Operational Plan For Implementing An Ordering System In A Manufacturing Organization

Overview of Operational Plan

The operational plan is base on implementation of new or upgrade of existing computer hardware or software such as ordering system in a manufacturing organization. The selected area of a workplace is manufacturing. The manufacturing organization is using ordering system to manage flow of products from the production to delivery of the particular product (Wei et al. 2016). The existing ordering system is a manual system that maintains various types of activities such as customer order form, internal order form, packaging of materials and production methods.

The organization has to deal with supply of goods in the manufacturing department. The manufacturing team works to ensure that their business obtains required raw materials at reasonable price due to implementation of ordering system. It organizes storage of the products prior to the sale and makes sure that finished products are shipped as contracted (Burke 2013). Operational plan is focused on the business requirements managing their inventory level, ordering process and storing of materials. The plan maximizes the capacity; monitor the communication in the system and maintenance of the relationships with the suppliers.  

The challenges are that there is not enough time to develop the system and the organization does not have enough funds to implement the system properly (Fleming and Koppelman 2016).

The opportunities for implementation of ordering system is to reduce off contract spend in the business, reduce the price spend and increment into total spend under the procurement management. Ordering system is a set of detailed methods, which is used to handle the ordering process (Larson and Gray 2013).

The issue is that due to time as well as financial constraints, the software, this is used to develop the system covers only ordering and payment aspects.

The goal of the proposed system is to develop and manage the ordering activities in the manufacturing firm. It records the orders submitted by the customer. Following are the objectives of the ordering system:

• To allow the customer to place order, view the order, makes changes, submit and pay the amount of the order
• To generate reports, which are used for decision making
• To modify the information related to price, add more products and tools to manage the system and promotional records
• To provide of interfaces, which allows promotion 

The operational plan of implementing an ordering system provides clear view how the manufacturing department will contribute to achievement of the business (Gido, Clements and Clements 2014). 

Strategic Objectives of the organisation:

• Reduce off contract spend by 70 percent
• Reduce the price by 8 percent for spending brought back onto the contract
• Reduce the requisition-to-order costs by 60 percent
• Increase the total spending under procurement management by 15 percent

Progress toward the implementation of the strategic direction and achievement of performance targets as identified in the strategic plan.

The reason behind the implementation of ordering system is one critical metric such as ROI (rate of return). 

Initiatives to be undertaken

Activity details (one for each activity to be completed)

Goals and Objectives

Activity description:  Planning, Implementation, Monitoring and Review the operational plan

Priority: High      Activity objective: To implement and upgrade of existing ordering system

Planning and Implementation    Key activities      Supporting action/s & responsibility        Milestones, timelines and deadlines

Identification of customer’s ordering system needs        Survey the customer’s requirements

Project Manager              7/14/2017- 7/19/2017

Functional and non-functional requirements of the system         Use case development

Project Developer           7/20/2017- 7/29/2017

Determination of business problem and opportunities   Analysing the business functions

Project Manager              7/30/2017- 8/09/2017

Feasibility study to develop the operational plan               In-depth analysis of the business and system requirements

Project Manager              8/10/2017- 8/19/2017

Start to design the system           Based on system requirements

Designer              8/20/2017- 8/22/2017

Producing of software code        Collection of software instructions

Developer           8/24/2017- 8/29/2017

System analysis and design         Project charter

Project Manager and Developer               9/04/2017- 9/11/2017

Development of project aligns with scope and requirements      In-depth analysis of the business and system requirements

Project Manager              9/13/2017- 9/19/2017

Test and evaluation of the system           Comparison of system components against their requirements an system specifications

Project Manager and Developer               9/23/2017- 10/09/2017

Resource requirements                Strategies for resource acquisition           Strategies for resource implementation

Human resources            Internal hiring and recruitment in the organization           Allocate more project activities

Financial resources          Fund raising for the project plan               Spend more money into the operational plan

Equipments and materials           Maintenance of the system equipments              Spend more money into the operational plan

Monitoring and Review Key performance indicators        Evidence of progress towards indicator Rationale for further actions

Budget, quality and timeliness   To make sure project completed on time

To meet with allocated budget

To provide quality standards equipments             Management of the operational plan more effectively   

To allow the customer to place order, view the order, makes changes, submit and pay the amount of the order

• To generate reports, which are used for decision making
• To modify the information related to price, add more products and tools to manage the system and promotional records
• To provide of interfaces, which allows promotion

The scope is to enable the customer’s order and deliver it on time. It reduces the queue of the customers at the ordering place.

The ordering system will help both customer as well as management to:

• To reduce the workload in the existing business system
• To reduce the time wasted into processing of data
• To create platform for the online purchase as well as delivery of the product
• To keep record on purchased order as well as delivery

Due to time as well as financial constraints, the software, this is used to develop the system covers only ordering and payment aspects. 

1. Pre planning of the design outfit The, the design of the relocated office is delivered on time.  It will lessen the time related issue
2. Review of the lease to understand the obligations such as financial and compliance Then, there is less possibility of any financial obligations. The plan should finish within scheduled time Within budget, the plan is finished
3. Hire of human resources Hiring of extra resources help to carry out the project activities. It will help to get the plan back to the schedule. Timely delivery of the operational plan

What physical resources are needed for your solution? How will you obtain them? 

Materials, equipments, building and facilities, machinery, suppliers and services The organization has to buy the materials and equipments from the outside suppliers of production. The organization also tries to create new solutions and materials used to relocate the office premises (Martinelli and Milosevic 2016). 

Challenges, Opportunities and Issues

Who do you need to consult when deciding what action to take and who needs to approve any changes to the operational plan?

Describe the process you will follow to recruit these new team members? 

The following processes are followed by the HR manager of the organization to recruit new team members for the project plan:

1. Review the job applications of the applicants those have applied for the recruitment process
2. The applicants are interviewed as per the business requirements and their skills, expertise (McNeil, Frey and Embrechts 2015).
3. After the interview process, the candidate is selected based on pre-determined selection criteria of the organization
4. Then, the background as well as reference check of the candidates are taken place
5. After that, the candidates are send for the health check (Chance and Brooks 2015).

From where will you source these new team members?

There are two types of sourcing methods used to select the new team members such as:

External sourcing: It is a method of recruitment of the team members by using external sourcing tools like newspaper, advertisement and publication announcements (Rick and van den Brink 2015).

Internal sourcing: It is sourcing of the candidates by placing of advertisement to fill the vacant position in the organization. This sourcing process is used to recruit the internal employees laterally in the organization as they require less training. There is spare of time in running background check. It also fosters of loyalty among the new team members and existing team members (Meunier and Bakker 2016).

In this study, internal sourcing is used for sourcing of the new team members.

What additional budget will be required?

Additional budget is required for the following project resources such as:

1. Human resources (researchers and business consultants)
2. Travel cost
3. Equipments such as machinery to relocate the office premises (Kerzner 2013).
4. Suppliers like materials, bricks, software, systems and others
5. Subcontractors such as services as well as relocation work
6. Personnel cost such as salaries and security charges
7. d) How will you induct these new team members so that they can ‘hit the ground running’?

Training and induction is required for the new team members so that they can able to hit the ground running.  Induction helps the new members to become more productive in their assigned work. They can familiar with the organizational policies as well as procedures. The main thing is to understand the performance standards of their new job. Health and safety issues are also understand related to the workplace. The organizational culture is also understood within time. The induction program follows this step:

1. Introduction of the new team members with the team leader and project manager
2. Understand their roles and responsibilities in the project (Pritchard and PMP 2014).
3. Understand the importance of deadline (Verzuh 2015).
4. Security issues and access to office
5. Understand the safety procedures of the workplace (Newton, Greenberg and See 017).
6. Introduction of the terms and conditions such as holiday entitlement, expenses claim and others
7. Specific training on their respective job role

What intellectual property rights considerations resulting from hiring contract staff?

Rights related to the copyright: All the organizational information is not accessed by the contract staff at the first time. The intellectual property are protected by trademarks, industrial design, layout design and geographical indications (Mir and Pinnington 2014). 

References

Burke, R., 2013. Project management: planning and control techniques. New Jersey, USA.

Chance, D.M. and Brooks, R., 2015. Introduction to derivatives and risk management. Cengage Learning.

Fleming, Q.W. and Koppelman, J.M., 2016, December. Earned value project management. Project Management Institute.

Gido, J., Clements, J. and Clements, J., 2014. Successful project management. Nelson Education.

Kerzner, H., 2013. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Larson, E.W. and Gray, C., 2013. Project Management: The Managerial Process with MS Project. McGraw-Hill.

Martinelli, R.J. and Milosevic, D.Z., 2016. Project management toolbox: tools and techniques for the practicing project manager. John Wiley & Sons.

McNeil, A.J., Frey, R. and Embrechts, P., 2015. Quantitative risk management: Concepts, techniques and tools. Princeton university press.

Meunier, P.P. and Bakker, A., 2016. How to turn uncertainties of operational risk capital into opportunities from a risk management perspective.

Mir, F.A. and Pinnington, A.H., 2014. Exploring the value of project management: linking project management performance and project success. International journal of project management, 32(2), pp.202-217.

Newton, V., Greenberg, A. and See, J., 2017, July. Project Management Implications and Implementation Roadmap of Human Readiness Levels. In International Conference on HCI in Business, Government, and Organizations (pp. 99-111). Springer, Cham.

Nicholas, J.M. and Steyn, H., 2017. Project management for engineering, business and technology. Taylor & Francis.

Pritchard, C.L. and PMP, P.R., 2014. Risk management: concepts and guidance. CRC Press.

Rick, S. and van den Brink, G.J., 2015. Mitigating rogue-trading behavior by means of appropriate, effective operational risk management.

Verzuh, E., 2015. The fast forward MBA in project management. John Wiley & Sons.

Wei, Z., Fang, L. and Zhujun, Y., 2016, July. The Design and Implementation of the University Ordering System Based on WeChat Platform. In Instrumentation & Measurement, Computer, Communication and Control (IMCCC), 2016 Sixth International Conference on (pp. 998-1002). IEEE.