Research Topics: Project Plan Examples

The Effect of Exchange Rate Reforms in China and Its Implications to Renminbi

PROJECT PLAN   Title: The Effect of Exchange Rate Reforms in China and Its Implication to Renminbi   Objectives of the Project   The objective of this proposed project is to investigate the valuation of Renminbi exchange rate in order to evaluate whether it is undervalued or overvalued after reforming exchange rate regime during the past decade.  Since July 2005, the reform was said to involve a shift away from the fixed exchange rate, a gradual movement towards greater flexibility, and a peg to a basket of currencies. This shows that there is a need to investigate the impact of Renminbi from the exchanges in the exchange rate system. Literature Review               This will include the review of relevant theories such as the theory of optimum currency areas. It will also include the review of literatures concerning Renminbi and Renminbi exchange rates. Research Design and Methodology             The research design in the study will be descriptive, meaning it will seek to determine the facts behind the problem. It will follow the positivist research philosophy and will deductive in nature as it will deduce to a particular hypothesis, which is whether or not Renminbi is undervalued or overvalued after the reforms.             Two forms of data collection strategies will be used in this study. The first part is the timeline literature review of the Renmenbi currency, which may also include review of related theories and studies; while the second one is the interview of financial analysts in China to further learn about how the Renmenbi adjusted to the reforms. Literatures will be acquired from financial journals online and from libraries in universities.  On the other hand, interviews will be sought on available financial analysts in China. Interviews are to be conducted formally and responses are to be recorded in an audio-cassette recorder. The literature review process of (2003) will be used as the framework for the critical literature review. In this process, literature review starts with consulting the Research Questions and Objectives of the study. Then, parameters will be defined and from there, key words will be refined and generated. After that, the literature search will be conducted, obtained, evaluated and recorded. Useful new key words found in the review will be refined and generated again. This will followed by drafting the review and again, back to redefining parameters and generating and refining keywords. The process of literature search will be repeated again twice and then will be written. The time data for the literatures to be included into the review are only within ten years. This means that literatures that will be included in the study should be published from 1996 to the current year only. This is to enhance the credibility of data and to ensure that information acquired is updated. On the other hand, the interview will be conducted with 5 financial analysts in China. The purpose of the interview is to be able to collate the views of analysts themselves which is important in evaluating the Renminbi. Open-questions will be asked to the respondents and their responses will be recorded using an audio-cassette recorder. Their responses will be transcribed and parameters will be defined. Key words from the interview will also be generated and refined. The literature review and the interviews will be transcribed and will be analyzed using qualitative data analysis. First, key themes found in the literature review and key themes found in the interview data will be identified. Both themes will be compared and important phrases will be identified. It is expected that through this process, the study can identify if the Renminbi is undervalued or overvalued after the reforms. Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

The Effect of Exchange Rate Reforms in China and Its Implications to Renminbi

PROJECT PLAN Title: The Effect of Exchange Rate Reforms in China and Its Implication to Renminbi Objectives of the Project The ...

Project plan

INTRODUCTION   The focus for this task management assignment is to basically produce a report that will specifically discuss and explain processes involving the project plan for the development of the information systems supporting the E-60s case study in providing all the possible information needed in order to support valid and reliable research findings that could be incorporated for the assignment completion. This assignment will be integrating relevant points in terms of information systems requirement such as time, money and priorities as it can be pointing to E-60’s as well as its relevant resource allocation, leadership styles, problems in implementing IS development and the appropriate mentoring and coaching in lieu to the project plan organization and application along with the issues concerning time, costs, quality and content. The assignment will also tackle as to how information systems and technology can be of use in implementing resource techniques and management and the needed development of information systems respectively. Thus, it is also important to incorporate management and leadership styles in discussing different motivation theories in terms of comparing strengths of such theories and be applied to motivate project teams as this assignment will identify the overall development of information systems within the importance of mentoring and coaching processes will be included amicably for the assignment application and realization.     THE REQUIREMENTS, CONSTRAINTS AND ISSUES   The E-60s company is then required to adopt a certain change of its information systems in terms of their on-line services as the company must be in control of their technology ways for success and development of business in order to again, rise its sales and profits significantly due to the fact that, for the last three years the company has seen new competitors entering the market and offering on-line services as the company resist to change and that they must internalize what the customers have to say about the company as E-60s conducted a customer service survey. The following key points were identified from this survey: Orders delivered late Products do not match specifications in sales literature No on-line order facility available No on-line product list available Inaccurate invoices Sales literature contained inaccurate information Unable to get information outside office hours         When E-60s was set up it was appreciated by the founder that most of the business would be conducted via the post, therefore, there was no need for expensive high street offices. For this reason a modern business unit outside the city was selected. The unit is quite large, housing twelve spacious offices, with only eight in frequent use. There are administrative, personnel and marketing departments within the current structure. A total of 25 full-time and 5 part-time staff are employed at E-60s. The company has local-networked PCs available for all the full time staff. The Finance staff use a standard accounting software package to produce reports. All the other staff has access to word-processing and spreadsheet package software. The company has a strong customer base, mostly small independent music shops. The company has a small product range preferring to serve a niche market. At present orders are taken over the telephone or by post by 4 administrators. Shop owners place their orders with E-60s to provide vinyl’s, music sheets, music montages, photographs/posters and autographs by post. E-60s sends out the items, normally within 28 days with an invoice. These are processed within the Administration department and orders are dispatched with invoice to the customers. The Finance staff then takes on the job of receiving payments from the customers and producing reports for the Finance Director.         Moreover, the company has proposed developing a new IS system to resolve many of the operational problems. In order to gauge the staff reaction to these changes a number of focus group meetings were held. The following key points were identified from these meeting: Lack of IT skills to use the new system Staff fearful of changes in job roles/responsibilities IT system will lead to increase market share Currently lack of integration between departments – competitive environment IT system may help to reduce workload Afraid management may use IT system to make staff redundant   Thus, E60’s in terms of its project plan should have its share of strategic planning to overcome some of their major problems that are to be resolved as solutions and have its appropriate implementation of project plan is essential to avoid constraints and issues as discussed  as there needs for ample timing within the amount of time required to complete the project as it can be broken down for analytical purposes into the time required to complete the components of the project, which is then further broken down into the time required to complete each task contributing to the completion of each component.       E60s can use on-line Delivered Content (ODC) ( 1999) that includes on-line newspapers, magazines, music, education, searchable databases, consulting and eventually expertise and ideas as the emergence of the Internet as a distribution channel that may create new opportunities for product and price policy. In the past, there was a significant cost associated with changing prices and cost structure leads to substantial economies of scale the more one produces, the lower are average costs of production (1999). Aside, personalization is an important new concept for E60s to engage in electronic Markets. It aims at identifying potential customers and offering them the required products at the right time and conditions. For instance, the company can have its online database provider, sells to virtually every user at a different price, depending on the kind of industry and the size of the customer’s organization, when and how often she accesses the database (1999).               For E60s, there can also be the use of web-based electronic catalogs that may lower transaction costs by orders of magnitude as customers do not face physical barriers in order to search, order and finally get products of a certain supplier. On the other hand, due to the large number of supplier sites on the Internet, looking for appropriate merchants gets more and more inconvenient and search costs become a major barrier to on-line commerce as some electronic brokers leverage information technology to match buyers and sellers with increased effectiveness and lower transaction costs, leading to more efficient markets (1998). Aside, the idea of user modeling and personalization of information systems have recently been realized as important components of software engineering and information systems development.  E60s should also have `collaborative filtering’ as this technique relies on the premise that choosing attributes to characterize an individual will provide useful information in finding other individuals with similar tastes and preferences. Collaborative filtering is designed to serve relevant material to customers by combining their own personal preferences with the preferences of like-minded others. It is often desirable to offer customers the opportunity to input information, while at the same time leading them based on others’ recommendations (1998).       An information system (IS) has been particularly receptive to such “systems thinking” (1997) possibly as a result of its need to address people and technologies as an organized complexity. It has been widely appreciated that many different kinds of sophisticated model are useful in IS projects. Organizational and enterprise models have been promoted as a response to the observation that many IS projects fail, not because of technical difficulties, but because of a misconception of the potential contribution of the IS to the greater organization. As there could be the presence of cybernetics has been highly influential in the development of systems concepts across many different disciplines and continues to attract attention today (1996). Its focus is upon patterns of control and communication in systems of all kinds and thus described as the science of organization (1989). However, a new paradigm will be a challenge to business executives because it is not a simple matter of extending conventional corporate IT systems and management approaches down to the corporate level. Reporting requirements and public safety regulations make IT systems reliability a much higher priority at the manufacturing level than in the general corporate IT environment that need for much higher reliability than conventional IT infrastructures provide demands a new mindset, many of whom have solid backgrounds in corporate and scientific IT, but not in manufacturing IT.     The mainstream business approach of consolidating IT systems at corporate data centers does not apply to manufacturing. Manufacturing data collection systems must be situated in relatively close proximity to the process, not at a remote data center manufacturing IT paradigm demands and budget constrained but resources are limited at the time and money for robustness seem out of reach as providers are emerging that join the industry knowledge, manufacturing IT experience, and high availability deployment and maintenance skills together and on-going management of the infrastructure, such services can be obtained within budgetary constraints. Services such as patch evaluation and deployment can be outsourced to relieve the burden of valuable internal compliance resources and reduce time-to-delivery and cost of IT capabilities to the production managers and most importantly, high availability can be achieved through services that can remotely monitor, detect and help prevent slow-downs while providing capabilities to maintain proper configuration control and release management of upgrades and its scenarios.           The resources required for E60s Company could focus on integrating ways for their supply chain processes and there are certain ways or techniques that can be considered in order to emerge and continue to be competitive within the market place. The marketing concept has been defined as ‘the key to achieving organizational goals’ and the marketing concept rests on ‘market focus, customer orientation, coordinated marketing and profitability’. In a profit making business the firm obviously has to try and achieve this level of customer satisfaction as a way of staying ahead of the competition and making a profit. In this manner, the management of E60s should be guided by strategic management principle to be able to attain its business goal.  The management should have the ability to initiate different management technique in order to continuously create business value.  One of the important things to consider is the ability to manipulate supply chain from the external environment of the business. The supply chain is traditionally characterized as a stable system in which components and goods move smoothly from supplier to assembly customers. In addition, supply chain refers to the suppliers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers that involved in manufacturing a product and getting it to consumers (1995).  As effective supply chain is crucial to the success of a business.         Similarly, when a supply chain does not work properly, a business must flush the channel because it cannot pinpoint where the problem is. This causes companies to lose profits and sales. In order to solve E60s problems the management of a certain industry must imposed a strategic way of controlling the supply chain. This enters the concept of the supply chain management (2004).  It can be noted that businesses that have strategic supply chain that fits can perform better together because of the potential for skills transfer in procuring materials, greater bargaining power in negotiating in common suppliers, the benefits of added collaboration with common supply chain partners, and or added leverage with shippers in securing volume discounts on incoming parts and components. Now, the company can focus from the procurement of raw materials to the distribution of the finished product, and how each effort relates to the others. There is a growing belief IS system has experienced rapid changes due to the emergence of globalization and show that globalization has become the driving force for reshaping its production procedures in accordance to patterns of marketing and capital accumulation. It can be said that the ability of the management of the company to understand the changes within and outside their operation has become the key factors why the company had become successful.       Although, the company had taken some risks in its implementation of the new strategy, the company had been able to manage all the risks in order to reach its goal.  It can be concluded that the success of the company also lies on the ability of the management to match their marketing strategy being able to identify customers’ needs. The placement or location of production plants, distribution and stocking facilities is also important as it should be in close proximity to the market being served or to the source of raw materials.  Transportation is a crucial factor to the entire process as it plays a big role in the speed of delivery of the products to the customers. It should be considered whether to use air transport or shipping. The cost of transport would also be considered. Lastly, a part of supply chain management is obtaining information from the point of end-use and linking them with resources throughout the chain for speed of exchange. If these elements will be considered in the adaptation of the market performance strategy of E60s, the production and supply chain and staff development will be sure to achieve success. Best practices often depend on people, suppliers, processes, or other business elements that are specific to a certain situation. There are some factors that E60s may consider to successfully develop and deploys one or more procurement best practices.             These factors include:   Active support from top management E60s must develop best practices often have top executives who recognize the potential value that lies in their supply chains and actively support supply management efforts and authorities must have a full understanding of supply value, good relations at strategic supplier companies and they must provide the corporate investment needed to develop best practices.   Deep understanding of cost drivers E60s can develop best practices within their cost structures and take actions to drive costs lower all the time and will continue collect and analyze data and other information on the costs of the suppliers that comprise their supply base.   Cooperative supplier relations The company integrates strategic suppliers into programs that involve supply, such as new product development, cost reduction, and logistics operations. They also understand that suppliers must achieve profit margins sufficient for them to meet their own business plans and to invest in new technologies, facilities, equipment, and talented people.               Cross-functional approach To function at an optimum level, supply management must include not only the procurement group but other corporate functions that can add value through interacting with suppliers and became a common way to involve other departments in supply management over the past decade and developing a sound strategy for how teams will enhance value.   Appreciation of advanced communications technology   While technology by itself will do nothing to improve procurement/supply management operations, intelligent deployment of advanced technologies within the confines of a superior supply strategy can reap great value – value that not only is untapped, but often is completely invisible to even trained procurement eyes. The company doesn’t truly understand that technology’s value is wasted unless it is part of a sound supply strategy. Technology is a tool, not a strategy. When technology is not used correctly, it can cause a lot of damage to supply operations. These factors, if employed effectively and integrated with the supply chain management may help the E60s to ensure that they always meet the standards for having the right to business. In addition, part of the strategy is the adherence to the production and delivery process of the organically produced commodities. Hence, the company has also shown that their chicken products adheres to the standards and are safe and satisfying to it. As the company can be known for their excellent service, availability of different products and brands and the responsiveness to the needs of their customers, E60s competitive position can be easily noticed. In order to sustain its competitive advantage and have a more strategic supply chain, it is recommended that the company should consider the Internet to be part of its supply chain.   The Internet provides opportunities for companies to develop relationships with suppliers as well as customers (2001).  (2002) found the number of competitive moves increased as Internet usage increased for small hotel owners. It becomes more important to manage relationships as competition increases through the use of e-commerce. The failure to incorporate resource allocation processes into strategic planning may result from the focus on revenue enhancement and market forces as the strategic planning methods and models used by the company must incorporate resource deployment models which conserve resources, eliminate duplication of services and equipment within departments, and allow for effective cost control ( 1993). Although not speaking of resource allocation per se, management scholars such as  (1992) and  (1992) advocate customer perceptions of quality and performance as a cornerstone of strategic management in service organizations. By combining information gathered through customer surveys with allocation matrices such as importance-performance maps (1985), business can make better internal and external resource allocation decisions ( 1994).   It is a management technique with enormous potential but like all management techniques it is important that the tool be clearly understood and the pitfalls of misapplying the technique be avoided. Properly implemented strategic planning for information resources can mean the differences between realizing productivity gains and or losing opportunities for improving service delivery programs within the company ( 1983). Success in managing information as a resource is critical to the effectiveness and efficiency of task management. Moreover, information management environment will be subject to substantial change to forecast all the management changes that will occur harnessing new IT and managing information resources will become cornerstones of progressive management and leadership as task managers will seek proactive and strategic approach to resource management implying IT such as developing cost effective plans for implementing new programs as necessary as possible, improving the procurement of information services technology to achieve best outcomes for the management as well as increasing the ability of the organization’s communication systems to change within new technologies ( 2006).               Thus, having the capability to assign costs for IT services and to improve information resource budget and planning for sharing and safeguarding of information of the information resources required for decision making and solving problems and in order to achieve such objectives it is important to impart knowledge and skills on the techniques available to resource management information systems including modeling and decision support as well as the understanding of the need to appreciate human environments that will affect the design and use of the implemented resource management techniques as it addresses the need for a better information system. ( 2006) Furthermore, many of the basic paradigms that control the application of the techniques are still developed and as the development continues existing techniques will evolve as managers must continue learning and exploring as IT systems evolve to enhance resource techniques in integrated ways creating opportunities for managing growth in management process as the best information are available in the fullness of time in using such management techniques with emphasis to IT advantages and technology innovation. (2006)               In addition, Information Systems Management is the application of information technology to support major functions and activities of either a private sector business or public sector institution. Today, it is accepted that managing the information resource is important within the utilization of an organization’s information resources. The majority of information systems are developed for and used by people in functional areas such as in manufacturing, human resources and marketing to develop information systems that address the needs of the organization, task mangers must possess a mix of business and technical knowledge. They must understand organizational objectives, operations and the financial implications as information system means a discrete set of information resources hat addresses how the management of information resources promotes the fulfillment of organization’s mission. Information planning that promotes the use of information throughout its life cycle to maximize the usefulness of information, minimize the burden and preserve the appropriate integrity and availability of information. (2006)             LEADERSHIP STYLES The appropriate leadership styles that E60s must be able to integrate in its business situation, involves delegation – as this is relevant for the staff and management to be in total charge of its job functions within specific areas of concern as for instance, in the finance department it is better for the management involved to acquire a monthly routine monitoring and evaluation on updates on sales and finances by probably by using a standard scorecard that will examine the status of the business environment, as for staff handling, it is important for E60s to have their performance appraisal that geared towards a faster production and distribution of orders and services provided by the company and have its staff training and development pointing to business expertise and established communication avenues that will provide better customer relations from among E60s customers and employees so that inaccurate invoices and miscommunication will be avoided and that the company will achieve a balance workforce as needed.             The company can consider using on-line services that will help them in facilitating their products and services as it can be reachable by the customers and designed ways to participate more on re-inventing its business process and have a change of management principles and have a clear authority that will serve as a driving force in making E60s recover at its lowest times and provide standard and quality service that aims to mentor and coach staff, employees and management to pursue its capabilities and potentials in leveling high marks for their  business performance that will open a door for success within its information systems as it is crucial for maintaining business stability and growth in the market. Aside, the company can also strengthen its IS development ways by continuously improving its marketing strategies and be goal oriented and solutions oriented if problem arises, knowing how to limit its constraints, risks in production and resolve issues through adopting to certain organization changes if possible and focusing on a vision that will help not only the externalities but also the internalities of the overall business structure. Henceforth, E60s should enhance their commitment values by achieving a stable business cycle that rejuvenates all the possible weak points that the company has encountered over the years. The company should have the commitment to restructure its business for the purpose of increase in quality of products and services and have a manageable sales and profits in the market and be able to have a good brand name and equity as it is important for tying up with possible existing competitors.   COMMUNICATION SKILLS Furthermore, communication skills affect the relationships among employee members on the management team. Although effective communication does not guarantee success of a farm business, its absence usually assures problems. More specifically, communication influences the effectiveness of the hiring and training of employees, motivation of employees, providing daily instructions, performance evaluations and the handling of discipline problems. These are the obvious roles of communication. (2005) Communication also affects the willingness of employees to provide useful suggestions. Effective communication is the original sender having the desired effect on the receiver and communication at its best minimizes misunderstanding between sender and receiver. The sender cannot transplant a message or idea. Ineffective communication means there was no effect on the receiver to the sender. ( 2005) In terms of mentoring and its respected relationship process, one of the most important skills, a task manager needs to have is to be able to mentor the team. It is said that good mentors are natural leaders and mentoring is an art that they practice in getting the job done, as they are also responsible to their team and believe that they need to encourage their team members to grow and take steps to encourage good values. (2005)     Furthermore, it is really important for every organization to exercise well their tasks and manage them in a way that the people involved in process will experience better working environment as needed. Therefore, the integral aspect that task managers must consider for E60s can be realized and reflected through the avenue of communication as it is the heart of many interpersonal problems faced by almost every business sectors. It is crucial to have positive shift and understanding of communication process and then working at improvement provide task managers a recipe for becoming useful and effective communicators in their areas of responsibility as well as knowing the common barriers to communication in terms of minimizing negative impact.                 COACHING AND MENTORING Also, it is significant to inculcate to the E60s management as a part of coaching and mentoring to plan out a useful change management applicable for resolving problems of the company, there needs to have a change theory to be utilized within the research study will basically involve the process and the related information regarding the social change theory and its aspects that may result to a certain resistance to change such as in the field of social communication and how to manage change and strategies to avoid resistance to change in terms of social perspectives within a business and or a company’s context as well as point of view. Thus, any theory that purports to explain how these systems work and how oppressive social inequalities are maintained must not be so framed as to imply that those who benefit from them are not free to change them. Otherwise they would not be morally culpable for their part in perpetuating the system. The problem involved a kind of change-responsibility and resistance level problems, to avoid this problem any explanation of how process of social change are supported in a way that implies that both those who benefit and those who are responsible for challenging and resisting such sources of change.         It might seem that social constructionist theories of male and white dominations could better handle this change dilemma but “social construction” (1990 ) as a theoretical tendency is not a coherent whole: like modernism, it offers different ways of understanding self and agency. If E60s company is changing its system, members of staff might feel that there jobs are being threatened, especially by the implementation of a new computer system and that a good change management is crucial as it’s easy to make a loss from sudden, unplanned changes but, there is a need to establish where and why change is needed, for example a change in one department might upset another if they aren’t properly informed about it. This is easily overcome by trying to keep major changes to things that will affect the whole company, like in general policies or customer care. Everyone involved in the company must be informed on how the changes have gone especially if they have been successful, for example if productivity and profits rate have gone up tell everyone. ( 1999)           A healthy organization is one that welcomes change, supports learning and development of individual abilities. (2001) Furthermore, a successful organization development program should create an organizational culture that solves its own problems and adapts readily to changes in managerial wishes and the environment. In this sense the objective of implementing change is to create a learning, dynamic organization with a higher quality of working life for individuals (1993 ). It is recommended that E60s Company must communicate with employees regarding certain changes before it becomes another problem. When change does occur, the company and managers should understand the program it has in place to help employees deal with the change. To create well-executed change, a company must build on constructive interactions. A company that communicates regularly with its employees on the subject of change will have success when a change needs to be made. Employees will welcome the change and in the end will assist in making the change successful.           The ideal key for E60e Company is to focus on a strategic context and integrate he change project with management objectives. It is critical to the success of any change project to establish support for the change from the executive level down to the supervisory levels. This support is difficult to create and sustain. Support is more easily obtained when the change is in line with the strategic goals of the organization. There are incentives to meet these strategic objectives and aligning a change project to these strategic objectives allows the change project to benefit from this external incentive. Furthermore, perception is just as important as reality in identifying resistance as resistance to change is identified, a plan must be developed to mitigate the effects of this resistance. Mostly, the tasks of this plan should be integrated into the overall project plan. The same level of importance should be assigned to resistance mitigation as to any task in the project. An effective change project management team must be representative of constituencies impacted by the project and must possess the capabilities necessary to lead the change effort. In change projects of significant size these phases overlap and it can be very confusing. It is natural for project team members to temporarily shut down, especially if the previous phase was late and a final push for completion was necessary. The goal of the change project manager is to use communication, leadership, and human resource management skills to avoid the normal downtime between project phases.     The ability to work effectively with people is the essential determinant of leadership success. Developing interpersonal skills is, however, the most challenging of the three leadership categories. Still, it is possible. Most developmental methods involve experiential learning, such as learning by doing. As much as possible, leadership development should occur on the job, not away from the job. Leaders get things done through others. Leadership is essentially a transaction between a leader and followers. It makes sense to create developmental programs that attend to the transactional context within which the leader resides. For instance, empowered groups such as self-directed work teams distribute the leadership function rather than relying on one formally designated person. Increasingly, teams are held accountable to each other via performance appraisal and customer satisfaction surveys of each other’s timeliness, quality, and so forth. The mature team recognizes it is responsible for its reputation, along with the leader. The leader alone is not responsible for creating an effective organization. The development must occur within the group because the view of the leader as the person with all the answers is challenged by the reality of having individual team members at all levels making continuous decisions.       Technology will enhance the emergence and sharing of knowledge among participants via such venues thought leader access, e-learning advances, e-mentoring/shadowing, and business simulations. While technology is useful for some aspects of leadership development, it cannot replace the importance of bringing leaders together to deepen their relationships and their learning experience. Maximizing the effectiveness of leadership development offers the best in integrating the best mentoring and coaching experiences with technology-based tools and processes such as better learning solutions applicable for E-60’s situation (2002). The problem for implementing IS development could be reflected that the company as a private sector organization must support change initiatives and other mission challenges with effective communications programs. A well-developed and executed plan will help communicate E-60s message, define specific communications objectives, set strategies and define messages. Such a plan rapidly creates a cost-effective communications program that addresses the constituencies as company must reach to mobilize support, build acceptance, and remove uncertainty. It is critical that organizations directly reach and impact all of their constituents to generate mission results; it is no longer enough to simply broadcast a message and wait for some type of response or action.       A plan will help ensure that communications reach the intended audiences and that the audiences notice and act upon the messages they receive of marketing communications planning that will harness the power of an effective communications plan to advance your own organizational objectives. There are problem in the marketing department within its communication process as it is to ensure that the company is visible, accessible and accountable to the society it serves. There needs to employ a variety of ways and means to communicate, and convey information in multiple formats to accommodate diverse needs. There is a must in creating a communications plan as most of the time, communications are required to mobilize support, build acceptance, remove uncertainty and reduce risk. There is one major underlying theme to the ideas presented here: Implementing business information systems requires flexibility and an open mind. Adding productivity and proprietary software products will result in developing and adapting new systems for its operations. Since, technology is changing so rapidly it is becoming a challenge for everyone to stay aware of its implications in people’s lives, if it were possible through technology to make these improvements become a reality, what kind of commitment would E-60s are willing to make?       Furthermore, an information system deals with the use of information technologies in businesses and organizations. Organizations will thrive only if they effectively make use of design and implement information systems to meet the organization’s tactical and strategic needs. Effectively managing the development and use of information systems, given the rapid pace of technological change, presents a difficult challenge. Information Systems specialists must possess not only a thorough understanding of the technology, but also the knowledge to use that technology to support core business functions. The objective of the Information Systems is to certify that E-60s should complete its sequences of management ways as designed in order to provide them with the knowledge and skills needed to master the use of computer technology in stabilizing the company’s business and other related aspects of the organization.         ________________________     Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Project plan

INTRODUCTION The focus for this task management assignment is to basically produce a report that will specifically discuss and...

Quality Planning, Assurance and Control

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY               A new line of clothing for plus-size women is being developed. This report shows the Quality Plans, Quality Assurance and Quality Control measures the company used in developing the new line of clothing. This contains the significance of using quality management for the new line of clothing, the quality plans, assurance and controls.               This report shows the use of Quality Planning in the project which follows the four phases; Plan and Design Program, Product Design and Development Verification, Process Design and Development Verification. The Plan-Do-Check-act approach paradigm was used in Quality Assurance and the use of traditional Quality Control from the design to production and a discussion of the pros and cons of using this type of quality control measure.               .  It is highly recommended to for companies, whether in huge or small scale to use Quality Planning, Assurance and Control in producing goods. These three processes help companies in creating good products which consumers prefer hence gaining more profit                               TABLE OF CONTENTS     Introduction and Project Background —————————————— 1 Project Quality Context ————————————————————– 2 Quality Planning and Assurance ————————————————- 5             Quality Planning ————————————————————– 5             Quality Assurance ———————————————————– 7 Quality Control ————————————————————————- 9 Conclusion —————————————————————————— 11 Recommendations ——————————————————————- 13                           INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY   This report is prepared to assure that the new line of clothing is of excellent quality from the styles of the clothes, quality of the raw materials, and the service of the staff. This report will show how high our standards in terms of quality. It also analyzes and identifies the risk and threats involved with this development of new product. This report contains the context of the project it discusses the needs and relevance of quality management to the new product. It also includes quality planning, assurance and control. The project of a clothing company is to develop a new store catering to plus size women. This includes tops, bottoms, inner wears, and dresses. This new line offers custom-made clothes for plus size women who are more fashionably inclined. Few stores cater to plus size women and those stores do not offer custom-made clothes for plus size fashionistas. There is such a small selection of trendy clothes and a lot of those clothes are very awful.  The company will give plus-size women the same fashion options as to those smaller sizes. This new line of clothing boasts of its uber-chic styles but in an affordable price without sacrificing the quality. Plus, the new store will provide a customer-oriented service which a lot of stores are often missing.     1 PROJECT QUALITY CONTEXT   Quality management according to (2006) is a management approach or strategy of an organization or company aimed on quality. Its goal is to have a long-term success by means of customer satisfaction. (1994) asserts quality management is an extensive source of information regarding the management of different processes that aims in continuous improvement of product and service qualities. (1996) discussed the basic components in quality management: The way work is done- not people- is most often the source of problems. The new store needs quality management in order for its employees to deliver good services through a high quality set of clothes and friendly, customer-oriented store staffs. It is significant for the project because it is addressed directly to the consumers if the store staffs are not friendly the customers won’t go back, the same thing also if the clothes aren’t trendy and of bad quality. If the management hires incapable designers and staffs the outcome of the goods and services will be of poor quality. Satisfaction of customers is paramount. In an organization or company that caters to consumers, satisfaction is the utmost priority.   2 According to  (1994) customers are more forgiving if the products that they got have defects over poor business practices and services. The new store for plus size women needs quality management in order to satisfy the targeted consumers. If the products and services are not satisfied with what the store offers most likely they won’t come back and the targeted consumers will be lessen. Management must provide leadership and foster commitment to quality. Quality management must begin from the top. The management must strive for excellence. The people from the top positions of the organization must bear not good but excellent quality with their work because if the employees see the kind of work the management does it will be emulated. According to(1992) good management includes the following: managers must walk around the facilities, listen to workers, train the managers and then the workers, screen the consultants in quality management, managers must be patient and solve problems one at a time, remove the fear of employees from the management.  The empowerment of employees is crucial.  (1991) discussed that if the employees are satisfied, they will render a good service which will contribute to customer’s satisfaction. In addition, (1992) stated that in increasing the effectiveness of quality management the employees must be 3 educated about the challenges and goals of the company, and the management must incorporate a rewards system. The management must educate their employees on the business of the organization and how their work contributes to the success or failure of the company. The employees of the new store must know that the kind of work they do whether it is on the design, sales, manufacturing or marketing will have a huge effect on the company. If one of the teams delivered a service or products of poor quality the whole will be affected. Total quality management is built around the concept of using teamwork to accomplish change. This component is connected with what is written above; in the new project it has different teams the design, responsible in creating trendy clothes. According to (1995) teams in the company must use techniques in analyzing and improving quality. The most common devices being used are flowcharts, brainstorming and cause and effect diagram. Sales, responsible in selling the clothes and giving friendly and accommodating gestures to clients. Manufacturing, responsible in making the excellent quality clothes. Marketing, responsible for letting the consumers know that the store exists. These teams must be trained properly using new techniques and methods aiming quality improvement. Tools and techniques are important and must be integrated into an organization’s routine. Quality management involves quality improvement methodology. The new store must integrate it to their system in order to have 4 continuous improvement. Measurement of quality indicators and collection of data must be used in order to have improvement. Long-term commitment is critical. The new store won’t have a problem in the change in organizational culture if from the beginning the organization used quality management. This component applies only to established organization that is starting to use this method.     QUALITY PLANNING AND ASSURANCE   QUALITY PLANNING             Quality Planning according to(2001) is a framework designed in developing products in the industry, particularly the automotive industry. The goal of quality improvement according to  (1986) is reduce variation and have a high statistical approach in the evaluation of quality. Quality Planning has four phases: (a) Plan and Define Program (b) Product Design and Development Verification (c) Process Design and Development Verification.             Plan and Define Program. The management will set the following goals for the new store; (a) Produce top of the line quality apparels. (b) Design trendy outfits for plus-size women (c) Target plus-size consumers from all social classes 5 (d) Advertise the product to gain consumers (e) Retention of the targeted customers and (f) Gain profits. Afterwards, the management will inspect the reliability and quality of these goals.             Then the management will give a Preliminary Bill of the following materials; (a) Raw materials (b) Machineries (c) Manpower and (d) Location.             Next is giving the Preliminary process flow; gathering raw materials, designing, production, marketing and selling of clothes.             And lastly the company will give its Product Assurance Plan, containing its objectives, policies, methods and procedures that will be implemented.             Product Design and Development Verification. The designers will create the styles and designs of different apparels. After the designs are finished the design team with the help of some customers’ opinion will verify and review the designs that will be produced. A sample will be created.             Process Design and Development Verification. In this phase the qualities of the production were formulated.      Equipments that will be used are tested and listed. Then a process flowchart will be created indicating the three major sequences in production; (a) cutting process (b) Sewing production and (c) pressing. And Lastly, Process Instructions will also be given.               Product and Process Validation. In product and process validation, there would be a production trial run. If the trial run turned out to be successful the Production part would be approved. The packaging of the product would be evaluated. And a production control plan will be given. The last part is signing-off of Quality Planning.                                                6               In addition, in (1979) book, he developed a program that focuses on management commitment to improvement quality, having wide awareness of quality on the organization, making extensive use of teams, evaluation of the quality cost, continuous process on refining the company and setting goals.     QUALITY ASSURANCE                In (2006) states that its main goal is to make sure that the organizations products and services fulfills and even exceeds customers’ expectations. It covers all activities from design to documentation. The most widely used paradigm in Quality Assurance management is the Shewhart Cycle also known as the Plan-Do-Check-Act approach.             The PDCA Cycle according to (2006) coordinates the organization or company’s continuous improvement efforts. The company used this cycle as a paradigm for Quality Assurance management for the new line of clothing.             7 Plan. The organization must identify first the problems that the new store will face and come up with solutions to the problem. The problems would be mainly on the production, availability of raw materials and equipment. Does the organization need to import raw materials? Are the raw materials enough for mass production? Can the equipments handle the production?  The abilities and skills of manpower. Do the employees have the skills in operating equipments or designing apparels? These problems can be checked by using quality control measures interpreted by charts.             Do. After finding out problems changes must be done to provide solutions. The company must begin on a small-scale for trial. If the problem is on the availability of raw materials the design team must experiment new styles that will be produced on a small scale. If it is on the equipment, the company must reduce its production to avoid further damage on the machines. If it is on the manpower, further training on the employees who performed weakly, and provide small-group leadership skills.             Check. Find out if the small scale changes are effective or not. The company can check if the experimental designs are effective by selling the products on a small scale. The response of the consumers is the key in checking of its effective. Check if the reduced production of goods has great effect on gaining profits, whether it decreased retain or increased. These things can be checked using data check sheets and control charts. On the manpower, the   training and leadership skills can be seen effective by the performance of the employees, whether they improved or not.             Act. Implement the changes in the organization if the experimental changes are successful. This is done in the company by doing mass productions and changing some process standards. And formal training of the employees.             According to (1992) quality improvement does not end in checking using the statistical tools. He believes that leadership of the management is the most important in managing the change in an organization to success. If the management was able to incorporate the vision, mission and strategies of the company to its employee’s success can be achieved.               (1993) discussed that Quality planning has its benefits: it can increase sales, reduce the yearly failure costs, bad quality products, consumer complaints, and absentees among employees, a safer work environment and a management which have a participative environment.               8 QUALITY CONTROL                discussed that quality control is used in measuring and controlling of the products as it is being developed. (1993) states that quality control is doing the proper things in the proper way, even if, the measures used are not that efficient and cost effective.  It is designed to: (a) provide routine and consistent checks to ensure product integrity, correctness, and completeness (b) Identify and address errors. (c) Document and archive inventory material and record all Quality control activities.             The company will use the traditional way in quality control, in which the inspection of products and services during and after production. During designing these inspection takes place, when the designers create apparels. When the designing team receives the raw designs, there would be sorting of good from bad ones. The good sketches are then sent to be created. The design team must choose raw materials that will fit the designs of the apparels. Raw materials are sorted; the best one that fits the style and function of the apparel will be used. And once the designers finished choosing the designs and materials, the creation of the prototype apparels will begin and afterwards it will be sent for mass production.   9 There are three main points of inspection, first when raw materials are received, before the raw materials enters production the employees sorts the poor from excellent quality materials. After sorting the excellent raw materials it is then forwarded to the production process. Second is during production process, during cutting process products are still being sorted, bad outputs are rejected and excellent outcomes is forwarded again to sewing production. The same process goes to sewing production, bad products are rejected and the best ones enters pressing. Third is when the products are finished. Inspection of quality is tested. According to  (1994) the quality of apparels is measured by three factors: (a) Durability (b) Utility and (c) Emotional appeal,             The Durability factors are tensile strength, tear strength, abrasion resistance, colourfastness, and cracking and bursting. Utility factors are air permeability, water permeability, thermal conductivity, crease retention, wrinkle resistance, shrinkage and soil resistance. Emotional Appeal factors are eye appeal of fabric, tactile response to fabric, reaction to hand manipulation of fabric, eye appeal of the garment’s face, silhouette, design and drape.             If the products past the three main inspections it will be dispatched to the customers.       10 CONCLUSION              (1993) discussed that a lot of companies spent huge amount of time and money on Quality Management Programs but usually fails. These companies failed to focus on some customer-driven problem areas. In addition, (1994) stated that customer satisfaction and improvement in the quality of products are not automatically translated into profits.             In conclusion Quality Planning, Assurance and Control are very important in developing a new clothing line. Clothing is one of the basic necessities of man and consumers are very particular with quality. In Quality Planning the four phases makes it easier for the company to comply with the set of standards and can easily achieve customers’ satisfaction. Quality planning lessens the detection of defects because it already prevents it. By using Quality Planning there would be continuous improvement of the products.             In using the Plan-Do-Check-Act approach in Quality Assurance the company will reduce costs in solving a bigger problem because it was already identified and the improvement measures are in small-scale. The probability of losing profit is lesser because experimental designs are created first and tested in a small area of the organization. Plus it will not cause a major interruption in the organization because it was tested first in a small-scale. If the measures did 11 not work, the company will just continue with the cycle. Improvement of the products and services in the organization is continuous if the Plan-Do-Check-Act approach is used.             In using the traditional Quality control there are pros and cons. Traditional Quality Control checks and reviews work, and separates the good ones from the bad. It follows a standard, so that the consumers will get an excellent quality on products and services. The company will give consumers the best of the products, and there would be less customers complaining. The company will gain more customers and would even have loyal ones. And lastly, because of the excellent quality products the company will earn more profits because more consumers would want to buy.             There are also problems in using traditional quality control. The inspection process will not have any values, if the outcome of all the products has no defects. Inspection will cost the company some money, because of lost time inspecting and added labour for employees. If the inspection is done too late during the production the probability of having defective goods is high. And lastly, Inspection is not at par with new production techniques.             The important findings in order for the new line of clothing for plus-size women to be successful are creating a set of long-term goals, having the right machineries, raw materials, manpower and enough money. The threats to the success of the project are the lack of good equipment, incapable employees and   12 manager and not enough capital to start the project.             According to  (1993) said that quality management can reduce absenteeism among management and employees, improve production and the work environment is positive.   RECOMMENDATIONS   Quality Planning, Assurance and Control are important factors in creating, developing and marketing new products. Big companies, as well as, small companies must use these three in order to have excellent quality products. By using Quality Planning, Assurance and Control the companies will prevent loss of money due to failure in detecting defective products. (1994) advises that organizations that are going to use Quality Management must have an effective quality program, calculate the cost of the initiatives being taken by the company and compare it against the revenue returns, determine the factors in customer retention, focus on customer satisfactions, pilot-test programs and continue the improvement efforts of the organization,     13             According to  (1994) the management must also recognize that the employees wants direction in the company, workers must believe that the organization stands for something very relevant in the society, employees wants challenges and wants to have the opportunity to keep on learning new ideas and things. The company must have a set of long-term objectives, this will be a guide in having excellent quality products because the organization wants to reach and achieve those specific goals. Having the right equipments is important because production won’t begin or it would stop if the company will not provide the proper ones. The company must invest in their manpower because a key in having excellent quality products is the people behind the equipments; if the workers are incapable the result is most likely a defective product. Give trainings to weak employees to hasten their capabilities. And finally, the organization must have enough money to start a project/business. Not enough capital equals to limited equipments and employees and it will result to a defective product.                                 14   Plan and Define Program Product Design and Development Verification Process Design and Development Verification Product and Process Development   Set Goals   * Produce top of the line quality apparels. * Design trendy outfits for plus-size women * Target plus-size consumers from all social classes * Advertise the product to gain consumers * Retention of the targeted customers * Gain profits.   Preliminary Bill of Materials   * Raw Materials * Machineries * Manpower * Location   Product Assurance Plan   Design Apparels   Design Reviews   Design Verification   Design Prototype/Sample   Equipment Quality and Standards   Process Flowchart   * Cutting Process * Sewing Production * Pressing   Process Instructions   Production Trial Run   Approval of Production   Product packaging Evaluation   Quality Planning sign-off       APPENDIX 1                     TABLE 1. QUALITY PLAN OF THE PROPOSED NEW LINE OF CLOTHING FOR PLUS SIZED WOMEN                               APPENDIX 2                                                                                                                 FIGURE 1. FLOW CHART IN THE PRODUCTION OF APPARELS                           FIGURE 2.  PLAN-DO-ACT-CHECK APPROACH                   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Quality Planning, Assurance and Control

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY A new line of clothing for plus-size women is being developed. This report shows the Quality Plans, Quali...