Question:
Discuss About The Simulation Modeling Best Addition Toolkit?
This report is based on the case study and the various aspects related to the outsourcing business and the operation management theories. The case study states about the BPO and its six sigma project. The BPO has the different three units in which they are dealing and those units are risk management, human resource management and the compensation consulting. It has been observed from the case study that the employee benefits outsourcing(EBO) unit is booming because of the industry trends in the outsourcing business. This report covers the application of the simulation model as well as the action plan to solve the problems faced by the BPO. The problem found in the case was related to the operations of the business processes. However, Six Sigma project was started in order to improve the health and social service delivery process and to manage all the operations of the outsourcing business. The low quality of the services is the main issue found in the case study.
However, the services provided by the BPO incorporated is not meeting the expectations of the clients because of which the company is facing the losses from the last years. Jerry has given his opinion to introduce the simulation modeling to improve these health and welfare delivery processes. However, all the different factors that are compelled the company to take the action plan are analyzed as well as some of the steps are also recommended for the organization to improve the efficiency of the business(Khatri, 2009).
BPO incorporation is offering the range of its services to the clients from risk management to the consultation services to the management and this BPO is already registered under a Fortune 500 professional service organization. This BPO had employed more than 50,000 employees as well as operating in the 100 countries with overall offices more than 500 across the world. There are three different divisions of the BPO which are risk management services, human resource services. The human resource division is divided into two units and they are the EBO (Employee benefits outsourcing) and EPO (Employee processing outsourcing). EBO is the fastest growing outsourcing units, but could not make profits because of the operational problem.Customer satisfaction is the main goal of the company as the company has the positive attitude to solve the problems and make a better operational plan for the company(Srinivasan, 2017).
In this case study, we have found that the vice president of the BPO, Mr. Allen J Lauren received an email from the Sam Regan, who is the CEO of the HA’s company and he was the biggest client of the BPO. He mentioned in his email that he is not satisfied with the services and product provided to him as they are not according to his expectations. However, the first problem is to find an effective way to reply the Sam Regan on his mail about the operational problem of the company. The second problem, the company facing is to improve the health and welfare delivery process in the BPO. To resolve these problems and to know the six sigma project work, the Allen called a meeting with Ethan Ekans who is the Vice president of the operations and Jerry Assistant director of the company. The Allen wanted to know about the Ongoing project of the six sigma which is handled by the Jerry(Wipro, 2010). Allen was upset because of the decrease of $5 to $10 million dollars every year on the revenues of the EBO. The reason found by the Allen is the health and welfare delivery processes. The work culture of the BPO is also important factor that need to study as there are employees who are not trained and unable to handle the queries of the customers. It is very important that the employees of the BPO are fully aware about the plans like six sigma projects or the simulation projects that bring a change in the human resource departments.
The BPO incorporated is using the Sig Sigma technique as the metric just to improve the quality and measuring the defects of the company. This project was handled by the Jerry and the company already completed with the define and measure phases and rest of the steps are in progress. It is also used to improve the business methodology to focus more on the customer requirements, alignment of the processes and the execution of the processes on time(Kannan, 2006). The main key concepts of the Six Sigma projects are as follows:
This is the process of the Six sigma projects that involves the five different steps which are focused mainly on the quality improvement. This closed-loop process eliminates unproductive steps, often focuses on new measurements, and applies technology for improvement.
Define: The customer is the main focus as to identify the requirements of the customers, staff and the stakeholders(Erdem, 2007).
Measure: This step is used to collect the data to measure or define the process.
Analyze:This involves three main activities in order to analyze the situation. The first activity is to compare the current performance with the standards. Secondly, refine the goals of the improvement. Lastly is to segmenting the collected data in order to improve the quality of the process.
Improve: Identify the available alternatives for the problem and to analyze the best possible alternative or solution for the particular problem. The implementation of the solution needs full training
Control: The last step in the six sigma project is to develop the control plan by determining the process capabilities such as business growth, customer satisfaction, wait time, service time etc. After this implement the process control and close the project(Ogdoc, 2015).
However, only the first two steps of the six sigma project have been completed by the Jerry and the rest of the factors need to be completed in order to improve the health and welfare delivery services.
The Employee benefits outsourcing group of the human resources involves the Health and delivery services which are administered by the various benefit plans of medical, dental, and survivor plans for 18 clients.EBO group of the BPO performed the admin jobs that provide help to the employees enrolling in the company. There are two levels while dealing with the client organizations. The First level is at the organizational level, where the client organizations provide the weekly database of the employees to the EBO which contains all the information about the position and the status of the employment and salary. The Second level is at the participant level, where the individual client contacted the EBO to resolve the benefit program issues through phone or mails(Barjis & Pergl, 2014).
But the services provided by the BPO incorporated is not meeting the expectations of the clients because of which the company is facing the losses from the last years. Jerry has given his opinion to introduce the simulation modeling to improve these health and welfare delivery processes.
There are many factors that compel the BPO to take the actions and adopt the simulation theory in order to solve the problems faced by the BPO. There are many factors that compel the BPO to develop an action plan for the purpose to resolve the problems. The factors or the challenges of the BPO are as follows:
Work culture: Talking about the culture of the of the , then it is a great challenge for the company, as it involves the several employees who are not trained and unable to handle the queries of the customers. Although the change in the policies of the HR, this will have a great impact on the plan implementation (Meyer & Scrima, 2006).
Training: No doubt, the BPO company involves a lot of time in the training of the managers and its employees. But it is necessary to resolve the quality of the services as it will then lead to the growth of the business.
Cost factor: – The company is suffering from the losses in the EBO unit because they are not earning profits, because of the cost of hiring a new case manager in the organization involves the high cost. Moreover, the introduction of the new technology to improve the quality of services also adds cost to the company.
Orientation of the employees: It is very important that the employees of the BPO are fully aware about the plans like six sigma projects or the simulation projects that bring a change in the human resource departments. Moreover, it is very difficult sometimes to address large number of employees working in the BPO because of which we need to build some action plans(Sharma, Pandla, & Gupta, 2014).
There re many models and techniques that can be used by the BPO in order to resolve the issues such as the simulation modeling application in the company. The simulation process helps to resolve the issues. The Action plan of the of the BPO uses the simulation modeling to get the successful results of the plans. The simulation involves the five phases and these five phases will be examined properly(Breyfogle, Cupello, & Meadows, 2000). There are some of the points that are given below for the application of the action plan and they are as follows:
According to the Jerry’s opinion, to resolve the problems faced by the companies, it is important to introduce the simulation modeling as an action plan. The simulation methodology is the process that involves several steps to find out the under what conditions the company or any organization fails. In this action, the various steps of the simulation model are listed as below:
Step 1: Problem Definition: The first step of the simulation model is the definition of the objectives by critically analyzing the different problems faced by the BPO. The problem occurs at the time of delivery processes in the BPO. As we know the problem, now the next step is to facilitate the data collection and analysis for the process mapping(Chakravorty, 2010).
Step 2: Design the study: The objective of the simulation is to resolve the problems faced by the BPO in delivering the services. Now the objective is clear, so the design must be provided for the study like data collection, finalizing the model as well as the time duration of the model need to be set before implementing any plan.
Step 3: Design the conceptual model: This is the important stage as it involves the process mapping. The process mapping is useful to understand the various dependent factors exists in the process and then validation of the gathered data is also important(Saxena, 2009).
Step 4: Formulation of the inputs and assumptions: this involves the inputs and assumptions feed by the team in order to generate the simulation. The consideration of the assumptions is the most critical step during the simulation process. This is the stage where the accuracy and predictability of the simulation model is determined.
Step 5: Build, Verify and validate the simulation model -The output generated in this simulation model is useful for the validation of the accuracy of the simulation model. It is very important that the simulation model should define the scenarios of the real world as much as it can be possible. The simulation modeling accuracy and their acceptance are highly dependent on the assumptions and the objectives.
Step 6: Design of Experiments (DOE) -The most important stage is to analyze the situations by designing the different experiments. The What-if Analysis is helpful to find out the other alternatives and the different kind of situations and the implementation of this simulation model. The design of the Experiments is important to make sure that all the future scenarios are simulated or not to select the best possible scenario to solve the problems of BPO delivery services.
Step 7: Document and present the model – This is also an important step that ensures the team for the long term learning from this model.
Step 8: Define the model life cycle – The model should build always within the boundaries and these boundaries should be defined clearly. When the boundaries such as problem, objective and assumptions change, then the model should be developed again(Bonacorsi, 2012).
As in the case study there are some of the opinions or suggestions given by the Jerry and Ethan to solve the problems. The Jerry suggested that black belt training should be given in the first week of march in order to get the solution of the problem. The Jerry has the opinion that the first week of the training should include the defining and measuring phase and then they will develop the project charter. The best solution to the problem of the BPO is to train the staff as the Sam Ragan mailed that product and services provided by the BPO did not meet the expectations of the company(Emmett, 2007).
Moving further, the Ethan suggested an idea of hiring the new case manager who will look after the both positions CSRs as well as BAs (Benefits Administrator). This is the great idea that is given by the Ethan to handle the issues of the CSRs and BAs. The proper training should be given to the case manager in order to handle the more issues in the call center in order to handle the escalated calls and the case manager should hire to manage the work of the two different job positions.
After analyzing the problems, the following are the recommendation on the behalf of the case study given:
Recruitment and selection:According to the Ethan point of view, the company should hire the case managers for the BPO. The recruitment and selection of the employees must be done on the basis of the skills and abilities of the person. The employee should flexible, experienced, risk taker, innovative and confident as the job position is to handle risky and tough situations.
Training:This is the most important recommendation to solve the problem. As to improve the health and the welfare delivery services, the training should be given to the employees of the BPO to manage and handle the situations and should focus more on the quality of the services to meet the expectations of the big clients such as CEO of the HA.The proper instructions and guidelines are given to all the employees working in the BPO for the efficient working and focus more on the productivity of the organization. Training should be given to all the employees either its new or old(Erdem, 2007).
Application of the models: The models that are used by the BPO to improve the quality of services should be implemented properly. The six sigma project and the simulation models should be applied in the organization to improve the performance of the organization and all the action plans should be implemented on time to get the best results of these plans.
Quality management: Quality management means to manage the quality of the services and products in order to reach the satisfaction level of the customers. BPO will earn more profits if the quality of the services provided by them will be better and managed by the top management of the organization.
Conclusion
This report represents the compelling analysis of the case study and the action plans to solve the problems faced by the BPO. There are two main problems faced by the BPO and the first problem is to find out an effective way to reply the Sam Regan on his mail about the operational problem of the company. The second problem, the company facing is to improve the health and welfare delivery process in the BPO. These problems can be resolved by giving proper training to the employees as well as by hiring the new case manager in order to handle these issues and focus more on the client’s expectations. The simulation models and the six sigma models are also suggested, in order to solve the problems of the company. The implementation of the plans should be done efficiently and effectively in order to get the better results. It has been analyzed that the company is not making any profits because of the low quality of the delivery processes. However, training, selection of new employees and the quality control are some of the recommendations to solve the problems.
References
Barjis, J., & Pergl, R. (2014). Enterprise and Organizational Modeling and Simulation. Springer. Retrieved from https://books.google.co.in/books?id=clCqBAAAQBAJ&dq=case+study+of+failure+of+simulation+model+in+BPO&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Bonacorsi, S. (2012). A Case for Simulation. Bonacorsi Consulting, LLC. Retrieved from https://www.palisade.com/downloads/pdf/A_Case_for_Simulation.pdf
Breyfogle, F., Cupello, J., & Meadows, B. (2000). Managing Six Sigma: A Practical Guide to Understanding, Assessing, and Implementing the Strategy That Yields Bottom-Line Success. John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved from https://books.google.co.in/books?id=Jg7GDoxGPFsC&dq=failure+of+implementing+in+six+sigma+in+BPOs&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Chakravorty, S. (2010, January). Where Process-Improvement Projects Go Wrong. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703298004574457471313938130
Emmett, H. (2007). Simulation and Lean Six Sigma. Retrieved from https://www.hksq.org/simulation_and_lean_6s.pdf?bcsi_scan_64741547a7fe261b=0&bcsi_scan_filename=simulation_and_lean_6s.pdf
Erdem, A. (2007). Simulation modeling for call center management: A case study in private bank. Retrieved from https://isletmeiktisadi.istanbul.edu.tr/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Yonetim-58-2007-1.pdf
Kannan, N. (2006, May). Leveraging Lean Six Sigma in Business Process Outsourcing. Retrieved from https://www.sourcingmag.com/leveraging-lean-six-sigma-in-business-process-outsourcing/
Khatri, V. (2009, January). Common Six Sigma Projects In Bpo. Retrieved from https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/topic/816-common-six-sigma-projects-in-bpo/
Meyer, L., & Scrima, T. (2006). Business Process Optimization: Combining Project Management and Six Sigma Best Practices to Better Understand and Optimize Critical Business Processes. Retrieved from https://depts.washington.edu/pmgroup/GlobalCongress2006/GBS03_wp.pdf
Ogdoc, L. (2015, May). Emerging New Economies: A Case Study of Lean Six Sigma in BPO Industry. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/emerging-new-economies-case-study-lean-six-sigma-bpo-industry-ogdoc
Saxena. (2009). Business Process Outsourcing for Strategic Advantage. Excel Books. Retrieved from https://books.google.co.in/books?id=SASVHWF8HvcC&dq=failure+of+implementing+in+six+sigma+in+BPOs&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Sharma, M., Pandla, K., & Gupta, P. (2014). Case study on Six Sigma at Wipro Technologies: Thrust on Quality. Retrieved from https://www.iitk.ac.in/infocell/announce/convention/papers/Changing%20Playfield-04-Manisha%20Sharma,%20Kapil%20Pandla,%20Prasanth%20Gupta.pdf
Srinivasan, S. (2017). Simulation Modeling Best Addition to Analysis Toolkit. Retrieved from https://www.isixsigma.com/tools-templates/simulation/simulation-modeling-best-addition-analysis-toolkit/
Wipro. (2010). Process modeling & simulation. Retrieved from https://www.wipro.com/documents/resource-center/library/process-modeling-simulation.pdf?bcsi_scan_64741547a7fe261b=0&bcsi_scan_filename=process-modeling-simulation.pdf
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