Project Management Methodologies: Continuous Improvement Plan

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of project management methodologies, specifically focusing on the application of Six Sigma and DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) within the context of Latino Engineering, an Australian engineering company experiencing a decline in product quality and customer satisfaction. The report begins with an introduction to the company, its history, and the challenges it faces after a change in ownership. It then outlines the assumptions made during the development of a continuous improvement plan and presents evidence of the company's current problems, including defective equipment, poor customer service, and delivery issues. The core of the report centers on the implementation of the DMAIC methodology, detailing each phase: defining the problem (identifying root causes such as manufacturing, design, customer service, and sales process issues), measuring the current quality using critical success factors, analyzing the root causes using cause-and-effect diagrams, and proposing improvement plans. The report suggests solutions such as implementing quality control checks and training employees. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of continuous improvement and offers recommendations for addressing the identified issues to enhance the company's overall performance and regain customer trust.

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGIES

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Contents
PROJECT MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGIES...........................................................4
INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................4
ASSUMPTIONS..................................................................................................................5
EVIDANCES.......................................................................................................................6
CURRENT SITUATION.....................................................................................................6
SIX SIGMA AND DMAIC.................................................................................................7
DMAIC........................................................................................................................................7
ROOT CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM..................................................................................7
PLAN TO REDUCE ROOT CAUSE................................................................................11
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PLAN........................................................................12
RECOMMENDATIONS...................................................................................................16
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES..................................................................................................................17

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT METHODOLOGIES
INTRODUCTION
Latino Engineering is based in New South Wales in Australia. It is a midsize
company with 300 employees. The company provides the services of design,
development and manufacturing of the engineering equipment supplies to the
industries, such as utilities, oil & gas and construction & infrastructure. The
company has grown tremendously, by the founder Dominic Latino, who is a
passionate mechanical engineer with profound designing and developing skills in
engineering equipment. The company has got several patents for the engineering
equipment and Dominic has designed them for over years, with passion. The
company has grown tremendously for over 30 years, winning great clientele, who
have great regard and respect for the professionalism and quality work of Dominic
and became a much sought after company with huge profitability.
Dominic, reaching to his 65 years of age wants to retire and want to sell the
whole part of the company, and there are many investors, who are interested to
purchase Latino Engineering, because of its great reputation, patents and
profitability. Finally, Dominic has sold the company to an investment group for
sizeable amount and the new company continued operations with the same name of

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the company and most of the work force, though some of senior engineering
professionals have sought other opportunities.
Later, crack started appearing and realized after 12 months, after receiving
the complaints from the clients.
ASSUMPTIONS
The assumptions are made as the following, during the development of the
continuous improvement plan.
Latino Engineering company has been declined in the quality, because of
insufficient passion, possessed by the new investment group. So, having everything
similar, except some of the senior management professionals leaving the company,
the quality of the product and so reputation of the company has been deteriorated.
2. The new senior management has comparatively, lesser commitment,
towards maintaining the quality of the manufacturing products and consistent
reputation of the company.
3. The senior management provides all the necessary support for the new
continuous improvement process, which would be proposed and developed by the
project management.
4. The general process of manufacturing of engineering equipment is
considered and the business processes with associated activities are assumed and
listed.

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5. The most possible and general root causes of the manufacturing
company are assumed and presented in the report.
EVIDANCES
The data given in the case study, about the reputation of the company and
the respective problems in the business processes are considered as the evidences.
CURRENT SITUATION
The complaints from the clients are given as the following.
1. Defective engineering equipment
2. Poor follow up of design and development with clients
3. Much longer turnaround time for the resolution of the issue
4. Non-responsive team for customer service
5. Packing of wrong engineering equipment and delivery to the clients in some
cases
The senior management was initially surprised at the quality decline of their
products, though most of the workforce is retained and similar work processes are
disrupted minimally, and responded to arrest the situation. The initiative has been
taken for continuous improvement plan for overcoming the complaints and issues.
The plan is expected to be developed and implemented in the next three months of
duration.
The current problems and issues should be focussed deeper so that their root
causes are identified and based on the root cause the solution can be developed and
proposed for the identified problem (Chanda, 2017). There are various

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methodologies to implement this process and six sigma is one of the famous and
well proven methodologies.
SIX SIGMA AND DMAIC
Initially, six sigma team has to be developed with black belt or master black
belt, to identify the problem and improve the quality of the processes in Latin
Engineering.
The six sigma methodology can be implemented in this case and context, by
implementing the following phases of DMAIC (Manger & Shinde, 2014).
DMAIC
DMAIC is one of the six sigma methodologies, developed and proposed for
the continuous improvement processes.
DMAIC involves the processes to be done in the following phases.
1. Define
2. Measure
3. Analyse
4. Improve
5. Control
ROOT CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM
Define

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This is the key phase in applying the six sigma methodology, since when this phase
is done appropriately, the right root cause can be identified and the following
phases go in the appropriate ways, without any deviation. This phase helps
improving the goals of project and these goals are to be based on the needs and
wants of the customer.
In the context of the Latino engineering it is important to investigate and identify
the root cause of the dissatisfaction and complaints received by the customers.
In this context, feasible project scope has to be refined and the project goals are to
be set up and the root cause of the quality decline in manufacturing the engineering
equipment have to be discovered (Sokovic et al., 2009).
The complaints are,
- Defectiveness of product
- Poor design and development follow up with clients
- Longer turnaround time for issue resolution
- Wrong product delivery, some times
Based on the complaints found from the customers, it is understood that
there are quality issues in multiple departments, like in the basic design process,
based on the customer feedback, process of manufacturing, customer service and
sales departments. Since, these are the key departments that can influence the
overall performance and reputation of the company, the entire business processes
are to be developed, in terms of quality.

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In terms of design and development, mostly the previous work processes are
not disrupted and the company has to realize any product has to be developed, in
terms of changing the needs of the customers. So, apart from the complaints and
feedback received by the company, these concerns and suggestions are not
considered for the refinement of the engineering equipment. Customers complaints
are to be taken as opportunities to develop the product design and develop updated
engineering equipment.
The problem can be defined in this context is the quality decline the
following business processes.
1. Manufacturing process
2. Design and development process of product
3. Customer service process
4. Sales process
Though it is also possible to reengineer the product, based on the
requirements of the customers, it is basically important to refine the manufacturing
the processes. Identification and defining the problem involves the quality tool of
cause and effect diagram.
Measure
To find the deviation or decline of the quality, it is important to measure the
quality existing, in the present business. Quality measurement can be done by the
following critical success factors, measured. The process of measuring is done

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through the check sheet quality tool (Jeyaraman & Teo, 2010). Each of the
complaint received from the customer, has to be placed, in any one of the
following critical success factors, related to the Latino Engineering business
processes.
1. Manufacturing process
a. Accuracy of prototype design
b. Usage of quality raw material
c. Cleanliness of raw material before usage
d. Assembly of the raw material or parts
e. Quality check of assembly
f. Removal of product, with benefit of doubt from mainstream
g. Testing of operation of product
h. Quality check of testing with all specifications and features
i. Removal of product, with benefit of doubt from mainstream
j. Accuracy of operation
k. Quality check of final product
l. Re-manufacture the defective products
m. Packing, only after passing quality
n. Labelling the right code
o. Handling accuracy
2. Product design and development
a. Design based on the present changed needs of customers
b. Design based on the complaints or suggestions of customers
c. Design according the advancement of technology
d. Development of product, quite similar to the design
3. Sales process
a. Clear specification of the order
b. Matching of the order with the available product label
c. Placing the right product in the delivery queue
d. Delivery of the product, accurately, based on order
e. Confirmation of order placed and delivery done, from the customer
4. Customer service

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a. Prompt response from the CS executive
b. Accountability of the CS executive
c. Longer turnaround time for CS response
d. Follow up till issue resolution
Now, it is important to find the competitive leverages, by identifying the
most important critical success factors. This is an important phase again, since,
each and every complaint from the customer has to be categorized in each of the
categories, mentioned above. Then the final score has to be considered for the
following phase of analysis (Sunder, 2016).
PLAN TO REDUCE ROOT CAUSE
Analyze
Analysis has to be done, based on the resulted statistics after performing the
previous phase called, Measure. The analysis of the process has to be done, by
considering the scores obtained. The category or each of the critical success factors
of Latino Engineering has to be compared among them and all these CSFs have to
be ordered, in descending order. After analysing all the CSFs, the highest scored
CSF has to be considered and followed. The analysis phase has to be realized with
the cause and effect diagram.
The analysis process is performed for identifying, validating and selecting the root
cause. After the analysis, the root cause has to be listed based on descending order

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of CSF accordingly. Then the root cause has to be identified, based on, which
process has got the maximum score has been obtained, for manufacturing, design
& development, sales and customer service processes. Root cause analysis can be
done with fishbone diagram. The first two potential root causes and the respective
processes are to be listed as the basic root causes and need primary focus.
Another important aspect of the analysis phase of the Latino Engineering case, the
inputs have to be identified, for each of the root cause obtained. It means if the
manufacturing process has got highest priority, based on the score, then it is
important to find the sub-category critical success factor. Then the input or the
accurate process of the manufacturing process has to be identified. For example, if
the product is found to be defective, in the very first usage of the product, it should
be categorized in 1k, and the process of testing the final product has to be
emphasized. In this way based on the high scored CSF, has to be analysed to be the
major root cause that demands much focus for improvement (Pika et al., 2016).
Let us assume that defective product, found in the first usage is found to be the root
cause, followed by 4c, which is longer turnaround time. Then the improvement
plans are to be proposed based on these factors and root causes.
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PLAN
Improve

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Based on the high priority and high scored critical success factor, the pin-pointed
root cause has to be identified, tested and implemented, both in part and
completely as a whole as a solution, to the quality decline problem of Latino
Engineering.
Here, let us take the first root cause,
1k – quality check of final product
Then, this process has to be refined primarily, by creating multiple solutions. These
solutions can be,
a. Setting six sigma policy to ensure that out of total number of
engineering equipment manufactured, in each day, each of them has to
be checked against its operation and quality and the report has to be
submitted to the operation head.
b. The quality check and control employees are to be trained for
accuracy and accountability of their tasks and activities.
c. Replacing the quality department workforce with much experienced
and more accountable workforce.
d. Recruiting quality control head with accountability of the final
product quality.
e. Adding additional cycle of quality check and ensure that each and
every equipment is operational.
Having created the multiple solutions, one of the solutions has to be
selected. These solutions can be tested with PDCA (Plan Do Check Act) cycle and
the results are to be obtained. Having analyzed the solutions, recruiting quality
control head with the accountability of the final product quality and operation is
found to be effective compared to all the other solutions (Hamin, 2016).