ASSIGNMENT ON MANAGEMENT OF TECHNOLOGY

RAJESWARI.G ID NO. 2010HZ58075

ASSIGNMENT ON
In your opinion, what are some important criteria which the firms should take to increase the quality and productivity of their products and service?

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Important criteria which the firms should take to increase the quality and productivity of their products and services
There are few things to be considered for a Firm to increase the market value/productivity by improving the quality of the product, This is generally can be achieved, By improving the existing product, By introducing new products, Product launching / Advertising the same

By improving the services for the newly or existing products, Immediate response for the complaints , querries

Cost effective , easy accessible products etc., Let we discuss the points in detail,

4 Quick Steps to Improve an Existing Product
You may have a niche marketing website that just isn’t producing sales for you at the rate at which you had hoped it would…..or maybe it isn’t producing any income for you at all or it could be that you haven’t actually figured out that what you are selling is, in fact, a niche market product. You might need to do a little ‘tweaking’ and modify your strategies somewhat to get the site performing better. There really are some things that you can do to improve your existing product. Step #1: Bill Cosby, the famous entertainer, once said, “I don’t know what the secret of success is, but I know the secret of failure and that was trying to please everybody.” He was right. You can’t please everybody and you can’t sell to everybody either. It’s possible that you may simply need to narrow you market, identify you product as a niche marketing product and advertise it accordingly.

Step #2: To improve your existing product you have likely overlooked the most obvious solution of all. You could simply ask your customers what they think. They are, after all, the

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end users of the product or service that you are selling. There is nobody that knows how a product can be improved better than the people who are using the product. Step #3: Analyze the competition. Take the time and put forth the effort to look at the product or service that your competitors are offering. Identify their strengths and weaknesses. Find out what your competition can’t, won’t or doesn’t really like to do and set about doing those very things yourself. Step #4: Are you selling your product at the right price? Pricing a product too low makes people think it won’t be any good, pricing too high will discourage them from buying it.

Product Launching: Launching
Once a product is developed, effectively product launch becomes the critical step to its success. The Product Launch Process must address all the steps necessary to start volume production, plan and execute marketing activities, develop needed documentation, train sales and support personnel (internal and external), fill channels, and prepare to install and support the product. Product Launch activities are described in more detail below.

Benefits
An improved product launch process results in faster time-to-market and time-to-profit. Activities are better planned and coordinated and more tightly integrated. System data requirements are better understood, and systems may be better integrated. he result is better production ramp-up, more effective marketing, a sales force better prepared to begin selling the new product, and a service and support group better able to service and support th new product, leading to greater customer acceptance.

Approach
One can possess by fine-tuning and improving the product launch process by performing the following activities. Review current product launch process. Identify needed activities, deliverables and system requirements (inputs and outputs). Determine organizational responsibilities and interfaces. Identify issues and goals. The Product Development and Best Practices Assessment provides a framework for this review.

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Activities covered in review include: Testing, qualification and certification Pilot production and process prove-out Forecasting and ERP set-up Vendor qualification Product and service manuals Package design Marketing and advertising program design and execution Market testing Sales and distribution planning Sales, support and service training Spare parts planning and logistics Develop improved process. Based on understanding the current process and process goals, we would work with a team of your people to develop an improved process. The process improvements would be defined in terms of activities, process outputs or deliverables, responsibilities, and gate review and design review (e.g., production readiness review, etc.) requirements. Our PD-Trak tools may provide an improved means to document and control this process. Integrate organization. In addition to identifying and improved process flow and activity definition, we have found that a common problem is the need for improved organizational integration within the product team responsible for development. We would determine responsibilities, identify organizational impediments, suggest changes, and facilitate team launch activities. Determine system integration requirements. Product data management (PDM) system tools provide a repository for product data during development. As a product moves into production, much of this data needs to be made available to Manufacturing and systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Our expertise with PDM and ERP, enables us to identify how and when data should be established in an ERP system and consider any system integration opportunities. We can also address opportunities to move from a more limited PDM system to a broader Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system approach. In addition, technical data needs to be used to create product documentation, marketing materials, sales and support training materials with technical publications and authoring systems. Our working relationship with the Time-to- Performance Group provides the expertise to evaluate and improve technical and marketing document management systems. Develop plan templates. Based on the revised process and organization approach, we would develop a standard launch planning approach and planning templates using tools such as PD-Trak, MS Word and MS Project.

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Deploy improved process and tools. After these improved processes and tools were developed, we would begin by piloting them on a new product about to be launched. This approach would prove-out the process and tools, gathering valuable experience, and identify any issues that need to be addressed or improved before full deployment. Once the pilot was satisfactorily completed, we would develop a plan for full deployment, provide required training, and, if desired, manage the implementation of the new process. Develop product launch plans. We can also assist with developing product launch plans through either facilitating discussions or developing draft plans for review. We can provide marketing and advertising experts from our associated firms to help in those areas as well.

Productivity improvement
In the simplest terms, productivity is the ratio between the quantity of goods and services produced and the quantity of resources used to produce them. Economists have come up with a number of intricate ways to measure productivity, but any business owner knows that if he or she is producing more of a product with the same number of resources, productivity has gone up. Of course, the opposite is true if fewer products are being produced. Worker productivity is one of the key issues for any business, but for small businesses with limited resources, getting the most out of the least is an essential element in establishing and maintaining competitiveness. Small businesses need to have tools in place to measure productivity and must combine increased productivity with a commitment to quality and efficiency. Innovative goal setting, planning, and organizing are essential to improving productivity. Some of the major threats to productivity, as cited in Industrial Management, include an ineffective use of technology and lack of worker training and support, in addition to "an aging workforce, a declining labor supply, a lack of qualified workers, and rising wage and benefit costs." STEPS IN MEASURING AND INCREASING PRODUCTIVITY The first step in improving productivity is putting meaningful methodologies of measurement in place to evaluate and monitor the performance of a business operation. To be meaningful, productivity measurements must show a linkage with profitability; after all, it is the bottom line that is the ultimate barometer of a company's success. Measurements should clearly demonstrate how efficiently (or inefficiently) a company is using its resources to produce quality goods and services. In the past, productivity was a stand-alone issue—a company could either improve it, or it could not. For most small businesses, increasing productivity has meant one thing— improving the output rate. When this is the only goal, improving quality is seen as a very expensive proposition that does nothing to boost output. In other words, improved quality and increased output are seen as mutually exclusive ideas. This way of thinking is a mistake.

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In fact, small business owners need to realize that just the opposite is true. An increase in quality most often results in lower costs as rework is eliminated and unnecessary inspections are eliminated. Improved quality should be seen as a strategic tool that can increase efficiency by improving resource utilization and increasing customer satisfaction while lowering costs. Another tool to increase productivity is to improve communications between workers and management. This may be easier in a small firm than a large one since the total number of employees is lower. Managers must sell employees on their obligation to make things work better at the company, both in the work environment and the work product. By gathering input from more and more workers, that job can be made easier. A business owner or CEO can begin gathering input from workers by starting at the top and letting the process filter down. Off-site retreats with top managers to discuss the company's values and goals are a good place to start. From there, those values and goals can be communicated to the whole work force at the same time it is conveyed to them that their input matters and that direct communication is valued throughout the organization. If something goes wrong, any employee should feel safe in stepping forward and identifying the problem without fear of reprisals. If one person has a conflict with another employee, they should be encouraged to go directly to that other person instead of ignoring the problem or complaining about it to people who cannot solve it. A high-level manager, or even the CEO or owner, can step in to solve disputes if there is still a conflict after communications have been initiated. This improved and open communication eases tension in the workplace and fosters a cooperative, growth-oriented atmosphere. Employees feel that their problems will be listened to and that their suggestions will be taken seriously, which means they are more likely to work harder and to think creatively when initiating production improvements. Improved communication can also lead to another step known to enhance productivity in small businesses—enabling the work force. Once communication channels are open, upper management may find that employees are as committed to improving the business as they are. They also realize that front-line employees are quite often the best source of ideas on how to improve productivity and the best source for implementing those ideas. In small businesses, employees are often forced to perform a greater variety of tasks than employees at large firms—it is up to small business owners to take advantage of that fact by empowering employees. As Jay Nathan observed in the Review of Business, "empowerment in the small business environment enables employees and management to learn and implement new ways of working, thus improving business operations for increased profits and productivity." True empowerment also requires employers to provide their workers with the skills and knowledge to perform their jobs, as well as the unquestioned support of management. Upper management must provide ongoing training and skills development, while managers

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should act as coaches and leaders who make needed resources available. Finally, a mutual trust and caring must develop between associates and managers—such trust is essential if positive changes are to occur. INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY THROUGH INCENTIVES Another way to get employees to work harder and improve productivity is to let them share in any gains that result from the productivity improvements. Pay-for-performance bonus systems, or gain sharing, became a popular incentive in the 1990s with both large and small businesses. For example, one restaurant in Ohio offered to pay cash incentives to all employees if food costs dropped below 35 percent of total sales. The very first month, employees offered up several money-saving suggestions that resulted in a1.7 percent drop in food costs and a $40 payout to everyone on staff. Payouts since then have gone as high as $95; in the two months where results did not meet the 35 percent goal, no payouts were made. Gain sharing, and programs like it, have become successful because they increase employee awareness of the company's bottom line and their ability to have an impact on the firm's financial fortunes. From the employer's standpoint, gain sharing is a "win-win" proposition since employees work harder, feel more committed to the business, and profits (or some other measurable goal) improve. How does a small business institute a gain-sharing program? First, keep things simple. Pick no more than five key business indicators that are important to the business's success. For example, a sales staff might focus on account growth, market penetration, and customer retention. Selecting more than five objectives complicates the issue and makes it harder for employees to understand. Likewise, it is important to select objectives that the employees have direct control over. Meeting goals that require actions outside their sphere of influence demoralizes employees and makes it far less likely that any improvements will be seen. The plan should be written in language that is easy to understand, with the bottom line goal clearly stated. Once goals are determined, they have to be measured. Choose a realistic means of measuring progress, and, more importantly, choose realistic goals and performance targets that can be reached through productivity improvements. Employees have no problem spotting and ignoring unrealistic goals that they know they have no hopes of attaining. Goals should be both short-term (monthly) and long-range (annual). Also, it is important to note that goals will almost certainly change over time as employees become more efficient and meet the original goals. Communication is an important part of the gain sharing process. Once management starts measuring productivity, it needs to share the data it gathers with employees so they can see the progress (or lack thereof) being made. This step—sharing financial or production data that was once considered confidential—might be new for many companies, but it

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must occur so that employees can make good decisions and sharpen their problem-solving skills. Communication should continue throughout the life of the program; business consultants counsel clients to use tools such as newsletters or memos to tell employees about success stories throughout the company. This lets employees know that their actions matter and provides other employees with examples of how to make improvements. Very visible means of communication such as large charts tracking progress against the goal are also very effective. In addition to sharing information, management must enable employees to make decisions and act on them without too many layers of approval. Employees are the best source of ideas for improving productivity, and making them feel that they are in control of the program is a key part of making it work. Employees are sure to rebel against any program that they feel is being forced on them by upper management or by an outside consulting firm. One of the best ways to ensure employee buy-in is to form a cross-functional group made up of employees from throughout the company to help design and administer the plan. Eventually, each department should come up with its own set of goals, but the initial plan must be a company-wide one with a big picture goal. Once that goal is stated, each department can look at its own operations and come up with a set of smaller goals that are all designed to help meet the larger goal. Departments should not set their smaller goals in a vacuum—quite often, the performance of one department is directly dependent on the performance of another department, so it is important that those two departments work together in establishing goals. Once all the goals are set, the reward needs to be determined. The biggest caution that experts offer is to make sure the reward is worth the employee's efforts. If the incentive is too small, the plan might fail because employees simply do not care if they make the improvements needed to get what they view as inconsequential rewards. Experts recommend that employees be able to earn between four and eight percent of their annual salary as a reward for meeting gain sharing goals. Rewards can be paid as an increase in annual salary, or as a one-time bonus. It should be noted that gain sharing can be an especially successful tool for a small business that is about to grow beyond the owner-several employee stage. When the company consists of the owner and just a few employees, the owner can control all operations and can rewards employees as he or she sees fit. As the company grows and is split into departments with managers who report to the owner, control is decentralized. The owner may step away from the day-to-day managerial responsibilities and therefore lose touch with the workflow. It is at that point that gain sharing can be an important tool to pull employees together and keep them working towards a common goal. Finally, one note of caution about gain sharing or incentive based pay. Managers must make sure that employees do not become so focused on the targets needed to achieve gain

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sharing that they neglect other parts of their work or let quality slip. This is the most common criticism of gain sharing, and it is one of the most important reasons that shortterm goals must be combined with long-range goals if the plan is to work. That way, workers will be able to see that if they commit too much effort to the short-term goal, the long-term goal may be lost. USING TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY From the time of the first factory, using machines to assist or even replace humans and improve productivity has been the norm. Using machines to create interchangeable parts, the creation of the assembly line, the use of robots to take over manual tasks—these are just a few of the dramatic improvements in productivity that came about as a result of technology. Today, that practice continues unabated. The giant leaps made in computer and robotic technology in the last decade have given business owners tremendous new options for improving productivity. What is different about this wave of better productivity through technology is that it is directly impacting small businesses. In the past, leaps in technological know-how most often benefited large corporations that had the money to invest in expensive new systems. Today, when the most inexpensive laptop computer is more powerful than some of the behemoth mainframe computers that existed in the 1960s, even the smallest business can afford to take advantage of technology to make his or her business grow. Computers, voice mail, fax machines, e-mail—most people today would not dream of starting a business without these technological aids by their side. Computers and other advances have simply let small businesses get more done in less time—the very essence of increased productivity. Examples of technological gains include database management software that make it easy to manage inventory, fax-back and email services used by customer service departments to disseminate information that previously had to go through the mail, bar-coding technology that can be used to track customer purchases in a computer database that automatically sends a message to reorder a particular product when in-stock levels drop below a preset point, and "home pages" on the World Wide Web that allow small companies to go global for very little cost. All of the above are examples of how technology was used to help a company grow; technology can also increase productivity and cut expenses by helping a company "stay small" in other areas. For example, instead of having to outsource bookkeeping operations or hire more customer support people, a small business can now look to computers (easyto-use accounting software, for example) and communications technology to register significant savings in both time and money. Communications tools, in fact, are the next wave of technology. Desktop videoconferencing, company intranets which can be linked to manufacturers and suppliers, paging and wireless communications—all are expected to explode in use in the coming

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years. At the center of this boom is the Internet. Even the smallest businesses are able to use the Internet to communicate with customers and suppliers, sell products, and advertise to both local and international audiences. Business-to-business communications have also increased as the Internet has expanded, making it easier for small firms to find partners to do business with. While almost everyone concedes that small businesses must invest in technology to compete, there are still complaints about technology. The two most common are that it is still too expensive in many areas, and thus out of reach to many business owners. The second is that it is still too complicated and difficult to learn. The computer industry seems to be taking this complaint seriously and developing a new wave of "plug and play" products that are easy to install and easy to use. Computer networks designed just for small businesses are being marketed that have fewer bells and whistles, fewer set-up requirements, and more customized software.

Service Improvement: Customer Service Teams - step-by-step how to build a team-based customer service department Let us make few questions and find out the answers for the same for best operations What are the benefits of moving to a team-based operation? You’ll learn from actual case studies how other companies have benefited from transitioning to teams. You’ll see how reps have been empowered; how rep performance, morale and motivation have increased; and how customer satisfaction and job satisfaction have skyrocketed. What type of team is right for my department? You’ll get a six-step guide to help you determine what type of team will work for you. See how Sony Electronics, Schering-Plough Healthcare Products and Respironics have implemented teams in their departments. How do I know if my team members can work together? You’ll learn about the four stages of team development and how each will impact your team. You’ll see how pilot programs are established and the most effective ways to implement teams. A case study of Schuller International’s setup strategy gives you the basics.

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How can I make the transition from manager to team coach? There’s a big difference between managing and coaching, and you’ll discover how your role and responsibilities will change. Plus, you’ll get a checklist of 15 requirements for successful team building and 10 key areas for getting feedback on your coaching skills. How can I empower my frontline team? You’ll get four essential questions to help you determine how much decisionmaking power to give, plus an easy step-by-step method for empowering your staff. You’ll also see the model that one company used to empower its customer service teams. What are some guidelines for team goal-setting? See why it’s necessary to get team input into project and performance goals, tie customer satisfaction into both team and individual goals, and discover the importance of setting reachable, incremental goals. What are the best ways to monitor team performance? Constant feedback is essential to team success. Discover how teams are gathering customer input, and then monitoring and reviewing their own performance. Find out the 14 attributes that Edy’s Grand Ice Cream considers essential for a team player. Plus, there’s a team progress assessment form to help all of your team members gauge their progress. How are other companies setting up team incentives? You’ll identify ways to reward and recognize your team members with team-based incentive programs. You’ll also find exercises on how to give and receive feedback with forms to use in your own department! So, whether you’re considering a team-based environment, or your department is already operating with teams, Guide to Customer Service Teams is an invaluable resource for you and your company.

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Case Study On Improving Product quality:
When the phrase “social network” comes to mind, people generally think about Facebook or Twitter. Volumes of academic studies have been written on this relatively new phenomenon. ADVERTISEMENT

But engineers who design such complex products as automobiles and airplanes have been operating within their own social networks or specific patterns of communication networks—or communication—for a long time. As with most patterns of communication, gaps are bound to occur. A recent study undertaken by operations expert Wallace Hopp and two colleagues describes such gaps in Wallace social networks as “coordination deficits.” Such deficits can be costly if not corrected. “Based on what we hear from managers in the industry, about 60 percent of their quality problems are manufacturing manufacturing-based and 40 percent are design-based,” says Hopp, the based,” Herrick Professor of manufacturing at Ross. “We found that roughly 20 percent of those design problems can be traced to inadequate communication. This means that coordination problems are responsible for as many errors as individual mistakes by engineers. That’s for very powerful information." Hopp recently co-authored the paper, “The Impact of Misalignment of Organization authored , Structure and Product Architecture on Quality in Complex Product Development,” with Bilal Gokpinar of University College, London, and Seyed Iravani of Northwestern University. ersity

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The paper reveals results of the researchers’ efforts to identify, measure, and quantify communication breakdown inside a specific design network at a major automaker. Then it details the innovative way in which they constructed a social network using data culled from reams of engineering change orders. The approach produced a statistically sound model that can help managers better coordinate projects across global engineering centers. A wide variety of firms can apply the networking model since the goal is to predict and avoid quality problems in complex products. The practical implications are clear. In 2006, a survey by Bloomberg BusinessWeek and the Boston Consulting Group showed that senior managers cite a lack of coordination as the second-biggest barrier to innovation.

A blessing in disguise
Hopp and his co-authors aren’t the first researchers to use social networks to map a new product development organization. But virtually all previous studies have made use of surveys to collect data with which to build a network. Indeed, Hopp initially thought his team would rely on surveying the engineers regarding who they spoke to on a regular basis during the design process. But that approach turned out to be problematic. Hopp needed to study vehicles that had been on the market for at least one year in order to measure the available warranty claims. This meant the design process had started as long as five years before. Because vehicle design programs involve thousands of engineers, this also meant that many of the individuals had shifted jobs or left the company. Even if the right engineers could be surveyed, five years is a long time for someone to remember who they talked to about what. Hopp suggested studying e-mail and phone records to map communication, but the company nixed that idea as too intrusive. But Hopp and his co-researchers did have the engineering change orders—records that document virtually all of the steps involved in designing the parts that make up the vehicle. Eventually, they were able to extract information from these records that provided a map of all the systems in the vehicle, the engineers assigned to them, and who was talking to whom and how often. Hopp and his co-authors used the data to rank the vehicle systems from simple to complex and to measure how much attention each system and subsystem received, given the communication between the engineers working on them. “This is the first time that I know of that anyone has used an archival engineering database to construct a social network,” Hopp says. From that, they were able to see which systems suffered from a lack of coordination. Any gap between the complexity of a system and the communication surrounding it was a “coordination deficit.” That deficit had a positive correlation with later defects found in the warranty data.

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Hopp found that systems of medium complexity experienced the highest coordination deficit and the highest likelihood of defects. That’s because complex systems already receive plenty of attention; everybody knows they’re going to be difficult. Simple systems don’t require as much coordination. The intermediate ones tend to be overlooked. “If you are really concerned about seeing the mismatches between your organization and your product, what you need to do is quantify the mismatch between those two networks,” Hopp says. “We came up with a mathematical way of doing it which should be easy for companies to do.” The company Hopp worked with is now using an online organization chart to help improve communication and coordination among engineers. The idea is to give all the engineers a big-picture view of the entire project and make it easier to find the right people to talk to during the design process. Hopp hopes to do follow-up research to evaluate the effect of this new tool on the alignment of the organization with the product.

Going global
Hopp and his team also have extended their research to help guide managers as companies move toward designing products in several global engineering centers at once. They found that when a complex subsystem is developed in several locations, the number of locations predicts the likelihood of delays in design tasks. This effect is particularly pronounced in complex subsystems (i.e., ones that are highly connected in the product architecture network). Still, it’s a tough balancing act, because companies want to take advantage of global expertise. The best team for electrical systems might be in Europe, even if most of the design work is in North America. “What our research suggests is that you don’t have to have everything in one place, but if you can reduce the number of design locations on highly central systems, you’ll do better,” Hopp says. “So if you can move a few key people and get your locations down to three if you’re using four, or down to two if you’re using three, you can cut down on delays. I think this type of analysis will become increasingly important as more and more firms globalize their design organizations.” For Hopp, the ability to use engineering change orders for network analysis is good news, because the field of network study is growing.

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“I think the network perspective is here to stay and it integrates very nicely into the engineering change-order system,” says Hopp. “For complex products like vehicles and airplanes, it turns out we’ve been collecting data all along that’s relevant to this network analysis. Nobody realized it. We didn’t realize it either when we started this research, but it’s right there and it’s a gold mine.”

Figure 1: Superposition of product and organization networks. When connectivity between subsystems in the product architecture network exceeds connectivity in the organizational coordination network, the resulting “coordination deficit” can lead to design flaws that cause quality problems—hence, warranty claims.

Reference: http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/small/Op-Qu/Productivity.html#ixzz1DvVcvkVZ Assignment on Productivity Improvement

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