BTEC HNC - Business Systems - Manage Work Activities to Achieve Organisational Objectives

Manage Work Activities to Achieve Organisational Objectives

Business Management TechniquesBy Brendan Burr

Brendan Burr BTEC Higher National Certificate in ElectronicsBusiness Management Techniques

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS - 2 -

TASK 1 - 3 -

Identify and explain engineering business factors. Explain the inter relationships between the different processes and function of an engineering organisation. - 3 -

Solution:- - 3 -

TASK 2 - 8 -

Manage work activities to meet specification and standards - 8 -Solution:- - 8 -

APPENDIX 1 - 9 -

EVALUATION - 10 -

CONCLUSION - 10 -

BIBLIOGRAPHY - 11 -

Books - 11 -

Catalogues - 11 -

Websites - 11 -

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Task 1

Identify and explain engineering business factors. Explain the inter relationships between the different processes and function of an engineering organisation.

Write a report to your managing director identifying the various engineering functions that will be needed in a new engineering venture.Bearing in mind that your organisation has no previous knowledge of the engineering disciplines you must also explain how these functions operate together.

Solution:-

There are multiple areas in which your company will have to expand in, in order to supply enough engineering capabilities to provide the product, as requested, on time and as budgeted. The areas in which I will elaborate on are known in business as “Engineering Functions”, I understand that your company already has the standard “Commercial Functions”, such as Sales, Marketing, Distribution, Commissioning, Finance and Purchasing; I will also explain how these functions too will be affected.

Firstly, Engineering Functions:Research and Development – This function will need to be included in the short term, to aid in the design and development of the product. Ideas will need to be trialled and tested then revised and developed further. This is an area which would need to be sustained for the future if your company is looking to bring out new products that meet the ever changing demand in the markets, and also to fend off competitors in the future.

Design – This function will make initial ideas turn into feasible and viable products. The feasible and viable part is driven by one of three factors; driven by marketing, driven by technology, or a coordinated approach.I would suggest a coordinated approach is best as it follows the trends of the market at the same time as offering a product that can be produced by manufacturing.

Product Development – This area offers many sections which need to be considered, it is a blend of all of the functions;

Idea Generation – There will be many ideas that will come about, initially. They are likely to be fuelled by the identification of the customers needs, the invention of new materials or the successful modification of existing products.

Selection of a suitable design – The ideas will be considered and then used or binned, depending on their market potential, financial feasibility and operations compatibility.

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Preliminary Design – Once ideas have been selected, a few may be merged together to provide trade-offs between cost, quality and functionality, the end result will be a preliminary design.

Prototype Construction – The preliminary design will turn into a reality, in the form of a prototype. The prototype will have many of the key features, but may or may not be a fully working model. It will likely be hand crafted as providing the mass production machinery for one-offs is far from cost effective.

Testing – The testing stage will determine if the preliminary design works as well as it was intended. It will be rigorously tested to ensure that the marketing and technical performance characteristics are achieved.

Design modifications – If a problem or flaw has been located with the prototype, then the preliminary design will be revised to remove it. This will help ensure quality of the product.

Final Design – The final design will be comprised once all of the testing stage has located and the design modification stage has removed all of the flaws and improved all areas necessarily to produce the required product. The final design stage also establishes the drawings required to be followed during the manufacturing stage and help in planning it.

Manufacturing – This function brings the designs to life. It will be used to produce multiple units of the final design, once all of the areas have been agreed upon. The full manufacturing process will (in a perfect scenario) be covered by planning and design, so there should be no unexpected tasks, however it is often the case that these areas are not as lean as that, so constant communication between the various departments is often essential.

Quality – This function ensures that the product is being produced to the correct level of standard. There are countless engineering standards that will need to be cohered to, failure to do so could lead to financial and legal implications. Quality is often known as fitness for purpose, meaning meeting the identified needs of customers. Because of the subjective nature of quality assessment there is often more than one criteria for assessing fitness for purpose, such as;Design quality – Presuming the product does as it is supposed to do, there are other design areas which need to be considered, such as ergonomics and aesthetics.Conformance quality – Ensuring the product meets the design specification. If it meets its design specification then it can be regarded a quality product, even if the design quality is of a low standard.Reliability – This can be tested using things like mean time between failure, testing to see the average time the device will last before failure. It also tests to see if the product is maintainable, being able to replace the parts quickly, easily and cheaply.

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Planning – This function is a preliminary part of producing the product. It will be necessary to implement this function as early as possible to drive out any unnecessary expenditure. This function will;Set Objectives – It will determine the direction the company is going in, which encourages the whole workforce to move in the same direction, preventing confliction.Environment – This area will enable a forecast on the effect that the current climates (such as sales, financial and economic), will have on the product and the company.Achieving the objectives – This area will define how the company should achieve the objectives. It will include high levels of detail which can be followed throughout all stages of the development of the product, even through to after sales product support, such as a 5 year warranty.Control – There will be constant tracking of the progress and adherence to the plan, as there are often multiple knock on effects if things are delayed. There will be the opportunity of moving tasks around if parts that have been ordered do not arrive on time or availability of machinery may also have an effect. The control will ensure that the product remains within budget, is delivered on time, complies with the relevant legislation, meets appropriate quality standards, operated according to the agreed specification, and fully satisfies the expressed and implied needs of the customer.

Product Support – This function is not a necessity, however incorporating it into the business will provide better customer relations and can also provide areas of your company with the information they require to make their areas lean and more efficient.The product support workers will need as much information about all of the products as possible, so there will have to be a close collaboration between information held in the design departments and the training of these people.

The above engineering functions are what will be necessary for your company to be able to expand into an engineering sector.I will now discuss the inter-relationships between the above functions and your existing commercial functions.

Sales – This function will be affected in many ways, as it is not only going to sell a new product but also sell a different category of product which they will be unfamiliar with. There will be various branches of advertising the product, from TV advertising, promotional videos, newspaper/magazine advertisements, trade fairs and shop displays. In many of these advertising scenarios there will be a requirement for someone to know how the product functions and for them to even give one to one demonstrations with potential customers. This will need the sales team to receive support from the Product Support function as they will have detailed technical information about the product and should also be able to offer advice and guidance.

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There is often sales advertisements for products which are still under development, to increase anticipation of the product and create more hype, 3D renderings can be used and acquired from the Design departments to help in this area.It is likely that there will be an increased demand for more sales staff, preferably specialised with an engineering background, to cope with the added demand of the new engineering venture.

Marketing – The marketing function will need to understand a whole new economy to be able to understand the potential of the new products.They will need direct correspondence with purchasing, to understand the costs of components so that they can put a price on the product either through the market costs or through costs of manufacture.Marketing will often liaise with the product development to define market trends and identify customer needs, allowing them to develop ideas and designs that suit the climate, this will be initiate by R&D.Marketing may also need a larger workforce to cope with the extra demand from new engineering departments, so that there is little effect of existing operations.They will also need to monitor a completely new set of competing businesses that will need to be profiled and researched to enable fluent tracking.

Distribution – Engineering products can be distributed to the consumer market through a variety of ways. Including shop displays, mail order, catalogues, internet sites, or even direct selling through the company’s own retail outlets. The increased product range, having added the engineering venture onto the company will also require an increase in the distribution function. Shop displays can be expanded to more companies, such as DIY Stores. This will increase the market audience which is something that will be followed through by the Sales function.Mail order, catalogues and internet sites will have to updated at a regular interval to ensure new versions of the product are readily marketed to potential customers. This will result in more work demand requiring more staff, costing more money, inter-relating Human Resources and Finance.For the company’s own retail branch, there will be the requirement to have more room for the extra products, which may result in them requiring bigger premises.

Commissioning – The new facilities and premises at the site will require the correct commissioning. This will ensure that everything meets the correct level to begin manufacturing, before it takes place. There will be regular audits of the facilities to ensure that the standards are maintained. This may be an area which has possibly been seen at some level within the existing company, however the areas which will be covered will be entirely new. This means that there is likely to be the requirement of training for the commissioning engineers, which will be at a cost to the company.

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Finance – The finance function works with all other functions within the company, engineering and commercial. They will get information from the sales function which can provide forecasts of the predicted sales in the future, this will give an insight into the revenue expected and the expenditure required to produce the product. The forecasts can also help in the planning of production schedules as they will determine the when machinery will have to hired, or specialist components purchased.The finance department will also have an increased workload because of the extra staff required to run the various engineering sectors. There will be a substantial increase in the amount of financial exchanges, due to increases in employment, purchases of parts, hiring of machinery as well as the tenancy of the buildings the company is located.The budgetary control of the production cost centres will require regular advice and contact from the financial function, to prevent any possible overspends.

Purchasing – This function will require a brand new field to purchase from, using companies that they have not worked with before. This may cause delays whilst they locate a provider which can provide parts to the correct standard within a reasonable time frame.There will be a constant requirement of information between R&D, the supplier and the manufacturing department. There may also be a necessity for the quality function to get a say on the condition of parts and accept or reject them.

Human Resources – This function will have an increased workload due to the increase in employees. Each employee will require the necessary health and safety information as well as specialist training on tools and machinery. They may also require training in other forms which will all cost money and take time. Because of this it is likely that there would need to be a temporary increase of Human Resources staff, with people being moved from other sections bringing with them their field of knowledge. There will also be an increase in the amount of people requiring a monthly salary, so there will be added workload from this as well.

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Task 2

Manage work activities to meet specification and standards

Prepare a written presentation for the board of directors explaining what specifications and standards are expected in each function and how they should be managed (achieved).

Solution:-

Please see Appendix 1 for Presentation.

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APPENDIX 1

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EvaluationI feel I have managed to give my views on the integration required for a non-engineering company to take on a new engineering venture. I felt it was firstly necessary to explain all the required engineering functions before explaining the inter-relationships required through the multiple existing commercial functions.I felt this was the best way to explain what the company would need and immediately provide information to the Managing Director, who needs clear and precise answers.I have now completed Task 2 to meet the requirements after understanding them slightly more now I am further on with my project. I found this task quite time consuming however relatively straight forward.

ConclusionThis assignment was held off of completion due to me not completing Task 2 until later in the year. I have now completed the task and am happy with the result, so the entire business unit should now be complete.I have enjoyed the unit because of the things I have learnt, however I have found some tasks tedious and long winded. Overall I am pleased with my efforts and hope for a decent outcome in the marking.

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Bibliography

Through guidance from my lecturer, the following text books, catalogues and websites I was able to complete this assignment:

Books

BTEC National Engineering (Mike Tooley & Lloyd Dingle)ISBN: 978-0-7506-8521-4

Catalogues

N/A

Websites

N/A

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BTEC HNC - Business Systems - Manage Work Activities to Achieve Organisational Objectives

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