A project is a highly flexible and low volume type operation. One example of a project for our company would be Project closing, which is concerned with ending project. The tasks include finishing all of the work, closing all subcontracts, paying all the bills, the turnover of the project to its owners, and reassignment of the personnel and equipment used on the project. We need to get all this together to buy cars and sell them at our company.
Today, you can imagine the difficulty of monitoring inventories of hundreds of units OR managing a large project without a computerized system. Singh Autoworld does not use Gantt charts or network diagrams in their business planning. They use logical thinking and there experience to determine what needs to get done and by when. They do however use computer software that was provided by cars.com. This software markets as well as organizes all their inventory online. I would recommend Singh Autoworld to try to implement Gantt charts or network diagrams in order to enhance their business planning.
Singh Autoworld only fits into two of the 4 dimensions of quality. It fits into quality over the life of the product, and quality of field service after the sale. As a used car dealership Singh Autoworld buys to stock and does not manufacture their own vehicles. They provide a one month guarantee on their cars and provide service to them if required within the time. Also they try to provide quality used cars. They make sure their vehicles are fully cleaned and checked up by the mechanic. Also they drive in all their cars so the drivers can tell if anything is wrong and self check. Singh Autoworld could offer a longer guarantee on their cars to draw more costomer.
Jeff Bezos Video
This video is on conversation with Jeff Bezos, who is the founder, president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Amazon.com talking about his electronic book, Kindle 2. Amazon has been around for long time and there business has been fluctuating from high to low. There electronic book picked up a really good market for them. Sales sky rocketed for the Kindle. This electronic book is a really great device to have around with you. It is very convenient and you can read your book anytime of the day at your own leisure. Sitting through traffic can get boring so why not carry a portable Kindle so you can read while you are waiting. It takes about 60 seconds to download the book. This product is really great because it holds the batteries about a week. This device has been so great that everyone wants it. They ran out of the product in 2007 and 2008 during Christmas time since it was very popular when it came out. Everyone wanted to see what the Kindle was all about so the demand was very high over the holidays. Amazon's marketing department really under estimated their product because people wanted to see what it was all about. This shows us that they need to work on their marketing department since they only sell their product in the United States. They should be open to selling the Kindle in other countries if they already don't have a product like the Kindle.
1. What will be the benefits, costs, and risks of the Six Sigma program, and how will they be tracked and reported?
3M forecasted that the Six Sigma program would bring greater returns than the $1 billion spent on research and development. The benefits of Six Sigma for 3M are increased customer satisfaction, energizing the organization, improving product quality, services, and processes. 3M will be able to benefit from use of advanced technology and electronic media. In addition, 3M will be able to benefit from increased sales revenues, as well as better educated, well-developed and stronger managers. All projects are approved by management. Each project is tracked and the savings are tracked by the financial department. The tracking systems calculate savings and reduction in defects. The team leader and manager are ultimately responsible for the project. The risks of the program are the costs, the complexity of the program, and difficulty in measuring results for service processes and transaction-based processes.
2. How should the various functional areas in the organization be included in the Six Sigma initiative, and what role should senior and middle management play in this change initiative?
Various Functional areas in the organization would be included in the six sigma initiatives with a different approach which is focusing more on quality of a product. With six sigma being included in a company it strengthens all aspects in the company. These initiatives are focused towards long term and short term competitiveness . In this initiative senior and middle managers would take the role of trainers in training their employees on the new approach six sigma approach on the job
3. What role should Six Sigma play in corporate strategy?
Six Sigma is all about business change. Corporations employ Six Sigma as a business methodology to refine their business and for the company to have greater value. It has a great concept of improving existing processes by having better customer satisfaction and savings costs. They used the "DMAIC" Improvement model which stood for define, measure, analyze, improve and control. For new product development they used the DFSS model which started off with identifying customer's requirements then translated them into product specifications
4. Deployment of Six Sigma will require the company to identify and develop a process to allocate the right human resource for the project. Implementing Six Sigma may have human resource implications which are to be kept in mind.
·Six sigma method includes stages or steps which requires the selected human resource to have multiple skills and end to end understanding—starting from the thorough business/product knowledge to the possible technical complications of the product/ process.
·Poor coordination between the resources at each stage of the method can cause the outcome of the implementation to be less effective.
·An employee or a team that implemented a project using the method may not be compatible [due to skills and talent] to be used for another project that requires totally different set of skills and knowledge.
5. Christian
How will Six Sigma affect the innovative culture at 3M, and is Six Sigma enough? Six Sigma affects the innovating culture at 3M in that it tends to block innovation, creativity, and the development of new products. The strong restrictions on errors restrain from taking risks that are required to make something new. Six Sigma is not enough. There needs to be a balance between six sigma and creativity.
LCL = 0.0175 - 3 √[(0.0175 x 0.9825)/400 ]
= 0.0175 - 3√(0.01719375 / 400)
= 0.0175 - 0.0393
= -0.0022, this is negative so LCL is 0.
(2b).
If there are 6 letters that are defective, 6/400 = 0.015. This is within the control limits. The process is still in control.
(6a).
X bar: CL = 30, UCL = 32.415, LCL = 27.585
R bar: CL = 5, UCL = 10.02, LCL = 0
(6b).
The sample mean = (38 + 35 + 27 + 30 + 33 + 32) / 6 = 195 /6 = 32.5
The sample range = 38 - 27 = 11
The mean of 32.5 is above the upper control limit of 32.415. The range of 11 is above the upper control limit of 10.02.
The process is not in control. we stop the process and look for an assignable cause.
(12a).
Cp=1.67 and Cpk=0.56
(12b).
To improve the process Cpk, we shift the mean closer to the center of the specification range or reduce the standard deviation.
1. The three elements of the service- product bundle for our company is our main focus because it’s what makes our company. Beginning with tangible service, in other words “what we do for our customers. In our company we provide top of the line customer service. Our representatives are entitled to greet the customers as soon as they walk into the dealership, also give the customer time to look around without feeling pressured. When the customer seems to be looking at one car with interest, one of our representatives would approach them and provide any information needed. We can determine if a customer is interested in one of our cars because we sell top of the line project cars, which is distinct from other dealerships which can be said manufacture more than one of the same car. We provide carfax, which include all the information of that car from the day it was manufactured. Also we allow our customers to test drive the car so they can get a hand on feel of how the car runs. Second element of the service product-bundle we deal with is the psychological benefits. We try to handle psychological benefits very delicate because our purpose is to sell our cars. Majority of the times customers are satisfied with the condition and special attributes of our cars, but one of the issues are the prices. We try to negotiate an even deal in which the company would make some profit but also the customer would be satisfied with a new vehicle. The last element of the service-product bundle is the physical goods, which can be described as “what can the customer carry away?” Well our customers can leave our dealership satisfied with a certified top of the line car. Also depending on the deal they get, our customers can also leave with certain warranties on the vehicle and maintenance packages.
2. Singh Auto World falls under the customer routed cell on the serving matrix, because of the high interaction with the customers when they sell cars. The employees receive a unique buying experience from the seller.
3. Employees have contact with the customer when the customers come to look at the cars, as well as when they have to come for further car services. The company incorporates technology by using the website, automated key systems, and technical mechanic tools. The way that the company incorporates focus operations is by having a salesperson do the selling of the cars, the mechanics repair the car, and the finance department handles credit loans. The company supports the employees by offering bonuses for selling cars or specials on cars.
4. What types of service recovery and guarantees do they offer?
When customers are unhappy with service recovery, it often is because the company failed to understand the customers' cost and inconvenience. Along with refunds, credits, repairs and replacements. Singh Auto World’s electronically distributes complaint information gathered at its service center directly to the dealerships responsible for settling the dispute. The same information is also sent to the marketing research and engineering departments, which integrate the complaint data with additional research information.
Research showed that:
Only 5 to 10 percent of unhappy customers complain after a service failure.
Most customers are dissatisfied with the way companies resolve their complaints.
We think that batch flow would be the best product flow for our company. There are a lot of customers and each have a unique taste. Batch flow allows the production of cars to be made in lots for variety. Looking to buy a car can be stressful if you are looking for a specific type, color, model, and add ins, but batch flow can make the process very smooth and flexible. Our Singh Auto World company has medium to low volume of products, but it has many different types of cars and colors so people can choose which best fits their needs. The flow of the cars would be jumbled. The market type would be customized. Also, the flexibility and cost is medium so the mid range prices of the cars are affordable and there is a variety of cars with different prices so everyone can be accommodated.
2. What type of customer order do they process?
We can use the Make to Stock customer order process. This produces finished goods and the customer buys from the inventory since they are used cars. Singh Auto World has smooth production and this is its' advantage because the cars are in good shape and we are very flexible with our products. The downside to this is the inventory since we can't fit thousands of cars. Our lot has about 300 cars and we all have different types of models so we have a pretty good variety.
3.Process Selection
Made to stock- Singh Auto World sells used cars. The company keeps in mind the market conditions and adjusts their inventory and car deals accordingly. For instance, if the economic conditions are not favorable for new car buyers, Singh Auto World would increase their overall inventory making sure that greater percentage of cars in the inventory will be of cheaper price range. This makes sense because increasing their inventory with more cars with higher price range would limit the choices for those affected by the poor economic/ market conditions, hence, damaging the potential sales figures.
In addition Singh Auto's process selection also depends on the consumer demand (seasonal/ trend change). If they notice that customers are buying one specific car (model and make) for example Honda Accord they make sure they have more in stock as the demand for that specific car has gone up. Sometimes when the demand for particular model/make falls significantly, Singh Auto will offer better deals and get them off the inventory. Despite low or no demand of such cars, Singh Auto would normally maintain the inventory by certain percentage -- to ensure variety and choices for all. It is very important for a company to be up to date with the market conditions also which vehicle is more in demand. The company has to make sure that they don’t lose customers because of less or no inventory.
4.Singh Auto world falls into continuous with low volume, multiple products and stock to inventory.
5.Yes, our company could adopt some of the mass customization methods because our varieties of top of the line cars are broad. Our company specializes on unique cars which allow our customers to have a choice of which top of the line brand to choose. For example our cars consist of Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Bentleys.
Singh Autoworld uses software provided by cars.com to manage their inventory. The software registers all the vehicles by VIN number into the database and automatically updates it to the website. More cars are bought to refill inventory every Tuesday and Friday which are auction days. Based on the amount of cars bought last month as well as the demand for cars will determine how many cars are needed. For example: 100 cars are sold 2 months ago and 125 cars are sold 1 month ago. The dealership will buy 150 cars the next month to replenish the amount sold as well to satisfy the 25% demand increase. The dealership can also choose to decrease their inventory according to sales and demand. Cars.com is continually updated and keeps track of every transaction and updated inventory. Singh Autoworld current inventory is 364 vehicles as can be seen here:
