• Posted on September 13, 2021
• Unique Submission Team

ORGANIZATIONS AND SYSTEMS

Part 1: Organization and items

1.1. Tools

1.1.1. SWOT analysis

An analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the Virgin Hyperloop Project has been mentioned in the table below:

Strength	● One of the strengths of the virgin hyperloop is it reduces the time of travel as it moves very fast like the bullet train or jet. ● This hyperloop is easier to build, and it is less expensive. ● The hyperloop project reduces friction along with reducing air drag. Therefore, it can be assumed that it will reduce the chance of an accident. ● Hyperloop projects will occupy less area in India compared to other transport projects; therefore, it is a plus point of the project (ARMAĞAN, 2017).
Weakness	● Hyperloop involves high pressure inside its low air-pressure tube, and it has no implementation yet like jet or bullet trains. Therefore, there is a question of the safety of the passengers as well as the security of the passengers. As a result, it falls under the weaknesses of the virgin hyperloop project. ● The initial ticket price of the transports is more than airfare. Therefore, it will take time to be preferred by passengers. ● In India, land acquisition in the backyard cannot be preferred by the passengers. Therefore, in spite of less area requirement, it is a weakness of the virgin hyperloop project (Chaidez and Karpetis, 2019). ● This transportation requires a hyperloop that will be straight and without any bend or turns as it slows down the speed of the transport.
Opportunity	● People from various cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore come to work long distances that create many problems in long-distance job opportunities. However, Virgin hyperloop transportation can minimize the travel time of the passengers (Chao et al. 2018). ● Intercity job travelling will be reduced, and businessmen will prefer transportation for their long business travel. ● The Virgin Hyperloop Project can avoid traffic congestion, along with boosting the tourism sector.
Threat	● The ticket price of hyperloop transportation of the Virgin Hyperloop Project is higher than air tickets, and therefore, passengers in India can prefer airways rather than hyperloop transportation. ● Bullet trains can carry more people than a hyperloop pod. Therefore, people may not prefer the hyperloop over bullet trains (Choi et al. 2019). ● Sabotage and vandalism is a threat to hyperloop transportation in terms of safety.

Table 1: SWOT

(Source: Choi et al. 2019)

1.1.2. PESTEL analysis

Political, environmental, social, technical, economical and legal factors of the Virgin Hyperloop Project have been mentioned in the table below:

Political	● Virgin Hyperloop Project has claimed to follow all the governmental rules and regulations in India it is running its trains. ● Virgin hyperloop has a 51% share, and Stagecoach has a 49% share which caused Virgin Hyperloop to run a single branded transportation business (de Castro Pérez, 2019). ● Virgin Hyperloop is amongst the most trusted transport companies in India, and therefore it has a great bonding with the political personals of the country. ● Virgin Hyperloop has a partnership with many companies, and this company has not clearly shown this financial matter to the politicians (Delas et al. 2019). As a result, the Virgin Hyperloop project has faced several political interferences there.
Economic	● The economic factor of the Virgin Hyperloop is strong as it has partnerships with several organizations, and it has a large source of investment (Stryhunivska et al. 2020). Therefore, without investing more, they are successfully expanding their business all over the world. ● The global recession due to COVID-19 has caused a huge loss in business profit to the project (Hammad, 2020). ● Fluctuations of the economy in domestic and international markets have caused a huge loss in the economy to the company.
Social	● The project aims to provide each financial level population with better transport services in India. ● Virgin hyperloop trains have minimum punctuality, and they have to rectify this matter in order to satisfy the passengers by running trains in time (Hansen, 2020).
Technology	● It is the first company in the USA to improve its technology on a regular basis. They apply various updated software in their project in order to develop their product as well as services in India. ● Virgin Hyperloop has applied many updated software that will help their hyperloop transport to move in time and moreover; it will satisfy its passengers (Iyortsuun et al. 2019).
Environment	● Environmental pollution has caused awareness to the company, and therefore, they have introduced the first bio-diesel train in Europe, which will not damage the environment (Jia et al. 2019).
Legal	● Virgin Hyperloop project has introduced a transport that runs at high speed inside a low air pressure tube which can cause fatal accidents if any problems occur (Jiménez Grisales, 2019). The law of safety and security has to be followed by the company in order to avoid legal problems.

Table 2: PESTLE

(Source: Jiménez Grisales, 2019)

1.1.3. Porter’s five forces

Porter’s five forces include rivalry, the threat of substitute, buying power, supplier power and threats of new entrants, and these are discussed below:

Rivalry: Virgin Hyperloop project has a rivalry with other contemporary companies that are working on launching a transportation business like them with modern technology.

Apart from this, their high ticket price has caused the reduced interest of the passengers in their transport facility. Therefore, other rival companies, like airlines and jets, are trying to attract passengers with discounted ticket prices (SULAR, 2018).

The threat of substitutes:  The main purpose of the project is to provide passengers with a transportation option in order to save travel time. This is mainly introduced for the migrated job holders or businessmen (Martínez-Díaz et al. 2018).

However, high ticket prices and lack of proper awareness about the transport among the population can shift the customers to use other substitutes like airlines and jets.

Buying power: The capability of the consumer is very important in this matter as the buying capability of a passenger is directly proportional to the company’s profit. However, the high ticket price of the hyperloop transport has reduced the customer segment.

Most of the regularly migrated job holders cannot afford to travel in the hyperloop (Timperio, 2018). Therefore, they will choose the alternative options of transport such as bus, train etc.

On the other hand, only upper-class businessmen will prefer this transport option as they prefer saving time which will make them more revenue.

Supplier power:  There are many manufacturing companies of the virgin hyperloop project that supplies body parts of the hyperloop transport. Therefore, the supplier and the buyer companies are dependent on each other. Therefore, the virgin hyperloop project is directly dependent on its supplier companies (Soukup et al. 2018).

Threats of new entrants:  People are yet not familiar with this mode of transportation, and they have already chosen their preferred mode of transportation. Therefore, as a new entrant, of course, hyperloop transport can face several problems from the passengers’ end.

The passengers may not be ready to take any risk by travelling in this high-speed transport. Moreover, high ticket prices as a new entrant can cause less interest in the passengers.

1.1.4. Data modelling

A Data Model is considered to be an architect’s building plan that helps to build conceptual models and create a relationship between data items. As per the view of Nikitas et al. (2017), the Data model helps to design the database at the physical, logical and conceptual levels.

The virgin hyperloop project has followed various data models in order to develop its project. They have applied Develop test track runs, socio-economic data, various simulations, infrastructure and several test rigs.

Apart from these, the company has used Koalas data analysts that have helped them in many ways. This has helped the company by providing massive speed-ups along with minor changes in codes.

 

Figure 1: Koalas Readme

(Source:  Nikitas et al. 2017)

The aim of the project was to collect several data and analyze them to initiate their project in order to make Hyperloop a reality. They wanted to initiate moving passengers as well as cargo at the speed of airlines.

They have faced many issues while continuing data modelling with Spark-switch, and therefore they have switched to PySpark. PySpark has helped them in decoding various data that they had collected for data modelling.

The virgin hyperloop project has included few test data with four columns along with a parameterized number of rows. They have analyzed the data in order to evaluate performance regarding Hyperloop.

 

Figure 2: Basic operations

(Source: Nikitas et al. 2017)

A short and slow way of Pandas was followed to form the data modelling; however, they have been unsuccessful in their attempt.

 

Figure 3: Pandas data model

(Source: Nikitas et al. 2017)

PySpark’s long and fast way was applied in data analysis of the virgin hyperloop project. However, they failed to decode the data in this way.

 

Figure 4: PySpark data model

(Source: Nikitas et al. 2017)

Finally, Koala’s short and fast way was applied in the data modelling process of the virgin hyperloop project. This data model has helped them to decode several data that the previous data models failed to analyze.

 

Figure 5: Koala data model

(Source: Nikitas et al. 2017)

1.1.5. Process modelling

Process modelling is a technique designed to understand and describe the process of business that has been followed by the virgin hyperloop project. The purpose of using the technique is to understand the process of the project.

The diagram connects and develops the communication between the present and the future state of the project (Martínez-Díaz et al. 2018). This is connected with the initiated trials in order to visualize various possibilities of the project.

In this modelling, various categories are included, such as input, output, enablers and guides. This helps to visualize various important factors in understanding, such as individual interviews, facilitated sessions, top-down and bottom-up workflow. The above steps have been followed by the virgin hyperloop project in India.

The virgin hyperloop project has recruited several employees in order to accomplish the project. In this project, individual interviews were taken in order to gather information from each interview. After that, data was collected through meetings with groups of people.

The project company is at present thinking to work on a test tunnel in India. There will be no practical limit of stations to be built along the tunnel route. The stations will be very small-sized, and the services will be provided via lifts.

The tunnel stations will have a single parking space near residential communities or any tunnel route (Perry, 2019). The project is mainly focussing on the rich businessmen, and therefore the tunnel stations need to be located near big residents, expensive shopping malls and airport areas.

The loop stations will be set up near the banks of elevators in order to transport the skates to and from ground level.

 

Figure 6: V-model

(Source: de Castro Pérez, 2019)

Virgin hyperloop project followed the V-Model that explains the company’s life cycle along with the passenger or tester’s life cycle.  The developer’s life cycle requires the specification of business requirements that is directly connected to the testing of the passenger’s acceptance.

In the next part, the specification of system requirements has been mentioned that helps to understand the consumer’s system integration testing.

The high-level design helps the component testing, the low-level design helps the unit testing, and all of this is done by the coding process.

1.2. Techniques 

1.2.1. Interviewing 

An interview is a process in which both the candidate and the employer make a conversation to understand whether the criteria from both sides can be fulfilled or not.

In this conversation, the project organizer had examined each of the factors before initiating the Virgin Hyperloop Project (Razi et al. 2018). In this case, the project organizer has initiated many interviews with the political leaders, the government of India and the huge businessmen in India in order to understand the future response of the project.

This has helped the project to understand if it will be appreciated by each important factor or not.

Interview with the Indian government has helped the project to understand the criteria of the government of India. It has helped to understand many business laws as well as the limitations of the project in India.

The project organizer needs a straight tunnel to move the transport, but in India, they have faced some problems with this (Soukup et al. 2018). As this project is supposed to be under the ground, therefore, sufficient proper area for the project is yet to be found.

It is revealed in the interview that people in India may not like to see the transport running openly. Moreover, the chance of accidents and its recovery has been asked by the government to the project organizer, which is a genuine problem.

The interview with the top-most Businessmen in India has revealed that they prefer airline transportations for quick travel. Apart from this, it is revealed through the interview that few of the businessmen have shown their interest in the project as a passenger.

They found this project to be really useful as it will help them to travel quickly from one zone to another zone. Moreover, in this kind of transportation, they will be able to avoid the crowds that they face in the airline boardings (Stryhunivska et al. 2020).

Moreover, few populations have expressed their interest in this project as it is a new inventory. On the other hand, few of the businessmen have shown their keen interest in investing in the project.

1.2.2. Questionnaires 

A questionnaire refers to the set of questions that an interviewer asks the respondents. The questionnaires are classified into two divisions, as close-ended questions and open-ended questions.

In open-ended questions, the respondent is expected to answer long and elaborated questions (SULAR, 2018). The virgin hyperloop project organizers have asked a mix of close-ended and open-ended questions to their respondents.

A questionnaire is used to do various surveys that the project organizers have asked their respondents.

A well-designed questionnaire has helped the project to gather a lot of data in a short time, and this has helped them to understand the consumer’s criteria about the hyperloop journey.

Apart from this, this questionnaire has helped the respondents to understand various features of the newly invented transport. In the questionnaire, the respondents were asked various questions which included their preference over transport varieties (Timperio, 2018).

This survey was done in many ways, such as with the help of social media, in five-star and seven-star hotels in India, through phone calls, emails and many more. Apart from that, the set of questions in the questionnaire asked the respondents about their name, age, gender, state, occupation and preferred transportation for travelling a long distance in a short time.

Each respondent was asked the same questions, and therefore a huge amount of data was collected that has encouraged the project to develop further. Most of the respondents belonged to Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad (Iyortsuun et al. 2019).

Maximum positive responses were found from Mumbai and Bangalore; however, Kolkata and Hyderabad have not shown their keen interest in the project.

2.1 Rich Picture

 Figure 7: Rich Picture

(Source: Created by the researcher)

The Rich Picture of the Virgin Hyperloop Project is shown above by which the relation of the customer with the supplier can be described. The Management Group consists of an early experience of data process management systems.

The data processing is again of 2 types: one is data modelling and the other is data Architecture. The users are taught these two courses and after completing the course, they become Section leader, who works on the project that is the Virgin Hyperloop Project.

A long survey has been initiated for the project in which interviews of many reputed personals have been taken. In this interview and questionnaire process the government of India, big businessmen of India, many individual persons have been included.

In the survey, it is revealed that some of the businessmen have shown their keen interest in the project as an investor and this is, of course, beneficial for the project. On the other hand, few have shown their interest as a consumer which is a good thing for the project initiation.

2.2. Workshop Planning

A workshop will be arranged for the Virgin Hyperloop Project on ……………………, aiming to develop a better working relationship between the management and the staff within the organization.

The project manager will be Mr. ………………… The workshop will continue for 90 minutes and will be held at the office conference hall. All office meeting tables are to be replaced before the date by U shaped tables necessary for the workshop. Entire managing authorities along with the CEO of the company will be present in the workshop.

The objectives of the workshop for the Virgin Hyperloop Project will be to discuss the problems faced by both the managing authorities and the staff members of the association.

Workshop Structure:

TIME	ACTIVITY	MATERIALS NEEDED	PURPOSE
12.00 to 12.15 pm	Introductory Session: The introductory speech will be given.	Proper digital setup of a laptop, including setup for audio along with projectors.	To motivate the employees.
12.15 to 12.45 pm	Debate Session: Both the management and the staff members will participate.	Cordless microphone setup.	To understand the problems faced by both the staff members and the management.
12.45 to 01.15 pm	Introduction of new working techniques.	Proper projector set up to demonstrate the new working techniques. Leaflets with a proper description of the new techniques.	To increase the business and to increase the production speed of the company.
01.15 to 01.30 pm	Wrap up Session: Fresh suggestions will be taken from both the staff members and the management.	Along with proper microphone set up, food packets with drinking water.	To take fresh suggestions for the betterment of the company and to end the workshop.

Table 3: Workshop planning

(Source: Created by the researcher)

Details about the workshop for Virgin Hyperloop Project are stated below:

• At first, the introductory speech will be given by the senior authorities of the company from 12.00 to 12.45 pm to motivate the staff members and the management working for the Virgin Hyperloop Project.
• It will be followed by a debate session from 12.15 to 12.45 pm, between all the staff members and the management of the company.
• After that from 12.45 to 01.15 pm, there will be a session for the introduction of new techniques for working, which will be introduced to increase the production of the company. A leaflet with proper details will be distributed to every staff member.
• Last but not the least, from 01.15 pm fresh suggestions will be taken from all employees and the workshop will end at 01.30 pm after the distribution of food packets.

Reference

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