagiarism. Students found plagiarizing are subject to penalties outlined in the Policies and Procedures section of the National University Catalog, which may include a failing grade for the work in question or for the entire course.
Written works are subject to penalties outlined in the Policies and Procedures section of the National University Catalog, which may include a failing grade for the work in question or for the entire course.
Rubric Name: SCM 610 – Final Report Rubric