Two short case studies – cover both.
Hint: research unfamiliar terms on the Internet.
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W3 Southern Kentucky University Bookstore
Southern Kentucky University (SKU) bookstore is beginning a major project of automating its inventory
system. The bookstore is organized into four business units: Textbooks, General Merchandise—insignia
merchandise (sweatshirts, coffee mugs, etc.), General Books, and Convenience (candy, soft drinks, etc.).
Lisa O’Brien, the bookstore manager, has decided to name each business unit supervisor as the PM of
his or her area’s automation project. Each department has its own information systems person assigned
so Lisa believes that each area can work independently and all meet her completion deadline.
The project is scheduled for completion right before school starts in the fall, with staggered “Go Live”
dates for each of the business units. Each unit will do its own data entry and work with the others on
testing and implementation.
Missy Motz is the supervisor of the Textbook division of the bookstore. Missy is concerned that her
department will not have enough resources to complete the automation project. The textbook department
is always swamped with professor book orders right before school starts. Missy thinks she has enough
staff to handle the data entry, but is concerned about supplying personnel at the times and quantities
required as the implementation is phased in over each of the business units.
Missy knows a little bit about resource allocation techniques. She remembers that one of the most
effective allocation techniques is to work first on the activity with minimum slack, so she instructed her
staff to approach any tasks they are assigned as members of the project team on that basis.
Questions:
1. Is the minimum slack rule a reasonable way to schedule resources of the Textbook division? Why
or why not?
2. What complication is added by dividing this project into 4 separate projects?
Justify your answers by referring to the case study and other online (only) sources.W3 St. Margaret’s Hospital
Mary Lynn DeCold is the quality improvement director at St. Margaret’s Hospital, a large acute care
facility. She is responsible for monitoring all of the performance improvement projects that take place in
the hospital. At any given time numerous projects can be underway, some departmental and some
enterprise-wide efforts.
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is scheduled to conduct a survey of
St. Margaret’s in 9 months. It is a requirement of the accrediting agency that three performance
improvement projects be spotlighted during the survey. Mary Lynn wants to be sure that she picks three
projects that will be finished within the next month or two so that they have at least 6 months’ worth of
data to show that the project improved performance.
Mary Lynn is having trouble getting information on the status of the three projects she chose.
Communication between the project managers and the Quality Improvement Department is not always
timely. She wants to be sure that all three are completed in time before the survey is scheduled. Mary
Lynn also wants to find where the projects are in relation to each other, as they all need to be completed
by a certain date. She wonders how she can tell if they are behind or ahead of schedule.
Question:
1. What would you recommend Mary Lynn do?
Justify your answers by referring to the case study and other online (only) sources.
***please include introduction and conclusion for each case***as well as answer the questions…
