...Case Study # 6: Struggling Operations in a Manufacturing Organization Stakeholder analysis: Within this case study, many individuals can be referred to as stakeholders. The individuals residing in the two states where the plants are located may be affected by any changes that occur within their geographic area. In addition, federal, state, and local government agencies are responsible for the enforcement of laws that the business may be required to abide by. The Chief Operations Officer (COO) and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) are the responsible individuals, which must make the appropriate decisions in order to protect the company’s wealth. As the COO, responsibilities include supervision of the three different product lines that are being manufactured under this entity. The three products that this company manufactures include window frames, aluminum siding, and tire recycling equipment. Each product is manufactured in separate plants. They are spread out amongst two states in three different locations. Every plant has a head manager in charge of overseeing the product manufacturing process, and meeting production goals. Betty is the plant manager for the window frame product line. She has been with the company for twenty years and obtained her current supervisory position a little over two years ago. She has neither a college education nor prior experience in management. Betty has proved to be very knowledgeable on the shop floor and has dedicated much of her time to...
Words: 1384 - Pages: 6
...for OP Project 1. Background 1. Current situation New COO –YW is facing a lot of challenges to carry out lean manufacturing. Even the project is running very well, actually there were some conflicts between some departments, such as Therefore, YW is struggling to figure out how to solve with those conflicts production department and Lean manufacturing department. 2. History and background Ansen Electronics Company was incorporated in Hong Kong in 1989 by Mr Zhong and has established itself as a leading manufacturer. In 2008, Ansen’s business scope, management and capability have grown from strength to strength with the involvement of GEM (Global Emerging Markets).70% shares belonged to GEM,30% shares belonged to family business of Mr Zhong. At that time, YW joined in Ansen as new COO. Anthony was the CEO of this company before. 3. Product and industry With the competitive edge of a strong engineering team and vertically integrated factory facilities, Ansen has diversified ODM, OEM and China sales businesses in Personal Electronic Consumer Products such as Weather Stations & Electronic Kitchenware, as well as the LCD & LED related electronic products. 4. Structure In order to improve the capacity and cut off the cost of operation and manpower cost, YW initiated some changes for the organization: 1. Establish the Lean manufacturing department to do the improvements to save cost in company level 2. Hire more talents with good working experience and...
Words: 403 - Pages: 2
...the market through out the late 1980s to the late 2000s. Now the company is struggling in the market. Analyzing the internal environment of Dell Inc. and its strengths, weaknesses, and core competences would definitely help the company to solve some problems. Internal environment A company’s core competence is something the organizations do especially well in comparison to its competitors, such as competitive advantage. Dell had developed a core competence in superior product performance, low cost and speedy delivery by squeezing time lags and inefficiencies out of the manufacturing and assembly process, extending the same brutal standards to the supply chain. In addition, Dell designs its products according to wishes of customer specification that allow the company enjoys superior customer value and brand loyalty. Dell has the ability to produce superior performance products at a very low cost due to its status in the market; the company also has the ability to offer its products at significantly lower prices than its competitors in the market at the early stages. Furthermore, Dell differentiates their laptops and PC’s many different levels including direct-to customer model, building better-quality performance and up-to-date technological product, and direct customer interaction in diverse marketplace. Strengths Strength in a company is essential factor that is inherent in the internal operations which results to the success of the company. In 2004, Dell was the world’s...
Words: 436 - Pages: 2
...vehicles to be more fuel efficient and explore the possibilities for alternative fuel-burning vehicles. Short-term Action recommendation: The automotive business unit of GM should implement a “hold” strategy and maintain the middle ground between “build” and “harvest”. The trade-off involves sacrificing short-term profits for long-term growth and market share. However, with the current race to establish the dominant American, fuel-efficient option, GM’s strategy should be to redesign and expand on their current product offering. The opportunities for expansion and to increase market share are prevalent with the success of the Chevrolet Volt and the recent spike in international sales. Instead of cutting costs and expenditures in a struggling economy, GM should increase resources to R&D in order to stay on the leading edge of the industry and remain competitive with other vehicle manufacturers with the same vision. The budget should be revised to pull back on production and reallocate more funds to R&D in order to maintain the same level of funding and not stir up any uncertainty amongst competitors that could draw unforeseen results. Required Resources: An increase in spending on R&D would be required in order to implement the plan. Cuts would have to be made elsewhere in the company...
Words: 3528 - Pages: 15
...Analysis is one of the management tools which provides management an overview on the Strengthen, Weakness, Opportunities and Treat that points out the core issues about the company’s position on it’s operation. It “serves as a catalyst to facilitate and guide the creation of marketing strategies that will produce desired result” O.C. Ferrell, Michael D.,George h and David l (1999) using the SWOT analysis organizations can examine the various factors both internally (Strength and Weakness) and Externally (opportunities and treats) to improve business performance. The analysis will be used to “quickly overview the business strategy” Jobber and Ellis-Chadwick, (2013). Swot Analysis provides a core information on the business organization not only the marketing aspect but also other components that contribute and affects the success of it’s business operation, Management can prepare itself for taking proper course of action in identifying marketing objectives and designing core strategies and gain competitive advantage in breaking the market. Marketing Audit Organizations develop a plan of action through which they proceed with their business operation, in order to assess their past performance, current position in the market as well as where they want to be in future operations. One of the tool that can answear these issues are to have an internal and external audit. ” The marketing audit is a systematic examination of a business’s marketing environment, objectives, strategies...
Words: 1035 - Pages: 5
...and the World Automobile Industry In 2008, the Ford Motor Company and the world automobile industry as a whole, was struggling financially. The slumping economy had a significant effect on US automobile sales, with a 50% reduction year over year, negatively impacting company earnings. (Grant, 2010, p. 46) Reduced sales, emerging markets and increased competition created a changing landscape and financial sustainability issues amongst the market. These forces and Ford’s growth created excess capacity beyond consumer demand resulting in inefficient use of resources. Synopsis of the Case Ford and the collective automobile industry were faced with challenging times due to a US recession, resulting in reduced demand. This decline caused a focus shift from existing markets to new growth markets, such as Asia, Europe and Latin America. (Grant 2010, p. 48) Companies partnered with outsourced providers and adjusted operational methods in an effort to reduce costs. This growth partnered with a decrease in consumer demand resulted in high carrying costs across the industry. Relevant Factual Information about the Problem or Decision the Organization Faced The US automobile industry experienced a boom in the early-mid 1900’s, resulting in Ford and the industry growing rapidly. (Grant, 2010, p. 48) In order to meet the demand, capital investment in manufacturing capabilities was occurring. In the late 1900’s the industry began to see a decrease in US sales, culminating in the most...
Words: 1025 - Pages: 5
...and Folgers- to consumers in 160 countries. It has operations in 80 countries and employs close to 100,000 people globally. P&G established its first foreign factory in 1915 when it opened a plant in Canada to produce Ivory soap and Crisco. This was followed in 1930 by the establishment of the company’s first foreign subsidiary in Britain. The pace of international expansion quickened in the 1950s and 1960s as P&G expanded rapidly in Western Europe, and then again in the 1970s when the company entered Japan and other Asian nations. Sometimes P&G entered a nation by acquiring an established competitor and its brands, as occurred in the case of Great Britain and Japan, but more typically the company set up operations from the ground floor. By the late 1970s, the strategy at P&G was well established. The company developed new products in Cincinnati and then relied on semiautonomous foreign subsidiaries to manufacture, market, and distribute those products in different nations. In many cases, foreign subsidiaries had their own production facilities and tailored the packaging, brand name, and marketing message to local tasted and preferences. For years this strategy delivered a steady stream of new products and reliable growth in sales and profits. By the 1990s, however, profit growth at P&G was slowing. The essence of the problem was simple; P&G’s costs were too high because of extensive duplication of manufacturing,...
Words: 846 - Pages: 4
...Management & Communication Plan Angela Wright, James Gregory, Joshua Hall, Kim Sherman MGT/311 May 4, 2015 Angela Guest Change Management & Communication Plan In any organization, it is important to have an organized system for dealing with information that is needed by multiple departments. One example of information that needs to be organized is customer information. Various departments use customer information and if it is not easily accessible to everyone that needs the information it takes longer to help the customers when they contact the company, and it makes the company appear unorganized. People are less willing to do business with an unorganized company. Having an organized storage method for customer information makes it easier to help the customers and increases productivity within the organization. Change Management Plan Riordan’s central power structure comes from its executive team, which consists of Dr. Riordan President, his Chief Operating Officer (COO), and his Senior Vice President of Research and Development. Of the three, the COO could hold the most political power, as he is responsible for all aspects of operations outside of research and development. The Sales and Marketing Vice President, Chief Information Officer, Chief Financial Officer, and Operations Vice President all report to him. This position gives him substantial political power, enough to strongly influence organizational decision-making. Creating a Customer Management...
Words: 1336 - Pages: 6
...Recruitment, Selection & Onboarding Recruitment, Selection & Onboarding Reliance Solar Engineering (RES) specializes in designing and manufacturing of solar products for American consumers. The company has grown into a mid-size manufacturing firm in the last decade and management has plans in expanding the company’s operations to compete in the global solar technology industry. In order to achieve this, the organization has to keep up with the latest trends and developments, which requires future recruitment and selection of a high performing qualified workforce. This essay is a discussion on effectively meeting the organization's needs and issues related to finding, attracting, successful hiring and onboarding of personnel. Despite the high unemployment in the nation, RES faces shortage of engineers, and skilled workers such as technicians, machinists, operators, craft workers, distributors and unskilled production jobs. This shortage of workforce limits the organization’s ability to drive innovation and expand operations by improving productivity. According to the article, Boiling point? The skills gap in U.S. manufacturing by Deloitte Manufacturing Institute, “High unemployment is not making it easier to fill positions, particularly in the areas of skilled production and production support. […] Translated to raw numbers, this means that as many as 600,000 jobs are going unfilled, a remarkable...
Words: 1482 - Pages: 6
...significantly advanced on anything its competitors offered that customers would wait for their products. At this time the company grew very fast and expanded its markets to Europe, Asia and Latin America. However, all this changed in the 90s as evidenced by slowing growth and periods of reduced earnings which was linked to loss of leadership in getting new products to the markets, high costs and market changes that the company was slow to recognize. (Dynacorp case M2-85) The political lens sees the organization as an arena of competition and conflict among individuals, groups and other organizations whose interests and goals differ or even clash dramatically……., the roots of conflict lie in different and competing interests and disagreements require political action…, power and interest, coalition building and negotiation, conflict and conflict resolution are essential aspects of organization life. Power and interest are the key concepts of a political perspective on an organization( Ancona et al, 2005: M2-85) I will define and use the power and interest concepts to analyze the political design of Dynacorp and elaborate on the factors promoting and hindering the change process at Dynacorp where it appears the jell-o liquid has been replaced by a rubbery mass. ANALYSIS Power Pfeffer defines organizational power as ' the potential to influence behavior, to change the course of events, to overcome resistance and get people to do things that they would otherwise...
Words: 1407 - Pages: 6
...experimentation, diversity and innovation and competition. In this essay, I will elaborate more on these areas, providing an explanation of how they were an influential force in achieving desirable outcomes. North suggests that understanding the historical evolution of economies is instrumental in our attempt to improve current economies. This is because we can learn some important lessons by studying the successful economies, and we could apply these learnings to improve the struggling economies. Institutions provide a structure that governs human interactions. These institutions contain formal constraints such as rules and laws, informal constraints such as norms of behavior and codes of conduct, and provide enforcement mechanisms for the expected behaviors. Thus, institutions provide an excellent incentive structure for shaping the way economies are going to behave in the short and the long run. Whatever is rewarded by the institutions will tend to be worked upon productively. In other words, organizations will be created in accordance with the incentive structure...
Words: 2302 - Pages: 10
...Acquire or Develop Talent Acquiring talent involves actively seeking new candidates that have leadership qualities and other skills that would be beneficial to the growth of a company. Developing talent is developing the skills of the employees that are already part of the organization in order to save money and benefit the growth of an organization. There seems to be an inconsistency in management styles between the original Tanglewood stores and the newly purchased stores. The best way to find new talent will be to acquire it by hiring candidates that enjoy participating in teams. By acquiring new employees that already embody participation and teamwork, they will be able to “hit the ground running” and be at peak performance from the moment they arrive (Heneman II et. al. 2012). Hire Yourself or Outsource The decision of Hiring Yourself is pretty self-explanatory; it involves internal recruiters searching for candidates. Outsourcing, using outside organizations to recruit and select employees, is becoming a very popular form of acquiring new talent (Heneman II et. al. 2012). Since Tanglewood seems to be struggling with identifying candidates that fit the organization’s specific culture, an experienced outsourcing vendor would do much better. Tanglewood is a mid-sized company that is currently lacking an HR function; therefore they are the perfect candidate for outsourcing. With all of the new stores opening, Tanglewood may not be able to keep up with the labor...
Words: 1820 - Pages: 8
...definitely incurred with the organization to acquire proactive. Appraisal prices alternatively reference costs of this particular assessment of items and processes to be sure quality meets the required specifications. In practice there may be tensions between both of these variables....
Words: 830 - Pages: 4
...University of Phoenix Gap Analysis: Kuiper Leda Kuiper Leda is an automotive equipment manufacturer that assembles electronic control units and sensors. The organization has been in business for 10 years and has recently begun to manufacture radio frequency identification devices also. Kuiper Leda has recently received an order for 250,000 electronic control units and 35,000 radio frequency identification devices from Midland Motors. Midland Motors has had exceptional business and it is a large auto major. An order from them would benefit Kuiper Leda. It is important that KL produces quality products and delivers them to Midland on time. The order is urgent and Kuiper Leda will need to manufacture and supply higher volumes over its regular orders. The existing ability at Kuiper Leda is inadequate to handle the increased load on the plant. Kuiper will need to discover ways to meet the sudden increase in requirements. Kuiper must decide whether to manufacture one or both products in-house, or outsource some of the production load. Situation Analysis Issue and Opportunity Identification Today, organizations have realized that in supply chain industries, their operations strategy must be aligned with its mission of servicing the customers. If Kuiper Leda accepts the order from Midland Motors, the organization will be forced to manufacture the product in-house, buy the products or components from another manufacturer, buy the products from a portal that sells electronic...
Words: 1557 - Pages: 7
...had a perception that The Goal – A process of continuous improvement is a collection of boring theories of operations management, but when I started reading it I totally got sucked into it. It is a classic example of a book which has good story along with something really useful associated with it. The author has used a story to convey a pragmatic approach of doing operations of any kind of business. The purpose of this paper is to cover major concepts which are covered in the book in terms of operations. It is also intended not to just convey the information which has been covered in the book, rather link the concepts discussed of it to what we discussed in the class. I would like to sincerely thank Dr. Selegna for giving this assignment to me which was a very fruitful learning experience which will be remembered by me for my entire life. Summary The Goal – A process of continuous improvement is written by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox, which is an exceptional book having a business side to it along with fiction. The book is mainly focused around a plant manager at UniCo Manufacturing Corporation, Alex Rogo’s life. The author starts the novel by describing a crisis situation in his plant regarding shipping a late order and how he gets an ultimatum of three months to save his plant by his boss Bill Peach. Later in novel it is revealed that he is not only struggling to save his plant, but his marriage also. Perhaps by the description and little past of the character given...
Words: 961 - Pages: 4
