Planning For The Win

“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” ― Pablo Picasso

I totally agree with Pablo on this one. I believe that one distinguishing feature between having a goal and achieving a goal is having an actionable plan. An actionable plan in my case will be a plan that is optimally structured to provide the best route to achieving a goal.

"What is the goal?" you may ask. Let us cast our minds back to the problem presented to me with the coursework.

The Problem

As a supplier, I will be designing and producing 30,000 phones for Phones-R-Us within 256 working days. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

However, I believe there is a lot more to it, lots of considerations are to be made and questions to be answered to ensure that both processes and outcome meets the demand of Phones-R-Us.

Questions

In regards to this project, I sought to ask and answer a few questions that will enable me efficiently and optimally produce quality phone cases for Phones-R-Us, succeed in being chosen as the contracted supplier, and have Phones-R-Us always partner with me. A tad too ambitious right?

But I reckon it is achievable with a good actionable plan. a few of these questions that will enable me to win the Phones-R-Us supplier race are:

Risks

Having Identified and answered questions that I believe will enable me optimally and efficiently deliver about 30,000 phone casings to Phone-R-Us within the annual working days, I decided to brainstorm possible risks that can affect my success in this project.

With over 15 possible risks identified I moved on to creating a risk log to enable me better analyze these risks, their sources, impact stage effect, and post-mitigated effect.

PFMEA: Potential Failure Mode Effect Analysis (Process)

With the project's risks identified, it is only wise that I ensure that the core process used in manufacturing the casing is analyzed and possible failures identified and mitigated within the process. with the PFMEA conducted, the efficacy and efficiency of the process used in the manufacture of the phone case can be guaranteed to be top-notch. The result of my 3D printing PFMEA brainstorming is shown below. Also, I went further to conduct a PFMEA for the Phone-R-Us manufacturing line still in a bid to go the extra mile in ensuring I get their consistent patronage.

Procurement Strategy

Since I have the phone case design for Phone-R-Us production, I decided to utilize a design and build procurement method contracting Print-City which is one of the leaders of 3D printing in Manchester. Basically, a design and build procurement method means that I design my model and give it to a contractor to build it. However, I will be doing a sample run first to get some time measurements to enable me to simulate possible dates for the completion of events in this supply project.

Budgeting and Financing

With printcity as my contractor for the design of the model, I went to visit them to plan the budget for the production. I must say that I was swept off my feet with joy when they informed me that due to my affiliation with them that I will only be charged for the cost of the material. A manufactures dream I must say. I was provided with the cost of various Materials for printing and at first glance, I had taken off the second section which had a high price material with starting price ofprint city £0.14 per gram of material.

with the list of materials in my possession, I went on to analyze the materials which I selected out of personal preference. Using the Granta Edu pack i was able to plot 7 of my chosen materials against properties and with the price list from print city i was then able to develop a weighted decision matrix in excel. Granta edupack is actually a lifesaver when it comes to material selection and operating its user interface is as easy as a walk in the park.

From the weighted matrix I developed, it was obvious that PLA (Polylactic acid) would be the ideal material for the project hence it is the material I chose.

The full budget for the project will be concluded after the simulation has been concluded

Do you think the selection process using granta edupack to develop a weighted matrix was effective in the selection of material?

Previous Post

Next Post

Blog Feed