Technology for Competitive Differentiation Milestone Three
Overview: For the third milestone of your final project, you will evaluate current business operations for opportunities to utilize project management, technology, and project management tools along with other techniques to reduce costs, increase production, incorporate sustainability principles, and deliver consistently superior products and services using quantitative tools and techniques.
Prompt: To finalize this analysis, you will need to gather information about managing inventory, resource planning, and scheduling. Information can generally be found on the organization’s main website, in the annual report and mission statement, and in articles authored by the company or outside analysts, such as ThomasNet.com, buy/sell sites (e.g., Jim Cramer), and investment companies (e.g., Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, or Vanguard). As operations management students and professionals, you are encouraged to use your own experience, understanding, and knowledge of business and industry structure to drive your analysis.
Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:
IV. Technology for Competitive Differentiation
A. Evaluate current business operations in one segment of the enterprise to identify performance gaps relative to cost, production, and delivery of
products or services.
B. Based on the performance gaps you identified, describe specific opportunities that would benefit from technology enhancement or technical
solutions. Ensure that your response focuses on using technology to reduce costs, increase production, and deliver consistently superior products
or services.
C. How can the technology you described be utilized to mitigate the performance gap? Ensure that your response focuses on using technology to
reduce costs, increase production, and deliver consistently superior products or services.
This analysis will be incorporated into the final project submission.
Guidelines for Submission: This assignment should be submitted as a 5- to 7-page Microsoft Word document with double spacing, 12-point Times New Roman font, and one-inch margins. You should use current APA style guidelines for your citations and reference list. Note that at least 10 outside information sources are required overall for this project, although many students might find that more are necessary to satisfy the requirements of the project.
As necessary, copy and paste any data analysis from Excel into your Word document for submission. You may include your original Excel documents as supplementary material if you believe this will strengthen your contribution.
Note that the grading rubric for the milestone submissions is not identical to that of the final project. The Final Project Rubric will include an additional
“Exemplary” category that provides guidance as to how you can go above and beyond “Proficient” in your final submission.
