Communication Plan Essay

Section II: Communication Plan Jim Jimenez, MGT311 Sept 11, 2013 Professor Jimenez Riordan Manufacturing Part II Communication Plan Strategy Riordan Manufacturing is implementing a Customer Management System across all its operating groups. The system is a critical business decision and is spearheaded by Riordan’s Senior Management Group. After a number of internal studies and review of our current information systems Riordan as an organizational group has determined that one central integrated Customer Management System (CMS) will position the organization to meet a number of key goals and marketing strategies that helps Riordan to meet our customers’ demands and growth requirements. Outline key concerns and what areas of the business will be impacted by the implementation of the CMS system. The CMS system will impact all areas of the Riordan’s operations. This is the reason upper management is taking a direct role in the presentation and implementation of this critical system. At the start of the year Riordan will post a number of notices at the December company meeting, in all the production floors banners will be placed with the production floors of all the Riordan’s manufacturing plants with the themed â€Å"Unifying a Global Team† as the CMS system change message. In January management will lead the kickoff of the CMS project with a company-wide presentation of the reasons for the CMS project, the impact on all operations, the impact for everyone and more importantly the benefits of the CMS project. Outline of the January presentation as follows: Areas affected by the CMS change: The CMS project will unify all database or information regarding our customers on one system. CMS will eliminate the problems faced by rapid growth and legacy software. Different regional groups complained that isolated system databases were not being updated and information was not accurate. CMS address all these requirements and  provides centralized database management. All divisions will be using the same software applications and data entered will be accurate across all the divisions’ regards of the geographical location. The need for a centralized and modern CMS system cannot be stressed. Our customer s are global, they are demanding immediate information across the different regions that Riordan operates. In order for Riordan to grow and provide the services our customer are demanding Riordan needs to change and keep up with our customers. Management realizes the CMS system will impact every employee at Riordan and has developed a training and development schedule that will be provided to management, supervisors, leads and to every employee that interfaces with the CMS system. Progress will be highlighted at our quarterly companywide meetings and regularly be highlighted in the Riordan What’s UP newsletter. Work Groups will be formed based on functional areas lead by group supervisors that will address any concerns and encourage everyone to learn and work with the new CMS system. In summary outlined of the new CMS system to be implemented at Riordan. January kickoff – Companywide presentation by management on the reasons for rolling out the CMS system. Review of all areas impacted, benefits and time schedule for implementation. Quarterly meetings – Companywide to present progress and highlight all our successes and any group or individual contributions to the success of the project. Mid-year (July) – Recap of how the CMS project is doing companywide at our family picnic and at all the production areas. Year-end Review and highlight all our Unified Global Team success ! In additions our monthly newsletter will present local success stories and how our employees are adapting to the new system. We will also have our production floor success parties focusing on local group success and provide ongoing status of the CMS implementation. s creating a new team for the newly designed CardiCare Value heart valves division. The task is to identify what strategy will be implemented to get this work team built and ready to take on the tasks for production of CardiCare Values. A number of strategies have been presented in MGT311. Following is a brief description of some of the team strategies that are effective in a manufacturing environment. Secondly a choice of what strategy to implement and the pros and cons (challenges) for selecting this  direction, implementation steps and what measures will be implemented to monitor if the strategy has been successful. According to Robbins & Jones Work Teams are positive synergies through coordinated effort, meaning the performance is greater than the sum of the individual inputs (page 315). Possible team strategies; Self-managed work teams are groups of employees (10 to 15 in number) who perform highly related or interdependent jobs and take on many of the responsibilities of thei r former supervisors. Cross-Functional Teams made up of employees from about the same hierarchical level but different work areas, coming together to accomplish a task, virtual team made up members that are not in the same physical location (definitely not a choice for this organization) and MBO or Management by Objectives which is a system in which managers and their employees jointly decide on goals, areas of responsibilities, and desired results. The new work group will be composted of many current managers, supervisors and employees from different departments. This intact group should help in getting a good running start and move forward quickly. Regardless if we are building a team existing or new members or members from other departments, temporary teams or task directed teams there are important rules that help in creating highly effective teams. Clear Purpose: group members must understand the goals and objectives for this production team. Employees should be provided with clear direction and it is critical that all managers and supervisors receive buy in (e.g. ownership) from the existing employees and make everyone aware that there are open lines of communication. Identify all areas of training and assessment of any skill development for all employees. Great that they know and are familiar with the organization, but they are now doing a new operation and this may require changes, or new ways to getting the job done right. Outline roles and assignments for all employees (managers, supervisors, leads and employees). Stress open communications and outline 30, 60 and 90 day team and group progress reports.