Olympus Case Essay

→ customized systems – engage in collaborative design efforts with clients and engineers; once designed, system built by manufacturing alliances then installed and supported by FII

We aimed to win market share by appealing to cost-conscious or price-sensitive customers, which we felt that the majority of consumers consisted of. This would be achieved by having the lowest prices in the target market segment, or at least the lowest price to value ratio (price compared to what customers receive). To succeed at offering the lowest price while still achieving profitability and a high return on investment, it was evident that we had to be able to operate at a lower cost than our rivals. We aimed to achieve this goal though a combination of two methods, the first being achieving a high asset turnover. In the manufacturing of our cameras, we wanted to achieve the production of high volumes of output. In theory this approach meant fixed costs would be spread over a larger number of units of the product or service, resulting in a lower unit cost. We hoped to take advantage of economies of scale and experience curve effects[3]. We hoped and realised that higher levels of output both required and resulted in a higher market share, and created an entry barrier to potential competitors, who may be unable to achieve the scale necessary to match our low costs and prices.

In this case module I was asked to watch a video lecture and to review learning activity number one. I was then asked to answer and discuss four different question; from a cultural perspective, is it unusual that Grandmother Marietta is the

Time: Frequent changes were allowed to be made in in-house prototype shop during three to five design cycles that made the tension of lead time in line with their corporate strategy – to be the leader in high-end

In 2002, Leitax had suffered through poor planning of 3 camera models: the launch of one camera delayed (cost: $19.5 million), another outsold its inventory (costs: $4.5million) and a third model reported sluggish sales ($2.5million). To compensate, Leitax extended the life of an existing model and made a mad scramble to find product and customers but the most costumers preferred to wait for the delayed camera. These

Team Setup and Responsibilities: The SDT model anticipate that workers would view the production process as an aggregate of interdependent job functions that are equally responsible for the quality of the final product. Two teams of 12 – 15 people were set up for each shift. The workers are rotated through all the jobs in the factory at regular intervals, thus ensuring all workers fully understand the production process.

Alternative structures such as grouping by output/product or grouping by market are not options as they would result in “duplication of activities and resources, the erosion of deep technical expertise, missed opportunities for synergies and learning” (Ancona, Kochan, Scully, Van Maanen, & Westney, 2009, p. M2-19). The matrix structure provided a potential positive aspect in that it would provide a needed cross-functional linking mechanism by mixing the functional structure with grouping by output/product, but the complexity, cost, dual systems, and dual roles resulting from the matrix structure historically resulted in either the functional or the output/product system becoming more powerful than the other.

Production practices have had an important role in satisfying the dynamic market. Many approaches have being developed in order to respond effectively to specific business requirements. In fact, some areas of management have focused its study on the overseeing, designing, and controlling the process of production in an effort to find the best methodology that ensures the business success and performance. However, complexities arise in this field because many variables such as costs, inventory, scheduling, suppliers, etc have to be considered in any business. Lean approach and the traditional approach are two points of view that aim to address this complexities, and those will be examined in this essay.

It was considered to be overly structured and complicated, especially in the opinion of the CEO. He felt that lean management system enabled people’s involvement in the designing and improvement of processes more than that within the IT system. With the failure of initial IT implementation, CEO was of the opinion that “one size fits all” is not a feasible approach in Lean and IT amalgamation. Due to this, there were discrepancies of opinions among the executives as some believed IT systems could prove to be beneficial in the long run. Mr. Cremin believed that Lean manufacturing pushes the decisions down to people directly engaged in producing products. Incremented changes are key to innovation and continued improvement and an overly structured and complex IT system could interfere with the process innovation.

Improved technology and reduction in price made the digital camera industry grow rapidly and inject life into a very stagnant sector. Worldwide sales growth rate for the digital cameras had double digit growth for almost 15 years. However that growth was slowing and was starting to reverse from a strong 25% in 2005 to a weak 5.2% in 2006 and into negative territory 2007 and beyond. This growth masked the problems in Leitax's supply chain.

decided to change the traditional process to increase productivity – 1> Increased parallelization of design tasks, 2> Elimination of

One the impact of such functional structure is that the effective communication and synchronization among division might be limited due to organizational restriction for having several divisions that will work individually (www.business2000, 2016).

Established an internal design division reducing “time to market” for new products; cross-functional integration required for successful development of new products [Grant p 135].

If 3M where to constantly diversify their product and service offering, the company understood that a support to its system is needed along with improved innovation and new product development to ensure that the company continues in line with their business model.

Large companies with many and mature processes are ideal for this approach. IBM for example, used this method to develop the PC (Roberts, 2004). Other companies as well, established formal support centers to provide support and budget for dedicated teams that work as separate organizational structure. Cargill for instance, created an Emerging Business Accelerator to fund all promising projects that could be part of any existing department and potentially reach completely new markets. Since managers are often only incentivized to meet short-term targets, Cargill had to adjust the targets for managers accordingly (Wolcott & Lippitz, 2007).