IE 256 TEAM Project

Engineering Management
Section: CA
Team 5
Instructor: Dr. Ali Rizwan

Student Student ID Name Role

Number
1 1937047 Abdulaziz Alsanie Leader
2 1846528 Ahmed Nazer Member
3 1855422 Ahmed Baabad Member
4 1767735 Abdullah Al-Haddad Member
5 1847997 Abdulbari Bawazir Member
6 1767735 Omar Redwan Member
Table of Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 2
Risks and Their Mitigating Actions .............................................................................................................. 7
Sales Forecasting .......................................................................................................................................... 9
Code of ethics ............................................................................................................................................. 14
Employer's Ethical and Professional analysis ............................................................................................. 15
Impacts: ....................................................................................................................................................... 16
References ................................................................................................................................................... 18
Appendix 1: Meeting Agendas ................................................................................................................... 19
Appendix 2: Meeting Minutes .................................................................................................................... 22

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Introduction
As a manager in any big company, there are some certain things and characteristics that
you need to have. In this course we have studied lots of qualities and methods the professional
managers use in any big company, and in this paper, we will try to implement a forecasting study
for one of the most famous furniture company which is RegalInHouse. This study aims to
enhance our experience in how to contact CEO – Mangers of big companies as well as to help us
to understand more about the current market situation and how we can apply this course
techniques in our current project.

Brief Introduction
RegalInHouse is considered one of the furniture companies that follow the new modern
era of selling their products. Even though it has more than ten branches in Saudi Arabia and 3 in
Europe, its income is heavily dependent on E-commerce. With over 80% of the revenue, the
company made a massive success in this field where now most people get their stuff and
products online. The company had many production factories where they considered one of the
best in the home furniture industry. They have plants in Turkey that are also responsible for
creating-making their bedding products, and their main furniture workshop is in Riyadh- Saudi
Arabia. With more than 250 employees who are accountable in warehouse managing and
production lines, this company is our case study focus. We will try to make forecasting for its
next period.

Project Charters
- Objective
Our objective is to implement what we have studied in the IE-256 course and use the
various tetchiness and methods to communicate with other companies while increasing our
experience to deal with these things more smoothly in the future.

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- Scope
In this project we will try to work on inside KSA data only with a time frame of 3 months
forecasting, all the resources and data we need will be delivered to us from the current
RegalInHouse E-commerce manager.
- Deliverables
Solid forecasting information

WBS
We have defined our activities that would need to be completed in the project life cycle,
then divided them into twelve tasks, and in each task, three subtasks follow. The first activity,
forecasting deals with all the nooks and crannies of the project forecasting. The second activity
deals with the different dimensions of Corporate responsibility, and the third activity deals with
constructing the project report and PowerPoint. Finally, the team planning aspect deals with the
planning that went in with the Regalinhouse project.

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 Figure 1: WBS

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PERT & CPM
“Pert is a flexible network model accommodates variations of time that usually happen in
real projects.” Therefore, to accommodate the summer semester short time frame, we used the
Pert method to find out what is the fastest time we can afford to finish our project while keeping
in mind slack activities. “CPM is a deterministic network model that gives an estimation of the
project with the help of fixed activity durations.” Consequently, after constructing our Pert
Diagram, we determined the critical path of our project: A-C-F-I-K-L-M (11 days).
Code Table 1
Code ID. Task
A Team planning (Introductory meeting)
B WBS
C Project Definition
D PERT & CPM
E Gantt chart
F information gathering
G Ethics
H Risks
I Analyzing data
J Impacts
K Discussing results
L Project Report
M Project Presentation
ID Current letter task
T The amount of time needed to finish the task
Slack The amount of free time we have
ES Earliest start time for the task
EF Earliest finish time for the task
LS Latest start time for the task
LF Latest finish time for the task

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 Figure 2: Pert & CPM Diagram

*Red ( ) indicates critical path

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Gantt Chart

We constructed our Gantt chart following the order of activities in the Pert Diagram. It
was essential to get a bird’s eyes on our tasks and see a manageable and an easy-to-follow
schedule that would guide us in the following days. Furthermore, we have split our plan into
three phases that would describe our current milestones: Team Planning, Implementation, and
wrapping up.

Figure 3: Gantt Chart

Risks and Their Mitigating Actions

To start any work or create it, you should be familiar with the risks that maybe face you;
this will help you to avoid these risks by applying the mitigating actions in case these risks occur.
In the Regalinhouse company, most activates are in the E-commerce sector, which is
proliferating, and expectations indicate that by the end of 2020, the sales may reach 27$ trillion

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(3)
. There are a lot of potential risks in this sector that can destroy the work or cause severe
damage that needed high cost and an extended period to repair it. Some of the risks faced by
regal in house company and their mitigating actions will mention below.

Phishing

Phishing operations are carried out through use-specific techniques. People are redirected
to unknown sites that may be fake sites that resemble websites that may be famous to the user;
this happens by sending attractive emails and offers. Figure (4) shows one of the phishing
websites that may appear to you when you shop online that can cause theft of the user data and
credit cards if the user follows these fake links. The company can avoid phishing websites by
protecting websites from being hacked and alert the user. Before starting the shopping process by
the phrase "don’t click on other links".

Figure 4: One of phishing website

Track preferences

The preferences tracker is the one who collects the data to create a database about the
Internet uses to understand the trends and behaviors of the users. In most cases, commercial sites
use them to track shoppers' trends and behaviors on the site. Sometimes it can be beneficial for
the user by providing the best offers that users search. However, misuse of the data makes it a

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bad thing, as it is used to sell it to other marketing companies, making it annoying to the user.
They can avoid this risk by protecting users' data from penetration or theft through a data
protection system against hackers.

Competition

One of the most critical challenges in the e-commerce sector is that it is easy to enter
competitors with the same products you sell. So, to avoid this, the company should provide a
special department to compare the prices and quality of the products with Competitors' products.
Also, work on satisfying the customer needs through Post-purchase support. One of the
Mitigating Actions is Competitive advantage that makes your products and services unique and
earns you customer loyalty.

Financial disputes

Another major problem faced by the e-commerce website is refunds and client disputes.
The unfortunate problem often happens when the customer pays for the service or product, and it
did not reach for him, or sometimes the product shown does not match to the real product. To
avoid these kinds of risks, the company should follow a specific policy to deal with them. For
example, give the customer three days to returning the products While ensuring product safety.
Also, the company should be ensuring that the items displayed have a realistic appearance and
look more like the actual product that will be delivered to the customers. As mentioned earlier,
the solution will reduce this type of problem, but it is impossible to eliminate it because we
cannot find work without mistakes.

Sales Forecasting

To help the organization understand sales behaviors and to properly plan for it, we have
gathered sales data of 16-months. And we will conduct our study on B&B Category as it is the
most stable category as we scanned sales date and divided it into different divisions. We will

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then compare methods to find out the best matching one in the selected period. All forecasting
periods would be 3-months (If Applicable).

Figure 5: 3-months moving average.

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 Figure 6: 3-months weighted moving average.

Moving Average
700,000
600,000
500,000
400,000
300,000
200,000
100,000
0

Bath & Bedding Sales 3 Months Moving Average 3 Months weighted moving average

Figure 7: Chart of both Moving average and Weighted moving average.

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 Figure 8: Exponential Smoothing with a=0.3, a=0.5, a=0.7 & a=0.65.

Exponential Smoothing
700000

600000

500000

400000

300000

200000

100000

Bath & Bedding Sales a=0.3 a=0.5 a=0.7 a=0.65

Figure 9: Chart of the Exponential Smoothing with a=0.3, a=0.5, a=0.7 & a=0.65.

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 METHODS COMPARISON
Bath & Bedding Sales 3 Months Moving Average 3 Months weighted moving average a=0.65

700000

600000

500000

400000

300000

200000

100000

Figure 10: Chart of Best Methods Comparison.

Brief Conclusion on Case Study.

After forecasting methods have been applied, in figure 6, the closest line the actual sales,
in general, is a=0.65, which we selected to be the one comparison bases. In figure 6, we can see
the closest method’s results to accuracy is Exponential Smoothing, as it depends mostly on the
previous period. Thus, it has a quick response to dynamic changes. The forecasting is far from
actual data in some months, which might be due to dynamic changes such as COVID-19
lockdown in April, which dramatically increased online sales. Then a stable period comes in
May, June- 2020, after releasing the lockdown and expected to continue in July, which gives the
company the vision on their inventory planning and operations forecasting.

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Code of ethics
The company’s code of ethics refers to how ethical principles guide the company’s
strategies. Based on many companies in the furniture field, such as IKEA and Home depot, we
concluded several codes:

• Unity (5)
All company departments must work in parallel to stay united. The more the
company is united, the stronger is its business model.

• Safety (4)
Safety is one of the essential duties of the company’s function. Since furniture
companies deal with heavy machinery and hazardous equipment, proper quality
training is a must. The company must be very strict about safety guidelines. They
must make sure that employees are ready and that they have been trained well before
working officially in their dangerous positions. They also must be assessed regularly
so that the company makes sure they are well prepared always.

• Renewing and evolving (5)

The organization must always search for different and improved ways so it can
evolve. Still solving severe problems is the main reason for succeeding and
moving forward to the next step, which helps in improving the organization.

• Social responsibility (4)

Based on the company’s capabilities, it must maximize its participation in
some social events like charity or many other initiatives toward society.

• Implementing Responsibility (5)

The company must empower responsibility. Providing and taking
responsibility are effective methods to cultivate individuals. Trusting
employees and customers, being optimistic, motivates individuals to be part of
this development.

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Employer's Ethical and Professional analysis (6)
Because Regalinhouse works as an employer, there will be a list of points consisting of
ethics and professionalism indication which will be identified ethical, professional, or both and
discussed, and the list is shown below:

• The employer shall provide appropriate training opportunities to develop the worker's
capacities and its career path.

This point is about making more skilled and professional.

• The employer shall treat workers fairly and equitably without any discrimination.

This point is about promoting the ethics of the employer.

• The employer shall encourage the sense of initiative and innovation and provide opportunities
for the workers to come up with proposals relevant to improving services, developing work, and
enhancing confidence and understating.

This point is about making the company's environment help workers become more experienced
and professional.

• The employer shall provide an innovative environment and reward distinguished workers in a
manner commensurate with their innovations and businesses.

This point is about promoting employees to become more innovative and professional.

• The employer shall develop the workers' capacities and encourage them to improve their
performance. Furthermore, he shall be a good role model for workers in terms of performance
and compliance with applicable laws.

This point considers both ethics because it shows the employer how he should deal
professionally with the employees and professionalism. After all, it shows that the employer
should be a role model for the employees, which include being honest and just.

• The employer may not make use of any personal information, sources, or materials without the
worker's permission.

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This point includes both being ethical and professional by getting the worker's permission to use
personal information.

• The employer shall follow the principle of equality in all cases regardless of race, color, or
religion.

This point is about being just in any matter and ethical.

Impacts
Businesses are not independent entities; they depend on their employees to operate and
customers to thrive. Consequentially, their actions impact others, just as other stakeholders
impact the business. We will examine how Regalinhouse impacts the environment, economy,
society, and on a global scale.

Global impacts
Regalinhouse is well established within Saudi Arabia with its ten branches. However,
Regalinhouse can snowball to be a larger multinational company (MNC) that stands with the top
MNCs for critical reasons. As Regalinhouse owns three branches in Europe and heavily utilizes
E-Commerce, its reach extends across Europe. With due time, they can establish more branches
to increase presence, reach awareness, and jobs.

Environmental Impacts

Regalinhouse is attempting to reduce its carbon footprint emissions and be online with
Saudi Arabia’s sustainability visions by reducing wastes and wood consumption by using
alternative materials. Furthermore, they are trying to take on a handmade approach to reduce
costs and overall emissions.

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Economic Impacts
Regalinhouse plays a vital role in Saudi Arabia’s economy as an established furniture
company. First, it offers alternatives from other MNCs such as IKEA, and hence minimizing
(7)
economic leakages and promoting economic diversification. Furthermore, as all corporations
do, they create more jobs.

Societal Impacts

Following the Covid-19 outbreak, Regalinhouse complied with policies given by the
ministry of health not to accept cash and only accept electronic transfers. Furthermore, during the
curfew, many households in Saudi Arabia experienced a surge of interest in
furbishing/refurbishing wasted/misused space, in which Regalinhouse provided options.

Conclusion:

By the end of this project, we discussed the forecasting process in the Regalinhouse
company for every three months. We applied some methods that we learned in the IE-256
course, such as Moving average and Weighted moving average, then we discuss the results.
After that, we mentioned the risks faced by the Regalinhouse company and producers that
followed to prevent or minimize the impacts of these risks. Finally, we indicated the global and
environmental impacts for the Regalinhouse company. In this work, we have learned how we
divided the tasks between us by using project management methods like Gantt chart and Work
breakdown structure. We had Three meetings in Zoom-app to complete this work. Now, we have
enough information about some topics such as motivation, condoling, ethics, forecasting, and
planning that help us in real life.

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References

(1)
Carol M. Kopp. Program Evaluation Review Technique — PERT Chart Definition
Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pert-chart.asp (accessed/visited July
14th, 2020)
(2)
Will Kenton. Critical Path Analysis (CPA) Investopedia.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/critical-path-analysis.asp (accessed/visited July 14th,
2020)
(3) ANDREW BLOOMENTHAL. Electronic Commerce (e-commerce) Investopedia.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/ecommerce.asp (accessed/visited July14th, 2020)
(4) Home Depot Code of ethics GoodCompanies1.
https://goodcompanies1.weebly.com/home-depot-code-of-ethics.html (accessed/visited
July 15th, 2020)
(5) Our Values Ikea. https://seeacareerwithus.com/about-us/our-values/ (accessed/visited
July15th, 2020)
(6)
Guide Manual to Business Ethics by Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. [Online] 2017
(7)
WILL KENTON. Leakage Definition Investopedia.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/leakage.asp (acessed/visited July 14th, 2020)

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Appendix 1: Meeting Agendas

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Appendix 2: Meeting Minutes

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