Assignment

In February, 2014, General Motors announced an ignition switch recall that included around 2.6 million vehicles worldwide. This recall ignited a great deal of controversy over the efficacy of operational practices that allowed the recall to become an issue, thus threatening the safety of GM customers and seriously eroding public trust in the organization.

As a business analyst skilled in the area of operational excellence, you are to produce a presentation that leverages your skills in all areas of Operations Management and provides credible recommendations for improvement in the GM operational structure that is responsible for selling and servicing the vehicles involved in this critically important recall. Therefore, the scope of your review will be limited to what the corporation did and/or should have done once the fatal flaw was detected. Your review should not encompass processes upstream from the service function, which eliminates the need to analyze engineering, design, manufacturing, and assembly operations.

Your audience for this presentation will be six top GM executives responsible for activities in service operations, which includes, for purposes of this assignment, those responsible for investigating, launching, and managing product recalls. Your presentation should include:

• List of key relevant issues related to the ignition recall, including near-term and long-term negative impact.
• Discussion of findings related to current or past service / recall practices leading to the current situation.
• Recommendation for leveraging Information Technology personnel and resources to improve the recall process.
• Recommendations for improving operations and supply chain management independent of IT operations.
• Timeline for completing next steps toward an improved recall process.

Incorporate appropriate animations, transitions, and graphics as well as speaker notes for each slide. The speaker notes may be comprised of brief paragraphs or bulleted lists.