Level:

Assessment Title:
Assessment Number:
Assessment Type:
Restrictions on Time/Length :
Individual/Group:
Assessment Weighting:
Planned Feedback Date:
Mode of Submission:
Number of copies to be submitted:

5
Report (Individual)
AE2
Report
2500 words (excluding appendices)
Individual
50%
Within 4 weeks of hand-in date
On-line
One

Anonymous Marking

This assessment will be exempt from anonymous

marking as it falls within an exempt category
under the Universitys Anonymous Marking
Policy.

Assessment Task
Background Information
The purpose of this assessment is to be able to assess your written skills in both an
academic and business context. It will also provide you with the opportunity to
demonstrate relevant professional skills that employers will expect to see from potential
employees.
You are to prepare a briefing report addressing a current operations management
process/topic that is an issue for the customer. Within the report, you are to provide
evidence of your investigations into the issue, identify the challenges that the issue poses
and propose relevant solutions/recommendations that are relevant and appropriate to the
evidence presented.
Your target audience will be management personnel of a local company within the
Southampton area. Within your briefing report, they will want to see evidence of current
research, both industry related as well as relevant academic research.
When writing your briefing report for the company that you have identified, you must
ensure that:

within your report there is also a focus within the field/industry that you are
studying as part of your course (ie the company and report must be in some way
related to what you are studying).

the briefing report is written in such a way that it will be of interest and relevance
to the sector(s) as a whole.

The company you choose is not one that you have used within previous
assessments, nor an issue that you have previously investigated, for any other Level
4 or 5 assessments.

General Information
Students will be required to investigate and research additional information to that
covered in lectures and seminars in order to make practical recommendations and

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demonstrate application of relevant concepts and theories. This means that you will be
expected to provide evidence from a range of sources. You will also need to identify an
issue that is substantive enough (ie a major operational issue) for you to research and
make credible & relevant recommendations about.
Formative assessment opportunities will be provided during the seminars through the
completion of case study exercises, presentations, draft online submissions etc.
This must be your own work; ie you cannot submit work that is the same as other students
or those that you may be working with for other assessments. If you do so, then any such
work will be subject to our academic misconduct guidelines & procedures, ie replication,
collusion, plagiarism etc).
The briefing report should be approximately 2500 words and should be written in the 3 rd
person.
At a minimum, the briefing report should contain the following sections:
Background Information (company)
Identified issue (industry & academic research into issue)
Challenge(s) facing company (as a result of issue or potential issue)
Conclusions
Recommendations
However, depending on the nature of the issue you identify and how you want to present
the information, you may feel that you want to include additional sections.
You must cite your sources within the briefing paper as well as at the end (in the Harvard
method of referencing)
Assessment criteria
For the report, students will be allocated one overall mark. The marking scheme is
attached to this assessment brief and students are advised to look at the different
categories in detail.
A summary of the key marking areas are as follows:
Background Information 15%

Current Issue Research 20%

Current Issues & Challenges etc 20%

Conclusions & Recommendations 20%

Clarity, Professionalism of Report etc 15%

References 10%

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