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When L.C. Tu receives an emergency order, he is confronted with a range of production scheduling choices, each of which has unique costs and trade-offs. The case was designed to help students understand job-shop style production and the impact of disruptions and reactive scheduling. Students use two of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's mainstream processes as a vehicle for analysis. The case describes a real situation in which upper management accepts an emergency order. By working through the impact on the production system, students should develop a feel for how shifting demand in a large factory that is structured as a job shop alters the demands on, and utilization rates of expensive capital equipment in a complex way. As bottlenecks shift, students can explore several alternatives, each with different costs and trade-offs. Students may also reflect on the true cost of providing the extraordinary service, and whether management properly takes the impact on operations into account when it makes customer commitments.

MAN B&W Diesel (MBD), a subsidiary of MAN AG, had become very successful by having its large two-stroke diesel engines produced under licence in Asia. The success had led it to the position of world leader in ship engines, with world market shares between 70 and 80 per cent. The relationship between MBD and the licensees was characterized by both parties leveraging each other’s competencies. It was critical for MBD to access new knowledge in order to optimize products from the producing licensees. Similarly, the licensees leveraged access to the design specifications of the engines as well as expert knowledge and service offerings from MBD. Despite MBD’s success with the licence business model during recent years, new developments had triggered some concerns over the model’s long-term sustainability and feasibility, particularly with regard to competitors and intellectual property rights in China. Hence, the main challenge facing MBD was how to future-proof and perhaps adjust its business model to secure more control of critical knowledge and the licensees without jeopardizing the productive and lucrative licensee relationships.

Otoyol Motor Company, a large commercial vehicle manufacturer, is on the verge of being liquidated by its shareholders. Despite all efforts to maintain its competitive position, the company has been caught in a downward spiral. Erosion of its first mover advantages, shifts in industry core competencies and changes in consumer preferences have depreciated the company's value proposition and deteriorated its market share. Utilizing empirical data, this case illustrates the evolution of the commercial vehicle industry in Turkey, changes in industry conditions, and competitive strategies employed by the incumbent and its Japanese rivals in various life cycle stages. Puppy dog ploy, market penetration, product strategy, long term market share acquisition stratagems employed by challengers, and the incumbent's counter moves are chronicled.

Swire Beverage, the largest Coca-Cola bottler in China, recently created a corporate social responsibility (CSR) organization to oversee environmental, community, health and safety initiatives at the companies' nine bottling plants in China. The case considers organizational design decisions in setting up the committee to oversee the diverse CSR initiatives that occurred in the dispersed plant locations, and the ongoing work to better connect CSR activities to Swire Beverage's brand and business strategy. Furthermore, the Swire Beverage CSR team needed to balance the interests of important stakeholders such as the Coca-Cola company, and corporate parent John Swire and Sons. Finally, the case also illustrates some of the key challenges of implementing CSR programs in China, particularly the difficulty of finding suitable NGO partners.

When L.C. Tu receives an emergency order, he is confronted with a range of production scheduling choices, each of which has unique costs and trade-offs. The case was designed to help students understand job-shop style production and the impact of disruptions and reactive scheduling. Students use two of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's mainstream processes as a vehicle for analysis. The case describes a real situation in which upper management accepts an emergency order. By working through the impact on the production system, students should develop a feel for how shifting demand in a large factory that is structured as a job shop alters the demands on, and utilization rates of expensive capital equipment in a complex way. As bottlenecks shift, students can explore several alternatives, each with different costs and trade-offs. Students may also reflect on the true cost of providing the extraordinary service, and whether management properly takes the impact on operations into account when it makes customer commitments.

This note explains the need and importance of quality function deployment (QFD), a customer-driven quality-planning tool that translates customers' needs into appropriate technical requirements of the product or service. The note addresses methodology and implementation as applied to a certain product or service, the product in this situation being credit cards.

Beck Taxi is Toronto's leading cab brokerage. In May 2009, the company's chief executive officer (CEO) is wondering whether the company could change the radio fee for the limited duration of summer, usually a lean season for the cab trade. The fee, paid by drivers for the dispatch service connecting them to customers in waiting, has not been increased in over a decade. That is enough reason to go for a straight upward revision on a permanent basis. The CEO is also considering introducing a variable component to pricing - a novelty in the cab trade. There are several forces at stake in the trade and any decision by Beck Taxi, as the market leader, will shake it up. Status quo is therefore an option in its own right for the CEO. The case provides the background against which the CEO will have to make a call on pricing Beck's service.

In December 2008, Gianluigi Nova, CEO of Tenova SpA, a technology and equipment supplier to the metals and mining industry, had to choose between two options. The first was to continue growing in the company's core business: equipment for the steel production. The second option offered growth in a related, but nearly new business for Tenova: the equipment for mining, mineral processing and extractive metallurgy. They only had a small presence in this market. Yet, Nova had to cope with the worldwide economic crisis whose destructive power hit every area of the metals and mining industry. Nova had to decide which option offered the best opportunity to grow in the worst economic crisis since 1929.

A current franchisee of Marble Slab Creamery (producer of the self-proclaimed "Freshest Ice Cream on Earth") was set to open his second location in Waterloo, Ontario. In a recent phone conversation with Marble Slab's Canadian president, the contentious issue of the corporate ice-cream weighing policy had come up. The franchisee was convinced that his managerial abilities and the growth potential of the new location would result in an ultimately successful franchise; however, the president had expressed hesitation at the franchisee straying from the policy. Two questions were foremost in his mind as he weighed his options: 1) What did customers truly value in the Marble Slab service concept? 2) How would the chosen weighing policy affect the customer experience? The franchisee had hopes of owning several Marble Slab franchises, and knew that his weighing policy decision could have lasting effects on his business operations and his relationship with head office.

In September 2008, Google and its Open Handset Alliance (OHA) partner, T-Mobile, launched the first Android-enabled smartphone in the U.S. market. Android was a new, open source, operating system for the wireless industry, developed by the OHA, a group which Google brought together in November of the previous year. The introduction of an open source operating system specifically designed for mobile telecommunications had the potential to make a substantial impact on the marketplace. The case describes the mobile telecommunications industry landscape Google faced, and the incentives that the dominant search engine provider would have for initiating the Android project. The case also describes the challenges facing Google, and the Android operating system. By studying the dynamics of the wireless industry available in the case, one may consider whether Google had the potential to become a Cross Boundary Disruptor (XBD) in the wireless industry.

This case describes Millipore Corporation's approach to becoming a more environmentally sustainable company. As he prepared for his quarterly meeting with the CEO, the Director of Sustainability needed to develop positions on several issues. Tactically, he needed to recommend whether the company should purchase carbon offsets to help meet its aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets, and whether to continue publicly reporting its greenhouse gas emissions and strategies despite recent problems. On a more strategic level, he needed to recommend how to take the company's Sustainability Initiative to the next level and consider whether changes were needed to its organizational structure. Finally, he needed to develop a more systematic approach to prioritizing investments in various projects being proposed to improve environmental performance.

This case presents the leadership challenges that Cheryl Dorsey, the president of Echoing Green, faces in early 2009. Echoing Green is a fellowship program that seeks to improve society by identifying and supporting social entrepreneurs who launch organizations to attack some of the world's most difficult problems. After turning Echoing Green around and re-building an organization almost from scratch over the last 7 years, Dorsey feels that Echoing Green is at a crossroads as it is facing much more competition. Adding to Dorsey's challenges, in late 2008 the economy is in crisis and many Echoing Green supporters are reducing or delaying their donations. In this situation, Dorsey has to decide whether, and if so, how to change Echoing Green's strategy as well as whether she is the right person to continue to lead the organization.

The case describes the situation facing the vice-president of A-CAT Corp. (A-CAT), Vidarbha Region, Maharashtra. A-CAT manufactured a wide range of electrical appliances for household use. Typical products included TV signal boosters, transformers, FM radio kits, electronic ballasts, battery chargers and voltage regulators. The voltage regulators manufactured by A-CAT were used for many different purposes; however, the focus was on its flag-ship product, VR500 - a voltage regulator. Over the last few months, this model had faced stiff competition and was not able to meet the rising expectations of the market. Management was concerned that a significant number of A-CAT's customers were opting for competitors' products. The case intends to 1) make students aware of the relationship between customer requirements and the technical characteristics of a product 2 ) help students grasp the basics of value analysis 3) teach students to use value analysis in assessing the scope for cost reduction.

The director of client services at henderson bas, an interactive advertising company, was trying to decide how to set a price for the newly proposed campaign for Halpernia Industries, one of her clients. Though the strategic direction of the campaign had been agreed upon, Halpernia had rejected the two creative proposals already presented to it. The director was unsure how to set a price for the campaign. She needed to balance the need for the company to be profitable with the importance of maintaining the client relationship with Halpernia by deciding whether or not to charge Halpernia for the significant amount of work that had gone into the rejected proposals.

In April 2008, the owners of the Cambridge, Ontario-based Cerny Hospitality Group (CHG) were considering the purchase and implementation of OpenTable's reservation management software in three of their restaurants, including the Blackshop Restaurant. It was thought that the software could aid in more effectively managing customer demand due to its ability to allow on-line reservations and its data-gathering capability, an improvement over its current manual reservation system. CHG was a family-owned and operated business and had achieved considerable success with its personal touch with clients. When considering the purchase of the software, CHG had concerns about the potential cost and return on investment, in addition to the strategic fit for this company that placed much emphasis on the human-touch and personal interaction with customers.

In February 2008, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Fly Open Sky Ltd. was finalizing a business plan for Etrip, a proposed online travel startup in the European travel market. He wanted to use the plan to convince investors to commit $100,000, which would provide the first round of financing in a lead up to a further investment of $500,000. The CEO had a vision of developing Etrip as a superior online travel reservation system and desired to implement higher value propositions over other companies' products in this crowded and competitive market. Prior to launching a bid for capital the CEO had to make concrete decisions about an appropriate marketing plan, devising an accurate revenue model, and satisfying intellectual property rights with regards to Etrip's domain name.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. At some point, every manager has had to tell someone to wait. In the factory, this can lead to stockpiles of goods or bottlenecks. When people are involved, it can lead to inefficiency and anger. But the psychological impact of waits can be managed, and studies in design show us how. In places where waits are required, some basic principles can not only make waiting more pleasant but also can make them not feel like waits at all. Sometimes inducing a wait can improve customer experience. When waits are inevitable, the research shows, the goal should be to optimize the experience for both customers and employees, thereby enhancing customer satisfaction and reducing employee stress and turnover. This research can help managers in many situations, even those not involving lines. There are three main lessons managers can take from how designers manage lines: Manage understanding with fair practices and open communication, manage perceived fairness by reframing what waiting is, and manage memories, because they last much longer than the event itself.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Edward R. Tufte, author of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and other classics of information visualization, says that businesses would think better, make better decisions and present themselves more powerfully if they would only learn to talk -both among themselves and externally -in facts. To present themselves and their products better and more honestly, Tufte recommends that companies concentrate on delivering facts (rather than pitches), deliver as many of those facts as they can, not count on the marketing department to make it happen, and look to news sites and scientific publications for models of success. In particular, he argues that Google Inc. is where most companies should turn for design inspiration, and Tufte continues his examination of the corrosive influence that he says presentation software has on thought. Following his big ideas about information presentation, he says, will help companies differentiate themselves.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Nancy Duarte and Garr Reynolds help world-renowned executives, politicians and thought leaders deliver stronger presentations. In a talk with MIT Sloan Management Review, they consider not how to make better presentations -their books handle that -but how to become a better manager by thinking more like a designer. They argue that managers and designers have to do many of the same things: embrace restraints, take risks, question everything and make sure that tools don't get in the way of ideas. And they reveal how design concepts such as hierarchy, balance, contrast, clear space and harmony are just as relevant to managers as they are to designers.