Donner Case

After having a very successful performance and getting second place on the first Littlefield simulation game we knew what we needed to do to win the second simulation game. We were very eager to outperform our competition and we almost did so, but ended up in second place again with a cash balance of $2,660,393.

3. Assuming that processing starts at 7 am on a “busy” day, present the situation during such a day, by constructing an inventory build-up diagram for bins and trucks.

recalls related to product quality problems. Observers felt the company would have lost even more

These processes are not performed in isolation. The end result relies heavily on the satisfactory completion of all processes and the communication of all functional areas involved. By viewing these processes as a whole, management can identify process inefficiencies. These inefficiencies may include delays or queuing at process bottlenecks, lack of control or checking, or places responsibility for process activities is not clear.

Slade Plating Case Management Summary Despite the success of the Slade Company as manufacturer of metal products designed for industrial application, the production manager, Ralph Porter, was concerned about the dishonesty among employees in the Plating Department. Some of the workers were misusing the punch in-out system for those who wanted to leave early or arrive late. Given the long working hour and low payment, they lacked of motivation in performing their tasks, resulting in the dishonest action. However, because of informal groupings among some of them, they operated as a team to work harder doing peak orders. Therefore, the desired output of the department was still satisfied.

The party I represented was Mr. Arthur Hangtough, 58 years old, has been employed by Enterprise Manufacturing Corporation (EMC) for 15 years. Mr. Hangtough has been the vice president for personnel and labor relations for the last four years.

Poor communication between management – when the management didn’t communication with their employees it cause then to have low motivation, low loyalty, and high turnover because most of the employees didn’t know what to do or how to do it.

* Scrap and Re-work - When organizations attempt to force more work through already constrained production processes, attention to detail tends to suffer. As a result, error rates typically rise.

Ques 1: Draw a detailed process flow map of the current process at receiving Plant#1. What is the capacity of each operation in the process?

In these situations, an attempt to respond to these difficulties, Howe instituted a merit performance system for the molders only. Although productivity seemed to increase for a while, but this was not the permanent solution. Furthermore the molders felt that their merit ratings were inaccurate, because the store managers could not observe them much of the time. Further, they argued that their performance would have been much higher if other employees had not interrupted them with questions about appropriate bindings or failed to clearly identify the appropriate equipment on the sales tickets. Other employees also complained because they were not given the opportunity of merit base pay. Sales representative argued that their work was essential for high sales figures and high quality equipments. Similarly all others employees started complaints.

Navistar considered quality and on-time delivery as a priority that came before costs; therefore, top management as well as initiatives to improve processes and on-time delivery supported various improvement initiatives to quality programs. Andy is an assembly supervisor but had very broad job responsibilities. Andy’s time was taken up in areas such as supplier quality evaluations, internal process documentation, process improvement, and much more. His focus was very widespread and his day was drawn away from scheduled and unscheduled meetings; this position required long hours and weekend work. In addition to the quality issues, truck interior trim shortages was another challenge, which resulted in reordering of trim parts leading to additional material handling, and post-assembly installation. These delayed parts required overtime that increased cost and delayed delivery of the finished truck of the customer. Issues came from both Navistar and their supplier Trimco. Navistar had design changes such as different sizes, repositioning of mechanisms and other various designer and material changes; however, these changes to the truck interiors were not communicated to Trimco before production runs were completed. As a result, parts were shipped with different specifications than those needed for proper fit during assembly. Due to the lack of coordination and communication,

The Timken Company – a leader in the bearing industry, is considering acquiring the Torrington Company. Torrington Company, a leading manufacturer of needle roller bearings which is an engineering solution segment from Ingersoll-Rand. Both companies operate and compete in same business and therefore, Timken is seeking substantial operating synergies from this largest acquisition of its history. With this acquisition, Timken is increasing the size of company by almost 50 percent. And, Timken will continue to concentrate on what it do best by buying a company in an industry, where it has a leadership position built on decades of expertise. Timken expects to expand its worldwide business base with new products and services as both companies

* Lack of control over required number of tools and no current maintenance programme creating a hoarding ethos with the teams as a whole suffering.

Once they analysed what were the main issues that led the company into that situation, two were the main problems. First of all, the product portfolio was unprofitable, more than the 94% (Breen 2013).

The company is using a batch shop process flow structure. CBF, Inc. bases its board fabrication process on the average job size or on its typical order. This means that the company proceeds with the manufacturing process in batches so as to meet the specific requirements per order. The typical contract that the company currently gets is 60 boards per order. However, due to persisting factory defects, they manufacture a total of 75 boards per batch in order to compensate for 20% of the boards that they typically reject during the process.