Operation Assignment

INTEGRATED SEMESTER ASSIGNMENT FINC 300, INFO 300, MGMT 300, MKTG 300

INSTRUCTIONS:

The objective of the integrated semester is to help you extend your knowledge of how the Finance, Operations, Management, and Marketing disciplines work, and how they integrate their functioning in the real world of business. This assignment is an assessment of how well you understand this integration.

Please read all the instructions carefully before beginning to answer the questions. Contact your instructor if you dont understand the assignments requirements. You will lose points if you fail to follow the instructions or if the submission is formatted incorrectly.

• The assignment should be prepared as a Word document, 3-4 pages in length for each discipline separately.
• The document should be double-spaced, use font size 12 and Arial font.
• The document should use standard 1-inch margins.
• Add any appendices or references at the end of the Word document for each discipline separately.
• Upload the appropriate Word file through the link on Canvas to each of your Integrated Semester courses separately by the due date (i.e. the Finance assignment should only be uploaded to your Finance class).
• Your reference sources, in addition to the base case and question sets, should be online sites and articles, Bloomberg terminals, your Integrated Semester textbooks, PowerPoint slides, and other sources your professor assigns.
• Turnitin and other software that prevent plagiarism will be used to assess your sourcing of information. Do your own work

OPERATIONS ASSIGNMENT

1. Amazon has made significant investments in building its own logistics infrastructure,

including leasing aircraft for Prime Air, developing its own delivery vans, acquiring the

autonomous vehicle company Zoox, and experimenting with drone delivery. Based

on these

moves described in the case, what are the long

–

term supply chain implications of Amazon

bypassing traditional carriers like UPS and FedEx?

Your response should be based on supply chain and operations management concepts discussed

in class. Be sure to connect your analysis to topics such as vertical integration, supply chain

network design, cost vs. service trade

–

offs, last

–

mile delivery, econ

omies of scale, risk

management, and supply chain agility and resilience. Your answer should go beyond

summarizing the case and apply these concepts to critically evaluate Amazon’s strategy.

2. Amazon launched the Get the Crap Out (GTCO) initiative to eliminate unprofitable SKUs

such as bulky, low

–

margin items

in order to improve its cost structure and focus on higher

–

margin products. How could inventory segmentation techniques, such as ABC

analysis or the

Pareto principle, support this initiative by helping Amazon prioritize profitable items?

In your answer, discuss how this approach aligns with Amazons financial strategy of improving

operating margins and cash flow. Also consider how changes to product selection may influence

or require changes in Amazons marketing strategy

for example, shif

ting promotional efforts

toward high

–

turnover or Prime

–

eligible items. Support your response with relevant supply chain

and inventory management theories, and refer to Amazons historical financial performance and

marketing evolution as described in the ca

se.

3. Examine how Amazon ensures quality management in its fulfillment centers while handling

millions of SKUs. How do process design and automation contribute to consistent service quality

and customer satisfaction?

While you may use online resources and tools to explore this topic, your response should be

grounded in the quality management concepts discussed in class. Be sure to refer to relevant

topics such as Total Quality Management (TQM), Six Sigma, continuous improvement (Kaizen),

statistical process control, process standardization, and service quality dimensions (e.g.,

reliability, responsiveness) that your professor explained during class t

ime. Use these concepts to

critically evaluate Amazons strategies, rather than just summarizing information found online.

4. You are provided with the daily gross sales of an Amazon Fresh store from May 26 to June 29

in the Sales_Data.xlsx dataset. Use this data to forecast daily sales for the period June 30 to July

6 by completing the tasks below:

Trend Forecast (Without Seasonality): Forecast the daily sales from June 30 to July 6

using a trend analysis model that does not incorporate seasonality.

Seasonality Indexes: Calculate the daily seasonality indexes. What do these indexes

indicate about sales patterns throughout the week?

Trend Forecast with Seasonality: Using the trend model from part 1, adjust your forecasts

for June 30 to July 6 by incorporating the calculated seasonality indexes.

Managerial Implications (100

150 words): How might Amazon utilize your forecast

results to plan and manage store operations for the week of June 30? Consider aspects

such as staffing, inventory, and promotions.

Note:

The data on the Excel file is dynamic and changes every time you hit a key on the

keyboard or when you reopen the file. Please copy the entire dataset, paste it as Values on a

separate sheet, and work on the data on the new sheet. This will allow you to

work on static data.

The file labeled pdf .pdf is the amazon case study

the file integrated semester is the questions for to be answered in essay. Only answer the operation part 4 questions.