Two expert woodworkers at Craft Wood Furniture, a mid-sized production house that employs approximately 50 people, work on the company’s furniture products in the finishing stages of the production cycles: sanding, primer polishing, and applying final coats of paint. Their expertise is critical to ensure that each furniture item meets the company’s high standards of durability and aesthetics. However, each furniture item differed in terms of size, type of material used, and level of complexity, which means that the total completion time also differs for each item. Craft Wood Furniture wants to determine the optimal scheduling sequence for the most time-effective and smoothest workflow. How should the various tasks be arranged for a seamless flow between the two workers without unnecessary delays?
Sparkle-Clean Institutional Housekeeping (Sparkle-Clean), which serviced the Taradevi Institute of Science, Commerce and Arts (TISCA), suffered a drop in performance ratings following numerous complaints about its subpar housekeeping services at TISCA. This was a concerning trend, as Sparkle-Clean had been a reputable brand in the competitive market, providing a high level of interior cleaning services. Such quality challenges and the threat these posed to the company’s reputation called for close monitoring of Sparkle-Clean’s services. The operations manager at Sparkle-Clean recognized the gravity of the issue and realized it could jeopardize the company's long-standing engagement with TISCA. It was thus imperative that Sparkle-Clean swiftly identify and address the underlying issues that had led to the uncharacteristic decline in service delivery quality, to regain its customer’s trust and restore its reputation as a high-quality service provider within the academic sector. To get to the bottom of the issue, the operations manager asked his team to collect, organize, and collate all the data for the current year pertaining to specific complaints and the ratings given by the faculty, staff, and students who used the buildings at TISCA.
The production supervisor of Gupta Furniture was tasked with selecting a mode of production that not only met the demand for the company's best-selling product, the office interior chair, but also minimized the overall cost of production. The firm's operations manager had stressed that the chosen production strategy should enable the company to meet demand at the lowest possible cost. As such, the brief was to prepare a comprehensive aggregate plan based on the forecasted demand scenario, considering how much to produce and when to produce in addition to determining which strategy among those traditionally applied would give the best results. The major challenge lay in planning and scheduling inventory, and determining regular production, overtime production, subcontracting, and employment levels over a medium term of 9 to 15 months, though both the short-term and long-term implications of these quantitative decisions also had to be taken into account.
This case looks at the issues involved in planning the 2022 convocation (graduation) ceremony at the Delhi-based Trident Institute of Management and Entrepreneurial Studies (TIMES). The dean of academics, who was responsible for piloting the convocation, needed to be certain that the ceremony could be completed within a limited time to accommodate the schedule of the chief guest (the leader of a multinational conglomerate). The convocation had two parts: the award of medals and certificates to outstanding students and the conferring of degrees and diplomas on the other graduands. The challenge faced by the dean of academics was determining whether the graduands could walk across the stage, collect their medal and/or certificate, and pose for a photo within the stipulated time. The case looks at the convocation from a process perspective, whereby a mismatch between supply and demand can result in waiting times and may also mean that an inventory is needed. The problem in the case is suitable for analysis using Little's law, which states that the average inventory equals the average flow time multiplied by the average flow rate. This short case is concerned with various process parameters such as bottlenecks, capacity, loading, inventory, flow rate, throughput rate, takt time, and cycle time.
This case looks at the issues involved in planning the 2022 convocation (graduation) ceremony at the Delhi-based Trident Institute of Management and Entrepreneurial Studies (TIMES). The dean of academics, who was responsible for piloting the convocation, needed to be certain that the ceremony could be completed within a limited time to accommodate the schedule of the chief guest (the leader of a multinational conglomerate). The convocation had two parts: the award of medals and certificates to outstanding students and the conferring of degrees and diplomas on the other graduands. The challenge faced by the dean of academics was determining whether the graduands could walk across the stage, collect their medal and/or certificate, and pose for a photo within the stipulated time. The case looks at the convocation from a process perspective, whereby a mismatch between supply and demand can result in waiting times and may also mean that an inventory is needed. The problem in the case is suitable for analysis using Little's law, which states that the average inventory equals the average flow time multiplied by the average flow rate. This short case is concerned with various process parameters such as bottlenecks, capacity, loading, inventory, flow rate, throughput rate, takt time, and cycle time.
The production supervisor of Gupta Furniture was tasked with selecting a mode of production that not only met the demand for the company’s best-selling product, the office interior chair, but also minimized the overall cost of production. The firm’s operations manager had stressed that the chosen production strategy should enable the company to meet demand at the lowest possible cost. As such, the brief was to prepare a comprehensive aggregate plan based on the forecasted demand scenario, considering how much to produce and when to produce in addition to determining which strategy among those traditionally applied would give the best results. The major challenge lay in planning and scheduling inventory, and determining regular production, overtime production, subcontracting, and employment levels over a medium term of 9 to 15 months, though both the short-term and long-term implications of these quantitative decisions also had to be taken into account.
In October 2014, the chief operating officer of ABC Shipyard was trying to decide how to respond to a request from a renowned marine logistics company for five large naval bulk carriers. The shipyard could manufacture the ships, but with its current layout and throughput, the ships could not be completed within the requested two-year delivery time. A modular approach was necessary to build large and complex products such as ships, complicating the required flow of material between the shops and affecting the spatial resources needed. Could ABC Shipyard’s existing facility layout be improved, and would the change increase throughput, allowing the new ships to be built within the required two years?
In October 2014, the chief operating officer of ABC Shipyard was trying to decide how to respond to a request from a renowned marine logistics company for five large naval bulk carriers. The shipyard could manufacture the ships, but with its current layout and throughput, the ships could not be completed within the requested two-year delivery time. A modular approach was necessary to build large and complex products such as ships, complicating the required flow of material between the shops and affecting the spatial resources needed. Could ABC Shipyard's existing facility layout be improved, and would the change increase throughput, allowing the new ships to be built within the required two years?
The inventory manager of sales and distribution for Toffee Inc., a confectionery company, had just concluded a meeting with all relevant personnel. The meeting had not been entirely positive. The words of the production manager still echoed in his ears: “If the ingredient inventory is not re-examined and re-worked to the firm’s advantage then [soon] the final products based on these ingredients will cease to yield the kind of profits that the firm expects.” The inventory manager needed to prepare a comprehensive forecasting and inventory management plan with a view to minimize the cost of managing the supply chain by judicious use of resources, better forecasting, and improvement in the ingredient inventory purchasing and management systems.
The inventory manager of sales and distribution for Toffee Inc., a confectionery company, had just concluded a meeting with all relevant personnel. The meeting had not been entirely positive. The words of the production manager still echoed in his ears: "If the ingredient inventory is not re-examined and reworked to the firm's advantage then [soon] the final products based on these ingredients will cease to yield the kind of profits that the firm expects." The inventory manager needed to prepare a comprehensive forecasting and inventory management plan with a view to minimize the cost of managing the supply chain by judicious use of resources, better forecasting, and improvement in the ingredient inventory purchasing and management systems.
A-CAT Corp., a company that produces domestic electrical appliances in a poor region of India, largely caters to the price-sensitive rural market. During the past several months, there has been an alarming dip in sales of its major product, a voltage regulator that is used for varied purposes but most commonly as a protective device for refrigerators and television sets, to protect the latter from the vagaries of load fluctuations and/or frequent power failures, which are a very common phenomenon in the region. At the same time, the production department has been complaining about shortages of spares and components. Placing orders beyond a certain limit for the vital transformers used in most of its products has also stretched the system — whereas the company previously had access to four suppliers of transformers, now there is only one. The vice president has asked the chief operations manager to look into the problem. The operations manager traces the production planning process and its reliance on accurate forecasts. The manager’s job is to collect the data, analyze the data patterns, use forecasting methods, carry out back-testing and submit recommendations to management to solve the problem.
A-CAT Corp., a company that produces domestic electrical appliances in a poor region of India, largely caters to the price-sensitive rural market. During the past several months, there has been an alarming dip in sales of its major product, a voltage regulator that is used for varied purposes but most commonly as a protective device for refrigerators and television sets, to protect the latter from the vagaries of load fluctuations and/or frequent power failures, which are a very common phenomenon in the region. At the same time, the production department has been complaining about shortages of spares and components. Placing orders beyond a certain limit for the vital transformers used in most of its products has also stretched the system - whereas the company previously had access to four suppliers of transformers, now there is only one. The vice president has asked the chief operations manager to look into the problem. The operations manager traces the production planning process and its reliance on accurate forecasts. The manager's job is to collect the data, analyze the data patterns, use forecasting methods, carry out back-testing and submit recommendations to management to solve the problem.
The (A) case involves managing the planning and execution of the first convocation held at one of the campuses of a business school in Nagpur, India, at fairly short notice. The school's chairperson of post-graduate studies in management programs has been appointed as the chief co-ordinator of the event. Leveraging his operations-management background and working in collaboration with other faculty, he sets about identifying the required activities and their precedence relationships in order to ascertain the time required to complete these activities.The (B) case 9B13D004 presents a situation that arises about three weeks into the project that necessitates some replanning in midstream.
The (A) case involves managing the planning and execution of the first convocation held at one of the campuses of a business school in Nagpur, India, at fairly short notice. The school’s chairperson of post-graduate studies in management programs has been appointed as the chief co-ordinator of the event. Leveraging his operations-management background and working in collaboration with other faculty, he sets about identifying the required activities and their precedence relationships in order to ascertain the time required to complete these activities.<br><br>The (B) case 9B13D004 presents a situation that arises about three weeks into the project that necessitates some replanning in midstream.