OSCM 5110 - Assignment 5 - 5% Objective: Business process design and relation to lean operations CASE STUDY George is a small business owner. He started his company in 2019 with only 2 employees and is now experiencing some growing pains. He goes to an entrepreneur convention and speaks to a couple other business owners. Georges Company/Product Info He has an ecommerce company (where he outsources manufacturing to suppliers overseas) offering Sleep Eye Masks to customers via his website. He has a unique product offering to customers that does more than the traditional eye mask. It actually encourages you to sleep in a personalized way vs other sleep masks that only provide black out/darkness. He started his company with one product, but now in 2023, he now offers 12 SKUs (6 different colours in two sizes). He has had to search for a secondary manufacturer to assist with growing capacity. The lead time on a purchase order is about 90 days for production, and about 7 days in transit by air to the warehouse. He now has 12 employees consisting of a Marketing team of 6 (advertising and digital ads, Brand, Graphic design) a Finance/accounting team of 2, customer service team of 3 and an Operations team of 2 (an Operations Manager and a Supply Chain Coordinator). In addition to this, as he has a neuroscience background, he has other ideas for new products and is thinking of adding to his team to bring some product design in house (consisting of an R&D and engineering team) to continue with his personalized and unique product offering. George is selling on his ecommerce site to the USA market and has a warehouse in California as it is closest to his customers on the West Coast. Up until this point, Georges team has been using Google Suite (google Docs/sheets) for all processes and information tracking. The only more complex Operations/Supply Chain information system that is being used is access to their 3PLs WMS system. Additional Information - As a business process analyst, you will be analyzing Georges BMP when he first started his business in 2019, using the following information. - He originally fulfilled customer orders from head office by his 1 supply chain staff. Once production finished at his manufacturer, they would ship all finished products directly to his office. - Originally, the manufacturer said they couldnt add a custom label on his packaging. The supply chain staff member had to order this from another company and ship it to the contract manufacturer in time for the labeling step (this is their only dependent planning activity). This happens at day 60 of the production lead time of 90 days. The cost of the label is 0.05 each - Production of the mask because of such low quantities when they are small had no pricing discounts (but every order the price changes slightly). Because he is shipping and storing from his head office, there is no carrying cost. The only performance measure in terms of ordering size is that the Operations Manager advised to have an inventory turnover of roughly 4x, and safety stock of 30 days since they didnt know when they would become more popular and wanted some extra padding just in case. - In terms of staff: there is one supply chain coordinator that reports to the operations manager. This supply chain staff handles all the forecasting and planning including inventory cash flow, purchasing, logistics, inventory management. There is one financial accountant that requires inventory cash flow forecasts and inventory reconciliation. Questions: 1. Create an excel information system that Georges company (supply chain coordinator, operations manager, and accountant and bonus customer service) would use. Use the excel template provided in Moodle. Together in class. 10 points 2. Do the DESIGN stage of BPM for Georges supply chain and operations (end to end process). Ie create a workflow (checklist) of all repetitive tasks and process flow tasks and the owner of the tasks (no due time required). Discuss together in class. You can do this in your groups (maybe designate each member to be a different functional team member). Someone should be able to read this checklist and understand exactly what to do. 20 points. You may separate these by: Purchasing process Customer order process (assume: order comes in on website, manual order fulfillment activities include printing a Canada post label. George drops packages off at Canada Post every two days) Repetitive: planning processes (ie forecasting and cash flow), inventory management. How often do these activities happen? Maybe once per week? BONUS 3 points: customer return process (assume CS has already issued a return label, notes the return order in a separate excel tab with the tracking number and the package arrives back at the office) 3. Create one BPM automation for George by creating a Purchase Order template in excel. The supply chain coordinator preps all documents, but the Operations Manager still requires approval before sending. How might you add this as a step to the BPM above? 5 points On your own: 4. What are 4 areas where this current process/information system is limiting? Ie what steps in the process require continual improvement to the processes as Georges business grows? Explain. TIP: think about what is feasible and not feasible and what is limiting when his volume increases. 12 points 5. Relate this Information System and BPM to 4 lean operations concepts (JIT/TPS/Lean). You may take inspiration from the slides, but ensure you fully explain why Georges process and information system benefit and are following these 4 lean operations concepts. 12 points. Tips: variability, waste, supplier relationships, inventory etc