A LevelBusinessAQAExam QuestionsManaging OperationsProject Management

Project Management (AQA A Level Business): Exam Questions

Exam code: 7132

Syllabus Edition

First teaching 2026

First exams 2028

2 hours15 questions
Easy
Medium
Hard
1
6 marks

Source B: Dyson

Dyson designs and sells vacuum cleaners, hair care products, air purifiers and robots. It began in the United Kingdom, it is privately owned by its founder's family, and its global headquarters is now in Singapore. It employs over 14 500 people worldwide.

The company competes by inventing things other manufacturers have not, and then stopping them from copying it. In 2025 it spent more than £400 million on research and development, including on artificial intelligence and machine learning, and filed 252 patents to protect what it had invented. It filed 238 the year before. In the same year it launched 13 new products, more than in any previous year.

Dyson designs in one place and makes in another. Around 2 000 people work in Singapore, nearly half of them engineers and scientists, and its Singapore Advanced Manufacturing site has produced roughly 100 million of the Hyperdymium motors that go inside its machines. In Johor, Malaysia, it has a 50 000 square metre site with over 1 200 professionals. In late 2024 it scaled back the hair care work in Malaysia and moved almost 50 staff to other work on the same site.

Trading has been hard. Revenue fell from £7.1 billion in 2023 to £6.6 billion in 2024 and £6.13 billion in 2025, and tariffs and movements in exchange rates both hurt. Even so, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose 18% in 2025 to £1.11 billion and operating profit rose 15% to £0.6 billion.

Getting a new machine from an idea to a shop shelf is a project with many stages, and some of those stages cannot start until others have finished.

Source: Dyson financial results for 2024 and 2025

Appendix G: Bringing a new Dyson machine to market

Table of Dyson project activities, dependencies and durations in weeks: A specification 6; B motor after A 14; C body/filters after A 10; D prototypes after B,C 12; E Singapore line after B 16; F safety after D 8; G marketing after D 6; H launch after E,F,G 2.

Source: Analyst

Analyse one way in which using network analysis to plan a new machine might affect Dyson's costs.

How did you do?

2
6 marks

Source B: Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce makes the engines that power large passenger aircraft, equipment that generates electricity, and nuclear systems for submarines. It is one of a very small number of companies in the world that can design a large civil aero engine at all.

The business has recovered strongly. In 2025 group revenue reached £20.06 billion and underlying operating profit £3.46 billion, lifting the underlying operating margin to 17.3% from 13.8% the year before. Civil Aerospace revenue rose 15% to £10.4 billion, helped by more engines coming in for overhaul. Power Systems revenue rose 19% to £4.9 billion, with power generation up 30% and the part of it that supplies data centres up 35%.

Almost everything Rolls-Royce does takes a very long time. A new civil aero engine is designed, tested, certified by regulators and then flown for decades, and the company spends the money years before any of it comes back. Its UltraFan technology programme is developing the next generation of ducted engine.

It is also trying to build something it has never built before. Rolls-Royce SMR is developing a small modular reactor: a nuclear power station small enough that most of it can be made in a factory and delivered to site, rather than built from scratch in the open. The idea is that making the same thing many times is cheaper and more predictable than building each one by hand. The unit employed 1 005 people and grew its headcount 26% in a year. It was treated as a separate company in the 2025 results rather than being consolidated into the group.

The question that follows is how to make them: in one large factory that Rolls-Royce owns and controls, or through a network of suppliers.

Source: Rolls-Royce Holdings plc 2025 full year results

Appendix G: How long a new civil aero engine takes

Two tables show aero-engine development: research 0 to 3 years, design 3 to 6, build and test 6 to 9, certification 9 to 11, service at 11, overhaul to 40; £2.4bn upfront, profit after 17 years, 68% overhaul revenue and about 400 patents.

Source: Analyst

Analyse one way in which spending £2.4 billion before an engine earns anything might affect Rolls-Royce's cash flow.

How did you do?

3
6 marks

Source B: Arm Holdings

Arm designs the processors at the centre of almost every mobile phone in the world, and increasingly of the computers in data centres and cars. It does not make a single chip. It designs them, licenses those designs to companies such as Apple, Qualcomm and Nvidia, and then collects a royalty on every chip those companies ship.

That is an unusual way to run a technology business, and a very profitable one. In the financial year to March 2025 Arm's revenue passed $4 billion for the first time. Royalties brought in about $2.16 billion and licensing about $1.84 billion, up 29%. In the final quarter alone revenue rose 34% to a record $1 241 million, with royalty revenue up 18% to $607 million as customers moved to the newer Armv9 architecture and as Arm-based chips spread through data centres. Headcount reached 8 330, up 17%.

Because Arm does not manufacture, almost everything it spends goes on people and on the years of design work before a single chip exists. A new processor architecture is designed, verified, licensed, built into a customer's own chip, manufactured by a third party and only then sold, by which time several years have passed and the royalties begin.

The question the company is asked repeatedly is whether it should go further. It could design and sell complete chips itself rather than licensing the designs to others. That would earn far more for each chip. It would also mean competing with the customers who currently pay it.

Source: Arm Holdings plc results for the financial year ended 31 March 2025

Appendix G: How long an Arm processor design takes to earn

Table showing Arm’s processor timeline: design (0 to 3 years), verify/test (3 to 4), license (year 4), customer builds (4 to 6), foundry manufactures (6 to 7), and chips ship with royalties from year 7. Key figures: about 900 engineers, $1.4bn pre-royalty spending, 15 to 20 earning years, and 71% people costs.

Source: Analyst

Analyse one way in which waiting seven years before royalties begin might affect how Arm manages the project of developing a new architecture.

How did you do?

4
6 marks

Source B: Oxford Nanopore Technologies

Oxford Nanopore Technologies makes devices that read DNA by passing a single strand of it through a hole a few atoms wide. It spent more than a decade in research before it sold anything, holds over a hundred patent families, and in 2024 had revenue of £183.2 million against £169.7 million the year before. Underlying growth, setting aside £16.0 million from two large programmes coming to an end, was 23.3%.

The money arrives in an unusual shape. A customer buys a device once, and then buys flow cells and reagents to use in it again and again. Three quarters of revenue comes from those consumables rather than from selling devices, so every device placed with a customer is the start of a stream of orders rather than the end of a sale.

The company grew from 1 133 full-time employees to 1 315 during 2024, a rise of 16%. Almost none of that growth was in manufacturing, which went from 156 people to 158. Making the flow cells is highly automated, and the design is difficult to copy from a finished product.

What now has to happen is a change of scale rather than a change of idea. A new flow cell is ready, and getting it made in volume means finalising a design, ordering tooling, validating the product with regulators and customers, training operators and proving a line. On the project plan, the tooling is the activity nothing else can get past.

Every week the new flow cell is not on sale is a week of orders not taken.

Source: Oxford Nanopore Technologies plc annual results for the year ended 31 December 2024

Appendix G: The project to make the new flow cell in volume

Two project tables list activities A–F lasting 8, 12, 10, 6, 9 and 3 weeks; B, C and D follow A, E follows B, and F follows C, D and E. Measures include a 32-week critical path, C float of 11, D float “?”, bottleneck B, £410,000 weekly revenue and 8 weeks completed.

Source: Analyst

Analyse one way in which the tooling being the activity nothing else can get past might affect Oxford Nanopore Technologies' project plan.

How did you do?

5
6 marks

Source A: Halewood Robotics Ltd

Halewood Robotics Ltd designs and builds robots that pick items in warehouses. It employs 196 people near Warrington, delivered about 240 robots last year, and in the year to March 2025 had revenue of £31.5 million and an operating profit of £2.1 million. Thirty-four customers buy from it and the five largest provide 51% of revenue.

It spends heavily on being first. Research and development cost £4.2 million last year, up from £2.1 million five years ago, and six new designs were completed. Sixty-two per cent of revenue now comes from products launched in the last three years, and the company holds forty-eight patents across nine patent families.

The factory practises what it sells. Seventy-one per cent of its own assembly is automated and fourteen of its own robots work on its own lines, which is how a business of 196 people builds 240 machines a year.

Selling a robot is not the end of the job. Each customer gets an installation that runs from surveying the site to training their staff, and building the robots is the activity nothing else can get past. Eleven installations were completed last year and 73% finished on time.

The decision in front of the board is about a new gripper that lets a robot pick soft items such as clothing. Nobody else can do it yet. Patenting it means publishing how it works and waiting; launching now means a rival can take it apart and copy it.

Source: Halewood Robotics Ltd

Appendix C: Installing a system at a customer's site

Two tables show installation activities, durations and dependencies: A survey 3 weeks, B design 5 after A, C build 9 and D software 7 after B, E install 4 after C and D, F train 2 after E. C is the bottleneck.

Source: Analyst

Analyse one way in which the robot build being on the critical path might affect Halewood Robotics Ltd's installations.

How did you do?

6
6 marks

Source B: Oxford Nanopore Technologies

Oxford Nanopore Technologies makes devices that read DNA by passing a single strand of it through a hole a few atoms wide. It spent more than a decade in research before it sold anything, holds over a hundred patent families, and in 2024 had revenue of £183.2 million against £169.7 million the year before. Underlying growth, setting aside £16.0 million from two large programmes coming to an end, was 23.3%.

The money arrives in an unusual shape. A customer buys a device once, and then buys flow cells and reagents to use in it again and again. Three quarters of revenue comes from those consumables rather than from selling devices, so every device placed with a customer is the start of a stream of orders rather than the end of a sale.

The company grew from 1 133 full-time employees to 1 315 during 2024, a rise of 16%. Almost none of that growth was in manufacturing, which went from 156 people to 158. Making the flow cells is highly automated, and the design is difficult to copy from a finished product.

What now has to happen is a change of scale rather than a change of idea. A new flow cell is ready, and getting it made in volume means finalising a design, ordering tooling, validating the product with regulators and customers, training operators and proving a line. On the project plan, the tooling is the activity nothing else can get past.

Every week the new flow cell is not on sale is a week of orders not taken.

Source: Oxford Nanopore Technologies plc annual results for the year ended 31 December 2024

Appendix H: Two ways of getting the new flow cell to customers sooner

The new flow cell would earn £410 000 a week once it is on sale.

Comparison table: Option 1 costs £1.9m, saves 4 weeks, has an 85% chance and launches the new cell; Option 2 costs £0.3m, saves 9 weeks, has a 95% chance and launches the old cell, with the new cell 8 months later.

Source: Analyst

Analyse one way in which paying the tooling supplier to deliver in 8 weeks instead of 12 might affect Oxford Nanopore Technologies' project.

How did you do?

7
6 marks

Source A: Halewood Robotics Ltd

Halewood Robotics Ltd designs and builds robots that pick items in warehouses. It employs 196 people near Warrington, delivered about 240 robots last year, and in the year to March 2025 had revenue of £31.5 million and an operating profit of £2.1 million. Thirty-four customers buy from it and the five largest provide 51% of revenue.

It spends heavily on being first. Research and development cost £4.2 million last year, up from £2.1 million five years ago, and six new designs were completed. Sixty-two per cent of revenue now comes from products launched in the last three years, and the company holds forty-eight patents across nine patent families.

The factory practises what it sells. Seventy-one per cent of its own assembly is automated and fourteen of its own robots work on its own lines, which is how a business of 196 people builds 240 machines a year.

Selling a robot is not the end of the job. Each customer gets an installation that runs from surveying the site to training their staff, and building the robots is the activity nothing else can get past. Eleven installations were completed last year and 73% finished on time.

The decision in front of the board is about a new gripper that lets a robot pick soft items such as clothing. Nobody else can do it yet. Patenting it means publishing how it works and waiting; launching now means a rival can take it apart and copy it.

Source: Halewood Robotics Ltd

Appendix C: Installing a system at a customer's site

Two tables. Activities for installing a system, with duration and what each must follow: A, survey the customer's site, 3 weeks, follows nothing; B, design the layout, 5 weeks, follows A; C, build the robots, 9 weeks, follows B; D, write the control software, 7 weeks, follows B; E, install and commission, 4 weeks, follows C and D; F, train the customer's staff, 2 weeks, follows E. A table of measures: length of the critical path in weeks not provided; float on activity D 2 weeks; the one activity nothing else can get past is C; value of one installation £1.4m; penalty for each week an installation runs late £18 000; 11 installations completed last year; 73% of installations finished on time; the company is on the customer's site for 6 weeks.

Source: Analyst

Analyse one way in which only 73% of its installations finishing on time might affect Halewood Robotics Ltd.

How did you do?

1
9 marks

Source B: Netflix

Netflix is one of the world's leading entertainment services. It employs around 13 000 people. The company has over 430 million shares. It has never paid a dividend. It has more than 247 million paid memberships in over 190 countries. Members enjoy TV series, films and games across a wide variety of genres and in over 30 languages. Members can play, pause and resume watching Netflix's content as much as they want: anytime and anywhere. Netflix's competitors include Disney+, Amazon Prime, HBO and Paramount.

The use of advanced digital technology affects all aspects of Netflix's operations. For example, it:

  • enables the smooth streaming of content

  • adjusts the quality of the video for the platform it is viewed on

  • enables the production of high-quality content

  • enhances users' experience on the Netflix site through features such as efficient search functions and personalised recommendations of content.

Netflix aims for diversity in its workforce. Its employees are paid top rates for what they do. Netflix claims it has a unique culture. Netflix's leaders highlight the importance of collaboration and creativity. 3% of Netflix employees work remotely compared to a national average of 14%. There are very few rules at the business because Netflix trusts employees to make the right choices. Employees are empowered and given the freedom to decide what to do and delegation is high but, in return, must take responsibility for their actions. The company expects employees to be high performers and excellent team players. Underperformers are asked to leave. For every significant decision, Netflix identifies an "informed captain of the ship". This person is an expert in their area and is responsible for listening to other people's views and then making a judgment call on the right way forward.

Appendix B shows a network diagram with an example of a major new series that Netflix could launch.

In this example, if the series is released within 15 months, it will coincide with the peak viewing period, which could result in subscription revenue of approximately $350 million in the first year. A financial assistant has provided an estimate of how any delay might reduce this year's income from subscriptions. A production director has also suggested that additional resources could be allocated to the project if necessary. If the series is successful, it may continue to be shown in future years and could lead to the development of a second season.

Source: information sourced from Netflix, 2024

Appendix B: A network for potential development of a new series (activity durations in months)

Network diagram for a 15-month series-development project. Activity A, planning and financing, takes 4 months. After A, activity B, market research, takes 4 months and leads to activity D, casting, which takes 1 month; at the same time activity C, scriptwriting, takes 3 months. B and D, and C, all end at the node for month 9. From month 9, activities E, filming, 4 months, F, pre-release promotion, 2 months, and G, screen-testing, 3 months, run in parallel and end at the node for month 13. Activity H, post-production, takes 2 months and finishes at month 15. Earliest and latest times at the nodes are 0 and 0, 4 and 4, 8 and 8, 9 and 9, 13 and 13, and 15 and 15.

Appendix C: Projected impact of delays to the series development project

Table showing expected impact of delays to the 15-month launch target on this year’s subscription revenue: 1 month −10%, 2 −20%, 3 −30%, 4 −45%, 5 −55%, and 6 −70%.

Recent strike action has delayed Activity C in the development of the new series by 6 months.

Assess how this delay might affect Netflix's revenue.

Calculate the possible impact of the delay on the critical path to support your answer.

How did you do?

2
9 marks

Source B: Arm Holdings

Arm designs the processors at the centre of almost every mobile phone in the world, and increasingly of the computers in data centres and cars. It does not make a single chip. It designs them, licenses those designs to companies such as Apple, Qualcomm and Nvidia, and then collects a royalty on every chip those companies ship.

That is an unusual way to run a technology business, and a very profitable one. In the financial year to March 2025 Arm's revenue passed $4 billion for the first time. Royalties brought in about $2.16 billion and licensing about $1.84 billion, up 29%. In the final quarter alone revenue rose 34% to a record $1 241 million, with royalty revenue up 18% to $607 million as customers moved to the newer Armv9 architecture and as Arm-based chips spread through data centres. Headcount reached 8 330, up 17%.

Because Arm does not manufacture, almost everything it spends goes on people and on the years of design work before a single chip exists. A new processor architecture is designed, verified, licensed, built into a customer's own chip, manufactured by a third party and only then sold, by which time several years have passed and the royalties begin.

The question the company is asked repeatedly is whether it should go further. It could design and sell complete chips itself rather than licensing the designs to others. That would earn far more for each chip. It would also mean competing with the customers who currently pay it.

Source: Arm Holdings plc results for the financial year ended 31 March 2025

Appendix E: Selected data for Arm Holdings, year to 31 March 2025

Table of Arm Holdings figures: total revenue about 4.00 billion US dollars; royalty revenue about 2.16 billion US dollars; licensing and other revenue 1.84 billion US dollars, up 29%; revenue in the final quarter 1 241 million US dollars, up 34%; royalty revenue in the final quarter 607 million US dollars, up 18%; 8 330 employees, up 17%; Arm manufactures no chips.

Source: Arm Holdings plc

Appendix G: How long an Arm processor design takes to earn

Two tables show Arm’s seven-year process from architecture design to royalties: design, testing, licensing, customer chip-building and manufacture. Key figures: 900 engineers, 1.4 billion US dollars of spending, 15 to 20 earning years and 71% people costs.

Source: Analyst

Assess the difficulties of managing a project that takes seven years to earn anything, for a business like Arm.

How did you do?

3
9 marks

Source B: Quenby Instruments Ltd

Quenby Instruments Ltd designs and builds bedside patient monitors for hospitals from a single site in Leicester. It employs 140 people, had revenue of £21.5 million in the year to March 2025 and an operating profit of £1.6 million. Nine out of ten of its monitors are sold to NHS trusts.

For the past three years a team of eleven engineers has been developing a sensor that measures a patient's oxygen level continuously rather than every few minutes. Quenby has spent £2.9 million on it, has filed a patent application in the United Kingdom, and believes two competitors are working on something similar.

Nothing can be sold until the regulator approves it. A medical device cannot reach a ward in Britain without approval, and approval cannot be hurried: the file has to be complete, the testing has to be finished, and the regulator takes as long as it takes. On Quenby's own project plan, obtaining approval is the single longest activity and sits squarely on the critical path.

Everything else is ready to move. The prototypes work. The assembly line can be built in twelve weeks and there is time in hand to do it. The sales team can be trained in a month. All of it waits on one activity that Quenby does not control.

Abbie Thornton, who runs the project, has told the board that the company has two realistic ways of reaching hospitals sooner, and that neither of them is comfortable.

Source: Quenby Instruments Ltd

Appendix E: Quenby Instruments Ltd selected data, year to March 2025

Appendix E table of Quenby Instruments’ selected data: 140 employees, 11 engineers, £21.5m revenue, £1.6m operating profit, 90% NHS sales, one Leicester site, three years’ development, £2.9m spent, and no sales before approval.

Source: Quenby Instruments Ltd

Appendix G: The project to bring the new monitor to hospitals

Two tables. Activities for Quenby's monitor project, with duration and what each must follow: A, design the sensor, 14 weeks, follows nothing; B, build and test prototypes, 10 weeks, follows A; C, prepare the regulatory file, 6 weeks, follows A; D, obtain regulatory approval, 22 weeks, follows B and C; E, set up the assembly line, 12 weeks, follows B; F, train the clinical sales team, 4 weeks, follows D; G, first shipment to hospitals, 2 weeks, follows D, E and F. A table of measures: the one activity Quenby cannot speed up is D; float on activity C 4 weeks; float on activity E 14 weeks; revenue lost for each week the launch is late £96 000; 24 weeks of the project already completed.

Source: Quenby Instruments Ltd

Assess the value of project management to Quenby Instruments Ltd in bringing the new monitor to hospitals.

How did you do?

4
9 marks

Source A: Halewood Robotics Ltd

Halewood Robotics Ltd designs and builds robots that pick items in warehouses. It employs 196 people near Warrington, delivered about 240 robots last year, and in the year to March 2025 had revenue of £31.5 million and an operating profit of £2.1 million. Thirty-four customers buy from it and the five largest provide 51% of revenue.

It spends heavily on being first. Research and development cost £4.2 million last year, up from £2.1 million five years ago, and six new designs were completed. Sixty-two per cent of revenue now comes from products launched in the last three years, and the company holds forty-eight patents across nine patent families.

The factory practises what it sells. Seventy-one per cent of its own assembly is automated and fourteen of its own robots work on its own lines, which is how a business of 196 people builds 240 machines a year.

Selling a robot is not the end of the job. Each customer gets an installation that runs from surveying the site to training their staff, and building the robots is the activity nothing else can get past. Eleven installations were completed last year and 73% finished on time.

The decision in front of the board is about a new gripper that lets a robot pick soft items such as clothing. Nobody else can do it yet. Patenting it means publishing how it works and waiting; launching now means a rival can take it apart and copy it.

Source: Halewood Robotics Ltd

Appendix A: Halewood Robotics Ltd selected data, year to March 2025

Table of Halewood Robotics Ltd selected data: 196 employees; revenue £31.5m; operating profit £2.1m; 240 robots delivered; 34 customers; 51% of revenue from the five largest; R&D £4.2m; six new designs; 71% automated assembly; 14 own robots; 12 years trading.

Source: Halewood Robotics Ltd

Appendix C: Installing a system at a customer's site

Customer installation tables showing activities A–F, durations and dependencies; the critical-path figure is blank, while D has 2 weeks’ float and C is the bottleneck. Other figures are £1.4m, £18,000, 11, 73% and 6 weeks.

Source: Analyst

Assess the value of network analysis to Halewood Robotics Ltd when it installs a system.

Calculate the length of the critical path to support your answer.

How did you do?

5
9 marks

Source B: Oxford Nanopore Technologies

Oxford Nanopore Technologies makes devices that read DNA by passing a single strand of it through a hole a few atoms wide. It spent more than a decade in research before it sold anything, holds over a hundred patent families, and in 2024 had revenue of £183.2 million against £169.7 million the year before. Underlying growth, setting aside £16.0 million from two large programmes coming to an end, was 23.3%.

The money arrives in an unusual shape. A customer buys a device once, and then buys flow cells and reagents to use in it again and again. Three quarters of revenue comes from those consumables rather than from selling devices, so every device placed with a customer is the start of a stream of orders rather than the end of a sale.

The company grew from 1 133 full-time employees to 1 315 during 2024, a rise of 16%. Almost none of that growth was in manufacturing, which went from 156 people to 158. Making the flow cells is highly automated, and the design is difficult to copy from a finished product.

What now has to happen is a change of scale rather than a change of idea. A new flow cell is ready, and getting it made in volume means finalising a design, ordering tooling, validating the product with regulators and customers, training operators and proving a line. On the project plan, the tooling is the activity nothing else can get past.

Every week the new flow cell is not on sale is a week of orders not taken.

Source: Oxford Nanopore Technologies plc annual results for the year ended 31 December 2024

Appendix F: Where the growth went, and how the technology is protected

Full-time employees

Bar chart comparing full-time employees in 2023 and 2024: total employees rose from 1 133 to 1 315, while manufacturing employees barely changed from 156 to 158. The vertical axis ranges from 0 to 1 400 employees.
Table of company facts: employee growth 16%; device bought once; flow cell bought every use; research before first sale over 10 years; over 100 patent families; R&D share about 54%; design not easily copied; sold in over 120 countries.

Source: Analyst

Appendix H: Two ways of getting the new flow cell to customers sooner

Comparison table of two launch options: Option 1 costs £1.9m, saves 4 weeks and has an 85% chance of success; Option 2 costs £0.3m, saves 9 weeks and has a 95% chance. Option 1 includes the new flow cell; Option 2 does not.

The new flow cell would earn £410 000 a week once it is on sale.

Source: Analyst

Assess the importance of accurate project planning to Oxford Nanopore Technologies.

How did you do?

1
15 marks

Source B: Dyson

Dyson designs and sells vacuum cleaners, hair care products, air purifiers and robots. It began in the United Kingdom, it is privately owned by its founder's family, and its global headquarters is now in Singapore. It employs over 14 500 people worldwide.

The company competes by inventing things other manufacturers have not, and then stopping them from copying it. In 2025 it spent more than £400 million on research and development, including on artificial intelligence and machine learning, and filed 252 patents to protect what it had invented. It filed 238 the year before. In the same year it launched 13 new products, more than in any previous year.

Dyson designs in one place and makes in another. Around 2 000 people work in Singapore, nearly half of them engineers and scientists, and its Singapore Advanced Manufacturing site has produced roughly 100 million of the Hyperdymium motors that go inside its machines. In Johor, Malaysia, it has a 50 000 square metre site with over 1 200 professionals. In late 2024 it scaled back the hair care work in Malaysia and moved almost 50 staff to other work on the same site.

Trading has been hard. Revenue fell from £7.1 billion in 2023 to £6.6 billion in 2024 and £6.13 billion in 2025, and tariffs and movements in exchange rates both hurt. Even so, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose 18% in 2025 to £1.11 billion and operating profit rose 15% to £0.6 billion.

Getting a new machine from an idea to a shop shelf is a project with many stages, and some of those stages cannot start until others have finished.

Source: Dyson financial results for 2024 and 2025

Appendix E: Selected data for Dyson

Table of selected Dyson data. Revenue: £7.10bn in 2023, £6.60bn in 2024 and £6.13bn in 2025. EBITDA: £0.94bn in 2024 and £1.11bn in 2025. Operating profit: £0.60bn in 2025. Profit before tax: £561m in 2024. Spending on research and development: over £400m in 2025. Patents filed: 238 in 2024 and 252 in 2025. New products launched: 13 in 2025. Employees worldwide: over 14 500 in 2025.

Source: Dyson

Appendix G: Bringing a new Dyson machine to market

Table of activities, dependencies and durations: A specification, 6 weeks; B motor, after A, 14; C body and filters, after A, 10; D prototypes, after B and C, 12; E production line, after B, 16; F testing, after D, 8; G marketing, after D, 6; H launch, after E, F and G, 2.

Source: Analyst

Dyson wants to launch its next machine sooner. It is considering two ways of doing so:

Option 1: spend £3.2 million to shorten the motor design from 14 weeks to 9 weeks

Option 2: spend £1.4 million to shorten the safety and compliance testing from 8 weeks to 5 weeks

Evaluate both options and recommend which one Dyson should choose.

Calculate the total length of the project as it stands to support your answer.

How did you do?

2
15 marks

Source B: Quenby Instruments Ltd

Quenby Instruments Ltd designs and builds bedside patient monitors for hospitals from a single site in Leicester. It employs 140 people, had revenue of £21.5 million in the year to March 2025 and an operating profit of £1.6 million. Nine out of ten of its monitors are sold to NHS trusts.

For the past three years a team of eleven engineers has been developing a sensor that measures a patient's oxygen level continuously rather than every few minutes. Quenby has spent £2.9 million on it, has filed a patent application in the United Kingdom, and believes two competitors are working on something similar.

Nothing can be sold until the regulator approves it. A medical device cannot reach a ward in Britain without approval, and approval cannot be hurried: the file has to be complete, the testing has to be finished, and the regulator takes as long as it takes. On Quenby's own project plan, obtaining approval is the single longest activity and sits squarely on the critical path.

Everything else is ready to move. The prototypes work. The assembly line can be built in twelve weeks and there is time in hand to do it. The sales team can be trained in a month. All of it waits on one activity that Quenby does not control.

Abbie Thornton, who runs the project, has told the board that the company has two realistic ways of reaching hospitals sooner, and that neither of them is comfortable.

Source: Quenby Instruments Ltd

Appendix E: Quenby Instruments Ltd selected data, year to March 2025

Table of selected data: 140 employees; 11 engineers; £21.5m revenue; £1.6m operating profit; 90% NHS sales; one Leicester site; three years’ development; £2.9m spent; no sales before approval.

Source: Quenby Instruments Ltd

Appendix G: The project to bring the new monitor to hospitals

Two tables for the monitor project: activities A to G with durations of 14, 10, 6, 22, 12, 4 and 2 weeks and their dependencies; measures show D cannot be sped up, C float 4 weeks, E float 14, £96 000 weekly loss and 24 weeks completed.

Source: Quenby Instruments Ltd

Appendix H: Two ways of reaching hospitals sooner

Comparison table: Option 1 costs £340 000, takes 7 weeks off, has a 70% chance, launches the sensor, and risks regulator questions; Option 2 costs £180 000, takes 12 weeks off, has a 90% chance, delays the sensor 9 months, and risks a competitor. Both shorten activity D.

Source: Analyst

Quenby Instruments Ltd is considering two ways of reaching hospitals sooner:

Option 1: pay a specialist consultancy to prepare and manage the regulatory submission

Option 2: seek approval first for a simpler monitor without the new sensor

Evaluate both options and recommend which one Quenby Instruments Ltd should choose.

Calculate the length of the critical path for the project as it stands to support your answer.

How did you do?

3
15 marks

Source B: Oxford Nanopore Technologies

Oxford Nanopore Technologies makes devices that read DNA by passing a single strand of it through a hole a few atoms wide. It spent more than a decade in research before it sold anything, holds over a hundred patent families, and in 2024 had revenue of £183.2 million against £169.7 million the year before. Underlying growth, setting aside £16.0 million from two large programmes coming to an end, was 23.3%.

The money arrives in an unusual shape. A customer buys a device once, and then buys flow cells and reagents to use in it again and again. Three quarters of revenue comes from those consumables rather than from selling devices, so every device placed with a customer is the start of a stream of orders rather than the end of a sale.

The company grew from 1 133 full-time employees to 1 315 during 2024, a rise of 16%. Almost none of that growth was in manufacturing, which went from 156 people to 158. Making the flow cells is highly automated, and the design is difficult to copy from a finished product.

What now has to happen is a change of scale rather than a change of idea. A new flow cell is ready, and getting it made in volume means finalising a design, ordering tooling, validating the product with regulators and customers, training operators and proving a line. On the project plan, the tooling is the activity nothing else can get past.

Every week the new flow cell is not on sale is a week of orders not taken.

Source: Oxford Nanopore Technologies plc annual results for the year ended 31 December 2024

Appendix G: The project to make the new flow cell in volume

Project schedule: A design 8 weeks; B tooling 12 after A; C validation 10 after A; D training 6 after A; E line 9 after B; F production 3 after C, D and E. Summary: critical path 32 weeks, C float 11, D float not provided, B bottleneck, £410 000 weekly revenue, 8 weeks completed.

Source: Analyst

Appendix H: Two ways of getting the new flow cell to customers sooner

The new flow cell would earn £410 000 a week once it is on sale.

Table comparing Option 1, pay the tooling supplier a premium to deliver in 8 weeks instead of 12, with Option 2, launch with the existing flow cell and move customers across later: cost £1.9m and £0.3m; weeks taken off the project 4 and 9; chance it works 85% and 95%; whether the launch includes the new flow cell, yes and no; when customers would get the new flow cell, at launch and 8 months after launch; effect on activity B, shortens it to 8 weeks and none; effect on the float on activities C and D, reduced and unchanged; main risk, rushed tooling may have to be reworked, and customers who have just bought the old flow cell will not buy twice.

Source: Analyst

Oxford Nanopore Technologies is considering two ways of getting the new flow cell to customers sooner:

Option 1: pay the tooling supplier a premium to deliver in 8 weeks instead of 12

Option 2: launch with the existing flow cell and move customers across later

Evaluate both options and recommend which one Oxford Nanopore Technologies should choose.

Calculate the float on activity D to support your answer.

How did you do?