Boston University Ributan Engineering Consumption Map

User Generated

Qbbcbz

Business Finance

Boston University

Description

Create a consumption map, with icons representing activities where potential value is or could be added, where dissatisfaction or frustration occurs, where the customer waits, and any other cognitive or emotional effects on the customer. Make any reasonable assumptions regarding the cognitive actions and emotional reactions of customers

Unformatted Attachment Preview

BOSTON UNIVERSITY METROPOLITAN COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCES RIBUTAN ENGINEERING 1 At 9 PM on a Friday evening. Orlando Phong was in his office returning e-mails from irate engineers at Ributan Engineering, who were frustrated with the annual engineering PC refresh effort. Orlando, who has been working at Aflex Computer Consulting (ACC) for about 3 years, is the project leader who is the main liaison between ACC and Ributan Engineering. After having a similar experience one year ago, he wondered if this would be an annual event or if something could be done to avoid it. ACC provides a broad range of IT services. They were hired by Ributan Engineering 8 years ago when many of Ributan’s IT processes were outsourced. As part of an IT infrastructure agreement, ACC keeps computing devices up-to-date by: (a) replacing computing devices every three years, and (b) operating the annual PC refresh process. Ributan Engineering is a supplier of machined parts to aerospace manufacturers. Each year, the refresh involves about 100 devices, representing one device for each engineer and technician. These customers work in one of 5 core engineering departments within the firm - Design, Process Engineering, Applications, Support, and Administration. It appeared to Orlando that the engineering PC refresh process was satisfying many customers at Ributan, but failing to meet the expectations of many others. Although he recalls the same frustration a year ago, after the PC refresh process was completed other tasks got in the way of him addressing the situation. The engineering PC refresh is an annual project. It is intended to keep staff members’ personal computers up-to-date with latest operating systems and applications software. Prior to the initiation of this process 10 years ago, important work was delayed due to poor IT integration often caused by incompatible software interactions across (and within) the five engineering departments. By ensuring that all engineers and technical staff used the same hardware and software systems, these delays were reduced substantially. It was common knowledge, however, that some individuals were not allowed to use applications that they preferred in favor of standardized applications used by everyone. Ributan managers believed that these sacrifices were outweighed by better alignment with business objectives and improved productivity. Orlando was responsible only for the engineering departments, whose applications were the most complex. Other non-core engineering departments (e.g., finance, legal, HR, etc.) are not involved in the PC refresh process. A few weeks later, Orlando asked for and was granted approval to begin work on improving the engineering PC refresh process. It turns out that engineering managers had been complaining about the process periodically and ACC’s contract was up for renewal, so the time seems appropriate. The major steps in the engineering PC refresh process are: 1. A notice is sent to individuals indicating that they are eligible for a refresh. The notice contains an instruction sheet that the Ributan staff member (i.e., the customer) must complete before the appropriate software (and, if necessary, the replacement device) can be identified. 2. The customer completes an online survey and runs a scan on their current device to confirm the installed software configuration. 1 This case was developed by John Maleyeff and Henry Tran based on their work in service process analysis. All references to people and organizations are fictional. © 2019 All rights reserved. Ributan Engineering Case Study Page 1 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. The information provided by the customer is reviewed by an ACC hardware technician. The review identifies which type of hardware is appropriate based on software needs. The technician completes a master spreadsheet that includes detailed information about each customer’s needs. The information provided by the customer is reviewed by an ACC software technician. The review identifies the software that requires updating with new versions or software that is obsolete. The technician adds content to the master spreadsheet that maintains detailed customer information. Once the device and software are identified, the master spreadsheet is reviewed by the ACC project manager. A refresh service request is created and entered into the ACC project management system. This initiates acquiring any new devices from the central warehouse. The ACC project manager sends a notice asking the customer to accept/modify the planned refresh actions, and schedules a time/place to complete the refresh. An ACC software technician arrives at the scheduled time/place to complete the refresh. The current device’s software (and files) are transferred to the new device or updated if a new device is not required. This activity can take from about 1 hour to 4 hours to complete, depending on the complexity of the transfer, and any problems or disruptions that are present. All of the replaced devices are returned to the central warehouse. Orlando also attempted to get a better understanding of how the customer (i.e., Ributan engineers) interacted with the service. His intent was to create a consumption map showing their actions and emotional reactions at various stages of the process. To this end, Orlando interviewed several Ributan engineers with whom he was especially friendly. Over a series of lunch meetings, he asked each engineer to detail what they did and how they felt at each stage of the engineering PC fresh process – just prior to the initiation of the process, during the refresh activity, and after the refresh was completed. He was surprised to hear that, although he interviewed them in an open-ended manner with no predetermined list of questions, their experiences were remarkably similar. Orlando was able to detail the customer (i.e., Ributan engineer) experience as follows: 1. The costumer receives an e-mail indicating that they are eligible for a refresh. At this point, some customers are typically happy to be receiving a newer device to replace their existing older device. Customers with newer devices may consider the refresh process somewhat of a nuisance. Newer Ributan employees are often confused – they may consult with their colleagues or contact the refresh liaison at ACC for clarification. 2. The customer follows the instructions outlined in the e-mail by completing the attached survey containing refresh-related information. This information is used by ACC to determine what type of software is used and at what frequency, as well as the customer’s present and anticipated job duties. Some customers need to be reminded to complete the survey. The customer also is asked to run a software scan on their device to extract information for use by ACC – some Ributan engineers run the scan incorrectly or forget to run the scan. 3. The customer waits while their request is processed by ACC (at ACC, the appropriate device and software are determined based upon the survey, scan data, and job functions). At times, the ACC liaison contacts the customer because of missing or confusing information, especially on the survey forms. When ACC is ready, the refresh liaison sends an e-mail to the customer to begin scheduling the refresh visit. 4. The customer responds to the scheduling e-mail by entering a date/time/location for which they will be available for the refresh visit. Because the ACC liaison is scheduling many refreshes simultaneously, there may be several emails or telephone calls to confirm the appointment. Many customers express concern to ACC regarding their special requirements, such as secured data transfer for work involving government contracts, where tight regulations are present. ACC has implemented a “three-strike” rule. If a customer does not schedule the refresh after three Ributan Engineering Case Study Page 2 5. 6. 7. 8. attempts by ACC, they are deferred from the refresh until the following year. The Ributan engineering department frowns upon these situations and therefore engineers often contact ACC in a panic after falling victim to this rule. The customer waits while the ACC project manager enters the refresh appointment information into a “master refresh spreadsheet,” obtains the new device (if one is required) from the central warehouse, and either readies OS and software updates or loads the new OS and software applications onto the new device. The project manager assigns a software technician to perform the refresh at the customer location. A confirmation email is received by the customer, outlining specific requirements for the refresh activity, including the name of the ACC software technician and confirmation of date/time/location. The customer attempts to ensure that they will be available at the scheduled time and place. The appointment may need to be rescheduled if a valid business reason exists for the customer to miss an appointment. Rescheduling has become common due to the expansion of Ributan’s global supply chain, which necessitates that engineering personnel travel to remote locations, sometimes on short notice. The ACC software technician arrives to perform refresh duties such as setting up the new device, transferring data, loading updated OS and software onto existing devices, removing obsolete hardware, and replacing unnecessary peripherals. The technician will briefly train the customer on any new software changes or hardware nuances, although this training is not always effective. The customer is provided with the software license information in case they need to reinstall any software. In the days or weeks after the refresh is complete, some customers realize that some software applications may be missing. Sometimes new applications are not fully understood. They will ask their colleagues for assistance or contact ACC for help, although sometimes terminology used by ACC technicians confused them. Although they interacted with the service in similar ways, customer opinions about the process’s quality differed. Some of the differences were likely due to variations in performance of various ACC technicians or other staff member, while other differences were likely due to varying knowledge and expectations across engineers. A Few Months Later Orlando Phong and his managers were happy with the progress of the project to improve the engineering PC refresh process that Aflex Computer Consulting (ACC) offers to Ributan Engineering. At this point in the project, the way customers define value has been determined and listed as a set of performance dimensions. In addition, the customer experience has been displayed with a consumption map and the consumption map has been analyzed. Today, a group of ACC technicians and Ributan engineers will meet to generate ideas for adding value for customers of the engineering refresh process. The intent is to reduce some of the frustrations that customers have expressed, including confusion, and to reduce the overall duration of the refresh process. In addition, ACC managers would like to create more services associated with the refresh system that would add even more value for Ributan customers. Their intent is to position ACC as an important and trusted partner of Ributan Engineering. Ributan and ACC leadership have specified only one restriction on the ideas that the group generates. The group is asked to avoid the introduction of new information technologies. The use of new software applications may be considered later to automate some of the ideas generated in this project team meeting, but the idea needs to be tested in a more manual form in the near term. That is, leadership wants to avoid automating waste, a situation they have encountered in previous projects. Ributan Engineering Case Study Page 3 RIBUTAN ENGINEERING 1. Create a consumption map, with icons representing activities where potential value is or could be added, where dissatisfaction or frustration occurs, where the customer waits, and any other cognitive or emotional effects on the customer. Make any reasonable assumptions regarding the cognitive actions and emotional reactions of customers. 2. Analyze the consumption map to identify where value can be added, in particular: a. Where the customer wastes their time, or encounters uncertainty or frustration. b. Opportunities to add additional services to complement the existing service. c. Where queues exist (and their effects on process effectiveness) and ways in which queue time can be reduced. 3. Create an innovative idea for adding additional value by modifying, creating, or expanding the current service. Incorporate the random word approach to generate ideas. Use with the following random words: rival, buck, searching, poem, lawyer, and quiet. Show how the random word motivated the innovative idea. Do not create an IT application – detail the approach as if it was done manually. Turn in one Word file (on Blackboard). Make sure you put the course name, case study title, and date on top of the first page. Put all analysis in detail in the Word file (i.e., do not attach an Excel file). You do not need to write a case report – providing answers to each of the questions above will suffice.
Purchase answer to see full attachment
User generated content is uploaded by users for the purposes of learning and should be used following Studypool's honor code & terms of service.

Explanation & Answer

View attached explanation and answer. Let me know if you have any questions.

Running Head: RIBUTAN ENGINEERING

1

Ributan Engineering
Name
Course
Tutor
Date

2

RIBUTAN ENGINEERING
1. A consumption map

The onset
of Annual
PC restore

Customer secures email
permitted to PC restore.

Finalization of a proposed research
survey with software scanning by
customers

Holding of responses to
customer affairs with queries

Customers can notice the absence of
software post queries after restore

Restore appt occurs in place
(short training for new
software and licenses
provided)refill

Customer secures specific
email with technical tag,
date & time of appt

Customer secures emails
to visits with positions to
sched...

Related Tags