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GLOBAL ENGINEERING STRATEGY

CASE STUDY (Write 3,000 words)

Strategic management has been widely used by all enterprises to survive aggressive market competition. The strategic planning process is considered objective, logical, systematic approach for making major decisions in an organization (Breene et al. 2007, Brews et al., 2007). It allows effective decisions to be made under conditions of uncertainty. The strategic management process has three stages: strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and strategy evaluation (David, 1998). Strategy plan development is the first step and a vital element that companies should have to withstand fierce market competition and to improve its business performance.

A chemical household cleaning company located in Ghana has tried many different management methods during the last 4 years to improve its business performance.

Most manufacturing companies in the sub-saharan Africa are facing aggressive local, regional and international competition. Strategic management process equips the companies with set of capabilities that allow the companies to survive in such environment. Because of this, Ghanaian companies are forced to adopt strategic planning concepts. This will help set its vision, mission, and build strength. In addition, adopting strategic planning will help in resolving their weaknesses, exploiting opportunities, and avoiding threats. The chemical cleaning household industry is experiencing a very competitive era like many others, thus it is curial to find methods to reduce manufacturing costs, improve quality etc. Alaska Company for Chemical Industries started its operations in January 2018. It is located in the Industrial hub of the capital city of Accra. It specializes in the production of household cleaning chemicals such as dishwashing detergents, bleaching liquid, liquid laundry detergent, floor detergents, shampoo, body wash, and hairstyle gel. Currently, they supply their products to the local market.

The main objective of this strategic planning process is to develop a strategic plan for

the Alaska chemical cleaning household company. An effective strategic planning process

is achieved by developing an External Factor Evaluation Matrix (EFEM) and Internal Factor

Evaluation Matrix (IFEM) followed by a Strength Weakness Opportunity Threat (SWOT) and then finally a Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix (QSPM) (Meredith et al., 2009). For

achieving the project’s objectives, the following methodologies were utilized and can be

summarized as follows; setting the mission and vision of the company, perform external

assessment, conduct Porter competitiveness Model, conduct Political-Economical-Social-

Technological (PESTLE) analysis, develop External Factor Evaluation Matrix (EFE), perform. Internal assessment and develop Threats-Opportunities-Weaknesses-Strengths Matrix (TOWS Matrix) and combine it with GSP. Finally, construct Quantitative Strategic Planning Matrix (QSPM) to evaluate possible strategies. Riston (2008) pointed out the benefits of external and internal analyses which can be summarized as follows;

• Increase managerial awareness of environmental change
• Improve resources allocation decision
• Facilitating risk management
• Acting as an early warning system
• Focusing attention on primary influences on strategic change

Company Information: The status of the company can be summarized as follows; The company has 24 employees, its market share is around 15% with average profit around 15.5%, it ranks 7 out of 20 among local competitors, it does not have strategic plan vision, mission statement, organization structure, or marketing techniques. It relies on labor –intensive manual processes, it does not have R&D activities, a moderate productivity is estimated with traditional inventory control, it has skilled labors with low turnover. The total sales of the company for the four years are presented in Table 1.

Table 1: Total sales and profit during the period 2010-2012

                                        2018 (GHC)  2019 (GHC)  2020(GHC)  2021 (GHC)
Sales                                1,891,840     1,920,785      2,040,896    1,906,725
Cost+ Expenses               1,601,443     1,603,856      1,722,517    1,611,183
Net Profit                         290,397        316,929        318,379       295,542
Net profit as % of sales   15.35%         16.5%           15.6%          15.5%

Within the global context critically assess the following major manufacturing decision categories and evaluate its impact on the manufacturing industry.

1. Facility (size, location and focus)
2. Capacity (amount, timing, type)
3. Vertical Integration and Partner management (direction, extent, interface, collaboration)
4. Production Technologies and Processese (equipment, automation,interconnectedness, scale, flexibility)
5. Workforce and Management (wage policies, security, skill levels)
6. Logistics and supply chain (logistics facilities and methods, inventory and policies, vendor coordination, production planning)
7. Organizational and incentives (structure, reporting levels, degree of centralization, role of staff, control and reward systems)
8. Business processes (interfaces and responsibilities, responsibilities, vendor development, monitoring and intervention

                                                GLOBAL ENGINEERING STRATEGY

EXERCISE

Listed below are 10 industries. Classify each one as (a) emerging, (b) rapid-growth, (c) mature/slow-growth, (d) stagnant/declining, or (e) high-velocity/turbulent, and (f) fragmented. Do research on the Internet, if needed, to locate information on industry conditions and reach a conclusion on what classification to assign each of the following:

• (1) Exercise and fitness industry
• (2) Dry cleaning industry
• (3) Poultry industry
• (4) Camera film and film-developing industry
• (5) Wine, beer, and liquor retailing
• (6) Watch industry
• (7) Cell phone industry
• (8) Recorded music industry (CDs, tapes)
• (9) Computer software industry
• (10) Newspaper industry

Search the internet and find information on major technology projects. Then, assign yourself as a project manager for this project and start managing it 

Check my answers if they are correct pls asap!

Case study:

One of the new ventures that Health Buddy Shop is providing prepared food for people who are into keto diet. The management will have its operations meeting sometime next time and it needs to approve its operational expenses which will include the budget for eparing their meal according to the required calaries per person  to attain a particular weight.  Mr. Angelo  has been tasked to handle the operations including the logistics part  which includes  the supplies and raw materials.  Initially, Mr Angelo has come from similar restaurant where ordering on a monthly basis is effective for them in terms of meeting customer requiremnets and meeting the least cost. With this experience, Mr Angelo followed the  same practices from that previous experience and began ordering  food boxes, disposable spoon and fork and paper cups monthly  with a fixed  order quantity of 2,000 pcs per order. Annual demand for the food is also equated to the usage and demand for the said materials which is 24,000 pcs annually.  Food boxes costs  BD 0.150, spoon and fork is BD0.30 while paper cups cost BD 0.20 Maintaing such a volume of materials costs the company BD 5.00 while the cost of ordering from supplier is Bd 12. Mr Angelo wants to ensure that what he will present to the management is correct so he has asked his other friends to  check and validate which in return agreed with his strategy. At its operations meeting, Mr. Angelo intend to declare that the practice is going to save money for the company. However, just before the operations meeting, a trainee named Mr. Rey has come and has been instructed to assess the operations and propose possible improvements that will ensure product quality and at the same  time saving money . Mr . Rey, who is a graduating student of MS Manufacturing  Management saw that there is something wrong with the proposed strategy that Mr. Angelo will implement in terms of order quantity. He objects the practice that is being done when it comes to ordering the food boxes, spoon and for and paper cups.

Answer the following Questions.

1. What is the impact that Mr Angelo’s strategy on the total cost   
2. What is the impact of Rey’s  idea in terms of ordering  inventories. 
3. Having seen the results in Q1 and Q2, what can you conclude to be the best strategy that the company should use? Support your answer with  data 

The success of any project is dependent on a diverse range of skills, abilities and competencies of the project manager which should both inspire the project team to succeed and win the confidence of the customer. Comment on this statement by describing the competencies required of a project manager.

Identify an organisation of choice and use the problems identified in the case study to determine the approaches that the leadership of the organisation would deploy to alleviate those problems.

What is a sprint in agile?

• Referring to the project documentation you have collected including designs, specifications and other supporting documentation, in your own words, summarise the nature of the project and your company’s procedures and requirements for the construction of the structure.  To do this, you may discuss the project requirements with the project or site manager or other relevant stakeholders involved in the construction process.  Identify the timelines for the construction and any special terms and conditions specified contractually that must be complied with.

The PMIS system is one of the leanest systems around, but it is far from agile in terms of responding to new requirements’.

Critically explore and evaluate this statement in relation to lean and agile methodologies. You should include academic literature and examples within your answers.

(a) “Project selection is essentially important in beginning the project management”. Briefly describe 
the basic guidelines to undertake the project selection.
(b) Using an application example to discuss the content of project reporting, the normal reporting lines 
and methods.

(a) (a) Projects are generally classified into three types. What are the key features of each type of projects?
(b)(b) All projects have common characteristics. Please briefly describe these characteristics.

The PMIS system is one of the leanest systems around, but it is far from agile in terms of responding to new requirements’.

Critically explore and evaluate this statement in relation to lean and agile methodologies. You should include academic literature and examples within your answers.

Question 1 .

Describe the “ideal” project progress and the “usual” progress. Discuss the difference between the two and what drives a project towards the usual progress as opposed to the ideal. Illustrate with an example from your own experience, where possible.

Question 2.

Describe the intent of following a lifecycle approach to project management and its benefits.