Process hierarchy case studies examples

Improving large format printing in Marketing Advantage

Introduction
Marketing advantage is a private company (family owned), based in Salt Lake City, Utah. The major activities of the company include vehicle wrap which is mainly vehicle sales advertising, contract printing done on behalf of external marketing companies which involves customized printing on small marketing type items and lastly , large format printing done on behalf of local companies and national resellers which include printing of flags, banners, signs, tents, giant inflatable and tradeshow displays. All the operations of the company currently takes place on a 19, 000 square facility and a total of thirty employees who are both full time and on call part-time workers are entrusted with all the activities of the company (Lester 78). Marketing advantage has had a steady record of growth each year. With the current challenges arising from the various processes in the company, Rick (the owner of Marketing advantage has decided to hire a process consultant who will be engaged in the initial part of improving the scope of the company large format printing which the company is especially experiencing current challenges of its quality concerns, management of rush orders, inventory management and work flow management. As the process consultant for Marketing Advantage, this paper seeks to explain how to improve the scope of large format printing by delivering the two proposed deliverables in the project initial stage which are the process Inventory and Hierarchy and Process Prioritization Matrix.

– Company Marketing Advantage plan
– Project Prioritization Matrix
– The Internal Impact on the company layouts
– The external impact
– The proposed improvement Feasibility
– The calculated current state of performance
– The financial Value from improvements
– Marketing advantage strategies
– Use of Vehicle wraps
– Making quality detailed designs
– Contact printing
– Printing small marketing type items
– Use of large format printing
– Use of Banners
– Use of Flags
– Use of Tents
– Use of Marketing Stands
– Use of Signs
– Trade Show displays
– Use of Giant Inflatable
– Proposed Scope of Improvement Project
– Inventory Management
– Use of Media to design and print clients’ logo
– Use of Hardware
– Rush Orders Management
– Using priority List
– Shipment with Overnight Services
– Workshop Management
– Managing Inflow of Individual Orders
– Managing Inflow of Multiple Orders
– Prioritization of Time and Resources
– Quality Assurance
– Inspection for quality Assurance by the Finishing Team
– Inspection for Printing and formatting errors.
1. 4 Evaluation

Project Prioritization Matrix (aka QFD)

A project prioritization matrix is a simple tool used to rank projects in their order of importance. The ranking is determined through a criterion that is agreed on as that which can display the order of importance and urgency of projects or project requests. This matrix enables departments to see which projects to focus on first when it comes to implementation (Lester 90). For the marketing advantage project; there are four major processes that the company is struggling with at the moment in regard to its major focus of large format printing. The processes include Inventory Management, Rush Orders Management, Workflow Management and Quality Assurance (Lester 89). The consultant to marketing advantage is tasked in prioritizing the above four processes in order to help the management know the priority process of focus in its effort of improving the scope of large format printing through the consultant. Figure 2 below is a project prioritization matrix for Marketing Advantage.

Assumptions

There are various assumptions made in the above prioritization matrix. First, it is assumed that the prioritization criteria fits on a scale of 1-10 and that 0, 1, 3 and 9 can be used to indicate the impact. The second assumption is that the information from the interview is true and relevant and can be used to rank the processes accurately.

Recommendations

Based on the above results, it is recommended that Marketing Advantage give priority to quality issues since the customer is the most important party in the business. This decision has been reached after keenly noting that Rick expressed the external impact as 40% and this mostly focuses on the customer. Additionally, from the matrix above, the relative impact of quality has been rated to be 9 which in this case means very significant. Logically reasoning based on the interview results, focus on quality improvement would lead to correction and improvement of all other processes.
The second process in terms of priority should be inventory management. Based on the interview results, many employees argued that 50% of orders had issues to do with inventory. However, focus on quality would lead to focus on timely delivery of inventory in order to ensure work is coordinated so that the company can deliver quality to the customer.
Third is rush order management. Rush order management happens due to lack of inventory in the first place so that orders pile up due to lack of materials to do production. If enough stock (inventory) is ensured in the company, then this would guarantee working on the orders in a timely manner. Lastly, work flow management is proposed to be the last priority. This is because if the management would focus on quality for the customer and inventory as well as devise a way of working on orders early enough, then work flow management would come automatically since the employees will have to organize themselves in a way that leads to quality without choice.

Conclusion

It is important for Marketing Advantage to always use prioritization matrix when seeking to improve its processes. This will help the company know which processes to give the first priority. When improving these processes, the company should also focus on its process hierarchy since it is very important.

References

Lester, Albert. Project Management, Planning and Control: Managing Engineering, Construction, and Manufacturing Projects to Pmi, Apm, and Bsi Standards. , 2013. Internet resource.