Case study: Continuous Improvement

Introduction
Precision Engineering Works Private Limited (PEW) is an original equipment manufacturer specialising in plastic moulding parts for the telecommunication industry. They have been servicing the industry for almost 30 years and their customers include major telecommunication service providers. Due to its reputation, PEW have become a very successful company.

The crack is appearing
However, as this industry is seen as a very lucrative market, many new suppliers have begun to emerge. This is having serious implications for PEW. It is more difficult to win new contracts as their customers are able to explore options with other suppliers. Additionally, the competitors are also providing better pricing than PEW. These factors combined have eroded PEW's profitability by almost 45%. As more suppliers are flooding the market, many of PEW's experienced employees have opted to join the new players.

Management response
PEW's senior management are concerned with the recent developments and are looking at ways to improve and once again become the preferred supplier to their customers. To this effect, PEW has engaged your company to provide some advice on overcoming the above issues. The management team is willing to provide all necessary support to turnaround the situation. They want all issues to be resolved within three (3) months.
Your tasks
This assessment item requires you to work in a GROUP (no more than 3 students)
1. As a business improvement consultant, you and your team (including members from PEW) have only three (3) months to correct the situation. You would need to:
i. Identify the root cause(s) that lead to the problems using appropriate tools and techniques.

The seven tools are:
- Cause-and-effect diagram (also known as the "fishbone" or Ishikawa diagram)
- Check sheet.
- Control chart.
- Histogram.
- Pareto chart.
- Scatter diagram.
- Stratification (alternately, flow chart or run chart)

ii. Develop a continuous improvement plan to ensure the problems and issues are not repeated.
iii. Elaborate on the competencies required from PEW management and employees to effectively bring about the change.

2. You must show evidence of using at least seven (7) tools and techniques that you have learnt from this unit to address question (i) above.

3. You may refer to the Project Quality Management from PMBOK, PRINCE2 or any other quality management systems such as ISO9000 series, TQM (Total Quality Management), Six Sigma / Lean Six Sigma etc. to devise your continuous improvement plan.

4. Your submission should be made using Microsoft Office documents and submitted as a separate 2,500 - 3,000 word Microsoft WORD document. Text beyond the 3000 word limit WILL NOT BE MARKED. Text length less than 2500 words will be penalised by 5% of the total available marks.

5. Supporting diagrams / figures may be presented in other formats - Excel, PowerPoint slides, PDF documents, as part of the appendix and will not count towards the word limit. The reference list will also not be included in the word count.

6. Tables shall be included in the word count.

7. Your submission should be a properly constructed to an academic standard. It should contain an effective introduction, body and conclusion. The body should present the justification to support your recommendations, provide your assumptions and finally, provide a conclusion that should restate your recommendations on a high level.

8. The submission should contain a coherent, but necessarily restricted review of the academic literature on the project management topics in question. The literature review should be integrated into the, not a separate section. Do not include an executive summary or an abstract.

9. This assessment item involves researching your assigned topic to enhance your understanding of lean project management concepts and utilisation of academic literature. Whilst you use the recommended textbooks and lecture materials, you may also refer to relevant peer reviewed, academic journal articles. A reference list (comprising between 10 - 15 references) formatted in the prescribed APA style is compulsory.