Describes a marketing director about to launch a new process for demand forecasting. Provides data that allow students to do a multivariable regression analysis. A rewritten version of an earlier case.
This note describes how historical and on-going policies and practices that discriminate against African Americans led to present-day inequality. Topics include slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws, "black codes," and policies and practices relating to criminal justice, housing, and education.
This case describes a medium size business that manufactures animal feed for commercial and companion animals. The company has been growing rapidly, and is considering whether or not to implement an ERP system. Ozark currently uses an IT system built and refined in-house, and though less flexible than desired, allowed for some specific functionality the company used, such as a pricing system tied to the company's commodity hedging positions on a real time, as well as off the shelf systems for recording financial transactions and reporting, purchasing, warehouse management, and manufacturing execution. The case provides an overview of ERP systems and implementation. Ozark is deciding among 3 ERP options; different senior executives support different options.
The global consumer goods company Unilever was on pace to hit a number of aggressive targets by 2020 as part of the Unilever Sustainable Living Project, including a goal to halve the waste associated with the disposal of its products. Unilever's Chief Supply Chain Officer Pier Luigi Sigismondi and his team were working towards this goal and had chosen to first focus on three key areas-sugar, tomatoes, and tea-and had analyzed where in the 'farm to fork' value chain product was wasted. This analysis showed that very little was wasted within areas of the value chain directly controlled by Unilever, and most occurred either upstream with its suppliers or downstream with consumers. How could Unilever encourage these actors to change established practices and entrenched behaviors within a short timeframe to help Unilever meet its sustainability targets and also to improve the operations of its partners in the value chain? By encouraging consumers to better manage their food purchases, did Unilever risk harming its own sales or those of its retail customers? Could Unilever encourage industry-wide changes to have a real impact on global environmental sustainability?
This case describes the introduction of a regression analysis model for forecasting guest arrivals to Caesars Palace hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The company will use the forecast to staff the front desk in the hotel. The staff is unionized and the company has little flexibility to change staffing levels on a short-term basis. The case is set in the context of industry overcapacity and lower customer demand. The case describes several models that could be used to forecast guest arrivals, including a moving average technique and a multiple regression model. The multiple regression model includes over 40 independent variables, including dummy variables (e.g., to represent day of week, month, year, holidays, paydays) as well as continuous variables to represent customer segment and average daily room rate. The case contains tables showing the output of the regression model, and compares the fit of the moving average and regression models. The case allows students to understand how such a model is developed within an organization and to evaluate the models presented. Students may work with a data file with several years of historical data or they may work with the model description and output results in the case.
Inventory strategy can be a key driver of a firm's success or failure. Conversely, an inappropriate inventory strategy can erode customer service and can quickly deplete cash, especially for startups or other cash-starved firms. Because of the important strategic and tactical roles played by inventory within a business, it is important to understand the fundamentals of inventory management. This Reading begins by defining key terms and concepts. It then explores how to determine an inventory model that is appropriate to each business situation. Determining a model depends on finding answers to a pair of related questions: Can inventory be replenished within a defined selling period? If it can, a new question arises: What is the replenishment trigger? A "single-period model" applies to products with a limited useful life that cannot be carried over for sale in a subsequent period and a "multi-period model" applies to products that can be carried over for sale in a subsequent period.
The student is starting his or her own business, baking make-to-order cookies. Basic times of each operation are laid out and the student is asked to determine the consequences for the operating system. Serves as an exercise and review of concepts such as capacity, bottlenecks, and throughput times. Students should be able to make several useful suggestions for improving the system.
Describes how Amazon's distribution system evolved from the company's inception. In 2003, Amazon Europe must decide how to reconfigure its distribution network in light of expected growth, products proliferation, and geographical expansion in Europe. Examines how characteristics of suppliers and customers differ across the markets Amazon serves in Europe. The protagonist must consider the degree of centralization appropriate for the European network, where inventory should be held, what fulfillment models should be used, and how to manage risks of supply disruption.
Describes the organization and operations of the Handleman Co., an intermediary in the music industry that buys recorded music and resells it to mass retailers such as Wal-Mart. The company provides distribution, inventory management, retail merchandising, and category management to its retail customers. It differentiates itself by keeping track of trends in the music industry and ensuring that the trends in music popularity translate to the appropriate assortments in each retail store. Recounts the changes that Handleman has made in organizational structure, processes, and system to support its business. Describes the challenges facing the president of the entertainment division in light of increasing product proliferation, price pressure, the need for growth, and the advent of online music.
Describes a marketing director about to launch a new process for demand forecasting. Provides data that allow students to do a multivariable regression analysis. A rewritten version of an earlier case.
While grappling with glitches in the design and operation of its production system, Andover Assembly must also launch a new sensor product line to meet ultimatums issued by frustrated Signatron vice presidents. The financial returns of the division are not meeting corporate's expectations and plant manager Jan Havel has been sent in to turn around the plant's operations under 2 (6- and 12-month) deadlines. To turn the unhappy customers into cooperating customers, the Andover division is faced with the challenge of reaching nearly 100% ontime delivery performance within weeks. The introduction of the new product line, which requires some of the same resources, compounds the team's problems.
As retailers adopt lean retailing practices, manufacturers are feeling the pinch. Retailers no longer place large seasonal orders for goods in advance--instead, they require ongoing replenishment of stock, forcing manufacturers to predict demand and then hold substantial inventories indefinitely. Manufacturers now carry the cost of inventory risk--the possibility that demand will dry up and goods will have to be sold below cost. And as product proliferation increases, customer demand becomes harder to predict. Most manufacturers apply one inventory policy for all stock-keeping units in a product line. But the inventory demand for SKUs within the same product line can vary significantly. SKUs with high volume typically have little variation in weekly sales, while slow-selling SKUs can vary enormously in weekly sales. The greater the variation, the larger the inventory the manufacturer must hold relative to an SKU's expected weekly sales. By differentiating inventory policies at the SKU level, manufacturers can reduce inventories for the high-volume SKUs and increase them for the low-volume ones--and thereby improve the profitability of the entire line.
Wriston Manufacturing is a broad-line maker of components for the automotive industry. It has developed a network of nine plants as its product line has grown. Newer, higher-volume products tend to be made in newer, focused, high-volume plants, while older product lines tend to be assigned to the Detroit plant, the oldest one in the system. Because Detroit produces such a wide variety of products, its overhead costs are very high. Management needs to decide whether to close the Detroit plant or find a way to make it profitable. A rewritten version of an earlier case.
Describes a large-volume automotive parts contract in a high-quality machine work company. Quality and delivery problems arise when one of the four men on the job is replaced with a high producer who cannot earn a substantial bonus because of machine interference. A rewritten version of an earlier case.
In 1995, Toshiba was the market leader in portable computer sales worldwide. This case describes the assembly of portable notebook computers in Toshiba's Ome factory in Ome, Japan, providing insights into some of the reasons for Toshiba's success. In addition to describing production techniques such as dynamic line balancing, this case probes the nature of the Japanese workforce and the unique problems faced by Japanese businesses.