­­­­­Assessment task details and instructions

As globalisation has increased, the world’s supply chains have become substantially more interconnected. Moreover, as emerging market economies have steadily come to account for a greater proportion of global GDP, goods often have more stages to pass through before reaching the end consumer. From national lockdowns to closed airspace and borders, COVID-19 has resulted in unprecedented disruption to the mechanics of most economies, regardless of their size or stage of development. In particular, the erection of these barriers has placed a major strain on the world’s supply chains, including essential linkages relating to food, medicines, and other industries. (OxfordBusiness Group, 24th April 2020).

Various projects around the world are being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in numerous ways, and many projects have stopped. COVID-19 is not rendering projects altogether impossible to complete. But it is slowing them down, causing delay and disruption, even if only because supply chains have been severally disrupted. Many projects have even stopped, usually with the intention to resume work at a later date.

Following the current crisis, organisations will have an opportunity to learn from the challenges they experienced and take steps that will strengthen their supply chain and the way they plan and execute projects. The importance of agility and ability to adapt has now become more important than ever, and the crisis should serve as a “wake-up call” that better preparation is needed in understanding and mapping out SCM and PM networks.

Critically discuss the impact of COVID-19 and the lessons learned so far in Projects and/or Logistics utilising academic and non-academic (practitioner) sources and undertake research to explore the legitimacy of the above statements. focus your arguments on construction industry.

You will need to take the following into account when completing your report:

• Clarity, of the content of your Report;
• Quality of a relevant literature review that helps inform your discussion;
• Clarity of argument and integration of different components in relevance to Projects and/or a Logistics context;
• Allocation of credit and sources used; (minimum 15 references Harvard Referencing System)
• Use of examples, figures, tables, illustrations and statistics that indicate wider/independent reading ((remember figures and diagrams will not be counted towards your word limit))
• Quality of executive summary
• Overall report presentation and structure including spelling and grammar;
• Word count have to be 3000 words (+/- 10%). Your word count is from the introduction to conclusion sections.  Therefore, it does not include title page, executive summary, table of contents , reference section, and any tables or diagrams or illustrations. If the assignment exceeds these limits, the work in excess of 3’300 words is not marked.
• Word processed (letter size 12, times new roman, 1.5 space)
• fully referenced (Harvard Referencing System);
• Structure of the Report:

1. Title Page (not included for word count)
2. Executive summary (not included for word count)
3. Table of content (not included for word count)
4. Introduction
5. Body of report
6. Conclusion
7. References (not included for word count)

Assessment Criteria and Marking Scheme for report

 

Criteria	Marks
Use of theory	30
Practitioner examples and sources utilized	30
Quality of argument	10
Approach to research	10
Citation and References	10
Conclusions	10