(1) What are the key elements of Toshiba’s business strategy in notebook computers? In what way do Ome’s operations support this strategy?
Toshiba retained its position as market leader at that time by beating its competitor with aggressively priced, technologically superior products. The Ome operation was key to that strategy, because it enabled Toshiba to produce higher quality products at lower prices. Relentless improvement to the manufacturing process resulted in higher quality products, making the products more attractive, and the increases in efficiency generated lower unit costs, which made their products more competitive and allowed the company to make further investments in quality and exploit an advantage on its
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And with 8 different models, and 6 different sets of features, Toshiba could sufficiently tailor its products to their markets without overwhelming the operation with too many templates and options. * A sophisticated computer network linked Ome with other domestic and overseas Toshiba development and production sites. This enabled the various operations to share best practices, to identify issues upstream and downstream, and to coordinate their production. * Workforce:
--Ome employs four kinds of workers (full-time, part-time, temporary and affiliated workers) which gives Ome flexibility with its production capacity so it can respond to market demands while managing its labor costs.
--Every new professional employee spends one month working on the assembly line before assuming his or her regular duties. This way, the assembly operation will be more than just an abstraction to them, and they can perform their tasks with a better awareness of the big picture.
--Flexibility and smart redundancy were built into the system. The line employed “supporters”—highly skilled workers who would roam the assembly line to help out if anyone was falling behind, using their expertise to keep the line working at top efficiency. Supporters could also stop production if there were problems. Ome also had “pack-men”—workers who could do any job on the line, on all models. The pack-men were able to fill-in for any worker, giving the operation a security blanket so
Andrews Corporation’s production department coordinates and facilitates the assembly lines for the products. There are two crucial factors that the production department focuses on: automation and production capacity.
Acer has a degree of control over its prices and a considerable amount of non-price competitions exists, which ultimately leads to price discrimination (University of Phoenix, 2011). As such, Acer should focus on attaining and retaining loyal customers. Their non-pricing strategy should be focused on the development of products that are unique
(The graphic shows the mass production rate of cars by using an assembly line that could have required a larger work force) (Document 4). One method to manufacture a product that became very popular is the assembly line which made the rate of production per person much greater. It required
In reading Braaksma's "Some Lessons From The Assembly Line" there are some great takeaways from the writing. The main idea is how important college education is, which is conveyed in a number of different ways. The author looks at the experience they had at assembling line job on their summer break and how awful it was. Comparing it to the easy-going lifestyle as a college student. We will look at these points and break down to see if there is something to be learned from the author's experience.
One of the biggest needs for improvement was the assembly process. Although several changes were made throughout the years, quality and efficiency still fell below expectations. Hinrichs implemented the newly developed assembly which consists of two separate work stations that allowed operators in the adjacent stations to share the expensive balancer machine. These assembly cells were much more efficient as workers were no longer forced to wait for another person or machine in the process. Each cell was built like the other with quick turn set-up which created flexibility in the process while also reducing tooling inventory by almost a half. Now cells
With assembly-line production, job skills become highly specific to the technology and procedures used in a given plant. Such jobs are considered semi-skilled because they require a specific skill but one that can be learned in a relatively short time... The organizations of production around an assembly line…and other forms of advanced mechanization are organized under scientific management [where]…the worker was to execute diligently a set of motions engineered to ensure the most efficient performance of a given task. (Hodson, R. & Sullivan, T.A., 2008, p. 27)
This essay attempts to identify and analyse Samsung’s key features in their operations management. Operations Management is defined as the process where resources, flowing within a defined system (Kumar & Suresh 2009), are combined and transformed in a controlled manner to add value. These incorporate elements such as products, processes, technology, and equipment or quality control systems (Garrido, Martín-Peña & García-Muiña 2007, p. 2119). In addressing these elements the essay wishes to capture, which of these influence Samsung’s abilities successfully to obtain their competitive priorities (Garrido, Martín-Peña & García-Muiña 2007, p. 2120) and process strategies.
The third core competency is Boeing’s dynamic assembly line. This was a valuable change to Boeing because it reduced assembly time by 50%, or from 22 days down to 11 days. The planes move 80 feet every shift and lights determine the status of the assembly line. Dynamic assembly lines are costly to imitate and rare due to the size of the plant and the components used in order to pull such a large craft throughout the building. The only substitute of a dynamic assembly line is a static assembly line, and the dynamic one performs much more efficiently.
Since the current assembly line layout should achieving 100% line efficiency when running at maximum capacity of 215 units. Thus, to operate at target 300 units/day, the current assembly line needs to redesign.
Mr. Lopez has a lot of information to sort through and give a great recommendation to Sony to what segment to target. I believe Mr. Lopez should interpret the findings of both studies from a qualitative and quantitative point of view. That understanding what the customers wants and needs are, and buy targeting the customer needs it will yield higher sales for Sony. Mr. Lopez should use the re-contacted consumers that allowed him to categorize the Chinese consumers segmented in CLUES of the consumer segmentation of Compass.
Boeing made use of lean techniques in their production system and increased its production by 50% and also reduced its floor space by 40%. Assembling a Boeing 737 is a typical job. Workers should take 367,000 parts, an same number of bolts, rivets, other equipment and 36 miles (58 kilometres) of electrical wire and then keep them all combined to make an airplane [2]. Engineers to machinists were involved in lean (reducing waste) in the factory. By creating an assembly line, aircraft will pass through the workers were they going to concentrate on assembling. Allocating all employees in the factory building and organising special teams helped a lot to solve the errors in the assembly line [2]. In the assembly line, there are eight beacon lights which reflect the production status. If everything is good it shows green colour. If an error occurs, the worker will press a button and the green light will changes to yellow and the panel board will shows the category of the problem(which category it is related to). The worker will pass on to a computer and writes about the problem in a brief manner and the problem should be assigned to special team to solve it within 30 minutes if not, the light turns to purple and the assembly line will shuts down. This moving assembly is the icon of factory’s lean strategies.
Essay 1 : Introduction to Dell 3 Parts - Look at the Business Model in Particular (Is it fit for purpose?) – Then the Ecosystem – The Modularization and mention licensing Look the Paradigm of Dell Conclusion
Lenovo Group Ltd. (Lenovo) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation that founded in Beijing in 1984. Specifically, Lenovo is one of the top enterprises that produces and sells consumer electronics and computer hardware, with a focus on producing personal computer (PC). Currently, the headquarter of Lenovo is in Beijing, China, with a second headquarter that located in Morrisville, North Carolina, United States. As a multinational enterprise, Lenovo currently have operations in more than sixty countries and has its products sold almost all over the world.1 Becoming a multinational enterprise especially making it to the top of the industry is not an easy thing for any company due to numerous predictable and unforeseen challenges. However, Lenovo has successfully expanded its business and reached to the top. Therefore, the present paper aims to analyze Lenovo’s operational/managerial strategies and provide a better sense of what has Lenovo done for reaching to the current position in the global market.
We analyzed a Toshiba assembly line plan for a new subnotebook computer. The engineering section manager, Toshihiro Nakamura, wants to make changes to the line process as designed by the engineers. The basic assembly line equipment and space already exist within the Toshiba plant, so the subnotebook assembly process must conform to those preexisting constraints. Specifically, the assembly line is a straight 14.4-meter conveyor system that can accommodate 8 to 12 workers plus one supporter to aid in the assembly process. The employees work at assembling for 7.5 hours a day. The computers are assembled from
Acer's dominance as a global manufacturer of IT hardware products can be attributed to the company's extensive electronics component expertise, depth of experience managing global electronics component supply chains, and well-planned acquisitions. Through a series of successful acquisitions, the company has four successful brands including Acer, eMachines, Gateway and Packard-Bell (DiDominico, Kartika, Sibeck, 1996). Of these three strategic areas that Acer excels in, their logistics and supply chain expertise across each of the geographies they compete in continue to deliver the greatest time-to-market and cost gains (Honi, Taring, Po-Young, 2000). Acer is organized into two segments, the device business group and consolidated products and services or other business group. This second group continues to be instrumental in the success of the "divide and conquer" strategies that Acer is successfully using relative to Lenovo. It is also a critical success factors in their success with global markets and local market competitive strategy. The combination of their depth of expertise with electronic components and supply chain prowess in the high technology industry also give the company a formidable competitive advantage against Dell and the troubled PC marker Hewlett-Packard (Honi, Taring, Po-Young, 2000). Despite all these strengths however, Acer continues to struggle with the areas of consumer branding and consumer awareness