Case study analysis “w3 southern kentucky university bookstore”

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…