個案總覽

This case uses a role-play approach to teach the concept of business process reengineering (BPR) and process mapping. Students assume different functional management roles of a fictitious company, ABC Inc., a smartphone manufacturing company in the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry. Due to small profit margins, the company requires a high inventory turnover involving lots of paperwork, resulting from frequent orders of small quantities of components. This purchasing practice will ensure there is a lower risk that components becoming obsolete reducing the burden on the company's cash flow. However, many suppliers now threaten to increase prices (and even cease doing business with ABC) because they have not received their payments within 30 days after goods delivery. To address the looming crisis, the General Manager decides to call a management meeting to identify how they can together best resolve the issue quickly. This case takes the perspectives of the Purchasing Manager, who joins the group discussion with four other roles: General Manager, Manufacturing Manager, Warehouse Manager, and Accounts Payable Manager.

This case uses a role-play approach to teach the concept of business process reengineering (BPR) and process mapping. Students assume different functional management roles of a fictitious company, ABC Inc., a smartphone manufacturing company in the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry. Due to small profit margins, the company requires a high inventory turnover involving lots of paperwork, resulting from frequent orders of small quantities of components. This purchasing practice will ensure there is a lower risk that components becoming obsolete reducing the burden on the company's cash flow. However, many suppliers now threaten to increase prices (and even cease doing business with ABC) because they have not received their payments within 30 days after goods delivery. To address the looming crisis, the General Manager decides to call a management meeting to identify how they can together best resolve the issue quickly. This case takes the perspectives of the Accounts Payable Manager, who joins the group discussion with four other roles: General Manager, Manufacturing Manager, Purchasing Manager, and Warehouse Manager.

This case uses a role-play approach to teach the concept of business process reengineering (BPR) and process mapping. Students assume different functional management roles of a fictitious company, ABC Inc., a smartphone manufacturing company in the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry. Due to small profit margins, the company requires a high inventory turnover involving lots of paperwork, resulting from frequent orders of small quantities of components. This purchasing practice will ensure there is a lower risk that components becoming obsolete reducing the burden on the company's cash flow. However, many suppliers now threaten to increase prices (and even cease doing business with ABC) because they have not received their payments within 30 days after goods delivery. To address the looming crisis, the General Manager decides to call a management meeting to identify how they can together best resolve the issue quickly. This case takes the perspectives of the Warehouse Manager, who joins the group discussion with four other roles: General Manager, Manufacturing Manager, Purchasing Manager, and Accounts Payable Manager.

This case uses a role-play approach to teach the concept of business process reengineering (BPR) and process mapping. Students assume different functional management roles of a fictitious company, ABC Inc., a smartphone manufacturing company in the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry. Due to small profit margins, the company requires a high inventory turnover involving lots of paperwork, resulting from frequent orders of small quantities of components. This purchasing practice will ensure there is a lower risk that components becoming obsolete reducing the burden on the company's cash flow. However, many suppliers now threaten to increase prices (and even cease doing business with ABC) because they have not received their payments within 30 days after goods delivery. To address the looming crisis, the General Manager decides to call a management meeting to identify how they can together best resolve the issue quickly. This case takes the perspectives of the Manufacturing Manager, who demonstrates how a flow diagram could be constructed, to other role players of the case: General Manager, Purchasing Manager, Warehouse Manager, and Accounts Payable Manager, who joined the discussion meeting initiated by the General Manager.

This case uses a role-play approach to teach the concept of business process reengineering (BPR) and process mapping. Students assume different functional management roles of a fictitious company, ABC Inc., a smartphone manufacturing company in the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry. Due to small profit margins, the company requires a high inventory turnover involving lots of paperwork, resulting from frequent orders of small quantities of components. This purchasing practice will ensure there is a lower risk that components becoming obsolete reducing the burden on the company's cash flow. However, many suppliers now threaten to increase prices (and even cease doing business with ABC) because they have not received their payments within 30 days after goods delivery. To address the looming crisis, the General Manager decides to call a management meeting to identify how they can together best resolve the issue quickly. This case takes the perspectives of the General Manager, who facilitates a group meeting with four other roles, namely, Manufacturing Manager, Purchasing Manager, Warehouse Manager, and Accounts Payable Manager.

Following case study UST 1215-050 Coats (A): Responsive Production and Order Fulfillment, Coats (B) examines make-to-stock (MTS) and make-to-order (MTO) strategies in more detail. First, it considers how strategic (especially cash flow) objectives affect MTS and MTO decisions and how decisions on lot sizing affect both fixed and variable production costs. In particular, it highlights the significance of the risk and costs of overstocking when facing a higher premium on cash flow tied up in the inventory of an unsold product. Secondly, on a tactical level, it suggests frameworks for determining aggregate production quantities prior to a sales season with the objective of minimizing the risks of overproduction and also conserving cash flow. Thirdly, it suggests a basic framework to determine minimum lot sizes based on some high level cost and demand data.

The protagonist Jamie Brown had been working in the textile industry for 32 years. He was passionate about the industry and enthusiastic about improving Coats's operations, particularly in the Shenzhen, China, factory. At an operational level, Jamie was challenged by the conflict of business priorities. One of the key directives set by the board of directors was to maximize cash flow. Inventory was the significant contributor to cash constraints in this industry, and Coats began to reduce batch sizes for production, and to reduce inventory stockpiles. To meet customer requirements for short lead times, thread was produced in small lots, and after the order was filled, the remaining thread was placed in inventory. With his strong operational background in the textile industry, Jamie was aware that by following this procedure, Coats was sacrificing economies of scale that could hurt profitability which could also impact cash flows through the year. This sacrifice also raised the question of whether Coats should pursue a make-to-stock or make-to-order strategy, since a make-to-order strategy implied that lot sizes would be set in accordance with customer orders.

Students' Worksheet for ST4.

The case is based on the inventory situation faced by Arome Bakery, one of the leading bakery chains in Hong Kong. Sarah Cheng, assistant operations manager, wants to increase the bakery's competitiveness by improving its operation. A key goal is to reduce the number of unsold products that are returned to the central baking factory for disposal. Sarah is looking for a systematic method to determine the optimum order quantity, so as to minimize product wastage while balancing stock-out risk.

Spreadsheet supplement to case ST23

Fat Angelos was a well-established and renowned family style Italian restaurant chain in Hong Kong. Its popularity, however, created challenges. One daily example was the queues the restaurants encountered during their peak dinner periods. Long waits resulted in dissatisfied or even lost customers. On the other hand, during non-peak hours the restaurants was at less than full capacity, meaning lost revenue opportunities. To help bring in additional customers during off-peak hours, the company was considering various measures, including early bird discounts and a new promotional opportunity with online voucher company Groupon.

Cathay Pacific Airways Limited, a leading international airline providing both passenger and cargo services, had been operating under a collaborative arrangement with HATCL, the largest air cargo terminal operator in Hong Kong, since the opening of the new airport. Demand for Cathay Pacific's air cargo handling services outgrew the terminal's capacity of the operator. There were on-going discussions between the two partners on opening a new terminal, but no agreement had yet been reached on the service fee paid to HATCL. As a last resort, Cathay Pacific would need to consider the possibility of building an air cargo terminal for captive use. Peter Lee, a senior executive at the airline, was put in charge of the feasibility study. Although Peter had experience in leading special projects in the past within the company, this particular one was completely different given its scale and the amount of investment involved. Perceptibly, fundamental business elements such as targeted capacity, return on investment and competition had to be included in the study. Other soft issues like management expertise future cooperative relationship with HATCL should also be studied. Peter wondered what other considerations he should include in addition. He wanted to be sure that by tackling these issues from all angles, it would allow him to come up with a recommendation to the board: whether Cathay Pacific should build its own terminal.

This case is designed as the second part of a two-part case study on Cathay Pacific's cargo operations, but it can be used separately on a stand-alone basis. The objective of this case is to demonstrate the implementation process of e-freight solution at Cathay Pacific, which involved multiple stakeholders along the air cargo supply chain in multiple countries. Students are expected to step into the role of the cargo service manager in charge of the implementation project, and come up with a detailed plan to resolve the issue.

Spreadsheet supplement to case ST19A

iLinko is a small-to-medium enterprise (SME) based in Hong Kong. It has two major lines of business: providing business-to-business sourcing and procurement services for its customers (mainly medium-size companies located in the United States and Europe), and distributing babies and children products under the brand name Bloom. Simon May, the protagonist of the case, is the founder and CEO of iLinko. Given the rapid growth of the company, the existing ERP system can no longer satisfy the operational needs and requirements at iLinko. Simon has to choose whether to upgrade the existing ERP system or replace it with a brand-new system altogether.

Students' Spreadsheet for ST5.