9-1 Paper Question

MODULE 9-1 FINAL PAPER

I. Aligning Resources to Market Opportunities A. Assess your company’s or organization’s internal capabilities and limitations with respect to its current operations. In your assessment, include human, organizational, and infrastructure factors. B. Based on the company’s or organization’s internal capabilities and limitations, what expansion or business development opportunities can you identify? How will these opportunities align to the current domestic and global markets? Your response should consider the political, economic, social, and technical factors that affect the company. C. Based on the company’s or organization’s internal capabilities and limitations, what cost-savings opportunities can you identify? How will these opportunities align to the current domestic and global markets? Your response should consider the political, economic, social, and technical factors that affect the company. D. Describe the external threat factors in the domestic and global markets that the company or organization should consider when developing these business development and cost-savings opportunities. Your response should consider the political, economic, social, and technical factors that affect the company. II. Managing the Quality Imperative for Global Competition A. Based on your assessment of the company’s or organization’s internal capabilities and limitations and the opportunities you identified, select total quality management (TQM) means that the company or organization could employ to strengthen organizational performance. Justify your selection. B. Based on your assessment of the company’s or organization’s internal capabilities and limitations and the opportunities you identified, select an appropriate series from an ISO 9000 family of standards that the company or organization could employ to strengthen organizational performance. Justify your selection. C. Based on the TQM and ISO 9000 benchmarks that you selected, recommend global best practices that strengthen organizational performance by ensuring quality, cost containment, and customer satisfaction for the company or organization. Justify your recommendations. III. Lean Practices in the Workplace and the Supply Chain A. Determine opportunities for the company or organization to employ lean techniques to strengthen organizational performance while supporting current business operations. What is the potential outcome of using these lean techniques? B. Determine opportunities for the company or organization to use just-in-time (JIT) practices, such as safety stock, to reduce inventory costs while supporting current business operations. What is the potential outcome of using these JIT practices? C. Determine opportunities for the company or organization to use optimized production technology (OPT) and theory of constraints (TOC) principles to reduce costs and increase throughput while supporting current business operations. What is the potential outcome of using these OPT and TOC principles? IV. Technology for Competitive Differentiation A. Evaluate current business operations in one segment of the enterprise to identify performance gaps relative to cost, production, and delivery of products or services. B. Based on the performance gaps you identified, describe specific opportunities that would benefit from technology enhancement or technical solutions. Ensure that your response focuses on using technology to reduce costs, increase production, and deliver consistently superior products or services. C. How can the technology you described be utilized to mitigate the performance gap? Ensure that your response focuses on using technology to reduce costs, increase production, and deliver consistently superior products or services. V. Sustainability in the Value Chain A. Assess the sustainability of your company or organization with respect to profits, people, and the planet. You might consider questions such as these in your response: What are the challenges to sustainability? What sustainable business practices does your company or organization already employ? Do you see any gaps between current business operations and sustainability? B. What alternative business practices could the company or organization employ to mitigate risks to business operations while enhancing sustainability? C. How can the company or organization implement the alternative business practices while ensuring long-term viability?

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