Capstone Operations Management Scenario Paper
A Scenario Paper should take about 10-12 pages. The scenario should display command,
curiosity, and creativity about an operation/business process within an organization.
Consider a management or organizational workflow processes you are familiar with (Must be a
U.S. Company, Franchise or Business entity) either as a consumer of the service or a part of
the provider team. Then describe the process, for example following a transaction through the
system or the constituent operational processes. Examine the activities involved in the context of
(for example) resource consumption, the economics, or efficient utilization of the resources;
see if any bottlenecks exists; see whether there are ways the management can improve the
workflow in the organization or in the provision of a line of service in the organization. You
may want to focus on one of the services that you use: For example, Parking, Registry of Motor
Vehicles, Banking. You may focus on something within your workplace. For example, in
hospital administration, (i) one might examine the scheduling of nurses and envisage a new
mechanism that allows different policies; (ii) examine the replenishment of supplies on
‘wards/floors/nursing units’ in a hospital; (iii) examine the scheduling of patients in an oncology
clinic. In banking one might examine the replenishment of paper money in ATMs and the
possibility of incentives to increase customer use of debit cards to reduce the need for ATMs.
You may take the tack of drafting a work/service provision flow chart of that experience and see
how it may be improved, especially with respect to the “process” and resource utilization across
the value chain.
Template:
Preamble:
This is the introductory statement, which in turn describes, or states the reason for, the
remaining portion of this paper.
Here, also bring up some questions that could arise: Such as, would it not be more economical
to have the company do etc… Or the company could offer ‘X’ services to better serve the
customer…Or, the company can be more efficient by doing etc…
Description of the current operation:
Offer more detail about the business’s current operation etc…
Data: What data needs to be gathered
1. Example: The number customers serviced during a week. Average number of households per
mile traveled.
2. Example: Number of trucks used per day
3. Example: Cost of drivers and insurance.
4. Example: Total number of miles traveled to service the town during a week.
5. Example: Cost of gasoline per week.
6. Example: All relevant data that can be identified by the writer of the scenario
Description of envisaged operation:
Write about your contemplated or conceived possible or a desirable future outcome. Offer a
couple of possible outcome options here.
Finally, summarize your tangible quantifiable metrics for both options. For example: the impact
on total cost and the impacts on the identified metrics derived after your data has been gathered
and examined. For example, one metric is the total number of miles traveled to service the
customers concluding that this would be the most persuasive metric, particularly when compared
to the current system.
References: