...QNT 275 Business Decision Making Project Final Project Throughout the last five weeks, Learning Team B has researched and gathered descriptive statistics pieces of equipment for Darrin Compton’s future small bakery or café. Darrin Compton is starting a bakery/café. Darrin relayed that news to Learning Team B. Learning Team B decided it would be a good class long project to research and discuss. Each member was assigned a specific type of kitchen equipment for Darrin’s new bakery. The equipment list is as follows: Convection Oven, 10 Gallon Tilting Kettle, 20 quart mixer, 60 quart mixer, a walk-in refrigerator, and a walk-in freezer. From that point, the team worked individually; only consulting with the team and Darrin after we had developed a good piece of research for a specific piece of equipment. Once all of the equipment was sufficiently researched and vetted, the team compiled all of the information in discussion board posts. Equipment for Research: 1) Double Stack Convection Oven 2) Groen 10 gallon Tilting Kettle 3) 20 qt. Mixer 4) 60 qt. Mixer 5) Walk-in Refrigerator 6) Walk-in Freezer Above is the equipment the team researched and developed a solid idea of what was a good price, warranty, shipping estimates, and quality. Some data you can infer from reading reviews and ratings on the various researched websites. How fast do the suppliers ship the equipment? Are the pieces of equipment ready to be shipped? Will the equipment be in...
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...Cost Analysis for Decision Making project is intended to be a comprehensive evaluation of the key objectives covered throughout this course. It will challenge you to apply your knowledge of cost information when evaluating the decision to make or buy a product. Please use this outline and grading rubric as a guide to completing your course project. It provides specific details of the required elements of the project, and it will be used by your instructor as a grading guide. Read Integrative Case 4-61, "Make versus Buy," on pages 157 and 158 of the course text. Assume that you are the general manager (Mr. Walsh) faced with this decision. You have identified the following four alternatives available to Liquid Chemical Co. Alternative A: It is the status quo. (i.e., Liquid Chemical Co. will continue making the containers and performing maintenance.) Alternative B: Liquid Chemical Co. will continue making the containers, but it will outsource the maintenance to Packages, Inc. Alternative C: Liquid Chemical Co. will buy containers from Packages, Inc., but it will perform the maintenance. Alternative D: It is completely outsourced. Packages, Inc. will make the containers and provide the necessary maintenance. Your project should include the following items: Part (a): Discuss each of the four alternatives outlined above. Identify the relevant costs (including amounts) for each of the four alternatives, and explain why these costs are relevant to the decision. Identify any costs...
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...These same managers also fail to include staff members in the decision-making and planning processes for upcoming projects. While the management team at CanGo is comprised of a group of talented, educated, and hard-working individuals, the decision-making process is scattered and the lack of project prioritization is troubling. In fact, poor decision-making has resulted in projects being approved without proper consideration and research, leading to staff members juggling more projects than they can handle at the moment. Additionally, staff members are given little to no information regarding benchmarks, deadlines, and goals when assigned projects. This has resulted in missed deadlines, misguided spending, and declining employee morale. There...
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...define performance in a project. They are used to track and manage progress toward achieving specific project goals. Performance measurements help determine how decision-making processes of a project led to its success or failure, understanding these can help organizations make future improvements. It is a project manager's responsibility to measure performance based on the triple constraints of time, budget, and quality of a project. There are many performance measurements a project manager can use based on the type of project at hand, this paper compares and contrasts the following measurements - * Earned Value * Customer Satisfaction * Requirements Performance Earned Value Earned Value measures work performed in terms of schedule and budget of a project. It helps identify schedule and budget mishaps in all areas of a project. "Earned Value is an approach where you monitor the project plan, actual work, and work-completed value to see if a project is on track. Earned Value shows how much of the budget and time should have been spent, with regard to the amount of work done so far" (Haughey, 2013). It measures current performance in a project, which helps project managers determine what the future performance will be. Using earned value, project managers can determine how much work is completed vs., how much was expected to be completed at a certain point in a project. Based on the earned value, project managers can make changes to the way the project is progressing in terms...
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...evaluating capital projects, that is, projects where the cash flow to the firm will be received over a period longer than a year. Any corporate decisions with an impact on future earnings can be examined using this framework. Decisions about whether to buy a new machine, expand business in another geographic area, move the corporate headquarters to Cleveland, or replace a delivery truck, to name a few, can be examined using a capital budgeting analysis. For a number of good reasons, capital budgeting may be the most important responsibility that a financial manager has. First, since a capital budgeting decision often involves the purchase of costly long-term assets with lives of many years, the decisions made may determine the future success of the firm. Second, the principles underlying the capital budgeting process also apply to other corporate decisions, such as working capital management and making strategic mergers and acquisitions. Finally, making good capital budgeting decisions is consistent with management's primary goal of maximizing shareholder value. The capital budgeting process has four administrative steps: * Step 1: Idea generation. The most important step in the capital budgeting process is generating good project ideas. Ideas can come from a number of sources including senior management, functional divisions, employees, or outside the company. * Step 2: Analyzing project proposals. Since the decision to accept or reject a capital project is based on the...
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...1 McKinsey Global Survey Results McKinsey Global Survey Results: How companies make good decisions How companies make good decisions Companies get a lot of advice about how to make good decisions. Which decision-making disciplines really make a difference? Do strong decision-making processes lead to good decisions? This McKinsey survey highlights several process steps that are strongly associated with good financial and operational outcomes. In the survey, we asked executives from around the world about a specific capital or human-resources decision their companies made in the course of normal business. We learned who was involved, what drove the decisions, how deep the analysis was, how unfettered the discussions, and how and where politics were involved. Respondents also described the financial and operational outcomes of the decisions.1 The results highlight the hard business benefits—such as increased profits and rapid implementation—of several decision-making disciplines. These disciplines include ensuring that people with the right skills and experience are included in decision making, making decisions based on transparent criteria and a robust fact base, and ensuring that the person who will be responsible for implementing a decision is involved in making that decision. Finally, although corporate politics sometimes seems to undermine strong decision making, some types of consensus-building and alliances apparently can help create good outcomes. 1 The survey...
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...Decisions Based on Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) Dr. David G. Ullman 1 , January 2009 Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) is a term that has been adopted by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of Defense (DoD) to ensure that multiple alternatives have been analyzed prior to making costly investment decisions. AoA is an effort to move from the justification for a single alternative to the exploration of multiple alternatives so agencies have a basis for funding the best possible projects in a rational, defensible manner considering risk and uncertainty. As with other decisionmaking tools, techniques, and methodologies, AoA is most effectively used in a higherlevel decision-making context, such as an Enterprise Architecture (EA) framework. In fact, it is doubtful that the higher levels of AoA maturity (see below) could even be considered outside of a higher-level context. What Is AoA? And Why Do It? Analysis of Alternatives is the analytical comparison of multiple alternatives to be completed before committing resources to one project. The practice of comparing multiple alternative solutions has long been a part of engineering practice (Ullman, 2009, especially Chapter 7, Concept Generation). There is, however, a natural human tendency to propose a single alternative for funding or development and justify this option rather than compare multiple options with the goal of choosing the best one. Justification is easier to do than evaluating multiple options and...
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...Making Decisions Luis Batrez MGT 230 December 9, 2013 Claudio (Tony) Morales Making Decisions Decisions are part of our daily lives; people make decisions from what type of clothe to wear to making decisions at jobs. A decision made at a job was about going home because of bad weather or stay working through the weather because of the schedule of the construction job. The first thing that came to mind was people safety and what safety rules we needed to follow on company policy on bad weather. The second thing was to determine if the weather was going to get worse or in a few hours is it going to get better. Another thing that came to mind was how bad the project was going to fall behind if the workers went home for the day, or can we finish an important part of the project that needed to complete that day so that other trades would not fall behind. After considering the thought about the job, the most reasonable decision that was made was to work for half a day and concentrate on a specific part of the project and put workers to finish that part by the afternoon of that day. An explanation to the workers about the decision was made and strongly suggested that if the weather got to the point of where we could not work then the workers would go home regardless of the project falling behind. The workers agreed to work and not to forget about their safety during the bad weather. The workers were also told that they will still get paid for eight hours of work if we left around...
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...Decisions in Paradise Part 2 University of Phoenix Critical Thinking: Strategies in Decision Making MGT/350 August 07, 2011 Decisions in Paradise Part 2 This paper reports on a company named “Drinks in Paradise” and the focus of the research that revolves around how critical thinking is used or how it affects a business decision. Drinks in Paradise wishes to expand their company to a location in Paradise. Nik is a new employee, the company has sent him to complete a business evaluation, and then to report his findings back to upper management. Nik will need to do a cost analysis of the situation and use the six systematic steps of the decision making process together with a cost benefit analysis in order to start the operation. To make an analysis every department has special techniques or tools they use. These tools check the feasibility and workability of a plan, and any unforeseen events. To make solid, sound, logical, and error free decisions is an important step from the beginning. “Critical thinking is thinking that proceeds on the basis of careful evaluation of premises and evidence and comes to conclusions as objectively as possible through the consideration of all pertinent factors and the use of valid procedures from logic” (Callahan, 1998 Par 1). Cost benefits analysis is a tool that can be used and will assist Nik and his team in conducting a financial analysis. This technique will help decide if a plan is a good one or not. Financial analysis...
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...HND Diploma in Business | Unit number and title | Unit 6: Business Decision Making | Assignment issued | <date> | Assignment due | <date> | Assessor name | <name of assessor> | Assignment title | Enhancing Business Decision MakingThis assignment is designed to help learners know how to use software-generated information to support the process of decision making in organizations, which correspond to Learning Outcome 4 of the unit/course.Scenario:Company A is operating in fields of providing finger-reader devices and currently focusing on developing a new version with enhanced functions. This project requires the company to develop both of hardware and software solutions. The draft schedule for the project's activities is initially estimated as below: ID | Task | Preceding activity | Durations | A | Design device | - | 18 | B | Develop prototype device | A | 20 | C | Produce device | B | 12 | D | Design software | - | 22 | E | Code software | D | 18 | F | Test software | E | 20 | You are recently assigned as the leader of this project group. In the next week, you have to present the detailed project schedule to the Board of Management (BoM). In addition to developing the new version of finger-reader machine, the BoM of your company is also considering two other projects that might strongly affect to the whole business activities of the company.The first project (Project M) relates to providing technical advisory services. The total initial...
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...Tasneem Shabbir 014101 Unit 6 Business Decision Making Project Report Table of Contents Information Processing Tools 3 Strategic, tactical and operational information 3 Examples of strategic, tactical and operational information relevant to a Banking sector 3 MIS and its relevance in an organization 4 Project plan for an activity and determine the critical path 5 Financial tools for decision making 5 Project Planning Steps 5 Bibliography 6 Information Processing Tools Strategic, tactical and operational information Strategic planning refers to the process through which an organization defines its strategy, allocate its resource and lead the direction that the company will follow to achieve its goals. Strategic Planning is the formal planning for the future and help the company to define: what we do? For whom we do it? How do we successes? Tactical Planning refers to the process of taking the strategic plan and divided into specific activities, short term actions and plans to achieve the planned objectives. Operational Planning refers to the action plan for the day-to-day functioning of an organization. It defines the short term methods to achieve the strategic objectives set while strategic planning is done. In other words, operation planning allows the company to determine how to do it. Examples of strategic, tactical and operational information relevant to a Banking sector Currently, organizations are in the race for enhancing their capability...
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...friend and etc. So, we had interviewed for a manager to know more of his job and which skills he used in organization. Mister Jaunis Bin Kamin is a construction manager for the Sabah team project under Jabatan Kerja Raya Malaysia(JKR). JKR is important department for Malaysia development. His is 42 year old and come from Ranau Sabah. He already married and his missions in life is ‘to improve knowledge every single of time, to achieve target must put effort’. In 1981-1983,he was studying in Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Mat Saleh Ranau from form 1 until form 3. He has continued his study for form 4 until form 5 in Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Sains Bukit Padang. In 1989,he has taking Diploma’s in Architect at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor. he also has continued his studied in Degree’s in Architect also at same university in1997-2000. In 1989-1999,he has work as Designer at Supervision Site Office in architect firm at Kota Kinabalu. After that ,in 1999 he started worked for JKR head office in Kuala Lumpur. Then, he worked as assistant technician at Pejabat Persekutuan Sabah for 1992-1997. After that,he continued his studies until year 2000 and after finished his studies ,he continued his worked at Pejabat Persekutuan Sabah in same position. In Mei 2008,he has worked in Sabah Project Team department under JKR and appointed as a architect in this department in July 2008. 2.0 OBJECTIVE Our objective...
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...Reading 1.3 Jackall, R. (1988), Chapter 4, “Looking up and looking around”, in Moral Mazes, Oxford University Press, NY Abstract The heart of managerial system is the skills in making decision. The routine decisions are the main areas of managerial decision making. In bureaucratic setting, which is functional rationality, the managers are expected to follow the policy rather than create a new way of solving problem. Many managerial decisions usually base on procedure; however, if unusual problem occurs, the managers are expected to find the solution that satisfies their bosses. Managers have to face “gut decisions” when those decisions involve big influences to organizations and looking up and looking around are necessary in these situations. There are two perspectives of looking up and looking around. First aspect is uncertainty of organization and second one is bureaucratic work structure. Example from coking plant is shown to prove that decision making has an impact on advancement of company. American managers prefer short term gain, focusing on financial techniques and ignoring production management can help them success in short time. Structure of work (need rapid decision on piece by piece) is another aspect of short run. Managers think that they can only cope with short run issues to reach the long run goal. The most feared time in every firm is “blame time”. Blame is the action that attacks the person by verbal and it can make person less creditable. The different...
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...Question 2 (a) Describe and compare two decision-making model that are likely to be most commonly used by managers in a high pressure, rapidly changing environment. Explain why these two models are most relevant in such an environment? Answer: Classical Model and Administrative Model The Classical model based on rational and logical assumptions. It operates to accomplish established goals and defines problems. The manager strives for full informations and evaluates alternatives to maximize the benefit. This model of decision making is considered to be normative, which is the manager knows how the decision should be and not rely entirely on personal preferrence. Meanwhile, the Administrative Model has a vogue problems and goals. This model usualy under the uncertainty condition because managers have limited informations and alternatives. They make a decision based on intuitions and experiences but rarely use rational procedures concerning time consumptions. Most of the managers settle for satisficing choice for resolving problems. The Classical Model relevant for rapidly changing environment because this model focus on accomplising goals and resolving problems. It is derives from many informations and alternatives. The manager incorporates thoughtful analysis into decision making, not by personal perception. The Administrative Model uses intuition decision which is based on years of practice and hands-on experience that enable the manager to quickly identify solutions...
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...the company is now working on a big project for Microsoft, and the project team faces some difficulties in making a crucial decision. Factors Making the Situation Difficult The first factor that influences the decision-making is communication problems. The most effective way to communicate is face-to-face. However, the communication between the Mexican team, Hungarian team as well as the leading team is severely challenged by geographical distance. In fact, communicating by email and phone call does not help build a good relationship, thus leading to trust issues among different teams. In this case, the Hungarian team shows a little arrogance and believes that Visual Factory is the best solution because they are more experienced. Also, due to their business culture, the Hungarian team members take pride in their self-invented software and hold prejudice towards Datasweep. Another factor that matters is the organizational structure, causing the inefficient allocation of authorities to account managers and project managers. The project team is supposed to function among different facilities and meet customer’s needs. Nevertheless, the group is so dispersed in different locations and departments that it has no real power. For instance, Porter and his team clearly stated that they would switch to Datasweep only if it is Michael’s order. The case reveals that Flextronics has a corporate culture that decentralized decision making is the norm. Corporation culture usually...
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