Problem:
Question 1. Review the case study about Thomson Reuters and Citi about digitalization of their financial operations;
Answer the questions based on the information provided in the case.
a) How is operational performance measured in the case? What were the performance levels before and after process improvements?
b) Explain clearly what type of process changes resulted in performance improvement.
c) Define two additional measures of operational performance that can help project managers evaluate the partnership between Thomson Reuters and Citi in processing business operations. Explain clearly what these metrics are, provide a formula, and discuss why these measures would be useful to the Thomson Reuters and/or Citi
Question 2. Wouldice hospital only provides care to hernia patients. Each patient spends 3 nights at the hospital. This includes preparation of the patient before the hernia surgery and recovery after the hernia surgery. As a new initiative, Wouldice tries to adopt less invasive procedures to reduce a patient's length of stay at the hospital. Suppose the hospital invests in new technology and reduces the hospital stay per patient to 2 nights. The hospital has 130 rooms and one bed in each room. Surgeries are performed 7 days a week, Monday through Sunday. The number of surgeries performed per day is the same for each day of the week. NOTE: SHOW ALL YOUR WORK.
a) How many surgeries must be performed on average per day for the daily bed utilization to be at least 90%?
b) 60 surgeries are scheduled per day 7 days a week. Each surgeon works 5 days a week and performs at most 4 surgeries a day. How many surgeons are needed on average for the weekly average surgeon utilization to be below 90%?
Question 3. Many companies that sell goods (motorcycles, bags, jeans, etc.) on the Web allow the buyers to customize a product. Working from a "basic" model, the customer can choose from an assortment of textiles, prints, colors, covers, designs, accessories, and so on. Many of the web sites are set up so that the customer cannot only select from the extensive list of accessories but also see exactly what the final product will look like. Below is a list of websites where you can purchase a customized product, but you can also pick your own company that allows customization of its products.
"Build your own Harley" - You can build your own motorbike
"Customize a bag"- You can choose the design of your own bag
"Build your own Mini Cooper" - You can customize your own car . Choose one line of product, e.g. messenger bags at Timbuk2 and configure your own product.
a) Explain how you configure your own product? What types of choices do you have?
b) How many different product configurations do you think are possible for this line? Give an exact number. Could every customer have a different product?
c) What may be some pros and cons of mass customization? First think by yourself. You can do a research for this question online, however you have to give a reference for any idea you use that is not originally yours.