Applichem Case Analysis 1
APPLICHEM
A Case Analysis
Submitted to
Prof. Jishnu Hazra
Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
on
December 20, 2005
in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the
Operations Management Course in the
Post Graduate Program in Management
Submitted by
Mahesh Bansal (0511018)
Nitin Bhadauria (0511023)
Rahul Parihar (0511033)
Uma Gurumurthy (0511050)
Yadavendra Yadava (0511057)
SECTION A
APPLICHEM
Introduction:
Release-ease was a specialty chemical developed by Applichem. Molds for plastic parts are precision stainless steel molds that are difficult to clean, and are used repeatedly and hence un-molding and cleaning became the bottleneck. With this, customers could formulate a plastic molding compound which released easily from metal molds after compression molding.
Release-ease is manufactured by a 4 step process – 1. Reaction Step: Raw materials are combined in a precise sequence under pressure and heat to form release-ease, which is then precipitated out to form a slurry. The quality of release-ease, amount of raw materials and the characteristics of the process is unaffected by source of energy used in plant. Steam, natural gas, oil and electricity were combined differently at different plants to minimize local cost. 2. Cleaning: In this step, the cleaning or isolation of the release-ease particles from the slurry was performed by moving it on a conveyor belt. 3. Drying: In this step, the release particles were dried. 4. Packaging: The packaging of release-ease powder in bags on an automated filler line was undertaken.
[pic] Bottleneck
Through out the process there exists possibility for yield loss. The average yield of release-ease on raw material A is a key indicator of the overall performance of the release-ease manufacturing process at different plants. Exhibit 4 gives the Annual Production Capacity, Annual Design Capacity, Average Yield and the Annual
A Case Analysis
Submitted to
Prof. Jishnu Hazra
Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
on
December 20, 2005
in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the
Operations Management Course in the
Post Graduate Program in Management
Submitted by
Mahesh Bansal (0511018)
Nitin Bhadauria (0511023)
Rahul Parihar (0511033)
Uma Gurumurthy (0511050)
Yadavendra Yadava (0511057)
SECTION A
APPLICHEM
Introduction:
Release-ease was a specialty chemical developed by Applichem. Molds for plastic parts are precision stainless steel molds that are difficult to clean, and are used repeatedly and hence un-molding and cleaning became the bottleneck. With this, customers could formulate a plastic molding compound which released easily from metal molds after compression molding.
Release-ease is manufactured by a 4 step process – 1. Reaction Step: Raw materials are combined in a precise sequence under pressure and heat to form release-ease, which is then precipitated out to form a slurry. The quality of release-ease, amount of raw materials and the characteristics of the process is unaffected by source of energy used in plant. Steam, natural gas, oil and electricity were combined differently at different plants to minimize local cost. 2. Cleaning: In this step, the cleaning or isolation of the release-ease particles from the slurry was performed by moving it on a conveyor belt. 3. Drying: In this step, the release particles were dried. 4. Packaging: The packaging of release-ease powder in bags on an automated filler line was undertaken.
[pic] Bottleneck
Through out the process there exists possibility for yield loss. The average yield of release-ease on raw material A is a key indicator of the overall performance of the release-ease manufacturing process at different plants. Exhibit 4 gives the Annual Production Capacity, Annual Design Capacity, Average Yield and the Annual