Unit 3: Albatross Anchor Essay

The objective of strategic capacity planning is to provide an approach for determining the overall capacity level of labor-intensive resources.

* Since the capacity is being expanded to increase production of Product C, it could be assumed that this increase should be allocated to this product. Production of Product A is to be scaled down, but its level of fixed costs has been assumed to be unchanged.

One of the biggest needs for improvement was the assembly process. Although several changes were made throughout the years, quality and efficiency still fell below expectations. Hinrichs implemented the newly developed assembly which consists of two separate work stations that allowed operators in the adjacent stations to share the expensive balancer machine. These assembly cells were much more efficient as workers were no longer forced to wait for another person or machine in the process. Each cell was built like the other with quick turn set-up which created flexibility in the process while also reducing tooling inventory by almost a half. Now cells

Based on the information presented in the scenario/case study discuss Albatross Anchor’s competitiveness in relation to (please address all items in the below list and provide support for your conclusions):

Proposed changes: Initial proposed changes are utilizing resources mainly towards the replacement of equipment. This is one of the most important changes that need to take place. The manufacturing floor must be reorganized and there should be proper placement of the machinery. Raw product storage would be located towards the western wall. This would be a direct connection between receiving raw material and storage area. Doing this will eliminate any unnecessary foot traffic. After this would be move the finished product storage to the northern end of the facility and create two separate shipping departments. International shipping and domestic shipping, the domestic shipping department would be located where the general shipping area is currently. The international shipping would be next to the receiving area. The finished product would be stored in an area between the

Our customer service is the fundamental reason why we provide more value than our competitors. It’s also why many of our customers consider us the trusted advisers to help them have a safe and wonderful sailing experience.

Albatross Anchor has been in family owned business that has been in business since 1976. They are manufacturer of bell/mushroom anchors and snag hook anchors. Albatross Anchor facing many operational challenges due to the inefficiencies of their facilities and the way they process orders and since they are only sells their products wholesale; they are unable to increase their profit margin. Some of the challenges they face are outdated machinery technology and their current building floor plan. Their building consists of their administrative offices, foundry, shipping and receiving, raw materials and finished

Based on the information presented in the scenario/case study discuss Albatross Anchor’s competitiveness in relation to (please address all items in the below list and provide support for your conclusions):

Determining capacity is a very important of company day to day operations as it considers whether the amount of work that a company is putting out is capable of meeting supply and demand. Management must make correct decisions that consider product mix issues, whether or not processes and capacity can be improved without adding risky staffing or machinery investments, how to avoid bottleneck areas and whether quality is at expected consumer standards (Vonderembse & White, 2013).

Hospital capacity contracts involve selling hospital services at a low price point or at greater comprehensive risk, allowing potential for greater volume. Four common approaches to pricing under hospital capacity contracts includes discount charge, per diem, per case and per capita. The discounted charge approach arranges

The expansion plan calls for a $50 million investment in production capacity to accommodate the future demand of the retailer. Considering that all of HPL’s four plants are already operating at

All the costs by a company can be broken into two categories, fixed costs and variable costs. Costs that are independent of output are called fixed costs. Fixed costs remain constant throughout the relevant range and are usually considered sunk for the relevant range. Buildings and machinery are included inputs that cannot be adjusted in the short term. They are only fixed in relation to the quantity of production for a certain time period. The cost of all inputs is variable, in the long run.

Boeing made use of lean techniques in their production system and increased its production by 50% and also reduced its floor space by 40%. Assembling a Boeing 737 is a typical job. Workers should take 367,000 parts, an same number of bolts, rivets, other equipment and 36 miles (58 kilometres) of electrical wire and then keep them all combined to make an airplane [2]. Engineers to machinists were involved in lean (reducing waste) in the factory. By creating an assembly line, aircraft will pass through the workers were they going to concentrate on assembling. Allocating all employees in the factory building and organising special teams helped a lot to solve the errors in the assembly line [2]. In the assembly line, there are eight beacon lights which reflect the production status. If everything is good it shows green colour. If an error occurs, the worker will press a button and the green light will changes to yellow and the panel board will shows the category of the problem(which category it is related to). The worker will pass on to a computer and writes about the problem in a brief manner and the problem should be assigned to special team to solve it within 30 minutes if not, the light turns to purple and the assembly line will shuts down. This moving assembly is the icon of factory’s lean strategies.

Capacity planning is a necessary function of an organization to ensure that the highest rate of output is reached through the current processes taking place within an organization. These strategically defined processes must have the ability to provide flexibility to meet future capacity demand, whether due to opportunity growth or adjustments to make decreases to maximize profits. “Capacity decisions related to a process need to be made in light of the role the process plays within the organization and the supply chain as a whole, because changing the capacity of a

A central aspect of the dynamic problem facing a business in an evolving and competitive industry is the decision about additions to productive capacity. The purpose of this report is to provide strategic advice for the CEO of Bonkers Chocolate Factory (BCF), the U.S division of a multi-national candy company operating in the highly competitive chocolate products market.