Activity Objective

This assessment measures your progress in mastering the following course competencies:

• Apply theories, models, and practices of global operations management to address business problems.
• Integrate operations management analyses into general business management planning and decision making.

More specifically, you will be expected to demonstrate your ability to:

• Update the flow diagram based on additional information gathered about the causes of the problem.
• Identify quantitative and qualitative measures that may be used to measure improvement of the selected process.
• Assess measurement strategies to select one that measures improvements of the selected process.
• Anticipate the potential negative impact of the proposed process improvements elsewhere in the organization.

Activity Instructions

There are two parts to this assignment.

Part 1: Revise the previous flowchart you created based on any new or different information you gleaned during the last assignment. This is a tricky phase in the process analysis and may require some additional thought and research to verify new data. As you begin this phase, you may want to consider the following questions as a start:

1. Does any information from the fishbone diagram seem to point to a certain cause or particular step in the flowchart?
2. Does the fishbone diagram conflict with your initial flowchart? If so, how?
3. Does the fishbone diagram allude to any new process steps that were not previously documented?
4. Do you need to do further research on any causes identified in the fishbone diagram?
5. Does any of this information change or impact your problem statement?
6. Is there a key stakeholder who might have additional or updated feedback on the process flowchart? If so, who is the stakeholder and what is his or her feedback?

Part 2: Devise a measurement strategy that enables you to measure improvement. The way in which you measure the effects of the improvement will make a difference in the outcome, so give this careful thought. Your measurement strategy should help you determine if the improvement results are actually positive-that they do not have a negative impact elsewhere. You also need to identify what types of quantitative or qualitative measures you will employ. Be aware that a measurement strategy may need to be revised over time as more historical data is gathered.

As you describe your flowchart revision and measurement strategy, be sure to include:

• A pictorial representation of the revised flowchart.
• A measurement strategy.
• What qualitative or quantitative measures you used.
• How often the improvement results are measured.
• How, if at all, the problem statement is impacted.