Beck Manufacturing
Beck Manufacturing
Bernadette Giene Cain
BU644: Operations Management
Professor Vanessa Washington
June 23, 2015
The expansion of a company’s production equipment can be very costly, and the decision to expand is made off the assessment of the product demand behavior. The expansion must be profitable enough to minimize future decreased demand, and help alleviate production issues in order to increase production growth. Expansion can also be utilized in order to compete within a market, as this could mean that a company is looking to enter into a new product line, or demand for the existing product is so high that the company cannot meet these demands. Often times, there is a system capacity issue where a step in the production process is causing a bottleneck effect. Therefore, this step of the process must be analyzed in order to determine whether its capacity can be increased to meet production or if additional machinery is needed. “Many manufacturers of consumer products are grappling with how much product variety to offer. Manufacturers of industrial products are also seeking to modify their product lines in response to market needs” (Dobson & Candace. 2002. Pg. 293, para. 1). Al Beck, the President of Beck manufacturing, a producer of steering gears for auto manufacturers, wants the system capacity and to determine if the capacity can be increased. In this case study, an analysis will be done to determine the capacity capability of each stage of the production process, and where a possible bottleneck may occur. Below in chart 1 is the number of machines in the production process, and the capacity capability per minute for each machine.
Chart 1:
Beck Manufacturing has five operation work stations in the production process, milling, grinding, boring, drilling and assembly. Each station has a run time where they can produce a piece in an allotted timeframe, and the percentage of pieces that are rejected in each station of the process. The milling
Bernadette Giene Cain
BU644: Operations Management
Professor Vanessa Washington
June 23, 2015
The expansion of a company’s production equipment can be very costly, and the decision to expand is made off the assessment of the product demand behavior. The expansion must be profitable enough to minimize future decreased demand, and help alleviate production issues in order to increase production growth. Expansion can also be utilized in order to compete within a market, as this could mean that a company is looking to enter into a new product line, or demand for the existing product is so high that the company cannot meet these demands. Often times, there is a system capacity issue where a step in the production process is causing a bottleneck effect. Therefore, this step of the process must be analyzed in order to determine whether its capacity can be increased to meet production or if additional machinery is needed. “Many manufacturers of consumer products are grappling with how much product variety to offer. Manufacturers of industrial products are also seeking to modify their product lines in response to market needs” (Dobson & Candace. 2002. Pg. 293, para. 1). Al Beck, the President of Beck manufacturing, a producer of steering gears for auto manufacturers, wants the system capacity and to determine if the capacity can be increased. In this case study, an analysis will be done to determine the capacity capability of each stage of the production process, and where a possible bottleneck may occur. Below in chart 1 is the number of machines in the production process, and the capacity capability per minute for each machine.
Chart 1:
Beck Manufacturing has five operation work stations in the production process, milling, grinding, boring, drilling and assembly. Each station has a run time where they can produce a piece in an allotted timeframe, and the percentage of pieces that are rejected in each station of the process. The milling
References: Dobson, G., & Candace, A. Y. (2002). Product offering, pricing, and make-to-stock/make-to-order decisions with shared capacity.Production and Operations Management, 11(3), 293-312. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/228711710?accountid=32521 Mary-Paz, A. P. (2007). THE TIMING OF CAPACITY EXPANSION INVESTMENTS IN OLIGOPOLY UNDER DEMAND UNCERTAINTY.Investment Management & Financial Innovations, 4(1), 40-55,108. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/216682891?accountid=32521 Vonderembse, M.A. & White, G.P. (2013). Operations Management . San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Yan, H., An, Y., & Shi, W. (2010). A new bottleneck detecting approach to productivity improvement of knowledgeable manufacturing system. Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, 21(6), 665-680. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10845-009-0244-3