(FIT) is a 25-employee manufacturing company of specialty items for the consumer leisure industry. Their products have consisted of customized outdoor furniture, personalized fold up shopping carts, portable grills for outdoor cooking and several other experimental products that require fabrication, machining, and assembly of these components. The owner, general manager, Omar Goller, is the inventor and designed for all these products. He personally oversees the development and testing for each of his inventions. He has used FIT as a hobby and not a for profit business. His inventions have had limited applications and for over 20 years, he has continued to invent with the intent of his next invention as being a huge success story. Mr. Goller has been fortunate in accessing funding to keep FIT in operations.
An accountant and legal advisor have been retained to assist Mr. Goller, but the entire operation is directed by Goller. His employees like working for him, and many have been employed at FIT for five years or more. They are very skilled machinists and assemblers. The only technical support they receive is from Goller. At times, employees have become frustrated with Goller’s lack of organizational skills. He is always “inventing” and spends very little time improving his designs. He is always ready to move on to the next “new and better” idea before the previous one is completed.
Most of Goller’s inventions require the purchase of raw material, which is obtained from an unstructured variety of suppliers. The current facility has adequate machine tools and floor space for machining, assembling and testing these inventions.
Goller’s latest invention is a small wagon that can be attached to an automobile. This wagon is specially designed for transporting the necessary supplies for outdoor limited camping and cooking. There are customized compartments for the necessary supplies and adjustable in size for easy storage when not in use. FIT employees like this invention and feel this is the “winner” Goller has been looking for.
Goller is willing to establish a production process for this wagon.
Term paper Assignment:
There were 5 learning outcomes for QAS 511.
1. Examine how operations generate and support competitive advantage for organizations.
2. Analyze and apply the principles of process analysis.
3. Comprehend lean systems and lean thinking for both services and manufacturing.
4. Apply principles a systems approach of managing quality and techniques of quality control.
5. Evaluate the principles of supply chain management, together with the more detailed components of supply chain management: forecasting, capacity planning, and inventory management to provide additional value for organizations.