I was the 2008 Manager of Hired Hands Moving Company (HHMC), located at Student Agencies in College-town. As the manager, I had a staff throughout the year of anywhere from 5-25 student laborers as well as an office assistant and assistant manager. Scheduling a moving appointment requires input from a customer, a short burst of managerial communication to confirm availability of resources for scheduling, followed by an appointment and service as an output. While the most labor intensive part of the operation is the actual moving service, scheduling and logistics is the most important aspect and requires the most staff collaboration. This required FTF (in office) man hours, until eventually communication technologies allowed for effective business processes outside of the office.
Managing a moving company in Ithaca during an academic semester is very hard to do without being in the office for most of the business day. However, the staff at HHMC is always filled with students and so more often than not the company was unable to completely staff the office phones during busy academic weeks. It is crucial that staff maintain close proximity to the office phone so that potential customers wouldn't be dissuaded from moving with our company or call one of our competitors instead.
The 2007-2008 managerial staff (Group of 3) was charged with developing new ways to effectively operate the business during periods with limited availability of office staff. Our goal was to maintain the operational capabilities of the company but with 2-3 hours of office time as opposed to the typical 6-8 hours. We also wanted procedures in place for operating the company during Cornell breaks, so that HHMC could be managed from another state or the manager's vacation spot.
Our group's goal then, described in the terms of our reading, was to allow inputs (from the customers) to be obtained without someone in the office vicinity, and for necessary communication between staff to take place simultaneously. For this purpose our appointments were inputed into a Google Calendar which the entire staff could see. Scheduled employees were given e-mail notifications which can be forwarded to their cell phones completing the most intensive process. Directions are communicated to the group of movers via Google Maps which is tied directly into the Calendar. The output is the scheduled appointment and eventually a service performed on future date. All of these tasks were able to now be performed at a distance and the result was a greater service volume and larger revenue.
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It seems to me that you use a lot of different tools that you integrate together manually. For example, you mention utilizing telephone, email Google calendars, Google Maps, and likely other tools as well. I believe that it would be interesting to see how well these tools actually integrate with each other, and perhaps research the creation of a tool that better facilitates this workflow.
ReplyDeleteGoogle Maps and Google Calendar already integrate quite well, but do they fit the actual task at hand? Is there a way that they could integrate better, perhaps with Gmail, and better serve your needs? I'm sure that the answer is yes.
This may be an interesting final project to explore. Observing how people use existing tools and designing a new tool to fulfill their needs.
The challenges you faced during this position seem very daunting. I like how resourceful you and your staff were in finding creative ways to maintain the business even during vacation periods.
ReplyDeleteThe use of a communal calendar like Google Calendar made everyone's lives easier, and allowed employees and managers to check their schedules without the hassle of physically going down to the office location. In fact, the entire suite of Google applications -- especially since they integrate so well together, were probably the most efficient and best solution to your problem. Good job!