Concept explainers
M&L MANUFACTURING
M&L Manufacturing makes various components for printers and copiers. In addition to supplying these items to a major manufacturer, the company distributes these and similar items to office supply stores and computer stores as replacement parts for printers and desktop copiers in all the company makes about 20 different items. The two markets (the major manufacturer and the replacement market) require somewhat different handling. For example replacement products must be packaged individually whereas products are shipped in bulk to the major manufacturer.
The company does not use forecasts for production planning. Instead, the operations manager decides which items to produce and the batch size based on orders and the amounts in inventory. The products that have the fewest amounts in inventory get the highest priority. Demand is uneven, and the company has experienced being overstocked on some items and out of others. Being understocked has occasionally created tensions with the managers of retail outlets. Another problem is that prices of raw materials have been creeping up, although the operations manager thinks that this might be a temporary condition.
Because of competitive pressures and falling profits the manager has decide to undertake a number of changes. One change is to introduce more formal
With that m mind the manager wants to begin forecasting for two products. These products are important for several reasons. First, they account for a disproportionately large share of the company’s profits. Second, the manager believes that one of these products will become increasingly important to future growth plans and third, the other product has experienced periodic out-of-stock instances.
The manager has compiled data on product demand for the two products from order records for the previous 14 weeks. These are shown in the following table.
*Unusual order due to flooding of customer’s warehouse.
2. Prepare a weeldy forecast for the next four weeks each product. Briefly explain why you chose the method you used (Hint: For product 2, a simple approach, possibly some sort of naive/intuitive approach, would be preferable to a technical approach, would be preferable t a technical approach in view of the manager’s disdain of more technical methods.)
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Operations Management
- Scenario 3 Ben Gibson, the purchasing manager at Coastal Products, was reviewing purchasing expenditures for packaging materials with Jeff Joyner. Ben was particularly disturbed about the amount spent on corrugated boxes purchased from Southeastern Corrugated. Ben said, I dont like the salesman from that company. He comes around here acting like he owns the place. He loves to tell us about his fancy car, house, and vacations. It seems to me he must be making too much money off of us! Jeff responded that he heard Southeastern Corrugated was going to ask for a price increase to cover the rising costs of raw material paper stock. Jeff further stated that Southeastern would probably ask for more than what was justified simply from rising paper stock costs. After the meeting, Ben decided he had heard enough. After all, he prided himself on being a results-oriented manager. There was no way he was going to allow that salesman to keep taking advantage of Coastal Products. Ben called Jeff and told him it was time to rebid the corrugated contract before Southeastern came in with a price increase request. Who did Jeff know that might be interested in the business? Jeff replied he had several companies in mind to include in the bidding process. These companies would surely come in at a lower price, partly because they used lower-grade boxes that would probably work well enough in Coastal Products process. Jeff also explained that these suppliers were not serious contenders for the business. Their purpose was to create competition with the bids. Ben told Jeff to make sure that Southeastern was well aware that these new suppliers were bidding on the contract. He also said to make sure the suppliers knew that price was going to be the determining factor in this quote, because he considered corrugated boxes to be a standard industry item. As the Marketing Manager for Southeastern Corrugated, what would you do upon receiving the request for quotation from Coastal Products?arrow_forwardEfua Babyson (not a real name) completed Fashion Design Programme at a Technical University in Takoradi. Efua decided to join a dress-making group to gain experience for her career. In the course of her internship, Efua has observed that there are always a lot of beautiful pieces of leftover clothes that go waste thereby requiring the shop to spend money to dispose them. She is then thinking of designing fashioned carrier bags with the leftover clothes. Efua needs ideas on what factors to consider in decide to go or not go for the development of the conceived business idea. (a) Discuss four key things to consider in deciding to pursue or not the conceived business idea?arrow_forwardMpho is an avid seamstress and want to sew and sell high quality, reusable, designer face masks during the current Covid-19 pandemic. She will design and sew the masks herself and use her automatic embroidery machine to put her logo on each mask sold. With the help of her son, deliveries will be made all over Gauteng within 3 days of placing the order. Every mask will have a unique threelayer design with adjustable straps to ensure comfort and fit. Mpho’s only expense is the material needed to sew the masks and delivery costs. At this stage, Mpho’s target market is limited to Gauteng. Draw a diagram to illustrate the transformation process of Mpho’s new business. Be sure to include all relevant elements, headings and arrows to indicate the flow of products/ servicesarrow_forward
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- Glams Touch is a budding cosmetics family business in Sekondi. The owners, Baaba Benson and Bernard Benson, must ensure that they judiciously use the store space available. They have never kept detailed inventory or sales records. They immediately place new items on the shelves as soon as shipment of goods arrives.Invoices from suppliers are only kept for tax purposes. During sales, they record the items numbers and the total amount received at the cash register. The owners use their own judgment in identifying items that need to be reordered. Baaba and Bernard rely on their own judgment in deciding the cosmetics that need to be restocked.Analyse the business implication of this situation. In your view, how could information systems be utilized to assist the Bensons manage Glams Touch. Enumerate some data that should be captured by the systems and what information outputs are to be churned out from the system.arrow_forwardAs a logistics specialist, you are responsible for meeting customer demand. One of your customers places orders for you to supply four products by the end of October. You have limited capacity for raw material and other facilities. You are required to satisfy customer demand by manufacturing the products and/or buying from a supplier. After consulting with the production department, you obtained the following information. Product A Product B Product C Product D Order quantity 2000 3500 1500 2500 Hours required on machine X per unit 2 4 5 3 Hours required on machine Y per unit 4 3 6 2 Raw material in kilos 5 1 4 6 Time needed for Packaging per unit 36 minutes 30 minutes 45 minutes 24 minutes Available monthly hours per month: 8,000 on machine X, 6000 on machine Y, and 3,000 hours for packaging. Purchased items from your supplier are already packaged. Available raw material per month: 5,000 kilos…arrow_forwardGunes Corporation uses the weighted-average method in its process costing system. This month, the beginning inventory in the first processing department consisted of 800 units. The costs and percentage completion of these units in beginning inventory were: Cost PercentCompleteMaterials costs $ 10,600 65% Conversion costs $ 12,800 30% A total of 8,500 units were started and 7,400 units were transferred to the second processing department during the month. The following costs were incurred in the first processing department during the month: CostMaterials costs $ 142,100 Conversion costs $ 359,500 The ending inventory was 50% complete with respect to materials and 35% complete with respect to conversion costs. The cost per equivalent unit for conversion costs for the first department for the month is closest to:$44.58$46.16$40.03$48.47arrow_forward
- LPM Corp. produces and sells two types of frozen burgers, Turkey Burgers and Veggie Burgers. In the most recent month, the firm sold 12,000 Turkey Burgers and 8,000 Veggie Burgers. Turkey Burgers sold for $14.00 per box and variable costs were $7.40 per box. The Veggie Burgers sold for $16.00 per box and variable costs were $8.25 per box. The fixed expenses of the entire company were $41,160. If the sales mix were to shift toward the Turkey Burgers product line with total sales volume remaining constant at 20,000, the overall break-even point for the entire company:arrow_forwardAt the Lebanese factory "DELCO", John is using a system to produce the bar codes attached on the product bulks for identification. Each bulk contains 100 units of a certain product, and all the information related to the products inside the bulk are then represented by the barcode. Once prepared, the bulks are transferred to a very large warehouse and the location of each one is entered on the system. At a later stage, John uses the barcode in the warehouse to identify the right bulks for delivery, after being scanned using a special wireless barcode scanner. This way, John can decide in a better way how and when to make the shipments. This system helps John to save time and minimize the errors, and to perform his daily work in the most efficient way. On the other side, "DELCO" is facing a problem of late delivery to customers. In fact, dealing with hundreds of suppliers, wholesalers, and agents around the world makes this process very complicated. Most of the times, the shipments from…arrow_forwardNeverland Company, a retailer, plans to sell 15,000 units of Product X during the month of August. If the company has 2,500 units on hand at the start of the month, and plans to have 2,000 units on hand at the end of the month, how many units of Product X must be purchased from the supplier during the month? * 17,000 15,000 14,500 15,500arrow_forward
- Purchasing and Supply Chain ManagementOperations ManagementISBN:9781285869681Author:Robert M. Monczka, Robert B. Handfield, Larry C. Giunipero, James L. PattersonPublisher:Cengage Learning