Week 13 - Redesign Supply Chain Process

Source / Reference:
1. Supply Chain Cost-Cutting Strategies
http://www.percon.com/whitepapers/Supply_Chain_Cost-Cutting_Strategies.pdf


Subject:
How redesign supply chain process can be carried out

Response:
A traditional supply chain has several tiers of enterprise types that enable the flow of products and services. For example, in a manufacturing supply chain, there are sourcing suppliers who produce components that are then assembled by manufacturers. It is known as buy side. Then manufacturer distributes their products through wholesale distributors, who in turn make them available to resellers and retailers, who sell them to business customers. It is called the sell side or distribution side.

There are two types of PIPs (the partner interface process): Open PIPs and closed PIPs.

The PIP approach for redesigning supply chain processes for e-business has a two-part sequence:

PIP is designed at the supply chain level, and then

Enterprise processes are aligned with and redesigned around the PIP.

There are five steps for PIP approach:

Step .1 Scoping the supply Chain Process

It involves understanding how the supply chain process fits into the supply chain process cluster and identifying partner scenarios for supply chain process. Final one is identifying sub-processes within supply chain process

Step .2 Identifying Partner Interface Processes within the Supply Chain Process

Identify the sub-processes that comprise the supply chain process. The partner types such as manufacturers and resellers that are associated with each sub-process can also be identified.

Step .3 Designing the To Be e-Business Partner Interface Processes

After identifying the boundaries of the main PIPs around the supply chain, it is possible to design the PIPs and specify them in detail. Designing an e-Business PIP around a supply chain process involves identifying roles, role interaction, creating PIP model and identifying the roles of the partners who perform the activities that make up a PIP.

Step .4 Estimating and Articulating Expected Impacts Due to PIPs

It can be done by running what-if analysis using the process modeling software, financial impact analysis (cost savings) and operational impact analysis (time savings)

Step .5 Agreeing on and Disseminating the Partner Interface Process Specification

Specification document disseminated to all who will implement the process and should be shared with all partner.

These are what I have learnt from lecture 13.

Week 12 - Process Redesign + Implementation

Source / Reference:
1. Best practices in process redesign
http://is.tm.tue.nl/staff/hreijers/H.A.%20Reijers%20Bestanden/BPRpractices.pdf
2. An implementation guide for Process Redesign
http://www.cgg.gov.in/publicationdownloads/CGG%20Process%20Redesign.pdf

Subject:
What are the major issues of implementation for BPR

Response:
As there are so many blogs have mentioned about how BPR can be implemented and what benefits can be brought to organizations, there are some issues may be ignored. Therefore, I would like to discuss about it. BPR implementation involves change of organization structures. Therefore, human Resources problems are the key issues of implementation and these are listed as followed.

• Fear and anxiety

Nature of job and path of career may change after the implementation. Their position may be eliminated so they will lose their jobs.

• Employees are resistance to change

They are get used to work in a traditional way. Changes required them to learn the new way or work again which is time-consuming.

• Difficulty of continue normal duty while undergoing change.

During the implementation, the complexity of their job may increase because procedures of their job may be different from precious one. Therefore, it will increase the error of their work.

• Erosion of human capital

Employee will think that their special skill and knowledge which are valuable for them is eroding due to the implementation of BPR.

There are also other factors affect the success of implementation:

• Top management support

It is important for the project because all resources are got from them.

• Level of risk

There may be some risks that cause the delay or fail of project.

• User acceptance

The requirements may be out of user’s expectation. If the user does not accept, the project is fail.

• Management of process

Applying incentives can encourage project members to work more.

Week 11 - Redesign Principle and Tactics II

Source / Reference:

1. El Sawy's Redesign Principles and Tactics (2001)

http://higheredbcs.wiley.com/legacy/college/turban/0471229679/add_text/ch09/el_sawy.pdf

2. Role of Information technology Implementation of Business Process Reengineering

http://www.anterron.com/cgi-bin/white_papers/docs/Role_of_IT_in_BPR.pdf

3. A. Albadvi (2003), "Customer Relationship Management (CRM)"

http://sharif.edu/~albadvi/Crmses4.pdf

Subject: 
How can processes be minded with Redesign Principles and Tactics?

Response:

The following three principles are minding the process which change knowledge management around the process:
 Principle 8:         Analyze and Synthesize

 Principle 9:         Connect, Collect & Create

 Principle 10:       Personalize

Principle 8, “Analyze and Synthesize” aims at creating more value through server tactics. Moreover, it reinforces the knowledge of users including customers.

Principle 9, “Connect, Collect and Create” connects the systems first and then find out the ways to collect the knowledge. At last, it generates a space to share the knowledge among all participants. It emphasizes the reuse of the knowledge directly and instantly.

Principle 10, "Personalize" means that adds the preference and habits of each participant to the process. For example, each participant may have an individual profile. With analyzing the behaviors of them, we can find out the preferences of them.

Further more, some findings can be found out from the concept of knowledge management. Knowledge management treats the knowledge as asset of company which can help individuals and groups to share valuable organizational insights to reduce redundant work and training time for new employees. Also, it can adapt to changing environments and markets. These are the similarities of objectives between process redesign and knowledge management.

Here is a real life example of company - Timberland
http://shop.timberland.com/category/index.jsp?categoryId=4238694

Timberland has redesigned the business process of designing the boots which allows customers to tailor-made their shoes instead of doing by designers of company.  First, customers first choose a particular style of their shoes.Then, they will customize the shoes and enter their size records.
  
Analyze and Synthesize
Timberland can collect the data about the popular boots style by generating sales statistics and collect opinions from their customers. Then, they can make the supply decision accordingly and make new designs of the shoes by referencing to these information.
Tactics used:

• Provide "what-if" capabilities to analyze decision options
• Provide "slice and dice" data analysis capabilities that detect patterns
• Provide intellgient integration capabilities across multiple information sources

Connect, Collect & Create
Since Timberland has to customized and ordered online, the company can have routes to access their customers' preferences and information, and build a well-defined knowledge repositories to maintain long-term relationship with their customers.
Tactics used:

• Define procedures to collect this knowledge

Personalize
This is obviously the most important advantage of all. The customization allows customers to indicate their own preferences by designing own boots. Besides, the company can also keep track of their customers' information, to analyze their purchasing behaviors and to promote products that they may be interested in.
Tactics used:

• Learn preferences of customers and doers of the process through profiling
• Insert business rules that are triggered by personal profiles
• Keep track of personal process execution habits