Logistics And Operations Management GSM London College PM206 Level 5 Playmouth University

1. Evaluation Of Planning And Control Activities Of Unilever

In order to improve the performance of Unilever by developing an effective plan and control and so that the organisation required to focus on the various types of planning and control activities such as long term, medium term and short term. The evaluation of planning and control the activities of Unilever in order to attain the performance objectives is mentioned below:

Long Term Planning and control

Long term planning and activities of control are based on the mission, vision and the long term objectives of Unilever which are described below:

• To maintain the sustainability in the various activities of the operation and logistics management.
• To increase the profitability of the organisation by 20% in the coming years.
• To be a market leader in the industry of consumer goods and manage the competitive advantage in an appropriate manner.
• To achieve the goals of the organisation in proper time frame.

In order to attain this objectives in effective manner, Unilever have to focus on the different activities of planning and control. There is reduction in the extra cost and wastage of the raw materials in order to increase the profit by 20% so that the organisation required to develop the appropriate plans(Brown, Bessant and Lamming, 2013). Allocation of resources in an optimum manner it helps in reducing the extra cost of the company and so that resource allocation plays an essential role in reduction of the cost in the organisation. The stated organisation have to focus on the monitoring and controlling the activities of the plan as it is long term process of planning. The company also required to introduce the new and unique products to be a market leader in consumer goods so that it helps them n leading all other organisations. These all strategies plays an essential role in forming various products from the existing competitors ad so that it helps them in attaining competitive advantages.

Medium term planning and control

In order to attain the long term planning and control Unilvere have to focus on the medium term planning and control and for that there are some of the objectives of the organisation which are mentioned below:

• To increase the revenue of the sales in upcoming year.
• To enables the employees as they achieve the superior standards of performance of work.
• To make the necessary arrangement of the training and development programmes in order to increase in the skills and knowledge in an effective manner so that it helps employees in identifying the appropriate knowledge(Christopher, 2016).

The objective of performance of Unilever as the employees to achieve the superior standards, the organisation gives proper working environment and technologies as it helps the employees in improving the performance with the superior standards. Further, to increase the revenue of sales is another major objectives of the company and for this objectives they have to use proper techniques of promotion of the products so that customers are attracted towards the product and hence there is increase in the revenue of sales. Moreover, the management of Unilever have to make proper arrangements of training and development programmes according to the requirement and needs of the employees. So that it helps in maintain the knowledge and skills of an individual is plays an important role in order to attain the medium term objectives. Thus, it can be said that the medium term objectives attained by the proper arrangement of the planning and control.

Short term planning and control

Short term objectives of Unilever focuses on the day to day operation of the organisation which are described below:

• To make proper communication between the team members and employees.
• To improve the performance the employees(Dekker, Bloemhof and Mallidis, 2012).
• To motivate the employee for providing their best performance.
• To complete the daily activities according top the production and operation planning.

In order to increase the performance of employees there is requirement of planning and control different activities of Unilever. To complete the activities in an appropriate manner the management of the organisation make proper arrangement of guiding and supervising the team members in an effective way. Fir managing the day to day performance of the organisation they have to focus on the process of communication which is managed by them as per the requirements. The use of technologies such as mobiles, emails, video conferencing and telephones these all helps in making an appropriate coordination between the team members of the organisation. Thus, all these activities of planning and control helps in performing the short term objectives of Unilever.  

2. Stages Of Planning And Control Activities Of Organisation

Planning and activities of control of Unilever concentrate on long term, medium and short term objectives of the organisation and there are the following stages of planning and control which are as follow:

Sequencing

In order to attain the objectives of Unilever it focuses on various planning and acontrol activities but determining these activities not only important as the organisation requirement to decide the priority of the activities is know as sequencing process. The principle of these includes the physical constraints, due date, first in first out, customer priority and longest operation time. Unilever can decide the sequence of the activities according to the needs of the customers so that the priority of customers is considered as the most essential method for the planning and control the activities(Fernie and Sparks, 2014). The stated organisation can decide the sequencing the activities according to requirement and needs of customers. In addition to this, there are some of the physical constraints for the consumer goods products such as needs of organisation to do design the products as per their needs. LIFO is one of the important model which focus on the concept for deciding the sequence. The stated organisation requires to complete the activities which need longest operation otherwise this affect the total time of the project. Therefore, all these tools must be used by the management of Unilever in order to manage the sequencing of planning and control activities.

Loading

This stage focuses on the proper allocation of work to each and every activity and loading is the process of the allocation of the work as part of the planning and control of operations. This is based on the capacity of the machinery and available working time and theory capacity of the skills and knowledge. There is reduction on the quality of products due to the overloading and so that underloading can impact the speed of the planning and control the operations. The management of Unilever can use appropriate tools for the allocation of proper time and cost. There is increase in the total time of the task as the waiting time, lead time and extra time. Unilever required to take some safety time in order to manage the tasks in effective manner(Gunasekaran and Ngai, 2012). Thus, all these considerations helps in improving the overall loading of work and activities of planning and control.

Scheduling

Scheduling is one of the most important stage that helps in determining the time table each and every task and activities. With the help of this stage at Unilever they can decide the schedule of proper activities which helps in completing the various activities on appropriate time. Further, these also includes the Gantt chart and evaluation of the project for scheduling the activities and review the techniques(Ivanov, Tsipoulanidis and Schönberger, 2016). In addition to this, backward and forwards scheduling is also necessary for deciding the time for the path in order to complete the project. Thus, this stage is considered as the important for scheduling the activities in an appropriate manner.

Monitoring and Control

Monitoring and control is also one of the important stage in planning and control activities and to determine the progress of the entire operation. It helps in assuring the quality of the products and determining the changes which are required in the process of manufacturing of products and services. The management of Unilever also require to monitor the sequencing, loading and scheduling stages for completing the planning and control the activities in an effective manner(Langabeer, and Helton, 2015). The tool of pull and push is also an important aspect which is used by Unilever for the input and monitoring the output of the organisation so that the organisation compare and re-plan the activities in an effective way. Thus, Gantt chart and the structure of work breakdown also can be used by the organisation for controlling and planning all the activities in an appropriate manner.

3.

Discussion Of Planning And Control Activities And Recommendation

According to the above discussion each and every activities of planning and controlling of Unilever helps in attaining the performance objectives of the company in an effective manner. With this, all the activities are effective in order to attain long term, medium and short term objectives in effective way(Rushton, Croucher and Baker, 2014). As sometimes inappropriate activities of planning and controlling can impact on the quality of the products and services so that it also affect the overall sales and profit of the organisation. In order to resolve this issues the management of Unilever has to focus on the needs and requirement of the customers so that the products according to the preference of customers helps in achieving the goals of the organisation.

In addition to this, the stated organisation required to use the electronic customer relationship system of management that helps in making strong level of communication with their customers which plays an effential role in identifying the needs of customers which is helpful in attaining the goals towards the consumers(Tayur, Ganeshan and Magazine, 2012). This also plays an important role in order to develop various strategies to manage such things in effective manner. Further, the management also use various tools and techniques to develop the activities of planning and controlling. The company can also use Gantt chart, push and pull system for loading, sequencing, scheduling and monitoring and control the activities in effective way. Therefore, these all recommended strategies help to manage the activities of planning and controlling in a proper manner so that the organisation can achieve the performance objectives in more effective manner which is beneficial for the stated organisation(Schönsleben, 2016).

Conclusion

From the above study it is concluded that planning and control the activities of Unilever required to focus on long term, medium and short term objectives in order to accomplish the performance objectives of the company. Further, for the process of sequencing activities required to focus on the LIFO, FIFO and customer priority methods. In addition to this, PERT and Gantt chart is a appropriate tool for loading, scheduling and monitor and controlling the activities in an effective manner. Therefore, the report has recommended that Unilever should use management of operation tool for the planning and control the activities in order to attain the performance objectives of the organisation.

References

• Bichou, K., Bell, M. and Evans, A., 2013. Risk management in port operations, logistics and supply chain security. CRC Press.
• Brown, S., Bessant, J.R. and Lamming, R., 2013. Strategic operations management. Routledge.
• Christopher, M., 2016. Logistics & supply chain management. Pearson Higher Ed.
• Dekker, R., Bloemhof, J. and Mallidis, I., 2012. Operations Research for green logistics–An overview of aspects, issues, contributions and challenges.European Journal of Operational Research. 219(3). pp.671-679.
• Fernie, J. and Sparks, L., 2014. Logistics and retail management: emerging issues and new challenges in the retail supply chain. Kogan Page Publishers.
• Gunasekaran, A. and Ngai, E.W., 2012. The future of operations management: an outlook and analysis. International Journal of Production Economics. 135(2). pp.687-701.
• Ivanov, D., Tsipoulanidis, A. and Schönberger, J., 2016. Global Suppy Chain and Operations Management.
• Langabeer II, J.R. and Helton, J., 2015. Health care operations management. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.