Today's session (5 September 2016)

Hi everyone

Today we met out first industry guest, who came in to talk with us about the importance of problem solving and decision making in the business environment.

Up until now, much of our classroom discussions have been about PSDM theory, tools, techniques and the models that academics have developed as they try to explain PSDM theory-in-action. This discussion has been a good starting point and it has allowed us to develop a framework for our understanding of PSDM in a wide range of settings (such as personal life, inter-personal activity and business). However, sitting in a classroom discussing other people’s perspectives is not a particularly good way to prepare ourselves for what actually happens in the ‘real world’ (whether that world is related to business, social, recreation or anything else).

(Arguably, sitting in a classroom isn’t a particularly good way to experience PSDM or to apply our learnings in a practical setting. This is why your Assignment 1 reflections on the things that you have experienced are so important to developing your experiential understanding of the PSDM topic.)

Our industry guests help us to develop our understanding of PSDM (and the strengths and weaknesses of the theoretical material that we have been examining in class) by sharing their knowledge with us. By looking at real-life case studies (and being able to hear about these situations first-hand) we should be better prepared for our own excursions into the workplace!

Our guest today was Simon Jones from Thermoplastic Engineering (http://www.thermoplastic.co.nz/), a local engineering and manufacturing business in Porirua. This business specialises in rigid plastics manufacturing, including fume cupboards, fume extraction fans, fume scrubbing systems, and specialised forensics products. They also produce a range of laboratory furniture, chemical storage cabinets, laboratory tapware, and specialty products. Thermoplastics products are used by laboratories, research institutions, universities, tertiary institutions, secondary schools, hospitals, the manufacturing sector, the dairy industry and Police.

As you can imagine, Thermoplastic’s products need to meet exacting requirements in order to do their jobs properly (e.g. health and safety standards). The business also needs to adhere to OSH requirements, employment law and other pieces of legislation that affect New Zealand business operations.

Simon started by telling us a bit about his background and how he came to be at Thermoplastic. He then set us a series of challenges, based on problems that Thermoplastics has (or is) experiencing.

We started by jointly exploring a current problem, based around project managing a new contract. Simon showed us some of the things that are relevant to managing a project of this nature and we started grouping some of the issues in order to make them more manageable. In some cases we needed to be linear and logical in our though processes and in other situations we found that we could be more creative in offering solutions.

From Simon’s point-of-view, many of the issues around a new project are similar to previous projects that he has undertaken before and this helps him to arrive quickly at standard solution sets. He knows the parameters of these projects better than we do, so he was able to guide us through some of the thinking that helps him to solve these problems and to make good decisions.

We then looked at another problem, around a production bottleneck that Thermoplastics is experiencing. Simon reiterated that all situations ultimately involve people and that often there is a combination of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ requirements in reaching a workable solution.

Simon’s input helped us to see that PSDM in the workplace isn’t always a ‘text book’ scenario. His experience and understanding of his business allows him to solve problems in ways that we may struggle with (given our limited knowledge of the situation and acceptable outcomes).

Looking ahead, we have only a few more weeks until the end of the term. Remember that you will need to hand in Assignment 2 by by 4:00pm on Friday 16 September 2016 (and I assume that everyone is on track with this assignment as I haven’t heard of any one experiencing any difficulties with this assignment). You will also need to make a presentation to the class as part of your assessment for Assignment 2 and we will be allocating times for this shortly.

You will each also need to give me your calculation of the number of jellybeans in the jar before Monday 19 September so that we can find a winner before the end of the term. Go over some of the strategies that we have discussed previously and work out which one will give you the best result. Remember that you can view (and handle) the jar during work hours as it lives in the faculty admin office. The only things that you aren’t allowed to do are (1) to remove it from the office or (2) to open it up!

Cheers

Phil