Reengineering the Business Process in a Laundry Appliance Repair Shop - Essay Example

? Reengineering the Business Process in a Laundry Appliance Repair Shop Reengineering the Business Process in a Laundry Appliance Repair Shop Businesses in the world today have to keep changing and innovating the way they deliver their product to meet customers demand. This will ensure their survival and positive growth in a competitive market, as well as achieve customer satisfaction and loyalty. While constant adjustment in policies and modes of operation within an organization are effective in achieving its objectives as the market needs change, the complete overhaul of the entire business operation procedures is sometimes necessary to achieve dramatic change in results and efficiency of operations, as stated by Hammer and Champy (1992) in their definition of business process reengineering. “Fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business process to achieve dramatic improvements in critical measures of performance such as cost, service, and speed." (Hammer & champy, 1993) This principle, combined with other management principles, will breathe a new life into the laundry appliance repair shop that is due for innovation as its operation process is inadequate to meet customer demand in terms of timely quality service, as well as achieve profit for the business. This proposal aims to evaluate the current business procedures that can be changed in order to meet customer specifications while at the same time increase organization efficiency by creating a performance standard which will enable the business compete suitably in the market. The laundry repair shop is a small business with the human resource capacity of two employees; the technician who handles repairs and a support person who handles the budget, call center and accounts. Currently the business procedure is as follows: a customer calls the shop, the support person answers it and requests the potential client for their need. The support person then hangs up and calls the technician to inquire about his availability and the resource requirement for the job, i.e. time, costs. The client is then called back and the information is relayed back to them in order for contract to be accepted and put into the system. Also the business uses recycled old machine parts in the repairs when the customer cannot pay for new parts. This increases the probabilities of reworks and breakdowns. This business model is based on a finite small customer base where the technician could meet the demand of the market and faced very little competition, factors which have changed with growth in the customer demand, technology and increase in competition. Complete and radical change of the process is necessitated in order for the firm to achieve positive internal results, as well as satisfy its customers. By carefully defining the elements of processes, i.e. jobs, tasks, precedence constraints, resources and flow management protocols the dramatic change that is sought will be achieved (Hammer & champy, 1993) The first operation that will require change is the cumbersome and cost ineffective call center. The customer might require immediate and direct feedback within the shortest time on the availability and the cost of the service. The support staff also lacks general information of the job requirements or the availability of the technician making him unable to effectively queue the client’s job into the system. The lack of a job log in the process creates a situation in which jobs may be ignored, a timeline and standard record is unavailable and performance cannot be measured and evaluated for future planning. Finally, the use of old machine parts when customers are not willing to pay for new one affects the quality of the product and while it seems a like win-win in the short term, it leads to long term loses for the business with reworks, as well as customer dissatisfaction. With the identification of these three areas of the process as requiring redesign, the new business model will seek to completely change the procedure of doing business by adoption of the standardized ISO 9000 management principles and a quality assured approach to doing business. The most fundamental approach towards this reengineering process is the integration of an Information Technology system into the business process (Davenport, 1993). This system will increase automation, reduce office work, enable office mobility, as well as improve customer communication. To address the problem of the call center, a comprehensive trouble shooting catalogue of the potential required services will be made. This list will contain the cost of such jobs, the timeframes, as well as the number of jobs already in the system queue, thus, prediction of availability of service is possible. This system will also help the respondent be able to answer the customer in real time, as well as assign the job into a schedule for the technician if is accepted. The entering of jobs into a log sheet in the system by the technician will also enable the planning of jobs into a schedule; evaluation and monitoring are also inculcated in the business structure ensuring that adjustments can be made in order to achieve better customer service. This process is completely different from the old methods and their effectiveness which will lead to bigger profit margins in the shortest period possible will justify the investment made on the integration of the IT system. In terms of business growth, the proper documentation of the procedures will enable the ease of training new staff and also in promotion of the business to potential clients. The use of old machine parts that are proving costly, adoption of Juran’s philosophy of taking short term loses in benefit of acquiring long term benefits. By following the trilogy procedure of quality planning, quality control and quality improvement (Juran, 1988), the organization will be able to reach the universally accepted standard of quality. The approach is also tandem to philosophies of Six Sigma which aim at achieving near perfect results for the production results (Brue, 2006). Achieving quality by constantly planning towards it as per customer specifications, getting feedback on the delivered service while constantly seeking to optimize these services and products will ensure loyalty and positive public relations, thus, promoting sustained business growth. In this regard the relationship with a spare part supplier will be cultivated in accordance to the eighth principle of the ISO 9000 quality management principles. A mutually beneficial supplier relationship will afford discounts and also credit terms which will lead to the achievement of long term profits of the business. The use of Six Sigma tools in evaluation of the current business practices will enable measurement of the business performance which will create a denominator for comparison against the new design. Current income and production frequencies, when compared to the new systems, will give a measure of efficiency achieved, as well as the return on investment of integrating the new system. The expected return on investment is positive in the short term and will lead to greater organizational growth in the long term. Customer feedback to the system on their rating of the services will be used to evaluate the satisfaction. Adoption of the Kaizen principle of continuous improvement as with the philosophies of Edward Deming (Deming, 1986) and Juran’s quality assurance (Juran, 1988) will assure the sustainability of the customer satisfaction and loyalty. Despite its positive rewards, the reengineering of the business process has its pitfalls and drawbacks. The success of the system is not assured and is only a probability and is dependent on both external and internal factors of the business. Internally, it’s dependent on the availability of the available resources, the attitude and willingness of the staff to adopt the newly proposed processes and operation modes. The effectiveness of the management also plays a key role in achieving success. External factors are those the management of the business cannot affect like the political and economic environment surrounding the business which affects customer demand for their product. The pitfalls to reengineering of businesses are that it leads to job losses in the bid to streamline efficiency; the complexity of new systems may lead to inefficiency leading to customer and staff frustrations. In conclusion, the proposed reengineering of business process in the laundry appliances repair shop is aimed to achieve modernization, efficiency and most importantly customer satisfaction. Integrating an effective communication link between the staff of the business will increase efficiency. Proper scheduling and queuing of jobs will ensure timely delivery of service, as well as strategic planning for short and long term goals. By use of an IT system, the business will achieve efficiency in all its major tasks while creating a link between its staff and customers. The positive return on the business, thus, justifies the radical change called for by the proposal. References Brue, G. (2006). Sixi Sigma for Small Businesses. Wisconsin: Entreprenuer Press. Davenport, T. H. (1993). Davenport, Thomas Process Innovation: Reengineering Work through Information Technology. Boston: Havard Business Press. Deming, E. (1986). Out of the Crisis. Boston: MIT press. Hammer, M. & Champy, J. (1993). Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution. New York: Harper Collins. Juran, J. M. (1988). Juran on Planning for Quality. New York: The Free Press. Praxiom Research Group Limited. (2011, December 10). ISO 9000 2005 Quality Management Principles Translated into Plain English. Retrieved may 8, 2012, from praxiom.com: http://www.praxiom.com/principles.htm The National Institute of Standards and Technology. (2010, October 5). Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Retrieved may 9, 2012, from nist.gov: http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/mbnqa.cfm Read More