1. What is the mission of Namaste Solar? How does the mission reflect the company’s values? Explain.
Joe Hinrichs, a recent Harvard Business school graduate, was hired in February 1996 to run the General Motors’s the Fredericksburg Torque Converter Clutch (TCC) manufacturing plant. At 29 years old, Hinrichs was GM’s youngest plant manager. Hinrichs was inheriting a poor performing plant that continually underachieved, losing money year after year. Improvements were desperately needed to increase the efficiency of the manufacturing process and reduce operating costs. GM had considered shutting down the plant; however, when a new bonding process, using carbon fiber, for the TCC was approved in 1995, GM instead invested thirty million dollars into the Fredericksburg plant to incorporate the new process.
The completed product is stored in a storage room waiting for customer sales. From the storeroom, the customers can pick up their fans from the manufacture. Riordan’s transportation department uses a less expensive Chinese shipping company to ship locally. Logistic shipping internationally is similar to the method within the United Sates. In the event of forecasting shortage issues, Riordan integrated inventory methods that show opportunities to reduce costs and enhance services. The company maintains extra stock of polymer’s but not the electric motors. Nevertheless, the motor supplier maintains extra stock at their facility reducing the overhead for Riordan.
The Bargaining Power of Suppliers (Moderate): Most of the industry’s products are sourced and manufactured by a network of third parties. The supplier group is diluted compared to the industry; KMD alone has over 45 suppliers. There is credible threat of suppliers adopting forward integration resulting in loss of major suppliers and emergence of new competitors for the industry. Highly effective and specialised products will pose high supplier switching costs for industry firms.
Bargaining power of supplier: High levels of competition among suppliers act to reduce prices to producers. This is a positive for Ford Motor Company. Standardization of parts allowed Ford to reduce dependency on fixed supplier/vendor which goes into producer’s favor.
Just like the other industries such as apparel, electronics, and consumer goods, the automobile industry has accelerated its foreign direct investment, cross border trade and global production. The automobile industry has increased outsourcing and bundled value chain activities in major supplier chains. As a result, more developed countries that serve as suppliers have increased their involvement in trade and FDI. With these increased supplier capabilities, large national suppliers have become global suppliers and are now controlling multinational operations. This is because of their increased capability of providing good and services to various lead firms all over the world. The automotive industry has a distinct firm structure. This
I am a long-time teacher of Belle Chasse Primary School. I am writing to you concerning your son, Wind-Wolf. I understand that you have voiced concerns over our methods in teaching your son. However, I want to assure you that my major concern in helping your son, my student, Wind-Wolf.
Sunny has some scope issues to discuss with the PM for the following property. We are finalizing the site meeting for October 10th. I will keep you posted.
One factor that adds to the success of Toyota’s supply chain is their relationship with their suppliers and how they do business with those suppliers. Toyota does not simply give their supply contracts to the highest bidder; instead they work incredibly closely with their suppliers so that they can get the highest quality products possible. Toyota uses long-term, just-in-time contracts with all of their suppliers (Winfield & Hay, 1997). Toyota does not engage in any kind of mutual contracts, such as buy-back or revenue-sharing; however, they do take multiple steps to ensure a mutual benefit when they pair up with a supplier. Toyota invests in their suppliers to help them develop products (Liker & Choi, 2004). They also ensure that they share information with their suppliers in a structured fashion. They believe that targeted information leads to results and they ensure that specific communication is relayed to their suppliers at set times and in set ways (Liker & Choi, 2004). Perhaps the most unique aspect of Toyota’s relationships with their suppliers is that they embark on joint improvement ventures together. They set up study groups with suppliers to help both parties learn how to improve operations and send executives and engineers to the supply plants to help them improve processes (Liker & Choi, 2004). These kinds of benefits are described in the contracts Toyota keeps with their suppliers (Toyota Supplier, 2011). The close relationships that
Ed Welsh and Bo Haeberle discovered an idea of the solar feeder. After years of developing, the product became very successful. It even won several prizes like the best new product in the Bird Watch America trade show, the national birding convention. After this, Ed and Bo decided to sell their final product under new established company Squirrel Defense, Inc. They opened a small shop in Greensboro and begin the production of the solar feeder so they could take orders for the demanded product. Owners spent too much money and time on developing the product and now, their expectations are high because they have an advantage of unique product and even the investors showed interest in the company.
"Despite the odds, Toyota and Honda have managed to replicate in an alien Western culture the same kind of supplier webs they built in Japan. Consequently, they enjoy the best supplier relations in the U.S. automobile industry ." (page 3 of the Liker & Choi article). Briefly describe the authors' explanation for why Toyota and Honda succeeded where the "Big 3" failed in terms of effective supplier relationship management. Do you agree with Liker & Choi's assessment? Please explain why or why not. Are there any barriers to prevent Ford and GM from emulating Toyota and Honda's approach to supplier relationship management?
The sun is the largest object in the solar system. It is a middle-sized star and there are many other stars out in the universe just like it. Even though it is only a middle-sized star it is large enough to hold over 1 million Earth’s inside if it were hollow. The temperature on the sun is far too much for any living thing to bear. On the surface it is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit and the core is a stunning 27,000,000 degrees Fahrenheit. But don’t worry we are over 90,000 million miles away, the sun could never reach us, at least not yet. The sun is a still a middle aged star and later in its life it will become a Red Giant. In this stage it will get bigger, and closer to us causing a temperature increase and most likely the
The average general supply and average population of supplier’s gives suppliers’ substantial but finite bargaining power on companies like Ford. Plus, many of the suppliers have low forward vertical integration, meaning that they have no stake or controlling power on the dispersion and selling of their products to Ford. The suppliers bargaining ability becomes even weaker due to Fords backward vertical integration by the Ford River Rough Complex. Through the Complex, Ford makes several materials it uses to make cars and colligated completed products. This suggests that Ford needs to understand the substantial but finite outside factors connected with its supplier’s effect on the company.
What are the root causes – individual and contextual -- for the employee misbehaviour at Sunshine?
What are the root causes – individual and contextual -- for the employee misbehaviour at Sunshine?