Logistic And Operation Management Assessment Answer

Background As an Operations Manager for an international organisation of your choice, you are tasked with aligning and assessing their Planning and Control activities with their Performance Objectives.

1. Evaluate the organisation’s Planning and Control activities, taking into context the below: 
• Long-Term Planning and Control 
• Medium-Term Planning and Control
 • Short-Term Planning and Control 
2. Analyse and provide the organisation’s planning and control activities stages with the use of a diagram detailing the below.
 • Sequencing 
• Loading 
• Scheduling 
• Monitoring and Control
3.Discuss how your organisations planning and control activities align with the organisation’s Performance Objectives and provide recommendations.

Executive Summary

British Petroleum (BP) is an international Oil and Gas company that has one of the world’s largest operations because of its earnings in terms of revenue. The purpose of this report is to align and assess the Planning and Control activities of BP with their Performance Objectives as an operations manager. The evaluation of the organization's long-term, medium-term and short-term plans has been done, and all the plans are well-formulated and well-developed. The company also monitors and control every part of its loading, scheduling and sequencing activity and intervenes immediately when there is any deviation in the plans or the re-planning is required.  The planning and control activities are aligned to the performance objectives of the company. 

Introduction

British Petroleum (BP) is an international Oil and Gas company that has one of the world's largest operations because of its earnings in terms of revenue. The headquarters of the company is in the UK. It provides its customers with the fuel for transportation, heat and light energy sources, retail services and also the petrochemical products for their daily items. The services stations of this company are located all over the world, and almost eight one thousand people in the world are working with it. This shows that the operations of the company are spread internationally with 16 refineries in operation and production of 2.3 million barrels per day (Petroleum, 2013). All the business of the company is run on the success of its operations that are planned and controlled in a systematic way by the operations managers of the company. 
The purpose of this report is to align and assess the Planning and Control activities of BP with their Performance Objectives as an operations manager. For this, the organization’s planning and control activities will be evaluated, then the organization's planning and control activities stages will be analyzed, and finally, the alignment between organizations planning and control activities and the organization’s Performance Objectives will be discussed in this report. 

Evaluation of the organization's planning and control activities

• Long-Term Planning and Control
In the long term planning and control, the plans have to focus on what the operations managers intend to do; the resources that they need and the objectives that they wish to achieve. Here, the major emphasis is on planning and not in control because the requirement of control is very less at this stage. Basically, the forecasts of the likely demand are used here by the managers so that the financial targets are achieved by the managers at the end of the year (Olhager, 2013). Also, the operations managers put in place the budgets that help in identifying the costs and the revenue targets of the company. 
The long term plans of BP involves (Strategic report, 2015)-
1.    To create value for the shareholders by helping the people in meeting the growing demand for energy in the safe and responsible way.
2.    To rebalance the sources and the uses of cash so that the company can ensure that they are covering their capital expenditure and the distributions of shareholders with the help of operating cash flows. The rebalance aimed to go below $60 per barrel.
3.    To invest in the balanced range of geographies and resources across the up and downstream segments.
4.    To explore areas of reservoir fluid flow to novel lubricant additives and lower carbon energy sources. 
The above points show that the planning and control activities of BP for the long term are apt, valid and justified with reasons. They have majorly focussed on meeting their financial targets and the things that are in line with their achievement of competitive advantage and long-term growth and success.
• Medium-Term Planning and Control
In the medium term planning and control, the operations manager has to make the most detailed plan. Here, the overall demand is assessed that is required to be met by the operations in the partially disaggregated manner (Heizer, 2016). Also, the resources and the contingencies are determined here, and the managers have to set the objectives in financial as well as operational terms.
The medium term plans and controls of BP involve (Strategic report, 2015)-
1.    To optimize the deployment of capital and its allocation and continue to simplify the business along with maintaining the commitment towards safety and reliability. For this, it plans to get a consent decree with the federal government of US and come to settlements with the US Gulf States. 
This has enabled the company to look at the future with more confidence. The control will depend on the current price environment so, for dealing with this contingency, the company plans to set its financial path for the next two years. 
• Short-Term Planning and Control 
By the time operations managers arrive at short term planning and control, many of the resources have already been set, and large changes cannot be made now. This planning is required for introducing the short term interventions if the things are not going according to the plans (Heizer, 2016). Here, the managers’ use totally disaggregated forecasts and the actual demand. 
The short term plans and controls of BP involves (Strategic report, 2015)-
1.    To reduce the safety and operational risk. For this, the number of spills and leaks will be controlled ad they will be reduced, the reduction in the most serious process safety events will be ensured, and the work-related injuries will also be monitored and controlled.
This is the most important control that is required in the short term because all the medium and long term plans and controls are based on this.