students are required to write an investigative report relating to a specific issue in manufacturing. This can come from personal experience in the industry, a case study, or something found through research. It must be specific to manufacturing and cannot be related to global outsourcing or corporate issues.
Each graduate student will be assigned a manufacturing problem for their research paper according to the proposed course schedule. The graduate student will be responsible for researching that problem and writing a research paper accordingly. Start early and get guidance on APA style
- Research the assigned issue specific to manufacturing as assigned by the instructor.
- Describe the issue fully in three distinct areas:
- What is the issue and how does it affect manufacturing productivity? This is the topical part of the paper and requires 4-6 pages with 4+ resources.
- How is this issue being addressed in manufacturing today? This part of the paper requires 4-6 pages with 4+ resources separate from your topical resources.
- If you were the manager with the responsibility for addressing this issue within your manufacturing facility what would you do? This part of the paper is where you would fully explain what actions you would take as a manager to meet the demands created by this issue.
- It requires 6-10 pages with 3+ resource additional resources.
- Your paper should have 11+ resources and be 14 pages minimum plus your summary, table of contents, abstract and cover page.
In other words, find a problem specific to a manufacturing facility, propose a solution to the problem and provide sufficient evidence that your solution will be successful if implemented.
The paper will be prepared using the 6th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the text must be at least 20 pages long and must include a “summary and conclusions” of at least one page. All topics must be approved by the instructor. Further, investigative reports and book reports are not the same things.
This paper should conclude with your conclusions on the actions that should be taken rather than the actions that were taken and your paper should provide the documentation to support that conclusion. The strength of that argument will constitute the bulk of your final grade on the term paper.
Your paper should have:
1 – Cover page
2 – Table of contents
3 – Abstract
3 – At least 14 pages of text (APA style assumes double-spaced format)
4 – At least 1 page of summary or conclusion
For other format specifications, please follow the APA style manual. (Please note that points will be deducted for the paper that does not follow the APA format.