The formal report proposal was to indicate to my professor what I wanted to write my formal report about, and exactly how I was going to go about it. It includes what problem I am attempting to tackle, along with the proposed solution and the scope of how I will come to that solution. I included all of the necessary information, however I feel like I could have expanded on a few topics before submitting this assignment. I wanted to have a better grasp on the conclusion before submitting, but I was unable to do so.
The progress report was intended to alert my professor on where I was on the report and how far along I had made it, while the survey questions illustrated what I was giving to my participants and how I was getting my information.
Formal Report Proposal
To: Dr. Erika Paterson, University of British Columbia
From: William Jackson
Date: June 15, 2021
Subject: Proposal for Increasing the Efficiency of Online Orders at Richmond Golftown
Addressed to: Derrick Tiu (Store Manager, Richmond Golftown)
Introduction:
With the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the world, there has been a significant impact on business across the globe. Here in Canada, we have gone through multiple lockdowns, and even experienced the full closure of businesses. Even today, businesses are open here in BC but many recreational activities remain closed across the country. This has led many people to play Golf, as it has been one of few social activities to remain open. Due to the availability of the game, Golftown has seen a tremendous increase in sales and new customers. We have received tremendous amounts of online orders, with little time to figure out the most efficient way to carry out these orders.
Statement of Problem:
With the increase of online orders flooding the store, the company has begun shipping online orders out of individual stores rather than independently on our home warehouse. This was a necessary step to keep up with the influx of orders, yet it has not been carried out in an efficient manner. The Richmond store specifically sees the most amount of traffic, both in store and online, in the entire company. The highest demands in the company need to be met with an efficient plan to carry out the work, yet this has yet to be done. Quite often our store will receive more orders in a given day than those which are completed, causing orders to build up over time. This results in longer and longer delays for customers to receive their products they purchased. We have seen many days where our outstanding online order tally exceeds 200+; it is imperative we find a more productive solution to our online order situation.
Proposed Solution:
A possible way to solve this inefficiency would be to create an online order team, whose sole purpose is to overlook, pick, and pack all of the orders we receive. As we have it now, the employees who work on online orders are different each and every shift. Many wok on it once a week, sometimes even less, and they don’t have a proper system or the knowledge to carry out the tasks efficiently. If we create a team of three to four employees who work on the orders everyday, they will gain knowledge on the processing system, the picking system, and verifying system, all aspects of the job that will effect efficiency.
Scope:
To increase the efficiency and productivity of picking, verifying, and sending out online orders, I plan to pursue the following areas of inquiry:
- What are the current methods of processing online orders?
- What are the online order methods of other stores? Are they more or less efficient than us?
- Which of the store employees would be best at facilitating the online orders?
- Do we have the proper payroll facilities to carry out this online order team?
Methods:
To answer the questions stated above, I will conduct some surveys and interviews with store employees and managers. Furthermore, I will have to test out a group of employees to carry out the activities of this online team and record the amount of orders they process and compare the findings to previous numbers.
My Qualifications:
I have been a part-time employee of the Richmond Golftown for the better part of 6 years, and I have had many roles within the store. I started doing beginner tasks such as stocking and selling, but I have grown to handle larger issues like inventory problems and customer relation issues. I now lead the facilitation of our store’s online orders, along with one other colleague, and believe I have the qualifications to resolve the inefficiencies in our online ordering process, as I have ample firsthand experience of these inefficiencies.
Conclusion:
With the help of surveys and interviews with employees and managers, I will be able to find out how to create a full-time online order team to facilitate sending orders out. I will track their progress, and compare their completed order numbers to the current numbers, and an increase in efficiency should be able to be observed.
Progress Report
To: Dr. Erika Paterson, Professor for ENGL 301
From: William Jackson
Date: June 24, 2021
Subject: To Note Progress on Formal Report
In accordance with the requirements with assignment 2.3, I will be providing a discussion of the progress of my Formal Report.
The audience of my report will be primarily to my overseeing managers at Richmond Golftown, but will also have use to all of the employees in the store, as well as potentially managers in other stores. The reader will be able to read the findings from two differing online order methods, and view graphs and charts showing the difference in productivity between the two.
The purpose is to identify a more productive method to completing online orders, with the intention of improving customer satisfaction with quicker response times, as well as to increase sales numbers with the ability to fulfill more orders.
This report is significant because if a new, more productive online order method can be achieved, then implementing this method can have tremendous implications to the company’s overall success, improving customer satisfaction and increasing sales.
Research Plan:
- The current problem is the inefficient methods being used to complete our never-ending online orders. It is causing customers to wait days at hand before their purchases are even sent out.
- The primary data sources will mainly consist of anonymous surveys given to store managers and employees to evaluate what the consensus and recommendations are in forming a online order team, or some other method to create a more productive online ordering process.
- Survey questions can be found at the following link:
- https://blogs.ubc.ca/willj99/2021/06/26/lesson-2-3-survey-questions-for-formal-report/
- Tasks that will be performed: survey generation then sending it out to employees, creating models and graphs for survey data, analyzing data retrieved from surveys, creating models and graphs for productivity of old method, then creating models and graphs for productivity of new method, and comparing and contrasting results.
- My writing schedule:
- I first need to obtain approval on my survey questions so I can send those out as soon as possible.
- Once surveys have been completed I can work on creating the visuals from the data obtained from the surveys.
- These will be done for the draft due date of July 14th
Survey
I am an undergraduate student at UBC majoring in Philosophy, participating in a technical writing assignment. The purpose of the assignment is to acquire data, so as to analyze and interpret it with the goal of providing the company with a more efficient way of manifesting and completing online orders. The final report will be addressed to the General Manager of the store, Derrick Tiu, and if significant results have been found, there will be a request to change the methods of our online ordering system. The survey contains 9 questions, most of which being multiple choice and should not take more than 10 minutes of your time. Your responses are of course voluntary and will remain anonymous. Please note that your replies are greatly valued, and I thank you for participating in this survey!
Survey Questions:
- How productive do you think the current sales order methods are? 1 being very unproductive, 5 being very productive.
- 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5
- How important do you think productivity is when it comes to completing online sales orders?
- 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5
- Do you think employees should go through a training tutorial for online sales?
- Yes
- No
- If you answered yes to question 3, briefly, what do you think this training should look like?
- Do you think the same group of employees should do online orders?
- Yes
- No
- Do you think employees should specialize on certain tasks when completing online orders (i.e., one employee is specialized to one specific task)?
- Yes
- No
- Do you think it would be helpful if there was more routine procedures with online order manifestation (e.g. working on it at the same times)?
- Yes
- No
- How helpful would it be to chart the amount of online orders completed each day? 1 being not helpful at all, 5 being very helpful
- 1 / 2 / 3/ 4 / 5
- Do you have any specific ideas as to how to improve our total productivity of online order manifestations? Please explain
https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0xqLWDI8yUA9UMe
Please add any additional thoughts or questions:
