Overview
In this assignment, you will apply what you have learned about key concepts regarding operations management. You are encouraged to leverage your work and instructor feedback on this assignment in your course project, which is due in Module Seven.
Scenario
You work as the chief supply chain officer at NationaliTeas, a large international corporation that manufacturers and sells tea worldwide. Its mission is to “Make the world more awake through rejuvenating and refreshing beverages and sustainable practices that uplift workers, communities, and souls.” You have recently hired the company’s first project manager and have given them their first project: Revise current workflows related to packaging at one of your tea factories to be more sustainable and more lean. As this is their first project, you will be helping them complete their task.
Prompt
Read through the Project Charter for Workflow Improvement Word Document, then review the Process Workflow for Tea Production Word Document graphic. A text-only version is available: Process Workflow for Tea Production Text-Only Version Word Document. Based on these documents, recommend removing a total of four steps from the process flowchart that can help make the process more efficient and sustainable. Explain the implications of the proposed changes, and then help the NationaliTeas team address current items in the Issue Log located in the project charter.
Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:
- Lean Manufacturing: Evaluate the process flowchart to identify steps that do not add value based on the principles of lean manufacturing. Explain why you selected each step.
- Sustainability: Evaluate the process flowchart and identify steps that should be removed or changed to improve environmental sustainability. Explain why you selected each step.
- Process Changes: Explain the implications, both positive and negative, of removing or changing the steps from the process flowchart you identified in the previous two bullet points. Also explain how those changes would help alignment to the triple bottom line (TBL).
- Issue Log: Analyze all entries in the Issue Log from the perspective of a project manager and explain the recommended course of action based on the project charter, noting the impact of the issue on scope, planning communications, and resourcing.
- Operations Management Techniques: Discuss how operations management techniques, including project management and lean manufacturing, can add value to NationaliTeas.
- Analyze workflow processes for improvements to increase the company’s overall sustainability metrics
- Analyze workflow processes for ways to reduce waste or unnecessary steps that don’t add value to our product’s end users
- Analyze workflow processes to improve chances the organization is approved as a Certified B Corporation
Project Details
Requirements
- Simplify the tea production workflow using lean manufacturing principles to increase efficiency
- Reduce use processes and materials that are not environmentally friendly
- Make process and material changes that cannot increase manufacturing costs
