Your submission consists of two files: a MS Excel spreadsheet with the results of your simulation; and a MS Word file with your report.

Electronic submission only through Blackboard. There will be two submission points, one for the MS Excel file and the other one for your report.

You can submit your assignment multiple times to the submission link on the module Blackboard site. Each time you submit you will receive a

Similarity Report. You can check this and improve your referencing before the final deadline.

After 3 submissions you will need to wait 24hrs before you receive a new report.

Please note: each new submission replaces any previous submission. It is not possible to retrieve a previous submission.

Your final submission must be made before the deadline to avoid late penalties.

You should note that the time of submission is taken from once the document has been successfully uploaded and confirmed – this may take more than five minutes during busy periods. Late penalties will be applied to any work submitted from 12.01pm on the 2nd of May onwards. Details of how to calculate a late penalty can be found in your programme Handbook. It is your responsibility to ensure the correct document/file has uploaded successfully. When submitting students must:

Remember it is compulsory for SUMS students to do at least one mySkills Assessment per year, and at least three development experiences. The coversheet provides evidence that you have done this.

SUMS requires a penalty of 5 marks to be applied for students who do not comply with all these requirements. Please make sure that your coversheet includes your screenshots as required.

3. Use ‘StudentNumber-MGTXXX-W’ (e.g. 18203206-MGT253-W) as the MS Word document name and also as the Assignment Title in Turnitin.

IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT THE USE OF AI: Please beware that the use of AI/GenAI is ONLY ALLOWED for the Improvement of English Grammar, vocabulary, or spelling. If this is done, you must acknowledge it using the Acknowledge/Describe/Evidence that is available in Blackboard.

You are only expected to provide one example of the use of AI as a grammar, style, or spell check tool. Any other use of AI is strictly forbidden and will be penalised according to Sheffield University rules. For further information please refer to https://students.sheffield.ac.uk/digital-learning/ai

Contribution to Final Mark for Module: 30%

The word count is for the main body of the text and ignores the reference list and appendices. If you exceed the word length you will be penalised. For details see the Management School Handbooks.

Please note that SUMS does not have a word count tolerance - it is a stated maximum as outlined above.

Requirements:

The Theory of Constraints, introduced and popularised by the book The Goal. A Process of Ongoing Improvement. by Eliyahu Goldratt and Jeff Cox, is a body of knowledge that deals with all the obstacles that limit or constraint the organisation’s ability to achieve its goals.

In this work you will use a spreadsheet to conduct a simulation to represent and evaluate the impact of bottlenecks in an industrial setting.

This work will be explained and the methodology, inspired by Goldratt’s book, will be explained and developed during tutorial sessions 1 to 3 (weeks 25 [3], 26 [5], and 29 [7], and 26 [4], 28[6], and 30 [8], depending on your tutorial group) and must be finished and submitted as an individual work by the end of Week 9 (2 nd of May 2025).

The submission consists of the MS Excel file containing the simulation exercise, and a short essay answering the questions indicated in the statement of the problem.

A thorough reflection about the impact of bottlenecks on a company’s processes. You should show that you clearly understand what a bottleneck

The report must include some graphic support and tables. Avoid copy and pasting your Excel spreadsheets, these will be revised and assessed together with the report. Your tables and graphics must be designed specifically for your report. Think carefully which is the information you want to summarise and report using graphic support.

Please remember that this essay is NOT expected to have the shape of an academic essay, but an executive report presented to a company’s board. Therefore, you are not expected to include academic references, as you will not do in a business environment.

Further details of the exercise are provided in a document that will be published together with this specification form.

Independence of working:

Other Submission Details:

Resit:

Other matters: