Business Equipment Advice and Visual Controls

Assessment Task 1 BSBADM311A Maintain business resources (STUDENT’S NAME)

Student’s name

Assessor’s name

Date submitted

The candidate must be able to monitor equipment and material usage, develop a budget, analyse usage, assess organisational requirements, and advise on the replacement or upgrade of equipment.

In any workplace, equipment needs replaced or upgraded on a regular basis.

In this assessment task, you must identify a capital resource (equipment) in a workplace and monitor the usage of this resource (including material usage) for a duration specified by your assessor (typically a two week duration where the equipment is monitored five times).

You will provide advice on the upgrade of the equipment based on usage information and organisational requirements.

Examples of capital resources (equipment) and associated material resources (consumables or raw materials) could include:

1. photocopier (capital resource), paper (material resource)

2. work vehicle (capital resource), petrol (material resource).

Once your assessor provides you with a time frame for completing this project, you must:

1. Identify equipment (capital resource) and consumables (material resource) that you can monitor and check with your assessor that this equipment meets the requirements of the assessment.

2. Estimate the weekly usage of material resources.

3. Use your estimates to produce a weekly operational budget for the equipment for the duration of the project.

4. Monitor the usage of resources at regular intervals (at least five times during the project) and graph this usage with Excel.

5. Identify any trends or variations in usage.

6. Conduct preliminary research into replacement/upgrades for the equipment including sourcing information from potential suppliers (Internet research).

7. Identify required/preferred features and problems/issues with current equipment by surveying at least three team members/users.

8. Identify equipment specification to the meet team/user requirements.

9. Identify three suppliers of the capital equipment that meets the requirements and compare and contrast the strengths or weaknesses of the suppliers. A table or chart should be developed to compare the three suppliers.

10. Review the purchasing policy and procedures (provided below) and identify how the organisation would acquire the replacement equipment with specific attention to procedural compliance.

11. Provide your recommendations to your assessor at interview with supporting documentation (see below) and accompany it with a short report that summarises your findings.

You must provide:

A short report summarising your findings.

Supporting documentation including:

1. An operational budget using the attached template (or similar).

2. Excel spreadsheet showing estimates of usage and actual usage of material resources.

3. Completed surveys/questionnaires from team members/users.

4. Specification for equipment.

5. Information from three possible suppliers (brochure or internet printouts).

Your assessor will be looking for:

A choice of capital equipment that is relevant to an office environment and where usage of materials can be measured and recorded (e.g. work vehicles, photocopiers or possible phones & computers).

A completed report with all areas addressed including:

1. overview of equipment and materials

2. weekly operational budget for the equipment (including materials)

3. budget variances

4. analysis of trends/variations in usage of capital equipment

5. research (user surveys and supplier research)

6. comparison of capital equipment suppliers

7. conclusions and recommendations

8. explanation of how you would follow the attached purchasing procedure to acquire the equipment.

A weekly budget estimate that is:

1. realist

2. accurate

3. comprehensive (covers all costs of operating the equipment including materials and consumables).

4. uses attached template or similar format.

Excel spreadsheet showing:

1. actual usage of equipment and materials

2. actively monitored (recorded at least five times in a two week period)

3. accurate data

4. line charts or bar charts showing usage.

User surveys/questionnaires completed by at least three users and showing:

1. How often they think they use the equipment?

2. What features do they use?

3. issues/problems with current equipment

4. features preferred/required in new equipment.

Information from three possible suppliers of replacement equipment with information that can support decision making, including:

1. price

2. features

3. specifications (performance)

4. service and support contracts.

Comparison of supplier information that is:

1. in tabular format

2. allows easy comparison of features and benefits.

Recommendations of capital equipment that:

1. meet user requirements (based on interview with users)

2. will meet future usage (based on analysis of usage)

3. cost effective.

Steps you would take to acquire that complies with purchasing policy and procedure (attached below)

To establish a process and framework for contracts and purchases of resources that ensures:

1. our purchases are budgeted for or are subject to financial controls

2. all purchases are cost effective

3. purchasing activities complies with legislation.

1. organisation funds are only used for work related purposes

2. purchases are cost effective

3. purchasing procedures must comply with relevant legislation

4. failure to comply with this policy and its procedures will result in disciplinary measures.

Authorities:

1. General Manager – final decision on purchasing

2. Department Managers – responsible for operational budgets (including supply/purchase of material resources)

3. Purchasing Committee – responsible for decisions on capital expenditures

4. Purchasing Officer – responsible for documentation and process.

Approving Material Expenditure

1. Material expenditures are the responsibility of the departmental manager, namely: Manufacturing Manager, Warehouse Manager, Office Manager.

2. All material expenditures must be accounted for within the department’s operational budget.

3. Any material expenditure that exceeds departmental operational budgets must be raised immediately with the General Manager.

Approving Capital Expenditure

1. A purchasing committee has been established and meets monthly to review and approve major purchases.

2. Membership includes the General Manager, Manufacturing Manager, Warehouse Manager, Office Manager, Accountant and Purchasing Officer.

3. Preferred suppliers are to be asked to quote for relevant contracts. The purchasing officer maintains the list of preferred suppliers on the purchasing committee’s behalf.

4. Copies of current budgets, quotes, contracts and other documents relating to purchases must be provided to the committee for review.

5. The purchasing committee must review the proposed expenditure against the relevant budgets.

Contract and Payment

1. Expenditures, once approved, should be forwarded to the purchasing officer for review and finalisation of contract (if applicable) and payment.

2. All contracts must be reviewed and signed by the General Manager.

3. Purchase Orders are to be raised electronically through the organisational accounting system.

4. Purchase Orders must be checked approved by person with budget responsibility (Manufacturing Manager, Warehouse Manager, Office Manager).

© 2009 IBSA MC v.2 2015 Page 8 of 8