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Operations
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What is Operations?

Operations management sits at the heart of how businesses plan, execute, and control the processes that deliver goods and services. It appears across a wide range of business courses, including strategic management, supply chain management, project management, and organizational behavior. The field is academically rich because it connects abstract strategy to concrete, measurable outcomes — cost control, process efficiency, quality standards, and organizational alignment all fall within its scope. Students are drawn to operations as a subject because nearly every business decision, from resource allocation to global expansion, has an operational dimension that determines whether a strategy succeeds or fails in practice.

The papers collected here reflect a broad range of analytical approaches. Some take a case-study format, examining specific companies such as Gillette, PepsiCo, Lincoln Electric, and UPS to evaluate global strategy, supply chain management, and cost allocation decisions. Others apply organizational frameworks like Weisbord's Six-Box Model to assess how structure and process interact within a company. Business planning appears as well, alongside discussion-based analyses of incentive systems, quality management, and network support technologies. This variety shows that operations can be studied through financial, strategic, behavioral, and technological lenses depending on the course context.

A strong essay on operations grounds its thesis in a specific process, decision, or organizational challenge rather than describing operations in general terms. Evidence drawn from company performance, cost structures, supply chain outcomes, or strategic results tends to carry the most analytical weight. The most common pitfall is treating operations as a list of activities rather than an interconnected system — the strongest essays show how individual operational choices affect overall organizational performance.

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Essay Doctorate
Ethical theories in pig farming: utilitarianism versus animal welfare
The rearing of pigs is all geared towards the end result of having it give the pork that can be traded out and money earned. The only contentious issue here is the process that is used to get to the end product.
Essay Doctorate
Applying Deming's quality management principles to Subway Restaurants operations
Subway Restaurants is a privately-held corporation with estimated annual revenues in the $5B range, operating 45,000 locations throughout 100 countries globally. Subway is a subsidiary of Doctor's Associates, a company founded by company founded by Peter Buck and Fred DeLuca in 1965 with a $1,000 investment in a sandwich shop on Long Island, NY (Nawrocki, 2006). Market share varies significantly by country and region of the world, with their largest market share being in the U.S. and throughout North America, with nearly 35% of total available market for quick service restaurants (QSR) in this region. Their market share through Europe and the Middle East is small, and growing quickly given the brand identity becoming more universally known The company's production and operations department is responsible for translating the strategic plan into a series of strategies and programs, enabling their fulfillment in the process. The intent of this analysis is to evaluate Subway's continual quest for quality, with specific focus on the production and operations management function. There are many aspects of quality management from the enterprise-level in QSR businesses in general and foodservice specifically (Field, 2009). And while quality management benchmarks and programs are often put into place for all types and variations of businesses that serve food, in the QSR industry has continually adopted and relied o the 14 points from Dr. Edward Deming with regard to production and operations management (Blair, 1997). The Subway Restaurants' Production and Operations Management departments are heavily reliant on these principles with communication being the most critically important of all to their success. The intent of this analysis is to illustrate how Subway is attaining critical quality goals while at the same time strengthening their business to be more resilient in the face of significant economic and industry change.
Essay Doctorate
Branded versus private label strategy for Xcentrick apparel company
This paper focuses on a new brand, and whether it should be a private label or branded manufacturer. The goal is to design a brand label and also determine how the new brand will be developed and manufactured. Additionally, two garments are to be chosen and described, along with all of the label information that they include.
Paper Doctorate
Logistics and personnel services in modern military sustainment operations
Within any military operation, there needs to be a balance of logistics that combines personnel, equipment, and strategy to optimally deploy forces and therefore accomplish mission procedures. Prominent military commanders note that the operational environment has so drastically changed that joint, interagency and multinational operations are now the norm rather than the exception. This provides the format for new organizational structures and mobility/distribution platforms that engender more robust opportunities for deploying, employing, and sustaining operational capabilities to a higher degree. In fact, "tactical, operational, and strategic lines have long been blurred in the sustainment arena, and now joint and service planners can contemplate.
Essay Doctorate
Royal Dutch Shell's response to oil spills in Nigeria versus developed nations
This essay provides a review of the relevant literature concerning Royal Dutch Shell, including its organizational and historic background as it relates to the company's operation, the extent of its globalisation, and its reputation for ethics and corporate social responsibility. An analysis concerning the different perspectives of the stakeholders involved in the situation is followed by a discussion about the need to construct an understanding of the oil spill event that may be productive for all stakeholders. Finally, an examination of ways in which Royal Dutch Shell's stakeholders can have a personal impact on the situation is followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.
Essay Doctorate
New England farm women's responses to Lowell textile mill labor conditions
Many women within the textile mills of New England were able to adjust to and attempt to overcome poor working conditions by fostering a sense of community between one another. Doing so enabled these female workers to organize their efforts into union. Under the leadership of such unions, these laborers were able to strike and shut down the operation of these mills to protest specific aspects of labor conditions.
Paper Doctorate
Fresh Foods Supermarket's diversity initiatives and Arizona expansion strategy
The paper provides a case study analysis of the new frontier for Fresh Foods Supermarket in reference to its initiative and management of diversity. This article investigates and analyzes the firm's origin, history, corporate structure, and growth as well as its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in relation to its diversity initiatives. The paper also provides various steps that Vivian Noble can implement to recruit and develop a diverse workforce in the new store. The final section shows how Fresh Foods Supermarket will generally benefit from successful expansion into Arizona.
Essay Doctorate
Orange's value bundle strategy for European market growth
Based on the successful merger of Orange and T-Mobile, the company is one of the world's largest mobile operators and the second leading operator throughout Western Europe. The company has over 30M subscribers worldwide, with 10M on the more profitable and long-term post-paid plans and leads Europe with over 1.5M users subscribing to the GSM 3G speed class of performance (Orange Investor Relations, 2012). As of January, 2012 the company and its subsidiaries operate in 25 nations worldwide and has an aggregator market share of 40.4% and one of the highest consistent Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) levels of 31.6, netting an average minutes per user or subscriber of 190 minutes (Orange Investor Relations, 2012). Despite these impressive statistics however, Orange is suffering for a very high level of customer churn in its core markets, is challenged with how to ramp up into the smart phone market globally (which could revolutionize their business if they succeed at it), and continual lean process improvements over time (Andlauer, Pouillot, 2011) (Orange Investor Relations, 2012). The continual consolidation of the European and global telecommunications provider industry as evidenced by rapid price declines (Benzoni, Deffains, Nguyen, Saleese, 2011) and the nationalization of telecommunications services by governments is increasing the intensity of competition (Clifton, Comín, Díaz-Fuentes, 2011). Amidst all of these challenges the potential of 3G networks and their high ARPU levels offer considerable upside revenue potential for the company going forward (Orange Investor Relations, 2012). Smartphone integration will be integral to this effort however. The intent of this strategic marketing plan is to provide an audit of the company today, an assessment of their macroenvironment, market analysis, competitive overviews, market shares of competitors, profitability analysis and SWOT analysis of the company, The core strategy of the company will also be assessed. Marketing mix decisions and control points will also be provided as part of the analysis.
Paper Doctorate
Footwear International's religious controversy crisis in Bangladesh
A multinational shoe manufacturing company has been accused of deliberately designing a shoe with an insole that is offensive to Muslims. Footwear International consists of a number of companies that are semi-autonomous with regard to operations, and are governed by boards of directors that include local business community members. The Footwear International company in Bangladesh experienced severe criticism from local activist student groups who interpreted the design of an insole to include the name of Allah. Further, the students charged the manufacturing company of being owned and financed by Jews, and somehow linked the entire episode to Salman Rushdie. The designer of the shoe—a devout Bengali Muslim who does not speak or read Arabic—declared that the pattern integrated into the insole design was inspired by Chinese temple bells that she purchased. Further, the insole design had been considered and approved for inclusion in the manufacturing by the designer's supervisor.
Essay Doctorate
Price elasticity of demand and its importance for governments and businesses
This paper explores the concept of elasticity of demand and its importance to businesses and governments.This is carried out via a systematic analysis of relevant literature and theory with specific examples being mentioned for the cases.The knowledge of the elasticities of demand are noted to be important to businesses for the setting of optimum policies for profit maximization and to the government for the setting of appropriate tax rates as well as the prediction of market performance.