PROCESS PERFORMANCE

Deliverable Length:  3-4 pages (body of paper)

Current Assignment: Review the scenario at beginning of the assignment list.

As the company examines various methods to assess its performance and design processes, it is looking for an analysis of the existing workflow production process and the factors that most directly impact such measurements. As a review, the most common metrics for production processes are as follows:

• Quality: the number of defects associated with a given product
• Cost: material and labor cost
• Timeliness: how quickly products are manufactured and delivered
• Flexibility: the degree to which the production process can be adapted to produce other products or specific products more quickly
• Productivity: a ratio of outputs divided by inputs
• Efficiency: a ratio of actual outputs divided by standard (or expected) outputs, multiplied by 100% to give a total efficiency percentage
• Cycle time: the total time it takes to complete a production process
• Theory of Constraints and Queuing Theory

Using course materials and other research, complete the following:

• Explain how each measure can be applied to the company’s production planning process. Can the company use each one? How?
• Rank the criteria listed above in order of importance to the company’s production planning strategy detailing your rationale for such a ranking.
• Identify other measures that might apply to the company and explain them.

Previous Scenario   Only to be used as a guide

A specialty memory chip manufacturer is located in Southern California with manufacturing plants located in the United States, Europe, Singapore, and Japan. Additionally, it has branch sales offices located in major metropolitan areas across the globe. The market for its six key products included original equipment manufacturers of personal computers, cellular telephone manufacturers, electronics distributors, and government organizations. The market environment for its products is extremely volatile with fluctuating demand and rapidly changing prices. The company uses short-term contracts (less than 1 month) and spot pricing for irregular customers. Internally, the operation is capital-intensive with depreciation running approximately $1.2 million per day (depreciation has an impact on revenue streams). The 6 key products had further specialized components, making the possible line mix total 24 distinct products. Further, the manufacturing process required high manufacturing lead times and various product yields. In the high technology memory arena, product life cycles were dramatically shortened because of rapid obsolescence. To coordinate the manufacturing activity, the company has an established process and system that helped optimize resource utilization, improve shop floor efficiencies, and manage customer demand.

The company is experiencing 10–15% growth in revenues and volume, primarily tied to increased worldwide demand, product type, and market variables. Most significantly, the company received a major preorder for a new cellular phone memory chip that is scheduled to come out in 3 months. This preorder is scaled for up to 10 million units, and management is concerned that the existing process and system may not be suitably optimized for this order. Additionally, the forecast in sales figures for all six key product lines is higher than it has been in the past. With the increase in volume, management is concerned about the quality management process as well—can the existing processes maintain the highest degree of quality needed?

As a new member of the production planning management staff, you will be expected to help develop strategies to support the expanded growth plans. Your team faces several fundamental issues. First, are the individual plant layouts conducive to the expanded growth expected by the company? Second, are individual plant layouts optimized for the most efficient performance and lowest cost? Third, is the existing supply chain interaction among all the various components optimized in the same manner individual layouts are expected to be optimized? Finally, your group must consider capacity planning and workflow to ensure the company can meet its contractual obligations with the maximum revenue and profitability. It currently uses information systems developed by the company to conduct production planning. You believe that a fully integrated enterprise resource planning tool or specific production planning software would better suit the company in light of its upcoming increase in production.

Grading Criteria	Percentage
Deliverable requirements addressed; understanding of material and writer’s message and intent are clear.	35%
Scholarly research that supports the writer’s position is properly acknowledged and cited. Direct quotations may not exceed 10% of the word count of the body of the assignment deliverable (excluding title page, abstract, or table of contents if used and tables, exhibits, appendices, and reference page). Inclusion of plagiarized content will not be tolerated and may result in adverse academic consequences.	20%
Critical thinking: Position is well-justified, there is logical flow, and there are examples.	20%
Structure: Includes introduction and conclusion, proper paragraph format, and reads as a polished, academic paper or professional presentation, as appropriate for the required assignment deliverable.	10%
Mechanical: No spelling, grammatical, or punctuation errors.	10%
APA: Deliverable is cited properly according to the APA Publication Manual (6th ed.).

Click here to order this paper @Essaybay.net. The Ultimate Custom Paper Writing Service