Schmearton Part I

CCA Portfolio Assignment #1

Schmearton Technologies: Operations and Decision Making PART I

Introduction:

One thing is for certain about your career in operations, there is never any shortage of things to do. As the Chief Operating Officer of your company, Schmearton Technologies, there are always more things to be done than there is time in the work day. Fortunately, you are skilled at prioritizing and evaluating what needs to be done. If you can’t do it all, then you do the most important things.

You manage a manufacturing plant. The plant produces a product called the travel toothbrush. Today, when you arrived at work, you had several items on your ‘to do list.’ These included:

1.     Meeting with a supplier to renegotiate a contract for the toilet paper and cleaning supplies used in the restrooms of your business.

2.     Interviewing a candidate for an open position as a supervisor on the production line.

3.     Completing the monthly report that is due to your boss. Today is the deadline.

4.     Inspecting a critical portion of the production line.

Of course, before you even sat down in the chair in your office, a Vice President rushes in to tell you the delivery trucks that will move this week’s production of travel toothbrushes (2,000 cases) did not arrive. Now you have to call the Vice President of Transportation and find delivery trucks to move the travel toothbrushes. So, that gets added to your list, too.

After taking a few minutes to estimate the time it will take to complete each of the items on your “to do” list, you conclude that you only have time to complete three things, and the rest will have to wait. Now you have think about the factors that could make each a priority.

The cleaning supplies are not essential to the production line. You do have responsibility for keeping costs down, and the cleaning supplies are part of the costs that you control. They represent less than 1% of your overall budget. If you reschedule the meeting with the supplier, you won’t be able to save any money for a month. Your bonus for managing costs is paid out monthly.

The job opening on the production line is an important one. It has been vacant for six weeks. The position is for a Master Toothbrush technician. There are few people who can do this job. Since the job became vacant, productivity has gone down, and the average cost of producing a widget is starting to go up, which hurts the company’s profits. It is likely that the person you are interviewing is also interviewing someplace else. Chances are pretty good that if you don’t act soon, you may not be able to hire him.

Your boss, the President of the Schmearton Technologies, is very strict about deadlines. He has told you many times before that he takes your monthly report to the investors in the company whenever you submit it. There is an investor meeting tomorrow.

The problem on the production line has to do with errors. The cause has not been identified, but about 10% of the toothbrushes produced each week are defective and cannot be sold. This waste is driving up costs. Because the cause has not been identified, you are uncertain how big the problem is, and whether or not you can find a solution today.

Arranging for new transportation trucks will take time, but the company maintains a fleet of trucks. The deliveries will be late, so the customers who buy them will are entitled to a 10% discount. It is unlikely that you can get the deliveries on time now, even if the delivery trucks show up today.

The President of the company has given you his priorities of what is most important to get done. In order from most important to least important, his priorities are:

1.     Take care of our customer’s needs first.

2.     Ensure that nothing interrupts production schedules.

3.     Produce a high quality product.

4.     Keep costs as low as possible.

The Assignment:

There are three learning objectives for this assignment. The first objective is to critically think through prioritization. The second objective is to understand the workings of a company. The final objective is to recognize some key business terms/concepts.

For this situation, provide a full written explanation that covers the following: which items you will work on today and your rationale for the items you've chosen for the items you can’t accomplish today, provide your thoughts on what you might do to address them discuss the implications of your decisions

Please post this assignment directly onto your blog before the specified due date...