A Global Business Environment: Systems And Simulation - Case Study Example

 A Global Business Environment: Systems And Simulation INTRODUCTION In this modern competitive trend of global business environment, an appropriate process of managing, controlling and effective utilization of resources is playing an imperative role for the organizations to accomplish their predetermined commercial goals. In this context, Business Process Management (BPM) acts as one of the chief determinants for the firms to gain major advantages in the form of managing, controlling and leading business operations in accordance with the changing competitiveness of any specific industry. In the modern context of business environment, BPM can be duly considered as a generic term, which is accustomed with structured methods and techniques to streamline and increase business efficiency. BPM techniques in the modern environment facilitate firms to identify and change business operations effectively in order to make them aligned with future opportunities (Conger, “Six Sigma and Business Process Management”). THESIS STATEMENT The primary intention of this case study is to critically identify and explore the key improvement areas that have been identified in the business process of Boise Cascade Corporation (BCC). In this regard, the primary focus is levied on changing the existing arrangement of charges within BCC’s kiln project up to 80 feet long. In this regard, the process management case for improving charging capability up to 80 feet includes four key steps including design/re-design, implementation, management/control and continuous improvement with the help of generic six-sigma tool of process management. These have been elaborately discussed in the following: Design/re-design. In the design/re-design phase, the process management activities of an organization requires appropriate implementation of tools and concepts that encompass TQM, Six Sigma and lean, simulation techniques and workflow. In relation to the case of BCC, the simulation process will be performed with the integration of six sigma tool. Six-sigma can be termed as one of the compatible techniques, which provides a major support in removing flaws within the business process. According to the early stage of managing process, the primary aim of the organizations using six-sigma is to bring predictable quality of the developed products and/or services by removing normally dispersed errors (Conger, “Six Sigma and Business Process Management”). In relation to BCC’s Kiln project, designing of a base model relating to simulation process can be duly considered as the primary step. The process of simulating its processes would provide a major support in enabling re-design steps along with determining effective ways to achieve key objectives of the project. In order to critically re-design and identify effective ways of the Kiln project, the useful tools such as scopes and key objectives of the project would substantially help the project manager to make effective changes in the same. In this regard, the project team of BCC would highly focus on finding data for making necessary charges as deemed fit for the company. The process would help the project manager and the overall team to gather appropriate data about the type of woods, seasonal and weather changes along with their way of making impact on the time and temperature of kiln. The evaluation of these data and information will certainly help to create a facility, which can be used to forecast or predict heating time of kiln. In this regard, the re-design of kiln can be easily achieved, which will help in changing the arrangement of charges as per the recommended length of 80 feet. In this regard, the project team will be focused on building an effective model for this process (Fig.1) (Chen, Gregory, Smith, Vincent & Wakeley, “Bus 439 Project Execution Plan Kiln Team”). Fig.1: Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) Source: (Chen, Gregory, Smith, Vincent & Wakeley, “Bus 439 Project Execution Plan Kiln Team”) Implementation. The implementation step in the BCC’s kiln project is aligned with the preparation plan developed in design/re-design phase of the project. The implementation process of the BCC’s kiln project is deemed to be one of the key steps in this case. In order to perceive desired outcomes from the project, the implementation process focused on critically discussing two major activities such as adequate availability of data regarding the charges recorded by BCC and ascertaining valuable information that are needed to execute requisite functions of the project (Chen, Gregory, Smith, Vincent & Wakeley, “Bus 439 Project Execution Plan Kiln Team”). In order to determine the desired outcomes of the project, the project team was highly responsible to find relevant data associated with many charges as recorded in BCC. The data those are included in the study encompass records regarding distinct sorts of woods weather and seasonal changes along with their impacts on the kiln time and temperature. The obtained data certainly provided a major support in terms of conducting different project activities efficiently. In this context, the process such as sorting of bins and lumbers along with managing stackers in various lengths have been effectively performed due to the support of Kiln data records of BCC. In addition, the data retrieved from the BCC regarding its various kiln related activities has also provided to develop an effective distribution system. The distribution system developed in the process has further identified as a major tool in terms of making appropriate prediction and forecasting the actual heating time of the kiln (Chen, Gregory, Smith, Vincent & Wakeley, “Bus 439 Project Execution Plan Kiln Team”). On the other hand, the implementation process was also dependent on the information that has been retrieved from previously data and records from the Kettle falls mill. In this context, adequate assessment of the arrival files provided a major support in the implementation process of BCC’s kiln project. The arrival files of the organization were found to be much relevant, as these provided appropriate dimension along with amount of lumbers that gathered by the organization from Arden Mill and Kettle Falls mill into the holding area. In addition, clear information regarding the average time of drying each size of wood during every season also enabled to gain major understanding about the capacity and the efficiency of the dryer. Nevertheless, it also provided a major support in developing kiln production capability relating to the project (Chen, Gregory, Smith, Vincent & Wakeley, “Bus 439 Project Execution Plan Kiln Team”) Corresponding to the information retrieved from BCC’s records, the project team also focused on gathering relevant information from different knowledgeable sources. In this regard, the implementation process of the kiln project significantly emphasized retrieving information about different types of wood that are highly affected by mold. Additionally, data associated with the possibility of waiting times, i.e. longer than three days to dry without growing mold is also identified to be a major area of concern for this project. Similarly, the effects of season and changing weather were also observed to act as major attributes of BCC’s kiln project (Chen, Gregory, Smith, Vincent & Wakeley, “Bus 439 Project Execution Plan Kiln Team”). Management/Control. The managing and controlling process of the BCC kiln project was the key areas that were responsible to conduct different activities associated with planning, decision making and more importantly administering functions of a project. The leaders and the associated members of the project were allotted with different responsibilities to manage and control process activities involved within the kiln project (Kenny, “Effective Project Management for Strategic Innovation and Change in an Organizational Context”). The responsible parties associated with the project activities have been illustrated through the following tabular representation: Task Andrew Haofei Joel Kevin Katie Visit BCC & Receive Project x x x x x Produce PEP and A3 Documents x x x x x Receive Data           Analyze Data x   x     Produce Preliminary Simulation     x x   Build Final Simulation     x x   Write paper x       x Prepare Presentation         x Practice Presentation x x x x X Present Findings to BCC, May 2015 x x x x X Fig.2: Project tasks with responsible parties Source: (Chen, Gregory, Smith, Vincent & Wakeley, “Bus 439 Project Execution Plan Kiln Team”) The key members associated with the above stated project were also responsible to administer and improve key milestones and deliverables of the project. The project activities performed by different individual members of the group have been simulated based on the following designed Gantt chart: Fig.3: Gantt Chart The management and control activities of the key individuals were also accountable to identify possible risk factors linked with the performance and team’s ability and determine appropriate strategy to effectively deal with the identified crucial factors. In this regard, the availability of resources, members and data regarding charges as recorded in BCC were considered to assess risks and determine appropriate solutions for deriving varied positive outcomes (Field & Keller 7-12). Continuous Improvement. After accomplishing the key roles and responsibilities associated implementation and managing along with controlling stages, making continuous improvement of the overall project is one of the major aims of the members. In order to make continuous improvement of the project stages, developing effective set of milestones along with determining their critical path would be a major focus area for the key individuals associated with BCC’s kiln project. Additionally, identifying potential risks as well as developing appropriate methods for encountering the crucial factors would also be a key function in the project for ensuring further improvements. CONCLUSION The case study includes a critical assessment of activities and different stages persisted within the BCC kiln project. During the discussion, a major set of understanding have been gathered that essentially play a decisive part in successfully simulating different project activities. Despite the framed key roles along with responsibilities, the project activities have also provided a major understanding of performing appropriate simulation techniques that can help to manage different project activities. Works Cited Chen, Haofei, Katie Gregory, Joel Smith, Keven Vincent, Andrew Wakeley. Bus 439 Project Execution Plan Kiln Team. Boise Cascade (2015). Print. Conger, Sue. “Six Sigma and Business Process Management.” 2010. Web. 29 Mar. 2015. Field, M. & Keller, L. Project Management. The United States: Cengage Learning EMEA (1998). Print. Kenny, John. “Effective Project Management for Strategic Innovation and Change in an Organizational Context.” Project Management Institute, 34.1(2003): 43-53. Print. Read More