Operations Management for a Consulting Company Your team has just launched a consulting company and seeks its first client to improve one particular operation in their business. As a consulting company, you will study the operation and associated decisions, analyze the processes and procedures (i.e., how operational activities are carried on and/or how decisions are made), and suggest improvements.
The quality of your work for the first client is extremely important for your future business. As your first hands-on operations consulting experience, this project will enable you to develop and hone your skills in working with a real organization, and will enable you to find a solution to a real operations problem. You can use this project as a success story to attract new clients.
Your recommendations to the client should be built on sound, factual, and scientific analyses of their operations. In that respect, you are encouraged and expected to use qualitative as well as quantitative tools that you learn in your ITEC 355 course and outside studies.
Your ITEC 355 instructor is happy to give you advice and feedback in your project any time during the semester.
Operations Management for a Consulting Company Paper Writing Guidelines
He has already prepared the following guidelines.
Timing: You need to begin working on this project early since it is expected to be thorough, detailed, and performed as a cooperative effort with the workers and leaders in the organization you are studying. You will need to visit facilities of the unit you are consulting for, interview employees, gather qualitative and quantitative information (numerical data including large data sets if available) and conduct in-depth analysis using tools you learn in this class.
Desired project output: In your presentation and written report, you will
1) Describe the organization.
2) Describe the current process.
3) Discuss how the organization (if at all) measures the performance of the current process.
4) Discuss potential areas for improvement (i.e. what is the “problem”?).
5) Describe how you collect information and data, and analyze them.
6) Analyze your client’s problem using the information and data available to you. Explain clearly how you carry out the analyses.
7) Identify and describe two to three additional performance metrics appropriate for this organization and process.
8) Recommend three different ways to improve the process
Clearly define each alternative solution/recommendation.
Explain the pros and cons of each of the alternatives.
Choose one of the alternatives as your final recommendation.
Justify your final recommendation with scientific facts and figures.
9) Discuss how the process performance is expected to change after your recommendation is implemented.
10) Discuss the pros, cons, and limitations of your analysis and approach to problem solving.
11) Discuss areas for future process improvement at this organization.
