NASA Configuration Management Process Issues And Operational Improvements

Areas of Issues in the Configuration Management Process

Discuss about the Operation Management Device and Method.

This process map shows the different areas of issues in the configuration management process in NASA.  The employees are facing issues regarding access to excel and shared drive at the same time. However, the current system is not equipped enough to make the necessary changes.  There are large numbers of information in spreadsheets and keeping those data up to data will be difficult for the organizations. There is only one person deciding upon the applicability of the change request and as that person does not have a technical background will does not understand the applicability of the requested change.  Even though NASA indicates the applicability in the mail there is no clarity.  On the other hand, downloading data from the NASA database is time consuming and consists of many logins due to high level of security. The distribution process is also cumbersome and puts too much pressure on a particular individual. Moreover, it is difficult to obtain the signature of the board as they travel all the time and there is lack of onsite authorization which causes delay in the projects.

The understanding of the operations management theories has helped in the proper identification of the issues faced by the organization. It helps in mitigating the issues of the same in order to bring forth improvements through the change in the structure and the functioning of the business in the market.  This section of the report helps in determining the change through the proper understanding of the western operation management theories.

The Supply chain management theory helps in determining the changes that the organization must undertake for enhancing the proper movement of the products in the supply chain. The smooth movement of the products in the supply chain helps in determining the various characteristic elements of the change that is being undertaken by the organization in the market.  According to Shirae et al. (2015), the complete process of the designing, planning, executing, controlling, and monitoring over the change in the organization is facilitated through the understanding of the prospects of the products and the services expected by the consumers of the organization. On the other hand, Kiehtreiber et al. (2015) stated that the operation management of the organization helps in determining the various aspects of the change in the structure and the functioning of the same in the market. The process helps in maintaining the product differentiation and ensuring the competitive advantage of the organization in the market.

Understanding of Operations Management Theories

Kerzner  & Kerzner (2017)stated that the proper functioning of the supply chain and the management of the same helps the organization in maintaining the availability of the products in the market. On the other hand, the utilization of the management helps in ensuring the product quality that is offered by the organization. The enhancement of the supply chain helps in determining the costs and thereby differentiate between the structure and the functioning. The concerned company NASA has taken steps to monitor over the databases in order to gain control over the defaulters in the system. However, the monitoring over the systems has resulted to time lags and security checks that have affected the smooth functioning of the operations in the internal structure of the organization. In order to address the issue that is being faced by NASA, the organization is taking up steps for bringing forth changes in the functioning of the business. The product offering being the satellites that are being offered to various companies in the telecast industry is being affected by the lag in the time due to the security checks. Therefore, the organization must take steps in order to mitigate the factors based on the issues. It will be helping the organization in maintaining a steady check on the different factors that hinders the supply chain of the organization in the market.

Lean management helps the organization in undertaking steps for bringing in continuous improvements in the structure and the functioning of the business for achieving the long-term goals of the same in the market. It helps in enumerating steps for bringing in changes in various processes that is being undertaken by the organization in order to support the organization in enhancing the market situation and the value propositions offered by the same in the market. According to (Kato 2014), “An operation management device includes: an information collection module which collects, from a managed device, first and second performance information showing a time series change in the performance information”. The change in the structure and the functioning of the businesses is being facilitated through the analysis of the performance of the organization and the determination of the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) which will be helping the organization in understanding the flaws in the systems and the functioning. On the other hand, the proper understanding of the different factors that helps in determining the performance of the organization is through the quality checks and the services that are supposed to meet the needs of the customers. The delivery of the expected products and the services helps the organization in maintaining the statute position of the organization in the market scenario.

Supply Chain Management Theory

NASA is taking all possible steps to outnumber the issues that are being faced by the same in the internal systems. It has helped in enumerating the various issues that are being faced by the organization in the internal structure and thereby take steps in order to understand the changes that are required to be taken by the organization for maintaining its long term goals of the same in the market. “The results, although not based on a large sample, point to several project management practices associated with project success that stem from both the traditional paradigm as well as VDCL” (Nicholas & Steyn 2017 ). The value proposition of the organization is being supported through the understanding of the different issues that are being   faced by the same in the market and thereby strategies are formed y the organization to bring in changes in the technological aspects of the organization. The development of the security systems and the determination of the elements that support the progress of the organization help the same in gaining a competitive advantage in the market.

The determination of the Theory of Constrains (TOC) helps the organization in understanding the different paradigms that might be faced by the same while implementing a change in the structure and the functioning of the organization in the market. TOC helps in determining the value of the determinants and the change that is being undertaken by the organization for bringing in the required change in the structure and the functioning. The theory states that no matter what a company does to overcome the issues faced by the same while operating on a large scale, the company is sure to face a constrain factor (Okitsu et al. 2012 ). The determination of the constrain factor helps the organization in understand the effects of the change and the hindrances that it might face while implementing the change in the structure and the functioning of the business in the market.  It facilitates the organization in maintaining the effectiveness of the change as per the demands in the market.

The concerned company, NASA might face issues while implementing the change on their security systems for the databases. However, in order to maintain the confidentiality, the organization would not be able to implement the change completely. It has affected the change that is being planned by the organization in the market. On the other hand, the determination of the constrains will be helping the organization in undertaking the change more diabolically which shall affect the company structure and the functioning. Change is being undertaken by the organizations in order to bring forth improvements in the functioning. However, the negative capabilities of the change are a measurable content while determining the effectiveness of the same in the organizational culture.

Lean Management for Continuous Improvements

The theories that are being stated in the previous section of the report helps in determining the value of the change that is being undertaken by the organization. The major aspects of the change in the functioning and the operations are based on the necessity of the organization to make its improvements in the market situation. NASA undertakes projects for sufficing to the needs of its consumers, mainly the telecast companies and the media. NASA has helped in the growth of these companies through their continuous support. “ Physical location information of a network connection device, such as a network switch, is described in a master data library or the like in advance, and is created as configuration items and discovered by a software dependency discovery unit.” (Akamatsu et al. 2014).  However, the company faces issues relating to the structure of the security checking and monitoring over the databases that are kept confidential. The technical person can only retrieve the databases from their systems through the security checks that are being conducted by a single, non-technical parson who have no knowledge of their data base or the kind of work that requires the same. This has affected the smooth functioning of the organization as per the needs of the consumers. The performance of the organization is also affected through the practices that are being undertaken by the organization in their internal structure (Jacobs, Chase  & Lummus  2014, pp. 533-535).

As per the concept of Lean Management, the company must take steps in order to bring in changes in the systems for enhancing their long term goals and their achievement. On the other hand, the identification of the constrains as per the Theory will be helping the organization in understanding the pros and cons of undertaking the change. It will be helping the organization in making use of the forecast as a means to understand the effects of the change that is being undertaken by the organization in the market. “a power generation output prediction processing unit configured to calculate power generation output prediction data indicating a generated power obtained by a generator within the day-of-prediction” (Nakamura et al. 2015). The determination of the long term goals of the organization will be facilitating the same in bringing forth the change in the structure and the functioning for undertaking the improvements. The major aspects that are being undertaken by the organization are based on the enhancement in the supply chain and its proper management in order to deliver the quality services to the clients. It will be helping the organization in applying a sustainable approach in the market.

Taking Steps to Outnumber the Issues

It takes more than 2 weeks to complete the whole process flow that is completion of CR process between NASA and ESA. This process is time consuming and consists of various bottlenecks and issues. Therefore, the change management plan has been developed based on the issues faced by NASA and ESA in the change request process.  This is a schedule consisting of the project deliverables and the milestones. The project deliverables are developed according to the exiting process flow and the loopholes in it. These change management plan will reduce the short comings of the process flow by making necessary changes.  There are six phases in this change management process and each phase has a specific contribution to the overall project. The milestone determines the completion of each of the phases and has greater significance to the overall project.

The risk management plan has identified the different risk factors in the project which may affect the cost and time span. The success of a project may be hampered by the different risk factors.  The different factors causing risk to the project have to identified, prioritized and then mitigated according to their degree of their severity. The different types of risk factors are internal, external and technical.  The following risk factors are developed based on the project tasks and activities. The external, internal and technical risk factors have been identified and prioritized according to their severity. The table also includes the areas that will be affected by the risk factors and the different ways of mitigating them.

The new change management will identify the issues in all the phases so that effective solution can be reached. It is advised to use store data on cloud platform so that data does not needs to be stored separately.  This will enable the users to access real time data at the same time and the data in the spreadsheet has to be moved into database and automated so that the database can be updated on their own. The number of employees working behind the change request has to be increased so that the queue of change request can be reduced. This will increase the overall operational efficiency of the process (Jacobs, Chase & Lummus 2014). The signature of the board is essential for approval and they are not available most of the times so an authoritative body has to be developed which can approve the overall process. The offsite access issue can also be solved using the cloud database and data can be easily accessed.  

Determining the Theory of Constraints

The risk management plan shows the various risk factors that have to be considered so that the project is a success. Therefore, project manager will have to develop an effective communication plan so that risk factors can be discussed and avoided. The communication plan enables the project manager, team and the stakeholders to communicate with each other. Therefore, they will be able to discuss about the status of the project, the changes that are required and the precautions that are to be taken to make the changes. The internal and external risk factors can easily mitigated by maintaining a proper communication channel internally and externally. “a power generation output prediction processing unit configured to calculate power generation output prediction data indicating a generated power obtained by a generator within the day-of-prediction” (Nakamura et al. 2015).  However, in order to mitigate the technical risk factors, the organization will have to make sure that all the hardware and software are managed effectively to avoid technical issues. Moreover, spare hardware equipments have to be stored so that even if the problem occurs it does not hamper the overall time frame of the project.

Conclusion

Thus, it can be concluded from the study that effective change management plan is essential for better functionality of the projects. Time is essential factor and this will enable to provide better service to the customers (Jacobs, Chase & Lummus  2014). Effective management of the project configuration is essential as it consist of processes such as baseline measurement and process flow measurement. NASA will have to keep the deadlines in track and meet them more frequently as there are rarely met (Kerzner  & Kerzner  2017). The change management process will increase the flow of the processes and the delay and management of the datasets can be handled in a better way.  Moreover, the new process will be able to reduce the time taken for the CR between ESA and NASA.

References

Akamatsu, T., Terao, T. & Watanabe, T., International Business Machines Corp, 2014. Information processing system, operation management method for computer systems, and program in a distributed network environment. U.S. Patent 8,892,705. [26 March 2018]

Jacobs, F.R., Chase, R.B. & Lummus, R.R., 2014. Operations and supply chain management (pp. 533-535). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. [26 March 2018]

Kato, K., NEC Corp, 2014. Operation management device, operation management method, and operation management program. U.S. Patent 8,700,953. [26 March 2018]

Kerzner, H. & Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons. [26 March 2018]

Kiehtreiber, P., Vidrine, J.A., Linn, C.S., Saldinger, R.D. & Thomas, B.J., Apple Inc, 2015. Centralized operation management. U.S. Patent 8,966,574. [26 March 2018]

Nakamura, T., Yamane, T., Shimoda, E. & Morino, K., Shimizu Corp, 2015. Operation management apparatus, operation management method, and operation management program. U.S. Patent 9,031,703. [26 March 2018]

Nicholas, J.M. & Steyn, H., 2017. Project management for engineering, business and technology. Taylor & Francis. [26 March 2018]

Okitsu, J., Kato, T., Saito, T. & Nakajima, T., Hitachi Ltd, 2012. Operation management method of information processing system. U.S. Patent 8,145,927. [26 March 2018]

Shirae, T., Tamura, M., Kametani, H. & Mizuuchi, Y., Fujitsu Ltd, 2015. Operation management device and method for job continuation using a virtual machine. U.S. Patent 9,069,597. [26 March 2018]

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