Order ID 53563633773 Type Essay Writer Level Masters Style APA Sources/References 4 Perfect Number of Pages to Order 5-10 Pages Description/Paper Instructions
Kemko Manufacturing Case Study
BACKGROUND
Kemko Manufacturing was a 50-year-old company that had a reputation for man-ufacturing high-quality household appliances. Kemko’s growth was rapid during the 1990s. It grew by acquiring other companies. Kemko now had more than 25 manufacturing plants throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Originally, each manufacturing plant that was acquired wanted to maintain its own culture, and quite often each was allowed to remain autonomous from cor-porate at Kemko provided that work was progressing as planned. But as Kemko began acquiring more companies, growing pains made it almost impossible to allow each plant to remain autonomous.
Each company had its own way of handling raw material procurement and inventory control. All purchase requests above a certain dollar value had to be approved by corporate. At corporate, there was often confusion over the informa-tion in all of the forms since each plant had its own documentation for procure-ment. Corporate was afraid that, unless it established a standardized procurement and inventory control system across all plants, cash flow problems and loss of corporate control over inventory could take its toll in the near future.
PROJECT IS INITIATED
Because of the importance of the project, senior management asked Janet Adams, director of information technology (IT), to take control of the project personally.
Janet had more than 30 years of experience in IT and fully understood how scope creep can create havoc on a large project.
Janet selected her team from IT and set up an initial kickoff date for the project. In addition to the mandatory presence of all of her team members, she also demanded that each manufacturing plant assign at least one representative and that all plant representatives be in attendance at the kickoff meeting. At the meeting, Janet said:
I asked all of you here because I want you to have a clear understanding of how I intend to manage this project. Our executives have given us a timetable for this pro-ject and my greatest fear is scope creep. “Scope creep” is the growth of or enhance-ments to the project’s scope as the project is being developed. On many of our other projects, scope creep has lengthened the project and driven up the cost. I know that scope creep isn’t always evil and that it can happen in any life cycle phase.
The reason why I have asked all of the plant representatives to attend this meeting is because of the dangers of scope creep. Scope creep has many causes, but it is generally the failure of effective up-front planning. When scope creep exists, people generally argue that it is a natural occurrence and we must accept the fact that it will happen. That’s unacceptable to me!There will be no scope changes on this project, and I really mean it when I say this. The plant representatives must meet on their own and provide us with a detailed requirements package. I will not allow the project to officially begin until we have a detailed listing of the requirements. My team will provide you with some guidance, as needed, in preparing the requirements.
No scope changes will be allowed once the project begins. I know that there may be some requests for scope changes, but all requests will be bundled together and worked on later as an enhancement project. This project will be implemented according to the original set of requirements. If I were to allow scope changes to occur, this project would run forever. I know some of you do not like this, but this is the way it will be on this project.
There was dead silence in the room. Janet could tell from the expressions on the faces of the plant representatives that they were displeased with her comments. Some of the plants were under the impression that the IT group was supposed to prepare the requirements package. Now Janet had transferred the responsibility to them, the user group, and they were not happy. Janet made it clear that user involvement would be essential for the preparation of the requirements.
After a few minutes of silence, the plant representatives said that they were willing to do this and it would be done correctly. Many of the representatives understood user requirements documentation. They would work together and come to an agreement on the requirements. Janet again stated that her team would support the plant representatives but that the burden of responsibility would rest solely on the plants. The plants would get what they ask for and nothing more. Therefore, they must be quite clear up front in their requirements.
While Janet was lecturing to the plant representatives, the IT team members were just sitting back smiling. Their job was about to become easier, or at least they thought so. Janet then addressed the IT team members:
Now I want to address the IT personnel. The reason why we are all in attendance at this meeting is because I want the plant representatives to hear what I have to say to the IT team. In the past, the IT teams have not been without some blame for scope creep and schedule elongation. So, here are my comments for the IT personnel:
It is the IT team’s responsibility to make sure that they understand the require-ments as prepared by the plant representatives. Do not come back to me later telling me that you did not understand the requirements because they were poorly defined. I am going to ask every IT team member to sign a document stating that they have read over the requirements and fully understand them.
Perfectionism is not necessary. All I want you to do is to get the job done.In the past we have been plagued with “featuritis,” where many of you have added in your own bells and whistles unnecessarily. If that happens on this project, I will personally view this as a failure by you, and it will reflect in your next performance review.
Sometimes people believe that a project like this will advance their career, especially if they look for perfectionism and bells and whistles. Trust me when I tell you this can have the opposite effect.
Back-door politics will not be allowed. If any of the plant representatives come to you looking for ways to sneak in scope changes, I want to know about it. And if you make the changes without my permission, you may not be working for me much longer.
I, and only I, have signature authority for scope changes.
This project will be executed using detailed planning rather than rolling wave or progressive planning. We should be able to do this once we have clearly defined requirements.
Now, are there any questions from anyone?
The battle lines were now drawn. Some believed that it was Janet against the team, but most understood her need to do this. However, whether the project could work this way was still questionable.
QUESTIONS
Was Janet correct in the comments she made to the plant representatives?
Was Janet correct in the comments she made to the IT team members?
Is it always better on IT projects to make changes using enhancement projects or should we allow changes to be made as we go along?
What is your best guess on what happened?
RUBRIC
QUALITY OF RESPONSE NO RESPONSE POOR / UNSATISFACTORY SATISFACTORY GOOD EXCELLENT Content (worth a maximum of 50% of the total points) Zero points: Student failed to submit the final paper. 20 points out of 50: The essay illustrates poor understanding of the relevant material by failing to address or incorrectly addressing the relevant content; failing to identify or inaccurately explaining/defining key concepts/ideas; ignoring or incorrectly explaining key points/claims and the reasoning behind them; and/or incorrectly or inappropriately using terminology; and elements of the response are lacking. 30 points out of 50: The essay illustrates a rudimentary understanding of the relevant material by mentioning but not full explaining the relevant content; identifying some of the key concepts/ideas though failing to fully or accurately explain many of them; using terminology, though sometimes inaccurately or inappropriately; and/or incorporating some key claims/points but failing to explain the reasoning behind them or doing so inaccurately. Elements of the required response may also be lacking. 40 points out of 50: The essay illustrates solid understanding of the relevant material by correctly addressing most of the relevant content; identifying and explaining most of the key concepts/ideas; using correct terminology; explaining the reasoning behind most of the key points/claims; and/or where necessary or useful, substantiating some points with accurate examples. The answer is complete. 50 points: The essay illustrates exemplary understanding of the relevant material by thoroughly and correctly addressing the relevant content; identifying and explaining all of the key concepts/ideas; using correct terminology explaining the reasoning behind key points/claims and substantiating, as necessary/useful, points with several accurate and illuminating examples. No aspects of the required answer are missing. Use of Sources (worth a maximum of 20% of the total points). Zero points: Student failed to include citations and/or references. Or the student failed to submit a final paper. 5 out 20 points: Sources are seldom cited to support statements and/or format of citations are not recognizable as APA 6th Edition format. There are major errors in the formation of the references and citations. And/or there is a major reliance on highly questionable. The Student fails to provide an adequate synthesis of research collected for the paper. 10 out 20 points: References to scholarly sources are occasionally given; many statements seem unsubstantiated. Frequent errors in APA 6th Edition format, leaving the reader confused about the source of the information. There are significant errors of the formation in the references and citations. And/or there is a significant use of highly questionable sources. 15 out 20 points: Credible Scholarly sources are used effectively support claims and are, for the most part, clear and fairly represented. APA 6th Edition is used with only a few minor errors. There are minor errors in reference and/or citations. And/or there is some use of questionable sources. 20 points: Credible scholarly sources are used to give compelling evidence to support claims and are clearly and fairly represented. APA 6th Edition format is used accurately and consistently. The student uses above the maximum required references in the development of the assignment. Grammar (worth maximum of 20% of total points) Zero points: Student failed to submit the final paper. 5 points out of 20: The paper does not communicate ideas/points clearly due to inappropriate use of terminology and vague language; thoughts and sentences are disjointed or incomprehensible; organization lacking; and/or numerous grammatical, spelling/punctuation errors 10 points out 20: The paper is often unclear and difficult to follow due to some inappropriate terminology and/or vague language; ideas may be fragmented, wandering and/or repetitive; poor organization; and/or some grammatical, spelling, punctuation errors 15 points out of 20: The paper is mostly clear as a result of appropriate use of terminology and minimal vagueness; no tangents and no repetition; fairly good organization; almost perfect grammar, spelling, punctuation, and word usage. 20 points: The paper is clear, concise, and a pleasure to read as a result of appropriate and precise use of terminology; total coherence of thoughts and presentation and logical organization; and the essay is error free. Structure of the Paper (worth 10% of total points) Zero points: Student failed to submit the final paper. 3 points out of 10: Student needs to develop better formatting skills. The paper omits significant structural elements required for and APA 6th edition paper. Formatting of the paper has major flaws. The paper does not conform to APA 6th edition requirements whatsoever. 5 points out of 10: Appearance of final paper demonstrates the student’s limited ability to format the paper. There are significant errors in formatting and/or the total omission of major components of an APA 6th edition paper. They can include the omission of the cover page, abstract, and page numbers. Additionally the page has major formatting issues with spacing or paragraph formation. Font size might not conform to size requirements. The student also significantly writes too large or too short of and paper 7 points out of 10: Research paper presents an above-average use of formatting skills. The paper has slight errors within the paper. This can include small errors or omissions with the cover page, abstract, page number, and headers. There could be also slight formatting issues with the document spacing or the font Additionally the paper might slightly exceed or undershoot the specific number of required written pages for the assignment. 10 points: Student provides a high-caliber, formatted paper. This includes an APA 6th edition cover page, abstract, page number, headers and is double spaced in 12’ Times Roman Font. Additionally, the paper conforms to the specific number of required written pages and neither goes over or under the specified length of the paper. GET THIS PROJECT NOW BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK TO PLACE THE ORDER
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