You have just been hired as the senior vice president of ZZZ Global Computers in
ID: 347511 • Letter: Y
Question
You have just been hired as the senior vice president of ZZZ Global Computers in the United States of America. The once extremely profitable electronics company has not done well in the areas of operational executions in the past two years. Hence, that is why you were hired to initiate changes that will bring back glory days to the company.
The members of the board of directors have highlighted some challenges facing the company (below), and they want you to present to them in 20 to 25 PowerPoint slides, accompanied with detailed speaker’s notes. They want you to show how you will implement strategies that will reverse these downward spiraling issues.
The technology and software used throughout company locations are not compatible due to aggressive acquisitions and mergers initiated by the company in the past 3 years.
ZZZ Global Computers’ costs of producing the computer products are the highest within the industry.
There has been rapid turnover of key employees in the past 9 months.
Customers are constantly cancelling new orders because the company’s execution processes are not currently meeting customer delivery demands and requests.
Most of the projects that were initiated to improve the company’s performance experienced failure because of a lack of project management skills. Recently, ZZZ lost its biggest customer in Europe because of an inability to apply risk management techniques, project management planning, work breakdown structures, diagramming of networks, effective schedule development, and execution of the agreed schedules.
The customer contact and issue resolution process is very convoluted and employees find themselves lost in the process while trying to resolve customer issues and complaints.
The company is using job process, small batch, large batch, line process, and hybrid cell manufacturing strategies; however ZZZ is not efficient in any of these manufacturing processes.
The manufacturing layouts in some of the recently acquired companies are not effectively designed and most of the production operations are not efficiently coordinated.
The documentation process is manually completed by 17 full-time employees and this groups is about 3 months behind schedule.
The workforce is not adaptable or flexible; they specialize in only one or two operations.
There are no performance metrics to show internal stakeholders how they are performing.
In the past 12 months, the rate of laptop returns has been alarming to the company because these computers did not meet quality standards specified by distributors, retailers, and vendors. Furthermore, there is a demand for these computers, and ZZZ Global Computers is behind on delivering its global monthly commitments of 10,800 to 12,000 computers each month.
In the last 12 months, the company has accelerated outsourcing some of the components used in the computers.
Below are the numbers of units returned in the past eleven months:
June: 802 out of 11,333 shipped
July: 733 out of 12,021 shipped
August: 689 out of 11,110 shipped
September: 1045 out of 9,886 shipped
October: 458 out of 11,301 shipped
November: 693 out of 12,301 shipped
December: 798 out of 12,564 shipped
January: 699 out of 13,411 shipped
February: 587 out of 10,531 shipped
March: 901 out of 9,554 shipped
April: 803 out of 10,335 shipped
Use the Fishbone Cause-and-Effect Diagram to illustrate the possible causes of the quality issues.
Categorize the issues noted above using one or more Pareto Chart to explain the high number of returned units.
Provide an example of a Control Chart accompanied by your recommendations for why it is a valuable quality tool.
Some of the manufacturing sites are underutilized while others have maximized their capacities and are still behind on customers’ orders.
Most manufacturing delays are caused by lack of stock in the right kinds of components. Additionally, economic order quantities are not used and periodic cycle counts have not been conducted in the past 5 years.
Common parts are not shared among organizations as most sites operate independent of each other. Purchasing does not utilize economies of scale when ordering computer components.
The supply chain is not responsive and efficient to the needs of the company, wholesalers, retailers, and individual customers.
Because of the recent complaints from customers in Africa and Asia on delayed deliveries, the company is looking at opening manufacturing locations in Africa (Nigeria, South Africa, or Kenya) or Asia (India, China, or Singapore).
Use the CIA-World Fact Book at the following link https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pp.html to familiarize yourself with these countries and select the ones in which you would locate two new manufacturing sites. Provide your rationale. (Search by inputting countries in Africa on the search engine to find the best location)
Explain how you would use geographical information systems, the factor-rating method, transportation models, political and cultural lifestyles, labor talents, economic issues, exchange rates, and currency risk in locating two new manufacturing sites in Africa and Asia.
Finally, the average forecast error for all the components is 29%, and expediting cost for components to meet customer orders has increased from 8.4% to 33% in the past 12 months.
What would you do to improve these situations?
Explanation / Answer
Answer:
I have been hired as the senior vice president of ZZZ Global Computers in the United States of America. The once extremely profitable electronics company has not done well in the areas of operational executions in the past two years. Hence, I was hired to initiate changes that will bring back glory days of the company.
Being the senior vice president of the ZZZ global computers company, I would like to explore the following changes in the organization so that we can bring the company on track.
Team Motivation: I would like to drive the initiatives in the organization to have better motivation level of the employees in the organization.
Better Organizational Environment: I would like to drive the initiatives in the organization to have better operational environment in the organization and better team efforts rather than individual efforts.
Resource balance on functional basis: I would like to drive the initiatives in the organization to balance out the resources in each department so that they will be able to execute their tasks. Better organizational policies and set-ups:
Organization key issues resolutions : I will have detail functional review, group meeting, expert opinions, stakeholder reviews and come out with the final plan of action which will be able to resolve the below stated key issues which are the major concern for the organization
All this critical issues to be reviewed and resolved by the respective team members and I will form a committee which will focus on the support system for this teams so that they can resolve this critical business issues and brings the positive result for the organization.
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