A process is an ongoing day-to-day repetitive set of activities the print shop performs when producing its products. How are these customized eBooks different from a standard printing process?

Read other students post and respond. A minimum of 2 peer-reviewed source listed in the appropriate APA format at the end of the post. Post: Printing books in a print shop, especially large quantities of a single book, is a process. A process is an ongoing day-to-day repetitive set of activities the print shop performs when producing its products. How are these customized eBooks different from a standard printing process? What characteristics make these customized eBooks a project? Customized books differ from the standard printing process because these requests are tailored to meet a specific customer need that varies by the client and the needed subject matter. Customized books increase the product mix but do have the ability to be streamlined by grouping together similar processes within that mix. The characteristics that determine a need for a project are all the challenges the company is experiencing that are symptoms of a broken process and include: rework, inefficiency, lack of process clarity, accurate cost allocation and tracking, and lack of employee training. 2. Who are the stakeholders in these eBook projects? How are they involved in or affected by an eBook project? The stakeholders include the professors, students, the academic institutions, Global Green Books Publishing, and their employees. Professors An eBook project to streamline processes would increase the efficiency and quality of the materials requested. Students- The students are affected by either receiving quality deficient texts or receiving the required texts late. This affects their ability to perform in their course and affects the credibility of their academic institution. Academic Institutions- More reliable and quality materials would positively affect the institutions reputation in their ability to supply high quality educational material to their students in a timely fashion. Improved quality and efficiency would stop the school from sourcing for other publishers. Global Green Books Publishing- A project that establishes processes to increase quality, training, efficiency, and correct pricing will lead to increased profitability and competitiveness among other publishing organizations. It also affects their reputation and could lead to increased business. The Employees- Without a project aimed to control the process and its quality, the employees are not set up to be successful in their jobs. Business loss may result from sub-standard performance and cause Green Books to downsize, therefore, affecting employment. Employees may also become frustrated with the confusion in the organization and choose to leave. 3. Why is it important to have a defined project scope? Why is it important to make sure there is agreement about the scope and what will be done in producing each eBook? The project scope defines what needs to be done. It is all the work necessary to produce all project deliverables, satisfy the sponsor or customer that all the work and deliverables meet the requirements and acceptance criteria, and accomplish the project objective (Gido & Clements, 2018). It establishes an understanding of expectation among stakeholders regarding how and what work will be performed. An agreement about the scope of the project prevents scope creep; the expansion of the scope of a project by making changes to the scope without a formal approval process. This was evident when Global Green Books received orders and then found the jobs to be much larger than expected. 4. What kinds of information would you want supervisors to have available to them in the Manage Production phase? Why? A major challenge for companies today is to manage a huge amount of product variants and build operations at the same time (Falck, Ortengren, Rosenqvist, & Soderberg, 2017). Order forecasting, order transparency, order priority, and established lead times Allows managers the ability to plan based on an accurate forecast, the ability to see which step in the process each book is in, and an agreed upon standard timeframe to turn the product around. Standard process templates- Allows the operators to perform each task the same way each time for each variable of part. Once processes are established, cycle times can be determined and a complete expected cycle time for each process and the overall process can be determined and improved. Standard work times- Production environments need consistency in manning to operate successfully. Flexible work schedules are not conducive to manufacturing. Training- Standard training for all employees based on established procedures. 5. Do you think developing a standard job template would be useful for Global Green Books? Why? What advantages could it give them in planning work? Yes. Standard job templates ensure each employee is performing the same activity the same way each time. It also serves as a reference for each process variance. This allows for a more efficient process, increased quality, and introduces a way to manage and measure the processes. It aids in planning because similar processes from unrelated jobs may be performed together. This will increase efficiency and allow for batching of some product mixes. If the manager has visibility to orders, they can plan the production cycle to optimize their resources by grouping similar processes. 6. What other information, if any, would you like to see included in the standard job template? Why? A workstation cycle diagram. It is important for the operator to understand the complete cycle of work needed for any given product. They should understand how they are expected to receive the product at the start of their process and how they are expected to pass along the product to the next process. It allows for internal accountability and quality adherence across each work element. 7. Create a Work Breakdown Structure for an eBook project. Please see attachment for WBS, it will not copy in the forum. 8. What are the major phases of work for making an eBook? I. Receive Order II. Plan Order III. Production Phase IV. Manage Production Phase 9. What are the steps in each phase? I. Receive Order Established Lead Time Order Submittal / Verification Material Check Permissions Validation Order Acceptance / Denial II. Plan Order Planning Prioritization Scheduling Process Designation for Product III. Production Phase Process Designation for Product / Permissions Required Start Production IV. Manage Production Phase Track Cost Problem Resolution Quality Adherence Stop Production 10. Can you identify any sub steps for any of the steps? What are they? V. Manage Production Phase Track Cost Problem Resolution Quality Adherence Stop Production Delivery Verification from Customer of Product Acceptance