Leading Lean Projects Assessment - Case study: Continuous Improvement

Introduction -

Precision Engineering Works Private Limited (PEW) is an original equipment manufacturer specialising in plastic moulding parts for the telecommunication industry. They have been servicing the industry for almost 30 years and their customers include major telecommunication service providers. Due to its reputation, PEW have become a very successful company.

The crack is appearing

However, as this industry is seen as a very lucrative market, many new suppliers have begun to emerge. This is having serious implications for PEW. It is more difficult to win new contracts as their customers are able to explore options with other suppliers. Additionally, the competitors are also providing better pricing than PEW. These factors combined have eroded PEW's profitability by almost 45%. As more suppliers are flooding the market, many of PEW's experienced employees have opted to join the new players.

Management response

PEW's senior management are concerned with the recent developments and are looking at ways to improve and once again become the preferred supplier to their customers. To this effect, PEW has engaged your company to provide some advice on overcoming the above issues. The management team is willing to provide all necessary support to turnaround the situation. They want all issues to be resolved within three (3) months.

Your tasks -

This assessment item requires you to work in a GROUP (no more than 3 students)

1. As a business improvement consultant, you and your team (including members from PEW) have only three (3) months to correct the situation. You would need to:

i. Identify the root cause(s) that lead to the problems using appropriate tools and techniques.

ii. Develop a continuous improvement plan to ensure the problems and issues are not repeated.

iii. Elaborate on the competencies required from PEW management and employees to effectively bring about the change.

2. You must show evidence of using at least seven (7) tools and techniques that you have learnt from this unit to address question (i) above.

3. You may refer to the Project Quality Management from PMBOK, PRINCE2 or 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.

4. Your submission should be made using Microsoft Office documents and submitted as a separate 2,500 - 3,000 word Microsoft WORD document.

5. Supporting diagrams / figures may be presented in other formats - Excel, PowerPoint slides, PDF documents, as part of the appendix and will not count towards the word limit. The reference list will also not be included in the word count.

6. Tables shall be included in the word count.