Process Improvement Plan

TASK

Develop a 7-page process improvement plan for a provided scenario or a business and process of your choice, using data to support your recommendations.

Introduction

This portfolio work project, a process improvement plan, will help you demonstrate competencies in process documentation, process analysis, and process improvement.

Scenario

For this assessment, choose either Option 1 or Option 2. You do not need to do both. You will apply one of these scenarios in the Requirements below. Both options will be graded using the same scoring guide.

Option 1

Wild Dog Coffee Company, a locally owned company with a single coffee shop location, serves a wide selection of espresso products, small breakfast and lunch menu items, and a limited evening menu. The company is planning to expand the business by adding an additional location. While different menu items may be tested at the new location, the espresso beverage preparation process will remain exactly the same. The company wants to ensure that the espresso beverage preparation process is documented and refined before the move.

Option 2

Select a business and process of your choosing. Note: It is recommended that you use the same business for each assessment in this course. Before choosing a company, read all three of the assessments thoroughly to ensure the following:

The company fits the assessment requirements and you have access to the information needed to complete the assessment.
The business information is disclosed in the assessment for faculty’s reference.
You can distribute the business data without disclosing confidential information.

Contact faculty with questions.
Your Role

Option 1 

You are one of three owners of Wild Dog Coffee Company. Your background is primarily in operations. Your business partners’ backgrounds are in marketing and sales. While they are working on the external aspects of the business that will bring customers in, you are focused on making the internal customer-facing processes as efficient as possible. You are preparing an analysis and recommendations that will help manage a core process improvement for the successful opening of a second location.

Option 2

Your boss, a director, has tasked you with a process improvement project. She is relying on you to prepare an analysis and recommendations that can be presented to the executive team of the company.

Requirements

Include the following in your process improvement plan:

Assess the steps for a selected process.
Develop a flowchart showing the process’ steps. You may include as many steps as are relevant for your selected scenario.
If using Wild Dog Coffee Company, show the steps for preparing an espresso beverage (for example, latté, cappuccino); there are two steps that must be included: (1) order is submitted and (2) beverage is handed to the customer. Hint: You may want to visit a local coffee shop to observe the beverage preparation process.

Prepare a procedure documenting the selected process. At a minimum, the procedure must document the following for your selected process:
Metrics.

Identify at least two metrics that will be useful in determining how well the new process is performing. Be sure to identify the target value of the metric and how you will measure it.

For Wild Dog Coffee Company, it could be how well the beverage preparation process is performing. A third metric is already identified for you: order delivery time. (This is the time between when the order is submitted and the time the beverage is handed to the customer.)

Procedure. This section describes each step of the process.
For Wild Dog Coffee Company, your procedure should be titled, “Espresso Beverage Preparation Process.” Be sure to include order submittal and handing the beverage to the customer as part of the procedure.

Purpose (of the procedure). This section describes what the procedure is intended to do.
Analyze data for process changes for a selected process.

Respond to the following questions:

Is the process centered? Provide the results of your calculations and the rationale for your decision by thinking about the process capability.

Is the process capable at 3-sigma? Provide the results of your calculations and the rationale for your decision by thinking about the process capability index.

Is the process in statistical control? Provide the appropriate numbers and the rationale for your decision using a control chart for individuals.

For Wild Dog Coffee Company, analyze the Beverage Service Times [XLSX] data. This data is for 50 beverage preparation events and was collected using their order processing system. Each individual order gets a time-stamp when it is placed and again when the beverage is handed to the customer. The senior barista thinks the beverage delivery times should range between 2 and 3 minutes. The known process standard deviation, which has been calculated on an on-going basis, is 0.5903 minutes.

Analyze the cause and effect of process variances.

Brainstorm possible sources of variation to create a cause-and-effect diagram to help analyze potential sources of variation in the espresso beverage preparation process at Wild Dog Coffee Company or for your selected business’ process. Your diagram must include at least four of the “6 Ms” (that is, management, manpower, method, measurement, machine, materials).

Recommend quality and customer service improvements for a selected process.
Detail the results of your analysis for Wild Dog Coffee Company or your selected business’ process to substantiate your recommendations.