Response to Classmates Discussions

Week 3 - Discussion Forum 1

Respond to at least two of your fellow students or instructor posts with your proposed negotiation strategy in a substantive manner and provide information or concepts that they may not have considered. Each response should have a minimum of 100 words and be respectful of others’ opinions and beliefs that differ from your own. Support your position by using information from the week’s readings. You are encouraged to post your required replies earlier in the week to promote more meaningful and interactive discourse in this discussion forum. Continue to monitor the discussion forum until Day 7 and respond with robust dialogue to anyone who replies to your initial post.

·

COLLAPSE SUBDISCUSSION Lisa Schreiner

Lisa Schreiner

SundayAug 23 at 5:24pm

Manage Discussion Entry

A risk management plan is essential to any project an organization is undertaking. The plan identifies the risks or opportunities at each level of a WBS and maps out solutions to handling each risk or opportunity should it arise (Kloppenborg, 2019). Although providing a risk management plan does not indicate interruptions to the project will not take place, it assists to minimize the impact on project timelines and costs (Chapman, 2019).

As the project manager, reviewing the opportunities and risks relative to implementing a vendor managed inventory (VMI) system is necessary to produce an updated ELT presentation and provide guidelines to alter the deliverables, timelines, and cost if the project is approved. The current ILS expansion project does have some flexibility in the timeline and type of inventory system we choose to install. These points must be taken into consideration while reviewing the following specific concerns or points:

Opportunities

· Opens doors with other clients.

· Provides competitive advantage of market share in the region.

· Builds value with a worldwide client.

· Service can be duplicated in other ILS locations increasing business reach.

· Increases revenue stream.

Risks

· Added cost to the project.

· Added resources to the project and ongoing business.

· Facility size might be inadequate.

· If ILS purchases the inventory for Walmart, ILS experiences exchange rate issues and costs relative to inventory importing and storage.

· Invest in the project and not win the business.

· Not win the business because we do not invest in the project.

Following the director of logistics and business development manager’s meeting, an updated presentation is needed to present to ELT for accepting or denying this change request.

 

Reference

Chapman, R. J. (2019). Exploring the value of risk management for projects: Improving capability through the deployment of a maturity model.

Kloppenborg, T. J., Anantatmula, V., & Wells, K. N. (2019). Contemporary project management (4th ed.). Cengage Learning.

 ReplyReply to Comment

·

COLLAPSE SUBDISCUSSION Alicia Jones

Alicia Jones

TuesdayAug 25 at 6:02am

Manage Discussion Entry

As project manager of the ILS Philippines project, my first reaction to implementing a VMI system for Walmart is to decline the opportunity as it is not within the current scope of the project. However, understanding the importance of the Walmart business and the fact that we haven’t actually received any of their business yet, I decide to take another look. In my real life where I currently work, a project of this magnitude would not be incorporated into another project. A new project would be created and possibly another project manager assigned to it.  They could run the projects in parallel; but utilize different resources to do so.

Vendor managed inventory (VMI) is a program where a supplier makes inventory decisions on behalf of the buyers and protects the buyer from holding unnecessary inventory (Parsa et al., 2018).

A project risk is anything that may affect the results of the project and the team’s ability to achieve success with the project’s scope (Kloppenborg et al., 2019). Unfortunately, I did not identify VMI as a potential risk to the current project, so I had to think about the opportunities for ILS versus the threat to the current project:

Opportunities:

· Further enticement by Walmart to partner with ILS

· Potential to attract other customers interested in VMI

· Additional revenue stream

· New Innovation in Philippines

· ILS perceived as an innovative leader in society

Threats:

· Additional cost to project

· System developed but Walmart decides to do business with a competitor

· Deterrence to complete initial project

· Missed timelines of original project

· Excess inventory costs due to minimum order requirements from supply base

References:

Kloppenborg, T. J., Anantatmula, V., & Wells, K. N. (2019). Contemporary project management (4th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Parsa, M., Mollaverdi-Esfahani, N., Alinaghian, M., & Rezvan, M. T. (2018). New Models for a Single-Manufacturer Multi-Retailer Supply Chain under Vendor Managed Inventory Program. International Journal of Industrial Engineering, 25(6), 719–738. http://library.ashford.edu/EzProxy.aspx?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=134194307&site=eds-live&scope=site (Links to an external site.)