QUESTION 1 (100 MARKS) 1.1 With reference to the case study provided examine the scope of operations management and critically discuss any THREE strategies that organisations can implement in order to achieve a competitive advantage through their operations function. (20 Marks)

1.2 Mckinsey Consultants have been advocating for businesses to adopt the Business Process Engineering (BPR) methodology to influence their operational performance. Critically evaluate this methodology and how it can be implemented at Apple and Nike. (20 Marks)

1.3 Nike in one of its operations has recently noted increases in costs and therefore have been aiming towards improving efficiency. The operations manager Cedric Masuku is interested in determining the productivity of his organisation and would like to know if his organisation is maintaining the manufacturing average of 3% increase in single and multi-factor productivity. Compile a report highlighting if this is being achieved, use the relevant calculations. He has the following data representing a month from last year and an equivalent month this year: (20 Marks) Last Year Now Units produced 2000 2000 Labour (hours) 300 275 Resin (Kilograms) 50 45 Capital invested (rands) R10000 R10000 Energy (watts) 3000 2850 The costs have been determined to be as follows. Labour R10 per hour, Resin R5 per kilogram Capital 1% per month of investment Energy R0.50 per watt 1.4 Apple has made available the following information for materials (pints) used in the past 6 weeks. (20 Marks) Week of Pints used Aug 31 360 Aug 7 389 Sept 14 410 Sept 21 381 Sept 28 368 October 5 374

Given this information determine the following. 1.4.1 Forecast the demand for the week of Oct 12 using a 3-week moving average. (2 Marks)

1.4.2 Using a 3-week weighted moving average with weights of 0.1, 0.3, 0.6 for the most recent week. Forecast demand for the week of October 12. (3 Marks)

1.4.3 Compute the forecast for the week of October 12, using exponential smoothing (given the forecast for August 31 of 360 pints and a smoothing constant a=0.2). (6 Marks)

1.4.4 The demand for electric power supplied by Eskom over the period 2003 to 2009 is shown in the table below in megawatts. Nike wants you to forecast demand for 2010 by using the simple linear regression method (9Marks) . Year Time Demand 2003 1 74 2004 2 79 2005 3 80 2006 4 90 2007 5 105 2008 6 142 2009 7 122 1.5 Being able to closely match demand and supply involves having information about buying patterns a purpose that is fulfilled by forecasting. Forecasting is considered as the art and science of predicting future events (Heizer and Render, 2014:140). Considering this statement critically discuss the strategic importance of forecasts for organisations such as Nike and Singapore Air. (20 Marks)