Week 13 : Supply Chain BPR

Reference :

1. http://www.lda-us.com/Articles/AME_SupplyChainRedesign.pdf

Content :

Advanced Sterilization Products had conducted supply chain processes redesign due to the disconnection between purchasing, manufacturing, demand planning, logistics, design and quality. The turnover rate of the inventory was very high, the rate was four. Some warning to the company had been found by conducting activity based costing, which were excessive material handling expanse, excessive manufacturing leadtimes, non-valued added activities. Therefore, the aim of the project was improving the product performance.

First, the company had established a project team to conduct the project. The team was comprised of advisory committee, project sponsor, project lead, consultant, Kanban team, supplier qualify team, core team, Q&R study and reliability testing. Difference components worked on different part. For example, Knowledge Transfer Group Limited, the consultant, provided ASP with structure and technical expertise to the project.

Then, the team generated a schedule to achieve the goal of the project.  There was a pre-analysis phase to collect data, agree on meeting formats and timetables, and identify customer requirements. The state two was data and information analysis. In this phrase, it conducted cross-functional training, validated opportunities and benefits, valued map the physical and information flow in the Supply Chain, and prepared a reduction. For the phrase one and two, it spent 3 months to finish. Then, proposing redesign, making business case and implementation were conducted. They aimed to design the To-Be process and implement in the actual working environment.

In the figure c, the scopes of some processes were shown in the table, for example, the scope of JIT Deliveries was the ID and deliver top 80% of components to manufacturing floor. Also, the table listed out the objectives, techniques, deliverables and the results of each processes. Next KTG was consulted in order to gather more expert view for the redesign.

The article showed the min/max inventory process with flash points and disconnected communication loops and inflated lead-times. The figure showed that there were 35 steps in the incoming delivery process, which was very time-consuming and non-valued added. To improve these problems, the company reduced staging area, removed excess product from the WIP area, reduced excess WIP product containers and relabeled remaining containers. Also, the company had removed the non-value added activities in order to make the whole supply chain clearer, faster and smoother. The new processes included supplier selection, parts certification, quality and reliability study, application test.

To summarize, the redesign of the supply chain in the company was very successful. The company achieved improvements in design and development producibility, quality, reporting and data collection, and materials.

Week 12 : Lewin’s Three-stage Change Process

Reference :
1. http://www.lmcuk.com/management-tool/lewins-3-stage-model
2. http://www.scribd.com/doc/21556594/Change-Management-Lewin%E2%80%99s-3-Step-Model

Content :

Lewin’s Three-stage Change Process is a model about the change of a business involves a move from a stable state to another stable state through a transition. The model consists of unfreeze state, change state and refreeze state.

Unfreeze

This state helps managers or stakeholders to understand the change is required and let the employees comfort the change to the next state. If they do not first understand there is a need to change or the detail about the change, company may innovate in difficulties. In order to reduce the resistance of change, mangers should provide sufficient information. Having a detailed description about the change with employees may be a good process.

Change

The old process or system is replaced by the new one in this state.  Employees need to adapt the new working procedure, environment. So, good leadership and support are needed in order to achieve the goal of the company. Otherwise, the goals may be lowered or even though become failure.

Refreeze

This is the latest state in the model. The goal of this state is to establish a new, stable state and make sure their employees comfort with their new working environment.

Limitation

In the real world, the environment of the company faced is actually changing continuously. It may violate the concept of the model since the model assumes to change a business process from a stable state to another stable state. If the condition is relative stable, then the model is still useful. Otherwise, company should adopt other method to redesign her process.

week 7 : BPR methodologies

reference:
1. http://webs.twsu.edu/whitman/papers/ijii99muthu.pdf

content:

BPR methodologies are methodologies that stem from differences between business activities and organizational strategy, current and desired productivity of organizational resources. It enhances the process of reengineering and helps engineer to solve problems.

In the lecture note, BPR methodologies have 5 phrases which are triggering and executive visioning, BPR project mobilization, process redesign, implementation and organizational transformation, monitoring and maintaining.

In the first phrase, analyst research which process in the business is inefficient and plan how this process should work. The inefficient process may be due to there are many errors in the process, great complexity.  After identifying the processes needed to redesign, they are prioritized according to the importance of the process. In phrase two, a BPR team is formed and selected a process to redesign. In phrase three, process will be redesign. AS-IS will be analyzed and improve it which become the TO-BE process. Then, implement the TO-BE process and continuously monitor and maintain it.

After searching in the Internet, there are some other BPR methodologies from contemporary literature. I will introduce consolidated methodology. There are also five phrases to conduct the BPR project. They are preparing for BPR, mapping and analyzing AS-IS process, designing TO-BE process, implementing reengineered processes, improving continuously.

Planning and preparation are almost the most importance step in the BPR project. If it does worse, the remaining works become meaningless. It takes a look on which process is the worst in the business and what factors affect it. Some professors argued that there is no need to analyze the AS-IS process. However, the article I read mentions it is important to understand the value of an AS-IS process and analyze it. This can enhance the redesign of the TO-BE process. The main objective of the second phrase is to identify what factors make the process useless. After that, phrase three, design TO-BE process, carries out and implement the TO-BE process. In phrase four, some measurements are conducted in order to evaluate the new process. Finally, the process will be improved continuously.

Comparing the consolidated methodology with the methodology in the note, they are quite similar. I think the key point is to do the preparation and planning well, clearly identify which process needs to redesign and what is the weakness of it. Then, the BPR project is going into succeed.

W6 - QTM

References :

1. http://tqmcasestudies.com/

2. http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/total-quality-management/overview/overview.html

3. http://managementhelp.org/quality/total-quality-management.htm

4. http://ezinearticles.com/?A-Case-Study-on-TQM-Implementation-Review&id=756819

Content:

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a continuous management approach for an organization to improve its internal operation, the quality of its products and services, so that customers are satisfied. Under TQM, all employees must be involved, cooperated in order to achieve the goal of TQM. Otherwise, it becomes fail.

To successfully implement this approach, it must adopt or fulfill some important principles.

First, quality can and must be managed. It is very important that the company can manage the quality of its products and services since the manager can realize what is the problem so that allocate resources to overcome the problem. If the quality of its products and services is uncontrollable, nothing can the manger do. Also, in this case, quality can then be measured and quantified in order to observe the improvement. It helps the managers to set the future goals and keeps the organization works toward the goals.

Second, every employee is responsible to the quality of the products and services which include top manager, senior employees, etc. They must know that they are a part of the company, therefore they must contribute to their company. In order to achieve this goal, Total Quality culture must be built among the employees. Training is an essential factor since employees can gain more knowledge and increase their working effectiveness and efficiency.

Third, the company should realize what the root of problem is. This can solve the problem more effective and efficient, greatly reduce the time and resources spent on irrelevant process. Also, quality improvements must be continuous and is a long-term investment because it cannot be done once to obviously improve the quality of products. Company must not give up when TQM is processing unless it is found that totally useless.

Case study:

Dr. L.M. Foong had a meeting to review the progress of the TQM implemented in an organization on 25 September 2007. In the meeting, he found that it is difficult to measure TQM implementation for the organization’s success. He concluded that it does not have a answer or resolution to this question because there must be some difference between difference companies.

I think it why Dr. L.M. Foong concluded that since the structure, culture, process of different companies must not be same. Therefore, the implementation of TQM must also be difference and the measurement is set according the environment of the organization. If you really want a guideline to measure TQM success, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award assessment approach, a national level award system in U.S., may help you.

W5 - Brick, Brick and click, From brick to click, click

W5 - Brick, Brick and click, From brick to click, click

Source / Reference:

1.  http://www.hsbc.com.hk/1/2/home

2. http://www.apple.com/hk/

3. http://www.amazon.com/

4. http://www.chowsangsang.com/new/chi/detect.htm

Content

Brick and click e-business is a kind of strategies that have offline and online components, which has physical store and online branch of business. The advantages of this type of strategies are convenient for both customers and suppliers to buy and sell goods or services. It has better communication between the business and customers because customers can reflect their thinking quicker and business is more efficient in collecting customers request in  both online and offline platform. The disadvantages are business needs more effort to align the online and offline operations. Apple is applying this strategy to run his business.

Brick is a kind of strategies that only have offline stores which means there is no any online activities. The advantages of this type of strategies are business has more face to face communication, business may collect more accurate useful information of the customers. Customers may try the products directly. However, the rental, labour and other cost may be higher, it will slow down the growth of the business. Also, this strategy limits the working hours. Mostly, businesses which sell luxury products, apply this strategy to run their business, for example Chow Sang Sang Jewellary.

Click is a kind of strategies that only have online components, which means there is no any offline activites. The advantages of this type of strategies are business has no any geographic resistant, customers may come from every corners of the world. It can reduce time cost and the money spent in renting, labour cost. Since the Internet nowadays is a necessary of people, therefore it can also reduce advertising cost. Amazon is one of the businesses applying this strategy

From brick to click is a kind of strategies that company moves transaction from offline to online. The advantages of this strategy are the cost for the renting and operating of the shop are lower and easier to provide customized services or promotion. One the other hand, it may loss the customers who do not get use of online operation. It is quite difficult to apply this strategy in the real world. Hong Kong Bank is running adopting strategy that quite similar to from brick to click.

W4 - Strategic Alliance Model

Source / Reference:
1. http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_venkatraman_strategic_alignment.html 

2. http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net


Subject:
In Lect 4 - Which alignment strategy in SAM model is the best? and why?

Response:

In the lecture notes, lack of alignment between business and IT/IS strategies causes an institution or organization unable to recognize value from the IT/IS investment. According to the website, lack of alignment between the business and IT strategy and a dynamic administrative process lead businesses in difficulties to understand or estimate the benefit and the cost of the IT/IS investment. It is consistent to the definition from the lecture note.

In the lecture notes, the web page above and another web page, the SAM is divided into 4 parts, which is business strategy, IT strategy, business infrastructure and IT infrastructure.

Business strategy describes the relationship between business scope, distinctive competencies and business governance. They include everything that may affect the business atmosphere, make business into success and the relationship between the business and external parties. 

IT strategy describes the relationship between technology scope, systemic competencies and IT governance. They include the information technologies that fit the business strategy, the benefits that IT technologies can bring and the external factors that the business is depended on.

Business infrastructure describes the relationship between administrative structure, processes and skills. They are the business structure, operation in each business process component and the relationship between them, the management of the human resources.

IT infrastructure describes the relationship between IT infrastructure, processes and skills. They include all the technologies and knowledge in computing, activities of the IT infrastructure, the work done by human resources for IT.

Strategic execution perspective aims to avoid delay and error, improve the quality of service and reduce time cost. It is achieved by changing the information technology infrastructure.

Technology transformation only wants to find out the best IT competence that fit the business use regardless the business structure.

Service level aims to improve the delivery of business own products, services and processes by using IT. Business strategy may guide it at the back.

Competitive potential concentrate in the IT environment and find out the best business strategy when new technology is innovated.

Service level may be the best since many companies are using this approach to expand their business activities. For example, taobao is using a networking platform to gathering many sellers and buyers. It earns thousands of millions of dollars every year.

I think these four perspectives are also essential. If any one of these perspectives misses, some functionalities of the model will disappear. For example, we pick the competitive potential perspective off, and then business may not have enough updated information in order to make decision accurately.