BA 270Process Improvement and Visio Exercise50 PointsDue on Sunday, August 2, 2020 (To be submitted on Canvas)         A car rental company believes that their business process of addressing customer complaints regarding problems with rental cars through proper maintenance can be improved using a computer information system

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BA 270Process Improvement and Visio Exercise50 PointsDue on Sunday, August 2, 2020 (To be submitted on Canvas)

 

 

 

 

A car rental company believes that their business process of addressing customer complaints regarding problems with rental cars through proper maintenance can be improved using a computer information system.

 

The rental company provides you with details on how the process works currently. They call it the car maintenance process.

 

Please refer to the document titled "Maintenance Process of Rental Cars" for the detailed description of the current car maintenance process.

 

 

This exercise has three parts:

 

1.    Some critiques of the current process with an alternative recommendation for each critique with the aim of improving the current process

2.    A detailed description of the proposed new process

3.    An activity diagram of the proposed new process

Activity diagrams are aimed at clearly showing the chronological and sequential order of execution of the activities that make up a business process. Human beings tend to perceive business processes as representations of "actions" in a physical sense. Therefore, activity diagrams are often perceived as being among the easiest to generate and understand.

If I were you, and was doing this exercise, I would in steps:

 

Step 1:

First, I will provide an activity diagram based upon my understanding of the current / existing car maintenance process.

 

Step 2:

The first two points in my critique will look something like:

 

Critique: In the current system, the assistant manager reviews each complaint form, using a manual containing several rules for reviewing complaints.

Change: The complaints will be categorized by a computer program using the rules listed in the manual. The job of the assistant manager is now reduced to just reviewing the complaints on a computer and making a note rather than going through the paper manual and then manually writing a note explaining why the complaint should proceed in the process. This will save a lot of time for the assistant manager. Also, the complaint along with his note will be available to the rental manager immediately.

 

 

Critique: In the current system, after the complaint is downloaded from the computer, every step is totally manual.

Change: Using the new system, each user will be able to access each complaint stored in the system. Each user will also be able to add an additional note after finishing his/her part of the process. The result will be that, at any given point of time, everyone will have one consistent and up-to-date view of every complaint in terms of pending/in process (along with a specific stage of processing) and completed/fulfilled complaints.

 

Please note that you may want to have as many critiques as you believe are necessary.

 

Step 3:

After the recommended changes are implemented, the description of the "improved" business process will obviously look different. I will, therefore, write that new detailed description.

 

Step 4:

I will now provide an activity diagram in Visio depicting the new/improved process.

 

Please note that our ultimate goal is to improve the efficiency of the business process for our assigned case study using a better computerized system. So, in the description of the improved business process and the corresponding activity diagram, you may also want to talk about things like the computer system sending automatic alerts to different actors.

 

 

Here are some ideas to improve the process:

·       Introduce a new actor called "IS". (For an example on the use of an "IS" actor, see second activity diagram of new course introduction process from the class lecture slides.)

·       Eliminate paper copies (only exception is that mechanics may still work with paper copies).

·       The "IS" actor can serve as a repository of e-copies of maintenance and non-maintenance complaints.

·       The "IS" actor can send an "alert" to relevant actors at different times. Upon receipt of such alerts, the other actors can then retrieve the e-copy of the re-formatted complaints stored in the "IS", and take necessary steps.

·       Remove the Computer Data Entry Personnel (CDEP) and one of the managers (assistant manager or the rental manager) from the process.

·       Do not send complaints via e-mail or as e-mail attachments. It is hard to keep track of complaints in e-mails and e-mail attachments.

·       The Maintenance Manager should send a job update to the customer after the job is successfully completed.

·       The customer receiving an update after completion of the repair job should be the last step in the process. This way, the process starts and ends with the customer.

Submitting your assignment

Include a separate title page that includes:

·       Course number (BA270), Course name (Business Process Management), and Submission date.

·       Assignment # and Title ("Assignment 1: Process Improvement and Activity Diagram")

·       The first and last name of the student (spelled correctly!).

·       The title page must NOT contain any other text apart from the above mentioned details.

·       The title page must NOT have a page number.

 

Other formatting requirements for the report:

·       The typed text inside the symbols must be legible to the grader. Note that Visio uses 8-font size as default. This font size will have to be enlarged to about 14-16 font size in Visio to make the text inside the symbols of the activity diagram legible to the grader.

·       The picture quality must be sharp and easy to read. (So, after insertion of picture as a JPG image in MS Word, right click on the picture, and format it to increase picture sharpness to 100%).

·       Recall that the actors are listed on the x-axis, and the y-axis of the activity diagram represents the timeline. (So, your diagram must NOT have any arrows going in the upward direction).

Closing Remarks:

·       Note that your report must have your original work and not include work copied from some other individual.

·       Remember to save the diagrams as both Visio diagrams and JPEG diagrams. Remember to select the entire image before saving it.

 

 

BA270 - Maintenance Process of Rental Cars

 

The business process starts with a customer filing an online complaint regarding problems with a car that they rented in the past. The customer uses a Web-based system called Online Complaint Interface (OCI) and submits a complaint form (online). Each morning, the Assistant Manager prints a hard copy of the complaint forms received the previous business day. She/he then places the complaint forms in a box for later processing. (Paragraph 1)

Each day at 11 a.m., the Assistant Manager of the rental company reviews every complaint form printed that morning, using a manual containing several rules for reviewing complaints. Those rules had been devised so that certain complaints could be filtered out (e.g., complaints not related to car maintenance problems) before they progressed any further in the business process. (Paragraph 2)

The Assistant Manager meets with the Manager every day at 2 p.m., and hand delivers each reviewed complaint form to the Manager and informs the Manager about any complaints that need additional review by the Manager. The rental company's Manager reviews the complaint form only if the Assistant Manager recommends such a review. This additional review is completed by the Manager by end of the next business day and the Manager's reviews are shared with the Assistant Manager. (Paragraph 3)

The rental company's Manager meets with the Maintenance Manager every day at 3 p.m. and hand-delivers each reviewed complaint form. The Maintenance Manager is the main point of contact in the company's maintenance department, which is the organizational unit that processes reviewed customer complaints. The Maintenance Manager does not review the complaint forms. (Paragraph 4)

The Maintenance Manager then, upon receipt of a reviewed complaint form, places the form in a box for processing by the Computer Data Entry Personnel (CDEP). The CDEP inputs the data into a software system called the Predictive Maintenance Program (PMP). (Paragraph 5)

The PMP costs the rental company approximately $150,000. It incorporates artificial intelligence algorithms that operate on predictive maintenance rules. The algorithms allow the PMP to provide a schedule of predictive maintenance activities (called 'jobs'). Completing these jobs reduces maintenance costs to a minimum while also reducing the likelihood of future car problems occurring while the cars are with the customers of the car rental company. Each 'job' has a 'pending' status when the 'job' is yet to be completed. The algorithm rules of PMP are dynamically and automatically updated based on: (a) each new complaint processed through the system and (b) details about completed predictive maintenance activities. Since the algorithm rules of PMP are dynamically and automatically updated, both the number and the order of 'jobs' generated by PMP can vary from day to day. (Paragraph 6)

As mentioned earlier in paragraph 5, the CDEP inputs data from the complaint form into PMP. Then, PMP generates the schedule of predictive maintenance jobs. The CDEP then prints the jobs as a set of pages (one page per job). These jobs are organized according to the order of execution prescribed by PMP. The CDEP collects the printouts of the predictive maintenance jobs. (Paragraph 7)

The CDEP then places those pages in a box. The box is located at the entrance of the workshop used by the mechanics in the maintenance department. (Paragraph 8)

A team of mechanics then processes each predictive maintenance job generated by PMP. Upon completion of each job, the mechanic, who worked on the job, enters details about each completed job in the PMP. These details include the name of the mechanic who completed the job and the time of job completion. (Paragraph 9).

The PMP then automatically changes the status of the 'job' from 'pending' to 'completed', and keeps track of when the job was completed by which mechanic. (Paragraph 10)

 

 

 

BA270 - Instructions on using Visio for Activity Diagrams

 

Instructions on using Visio for Activity Diagrams: Open up Visio 2013, 2016 or 2019, and select:

1. Cross Functional Flowchart -->provide (vertical).
2. Design --> Orientation --> Landscape.

If Landscape distributes your diagram to many pages, resize the diagram to fit into one or two pages (top-down). The top of your diagram must start on the top left corner of the first page.

1. Design --> Themes -- > Simple (This would make the diagram black and white).
2. Add swimlanes to your diagram. There are many ways to add swim lanes in Visio. For example, you could:

• Right click on a Swimlane header (default header text reads as 'Function'), and select "Insert 'Swimlane (vertical)' Before" or "Insert 'Swimlane (vertical)' After".
• Click on the "Cross-Functional Flowchart" tab and then click on the "Insert Swimlane" control.
• Hover your pointer just under the right boundary of a Swimlane, a vertical, yellow or orange line with a blue triangle below it should appear. If you click on this triangle, a Swimlane will be placed to the right of the yellow line.

1. Adjust the widths of the lanes if so desired. (You must have Home --> Tool --> Pointer tool selected before you adjust the width of the lanes).
2. You can label and caption figures using MS Visio or MS Word. If you decide to use MS Word for giving a title to your figure so that you can save some additional vertical space in the Visio diagram, feel free to delete the Title bar in Visio diagram (menu: Cross-Functional Flowchart --> uncheck Show Title Bar) after you are done with the complete diagram.
3. On the Shapes menu, click on Basic Flowchart Shapes. Drag shapes onto the lanes (must have Home --> Tool --> Pointer tool selected). Try dragging different shapes such as the terminator (used for first or last step in the process), hard copy (paper document), e-copy (electronic document), process step, and decision step symbols.
4. Select Basic Flowchart Shapes and use the Search feature to search for shapes such as Multi-documents (for multiple hard copy documents), if necessary.
5. Type text in appropriate places. Ensure that you have a font size that makes your printout easy to read. Typically a font size below 14 is hard to read. When you increase the font size from the default 8 font size to 14 font, your symbols, and lane widths would have to be enlarged so that the diagram looks professional. Ensure that all symbols are within columns. Symbols and arrows should not touch or intersect with the columns or swimlanes.
6. Connect shapes with connectors (Home --> Tools --> Connector). Arrows must show on your diagram. If the arrows are not showing, you may have to go back to Design menu and choose an appropriate theme.
7. Ensure that you have switched back to the 'Pointer Tool'. Now, double-click on a connector. A textbox should appear near the mid-point of the arrow. Type in the appropriate label for the connection and then click anywhere outside the textbox.
8. To move text on top or bottom of arrows, click on the arrow and then select

Home --> Tool --> Text.

When you drag connected shapes around; their connections will follow them. If you want to move part of your diagram, you can do so by clicking: (Select --> Area Select or Lasso Select) and dragging that part of the diagram to the desired location.

Ensure that the diagrams are saved on your ONID Z drive - and not on the desktop of the remote computer. Desktops of lab computers are re-imaged often. You are likely to lose your file if you save it on the desktop of the lab computer.

!!! Note: Ensure that you save each activity diagram both as a Visio Diagram ("*.vsd" extension - default extension in Visio) and as a JPEG (*.jpg) file. Each format has its own advantages. For example, the "*.vsd" format will be useful when you want to edit the diagram. The "*.jpg" format will be useful to incorporate the activity diagrams into your MS Word report. In BA270, you must not incorporate an activity diagram into your MS Word report using "*.vsd" format.

After you save, don't close your diagram until you are sure that the entire diagram has been saved in both "*.vsd" and ".jpg" formats. Sometimes, only part of your diagram may be saved. Double-check if your entire diagram has been saved. Otherwise, all your effort may be futile.

Save your Visio diagram as an image (Save as... --> JPEG File Interchange Format (*.jpg) and import the image into a Microsoft Word document) at the proper place.After you insert the "*.jpg" image, right-click on the image, click on: Format picture -- > Picture corrections -- > Sharpness. Increase sharpness to 100%. Remember to save the Microsoft Word document onto your flash drive and/or ONID drive.