Integrated Management Project Contents

Integrated Management
Project

Contents
Executive summary....................................................................................................................3
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Problem identification tool and definition used for solving the problem:.................................5
Brainstorming.........................................................................................................................6
Root cause analysis.................................................................................................................7
Theories and models..................................................................................................................8
Crisis Management theory......................................................................................................8
Communication and employee engagement...........................................................................9
Business Continuity Management..........................................................................................9
Kotter’s eight step model for change management..............................................................10
Impact of the problem on different factors of the organization...............................................11
Proposed solution.....................................................................................................................13
Action plan...........................................................................................................................13
Conclusion................................................................................................................................14
Recommendations....................................................................................................................14
References................................................................................................................................15

Executive summary
The report given below focuses on the Southwest Airlines Co., a leading airline of the United
States. The report has discussed in detail the case of a major technology failure in the airline.
Few hours of technology failure because of the computer outage has created havoc for the
airlines in terms of huge financial and non-financial aspects. The report focused on the
different aspects such as the discussion of case in detail, theories and models associated with
the case such as the Crisis Management theory, Communication and employee engagement,
Business Continuity Management and Kotter’s eight step model for change management.
The technical failure has heavily impacted the employees, operations management, business
strategy marketing, revenues etc. As a solution this report recommends the implementation
of the block chain strategy that will help the Airline in reducing the impact of future technical
failure. An action plan for the same has been presented in the report that focus on the steps
essential for implementing the block chain in the Southwest Airlines Co.

Introduction
Southwest Airlines Co. is one of the major airlines of the United States that is headquartered
in Dallas. Southwest Airlines Co. is the largest low cost carrier of North America. The airline
was founded in the 1966 by Rollin King and Herbert Kelleher, in the year 1967 the company
was incorporated as the Air Southwest Co.(Jansen, 2017).In the year 1971, the airline began
to schedule the flights from Dallas. In the same year, the name Southwest Airlines Co. was
adopted by the company. The number of employees in Southwest Airlines is over 57,112
employees as of March 30, 2018(Southwest, 2017).
The global airline industry provides the services to millions of people across the world. The
airline industry has played a crucial role in creating a global economy. The airline industry is
one of the major economic forces that have impacts on the related industries as well such as
the tourism industry, aircraft manufacturing industry etc.(Riley, 2017).
The technology in aviation involves different types of software, management systems,
artificial intelligence etc. The aviation industry is software intensive and the correct
operations of these systems and technologies are important for the smooth operation of the
flights (Charette, 2018).
Southwest Airlines faced a major technology failure suddenly and as result all its websites
and services went down for about 12 hours. This led to cancellation of number of flights.
The Southwest Airline began to have intermittent problems and system failures after an
outage. The company tried to manage the flight delay across their system with help of a
temporary ground stop. The focus of airline then shifted to the winning back the outraged
customers who were left stranded by the computer outage. The outage in the airline occurred
because of the network router failed (Nytimes, 2017). The outage of the Southwest Airline
was solved after 12 hours but the scale of disruptions in all the operations and departments
wreaked havoc. The airline worked for several days to get the passengers, crews and planes at