Project Planning and Scheduling

Most recently, as Verizon has continued to expand its corporation into a more customer oriented company, they have developed a portion of Verizon called, "Fios." This was a huge step for Verizon, and a huge project at that. There was much planning, and scheduling that went into this new aspect of Verizon. Planning refers to the decisions required in the beginning of the project. The planning is the groundwork for any major movement within the company, including Verizon. It helps to establish the direction in which the project will go. In terms of scheduling, this is where the project management must step up, and take control. The project plan is then specified in much more detail. When developing a project such as Fios, there is alot to take in to account. Customers are being presented with something brand new, and out of the ordinary. Verizon has developed a projcet that allows customers to have an all inclusize service of telephone service, television service(high definition) and others in one. Adding perks such as speed and convenience has to work together to benefit the customers in the best and most efficient way possible. After the planning and scheduling, the chapter is no yet closed. Project control is important in tracking the work as it is being performed within the particular project. Verizon Fios has been a huge step in the movement of Verizon as a company. Just the same, with any other project, Verizon will have to figure out the glitches and quirks along the way. As for now, Fios has been a huge stepping stone for Verizon as a company, and a customer oriented one at that.

Exercise 7

Supply Chain Management

Most likely Verizon follows a typical supply chain management system. The only difference is that they are buying finished goods, such as phones and modems, therefore they do not manufature anything. I would assume that their products are shipped to the Verizon warehouses from distributors or other companies such as Motorola. Then, they are shipped to the retail establishments, which is where they are purchased by the customers. All of this proves that it is a downstream flow of products.

As far as performance goes, I don't believe that there are any complaints. If you need a product from Verizon, most likely they will have it in stock. Therefore, they are consistent when it comes to supply chain management performance.

Exercise 6

There was no evidence found on Verizon using QC charts for quality control, but I am sure that they use them. There are many different variables for all Verizon services and products, so there has to be a system in place to control all of these different variables.

Being that Motorola developed the Six Sigma method, Verizon may use the Six Sigma process of define, measure, analyze, improve, and control, because they sell Motorola products.

Most likely Verizon uses Pareto Analysis for continuous improvement, especially when selecting new phones or other products to sell.

As a group we thought about Verizon Wireless and some of the different phones they sell. We know a lot of people who own Verizon phones, and we know that a lot of them have internal problems and stop working after a short period of use. There is obviously a problem in quality control for the products they sell, so maybe they should do some more research on the different phones before they put them out for sale.

Maintainability is also and important fact for Verizon to have for theor customers, since customers have an access to be able to maintain their cell phone in a good shape and even if they are not able to do that Verizon would be able to fix their product or either replace them.

Quality of Verizon

The dimensions of quality that they applied to their product of service is aveilability since it defines the continuity of service to the customers. Verizon wants to keep their customers after their contract is done, so they decided to give a great discount to renew your contract or even getting a cell phone for free. They also also want to emphesizes with the reliability since it refers to the length of time that the product fails. Verizon gives an opportunity to have an insurence that would be able to usedto renew your cell phone after a year or if anythign happens to it then it also can be replace too. Verizon want to have their customer happy and making sure they have a great customer service also.
Some ideas that canbe recommend to Verizon is to advertize more those cell phones that have a better quality rather than those that just looks good, but easy to get damage.

Service for Customers needed

Verizon want to be able to halp as many necessaries that customer needs that they try their best to help cutomers to be satisfy and happy to have Verizon. In this Verizon Youtube.com video shows how they created a way for those that are deaf to be able to get help from Verizon.

Verizon Service via ASL Videophone

Service Process Design

The 3 elements of the service-product bundle

Tangible Service – Verizon has a variety of cell phones and a variety of accessories for the customer’s desire and even for their own needs.
Psychological benefits- The way customer gets satisfaction for the variety and quality of cell phones, accessories, the treatment of the staff that would make them feel at home and free to pick the things that you would like at the reach of a phone call, internet access, or by stopping in to a store.
Physical Goods- Customers would be satisfied to find a great way of coming out of a store with what they want and things that they need the most or more.

· The cell they operate in on the service matrix is the customer router since they have someone helping them to get what they want and with the different access that they need and accessories needed. Customer decides what they want while Verizon assemble everything together for the costumer’s wants.
· Some types of customer contact they encounter by either online by asking question in their online accounts, by calling the customer service of Verizon or also by stopping by a store and getting help from the customer service staff or other representatives. They would be able to response to the needs or the questions that the customers have, depending on the needs of the customers it would be faster to get an answer by the phone. Verizon’s customers can use self services by getting into their online account and ordering what they need or either by calling a Verizon representative.
· Verizon does use technology to have in track the needs of the customers and also by having costumers have their own account that would be able to order what they need. They do use focused in operations to have customer’s satisfaction. They support their employees by educating them about the service and also by letting them have the opportunity of help for tuition in schools and also by having enough employees schedule to work at any time that customers may need.
· The guarantees that they offer is by offering costumers a plan that if you loose a cell phone or any damages that would not count water in the cell phone would be able to get a brand new one and also when someone first buy a cell phone would be able to replace it for a different one if you did not like the one you were offered but it has a time limit of a month.

Exercise 3

What type of product flow do they use?

Verizon uses Continuous product flow when offering services and products to their customers. Products (such as cell phones) and services are supplied in a continuous fashion and tend to be highly standardized and automated with very high volumes of production.

What type of customer order do they process?

Even though verizon offers more of a service than an actual product, I believe the type of customer order they use is make-to-stock. This is because, they already have the products on hand in the store. When a customer buys a phone they are buying from the inventory in that store. This also goes with the service plans. Although they are somewhat customizable, there are base plans that you have to buy, then you can add whatever extras you want or need.

Which cell do they fall into in the process characteristics matrix?

The cell that I would say Verizon falls into is the Continuous cell under make-to-stock.

What are some of the factors influencing their process selection?

Some of the factors that influences their process would be the way that they have different companies providing the products (cell phones or accesories) that Verizon's customers would need.

Can they adopt any of the mass customization methods discussed?

I think Modular production can be adopted by Verizon because you can choose a type of plan that you would like from one of their services and customize it to meet your needs.

http://www.connectlive.com/events/verizon/

Helping Others..

Verizon's new way to attract people..

Verizon has created many ways to attract people starting from commercials on television, radio or advertising on the streets. In coherence to this Verizon decided to get more interest from their customers by helping those that needs the most. They decided to help families that needs the most to come in to their house and create a better atmosphere by providing more technology in their house. As an example you can watch this video that will show much more information about what they provide for free and giving those that are needed. You can either watch the video in Youtube http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=verizon&search_type=
or go to their own website
http://www.2pointhome.com/show/
I hope you enjoy it and if you know people that would need this change do not fear to add them, you never know if you can help them more than what you think.

Where to get the Information from?

This is the website where you can find information of the inventory management that Verizon uses. http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/company-strategy-outsourcing/6169780-1.html

Inventory Management

Business wire published on August 27, 2001 that Verizon Enterprise had a new network inventory management solution for the network operation. Visionel(R) corporation is a leader in delivering the network inventory and configuration management solutions, they decided that since Verizon is such a big company in networking they would have to have an inventory more sucessful that would provide enough goods for their customers and not have many of them stuck in an inventory room, it would be better to use up-to-the-minute inventory that views the topology that detailes the configuration and connectivity data.

It also helps verizon's customer's networks performance and qualability and reliability. Visionel also provides Verizon network engineers with an up to date view of each customer's network that would be easier to find the quantity if how many customer's are needed of Verizon's goods.

"he configuration and change management applications to service provider, network, outsources, and large enterprises for the design, deployment and operation of complex, geographically distributed networks.

In the picture above we can see the way Visionael would help the cutomer's outrage and also would help Verizon to keep their inventory in a way that if they need anything they would have to troble of having them in the back room, but also by not having too many inventory that can decrease their revenues.

Verizon's Background

Verizon was founded in 1983 by Bell Atlantic Corporation. on June 30, 2000 they decided to change the name from Bell Atlantic Corporation to Verizon Communication Inc. since the Bell Atlantic Corporation had seven more Bell operating Company so, they decided to keep it as one. By being a one company Verizon made a huge impact on the United States's economy since now it had become the number one company in the United States.
Their Research & Development team and the Marketing/ Sales has provided a great impact on the revenue of Verizon since they have crated new services that would satisfy the customer's needs and wants.

Comercial of Verizon

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=pi9vbsS1Bw8

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