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The son of the founder and owner of Blackshop Bistro (and an employee) had to decide how to respond to his father's suggestion that the family business relocate to a new commercial building nearby. The fine-dining restaurant had enjoyed great success; however, to achieve its growth objectives and offer the founder's sons an opportunity, the business must seek alternatives to expand sales. Expansion may ultimately threaten the Bistro's current strategy and target market. In addition, the move would require significant financial, marketing, and operational changes.

NYPRO, Inc., one of the world's leading manufacturers of plastic injection-molded products, is asked by the Vistakon Division of Johnson & Johnson to manufacture molds that Vistakon will use to produce disposable contact lenses. The required dimensional tolerances for NYPRO's molds are 10 times tighter than it has ever achieved before. The case describes how engineering teams in these two companies attempt to work together to develop a capable process for making molds and lenses.

Connecticut Spring and Stamping Corp. (CSSC) is a small, privately owned metal working company with a reputation for providing quality products to its customers. CSSC's business is primarily the production of springs and stamped parts used in a variety of mechanical assemblies. While CSSC's customers are pleased with the level of quality, the company has in the past made frequent efforts to keep improving its quality, sometimes at considerable cost. The challenge to the new total quality manager, Andy Youmans, is to determine what direction CSSC should follow in improving its quality practices to assure customer satisfaction.

AT&T's Universal Card Services (UCS) has been extremely successful during its short lifetime. Dedicated to improving service quality and customer satisfaction, chief quality officer Rob Davis and his quality team have designed and put into place an unusual measurement and compensation system based on more than 100 performance measures monitored and communicated daily.

This exercise briefly describes the assembly of a fictional product, X500. The student must construct a structured bill of materials and an MRP plan for ten weeks for X500 and seven components in four levels. The student must then interpret the MRP plan and take action on stockouts.

As Brazil begins lowering its tariffs on imports, Microlite S.A., the country's largest producer of dry-cell batteries, is faced with becoming internationally competitive. It is consolidating production of zinc-carbon batteries in its northeast plant, presenting the opportunity to replace its batch assembly machines with an automated assembly line for its AA-size products.

Michigan 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 Pontiac plant, the oldest one in the system. Because Pontiac produces such a wide variety of products, its overhead costs are very high. Management needs to decide whether to close the Pontiac plant or find a way to make it profitable.

In the over 20 years since Hewlett-Packard (HP) set up a manufacturing site in Singapore to produce calculators, HP has invested managerial talent and resources in developing its licensor into a technology development partner. The case details the growth of high-volume manufacturing capabilities and the setting up of an R&D facility. Various projects are described in which Singapore contributed an increasing amount of skill, leading up to an abortive attempt to completely co-develop a new printer. Singapore now feels ready to develop a printer on its own for the Japanese market, and the case poses the question of whether or not it is ready to do so. There is also an issue of whether the developers understand the Japanese market well enough to proceed.

Discusses the printer Hewlett-Packard has developed.

Discusses the printer Hewlett-Packard has developed.

First set of exercises meant to be used with ExtendSim, a simulation system created by Imagine That, Inc. of San Jose, California. These exercises allow students to investigate the impact of variable processing times on the performance of simple in-line processes. Unadvertised per Case Records.

Second set of exercises meant to be used with ExtendSim, a simulation package created by Imagine That, Inc. of San Jose, California, that allows students to investigate the impact of adding buffers to simple in-line processes with uncertain processing times. Unadvertised per Case Records.

Designed to be used with ExtendSim Simulation Exercies in Process Analysis (A) and (B). Unadvertised per Case Records.

Members of TD's Personal Financial Services Division's marketing research team, were preparing their presentation to a group of the bank's senior vice-presidents. They had worked for three years developing and testing the Customer Service Index, the bank's first tangible tool to measure service quality. They now had to get the senior vice-presidents to ensure the successful adoption and use of this instrument. How could they convince their audience to accept and promote this new method of service measurement? The case is followed by a supplement case bearing the same name, case 9A93D010, set one year later.

Members of TD's Personal Financial Services Division's marketing research team, were reviewing the success of the Customer Service Index (CSI) which they had been instrumental in introducing to the bank a year earlier. They were now considering introducing other service-related products including a Good Service Guarantee and a productivity program. They were wondering how to keep the enthusiasm for the CSI alive. The case is preceded by a case bearing the same name, case 9A93D009, set one year earlier.

Members of TD's Personal Financial Services Division's marketing research team, were preparing their presentation to a group of the bank's senior vice-presidents. They had worked for three years developing and testing the Customer Service Index, the bank's first tangible tool to measure service quality. They now had to get the senior vice-presidents to ensure the successful adoption and use of this instrument. How could they convince their audience to accept and promote this new method of service measurement? The case is followed by a supplement case bearing the same name, case 9A93D010, set one year later.

Applichem manufactures the same chemical product in four plants, each of which is located in a different country. The company has completed a major study comparing the productivity and performance of these plants. Using the data from the study, students must decide which, if any, plants to close. The case requires students to think about the relevant metrics for comparing the performance of plants that operate very differently and in different countries. An important issue is the distinction between physical measures of productivity and financial measures of performance. Finally, the case allows students to think about what management might do to ensure that productivity improvements are shared across the plant network.

Teams of students receive identical product design specifications, a sample unit of the product, and a series of assignment questions that entail time and motion studies, which they must both understand and perform before class discussion. In class, teams explain how they conducted time studies and sort out differences in procedures. They then make business decisions like hiring and staffing in light of remaining differences in time standards across teams. The class also includes an experiment in which student volunteers actually produce the product to assess the effect of division of labor and brainstorm concrete cost reduction ideas, principally those based on methods improvement.

Matt Gruber is an effective and highly motivated executive, yet his inability to deal with superiors is shown by numerous instances of abrasive behaviour. Matt's rise and fall at Kapco is described in this case, which is one of a four-part series (see 9A93D016, 9A93D017, 9A93D018). The series' teaching objectives are to learn to manage and to maintain successful relationships with supervisors and to effectively manage an employee who has difficulty relating upward.

This (B) case in the Kapco series presents the situation described in Kapco Limited (A), case 9A93D015, but from the perspective of one of Matt Gruber's superiors.