ur tasks This assessment item requires you to work INDIVIDUALLY As a project management consultant, you have only three (3) months to correct the situation. You would need to: i. Explain how you would...

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ur tasks
This assessment item requires you to work INDIVIDUALLY
As a project management consultant, you have only three (3) months to correct the situation. You would need
to:
i. Explain how you would go about identifying the root cause (s) by proposing the use of appropriate
tools and techniques.
ii. You will propose a plan to eliminate or reduce the root cause (s) taking into considerations the
resources that are required.
iii. Develop a continuous improvement plan to ensure the problems and issues are not repeated




PPMP20009 Project Management Methodologies Term 2, 2017 Page 1 of 3 Assessment 4 (Individual Work) Case study: Continuous Improvement Introduction Latino Engineering is a midsize company with about 300 employees located in New South Wales, Australia. It provides design, development and manufacturing of specialist engineering equipment for various industries (oil & gas, utilities, construction and infrastructure). It was founded by Dominic Latino, a mechanical engineer passionate about designing and developing engineering equipment. Dominic has many patents for the engineering equipment that he has designed over the years. The company has been operating for almost 30 years and has good clientele. Most of the clients have a very high regard for Dominic’s professionalism and quality of work. Due to its reputation, Latino Engineering became a much sought after company. Many contracts were awarded and overall, profitability was soaring. This attracted many investors who either wanted a stake in the company or to buy it entirely. Dominic had many offers to evaluate either to sell in part or as whole. He knew that if he allowed other shareholders into his business, he would lose full authority in major decision making and strategy development for his company. Furthermore, he is not used to taking instruction from others as for the last 30 years, he has been the sole decision maker for the company. Considering this, Dominic decided that he will only sell the company outright and then retire. An investment group took the opportunity and purchased Latino Engineering for a sizeable amount. The investors decided to maintain the name of the company so as to ensure continuity and avoid disruption to its clientele. Dominic, after spending 30 years in his company, has decided to call it quits at the age of 65. The company retained most of its workforce, but some senior engineering folks decided to seek other opportunities. The crack is appearing 12 months after the take cover, Latino Engineering began to receive many complaints from its clients. The complaints were: i. Defective engineering equipment ii. Poor design and development follow up with clients iii. Too long turnaround time for issue resolution iv. Non responsive customer service team v. In some cases, wrong engineering equipment was packaged and delivered to clients Management response Senior management was surprised at the decline of quality in the company. While they had retained most of the workforce to ensure minimal disruption to work processes, customers are still not happy. To arrest the situation, Latino Engineering senior management has engaged you, a project management consultant to provide a continuous improvement plan to overcome the issues and complaints highlighted above. The senior management has committed that they will provide all necessary support that you need to turnaround the situation. They want a plan to address all the issue in the next 3 months. PPMP20009 Project Management Methodologies Term 2, 2017 Page 2 of 3 Your tasks This assessment item requires you to work INDIVIDUALLY As a project management consultant, you have only three (3) months to correct the situation. You would need to: i. Explain how you would go about identifying the root cause (s) by proposing the use of appropriate tools and techniques. ii. You will propose a plan to eliminate or reduce the root cause (s) taking into considerations the resources that are required. iii. Develop a continuous improvement plan to ensure the problems and issues are not repeated. You may refer to the knowledge area Quality Management from PMBOK, Prince2 or from any other quality management systems such as ISO9000 series, TQM (Total Quality Management), Six Sigma / Lean Six Sigma etc to devise your continuous improvement plan. Your submission should be made using Microsoft Office documents and the essay submitted as a separate 2,500 – 3,000 words Microsoft WORD document (excluding references list). You should describe all of the required parts of your continuous improvement plan. A range of sample continuous improvement plans will be identified for you to study during the unit.You must not include pictures or diagrams in the body of the essay. You must provide an ILLUSTRATION OR DRAWING OF YOUR CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PLAN in the appendix of your essay. Your essay should be a properly constructed academic essay. It should contain an introduction, body and conclusion. The introduction should introduce the essay and include your recommendations. The body should present the evidence you have collected to support your argument, provide your assumptions, summarise the evidence and the conclusion should restate your recommendations. The essay should contain a coherent, but necessarily restricted review of the academic literature on the project management topics in question. The literature review should be integrated into the essay, not a separate section. Do not include an executive summary or an abstract. A reference list formatted in the prescribed Harvard style is compulsory. Do not include a bibliography. This assessment item involves researching your assigned topic to enhance your understanding of project management concepts and utilisation of academic literature. Whilst you use the recommended textbooks and unit resourcesyou may also refer to relevant, academic journal articles and cite, at least twenty (20) times. PPMP20009 Project Management Methodologies Term 2, 2017 Page 3 of 3 Assessment Criteria Your assignment will be assessed on the extent and quality to which it meets each of the following criteria. No Attributes (%) 1 A pictorial illustration of the continuous improvement plan is supplied? 10 2 A high-level textural overview of the continuous improvement plan is provided? 10 3 An implementation plan has been developed that is an accurate reflection of the case study? 10 4 The continuous improvement plan should reflect the following :- i. The continuous improvement plan reflects an ability to use and apply fundamental concepts and skills of the unit, going beyond mere replication of content knowledge or skill to show understanding of key ideas, awareness of their relevance, some use of analytical skills, and some originality or insight in relation to the learning outcomes of the assignment 25 ii The continuous improvement plan demonstrates awareness and understanding of deeper and less obvious aspects of the unit, such as ability to identify relevant tools and techniques, ability to solve non-routine problems, ability to adapt and apply ideas to new situations, and ability to invent and evaluate new ideas. 25 iii. The continuous improvement plan has been presented with imagination, originality or flair, based on proficiency in all the learning outcomes of the unit; work is interesting or surprisingly exciting, challenging, well read or scholarly 10 5 Clarity of expression, grammar and spelling? 10 Total 100 Important Information Assessment Due Date Week 12 Friday (6 Oct 2017) 11:45PM AEST Return Date to Students Exam Week Friday (20 Oct 2017) Weighting 25%
Answered Same DayOct 03, 2019PPMP20009Central Queensland University

Answer To: ur tasks This assessment item requires you to work INDIVIDUALLY As a project management consultant,...

David answered on Nov 26 2019
147 Votes
Continuous Improvement Plan
Introduction
The Continuous Improvement (CI) Plan is a sequence of steps (taken one after the other) to improve the existing system for better results. The steps begin with the analysis of available data based on past history of trends and their practical impact as observed in the past. Later on identifying the possibilities of improvement, implementation and review of the feedback. The cycle keeps on revolving in a circular manner that’s why the Improvement is said to be Continuous.
According to Kaizen (2
017), the CI Plan considers the existing Standard framework of processes going on in the organization, and revolves around a basic model –“Identify, Plan, Implement, and Review”. In the manufacturing and Business, the concept of Continuous Improvement is formalized by Lean, Agile and Kaizen Methodologies. Based on four fundamental stages, the most popular among the three is Kaizen Management Concept which elaborates each step in more extensive manner.
According to Kaizen Management Philosophy and Implementation Strategy, the Continuous Improvement Cycle can be described as a method of uplifting the quality of work culture in companies to produce a better output and minimizing the wastage.
(
THE CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PLAN
)
The process of CI Plan keeps on going in a cyclic manner passing through all the steps one-after-the-other because the chances of improvement are always there in every company. The CI plan includes seven major steps (Kaizen 2017) :
1. Identifying the Problems: For improvements in current situation, we need to find out the problems. In Latino Engineering case, the complaints of customers can be used to identify the problems in current situation. As the company began to receive many complaints from its clients just within 12 months of handover, the complaints of customers need to be addressed seriously. The complaints are: Defective Engineering Equipments, Poor design and Development follow up, too long turnaround time for issue resolution, Non responsive customer care support, and delivery of wrong engineering equipment.
2. Develop Measures to Counter: Once we know the problems, it is easier to go in depth of each and every problem to find out their root cause. As Medinilla (2016) postulates that ‘’The problem of defective engineering equipments and poor designing can be solved by focusing on the framework of designing and manufacturing unit, Longer Turnaround time for issue resolution can be sorted out by Servicing Units, and Non responsive Customer care response can be corrected by Improving the Customer care services and the concerned departments. For each and every department specific measures must be implemented to deliver quality work”.
3. Determine Root Cause: According to Medinilla (2016) “Behind each problem, there is a Primary cause. It can be inefficient design, inefficient testing, lazy staff, lack of resources, lack of facilities, or low salary”. All the problems must be deeply studied in an elaborate manner to find out their link into their probable root cause.
4. Hypothesize Solution: After determining the root cause, we can find out an approximate solution to each cause. By making a list of all the points of solution, we can plan to implement it.
5. Test Hypothesis: The implementation of solution can be tested by estimating the output. An idea can be proposed about estimate performance of improved product. The actual results may be a little high or low to the approximate hypothesis.
6. Implement Solution: The proposed solution must be implemented to respected departments. And the performance should be recorded with feedback.
7. Standardize the work: The newly implemented policies and solutions must be absorbed in the organization and its work culture. Sufficient training must be imparted to the concerned departments regarding time management, and delivering quality services to the client(Wheeler 2016).
As Kaizen (2017) proposed, “By continuously observing and implementing best practices , the companies can find out various ways to continue their routine activities normally along with analyzing the business opportunities that can be along the way”.
Possible Risks:
1. The Analysis is time bound: To improve the efficiency continuously, many innovative ideas may require more time for analysis and implementation. But as we have only three months to correct the situation, we may go out of time.
2. Imposing extra work on employees can overload them: Loads of work can make the work culture boring and uninteresting (Gerard 2017).
3. Project cost may go high: Using modern techniques and tools to analyze the project may increase the cost of production which may lead to an overall increase in prices of equipment. And initially, the market not being in favor, may cause low demand as well. It requires efficient Resource planning, Cost estimation, Budgeting, Cost Control measures using cost control software tools, to avoid cost overruns (Cleopatra Enterprise 2017).
4. Employees if not ready to learn new technologies, may prove inefficient, outdated and incompetent (Gladwell 2002).
Assumptions:
Collect relevant data from past years Review the current Performance Analyze & Compare the data in form of trends Identify the present challenges Identify Root causes Plan Improvement Strategies Implement Feedback.
Implementation Plan
As a Project...
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