Author: chris

Week 5

Analytics Exercise: Developing an Aggregate Plan — Bradford Manufacturing
The Situation
You are the operations manager for a manufacturing plant that produces pudding food products. One of your important responsibilities is to prepare an aggregate plan for the plant. This plan is an important input into the annual budget process. The plan provides information on production rates, manufacturing labor requirements, and projected finished goods inventory levels for the next year.
You make those little boxes of pudding mix on packaging lines in your plant. A packaging line has a number of machines that are linked by conveyors. At the start of the line the pudding is mixed; it is then placed in small packets. These packets are inserted into the small pudding boxes, which are collected and placed in cases that hold 48 boxes of pudding. Finally, 160 cases are collected and put on a pallet. The pallets are staged in a shipping area from which they are sent to four distribution centers. Over the years, the technology of the packaging lines has improved so that all the different flavors can be made in relatively small batches with no setup time to switch between flavors. The plant has 15 of these lines, but currently only 10 are being used. Six employees are required to run each line.
The demand for this product fluctuates from month to month. In addition, there is a seasonal component, with peak sales before Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter each year. To complicate matters, at the end of the first quarter of each year the marketing group runs a promotion in which special deals are made for large purchases. Business is going well, and the company has been experiencing a general increase in sales.
The plant sends product to four large distribution warehouses strategically located in the United States. Trucks move product daily. The amounts shipped are based on maintaining target inventory levels at the warehouses. These targets are calculated based on anticipated weeks of supply at each warehouse. Current targets are set at two weeks of supply.
In the past, the company has had a policy of producing very close to what it expects sales to be because of limited capacity for storing finished goods. Production capacity has been adequate to support this policy.
A sales forecast for next year has been prepared by the marketing department. The forecast is based on quarterly sales quotas, which are used to set up an incentive program for the salespeople. Sales are mainly to the large U.S. retail grocers. The pudding is shipped to the grocers from the distribution warehouses based on orders taken by the salespeople.
Your immediate task is to prepare an aggregate plan for the coming year. The technical and economic factors that must be considered in this plan are shown next.

Technical and Economic Information
1 Currently the plant is running 10 lines with no overtime. Each line requires six people to run. For planning purposes, the lines are run for 7.5 hours each normal shift. Employees, though, are paid for eight hours’ work. It is possible to run up to two hours of overtime each day, but it must be scheduled for a week at a time, and all the lines must run overtime when it is scheduled. Workers are paid $20.00/hour during a regular shift and $30.00/hour on overtime. The standard production rate for each line is 450 cases/hour.
2 The marketing forecast for demand is as follows: Q1—2,000; Q2—2,200; Q3—2,500; Q4—2,650; and Q1 (next year)—2,200. These numbers are in 1,000-case units. Each number represents a 13-week forecast.
3 Management has instructed manufacturing to maintain a two-week supply of pudding inventory in the warehouses. The two-week supply should be based on future expected sales. The following are ending inventory target levels for each quarter: Q1—338; Q2—385; Q3—408; Q4—338.
4 Inventory carrying cost is estimated by accounting to be $1.00 per case per year. This means that if a case of pudding is held in inventory for an entire year, the cost to just carry that case in inventory is $1.00. If a case is carried for only one week, the cost is $1.00/52, or $.01923. The cost is proportional to the time carried in inventory. There are 200,000 cases in inventory at the beginning of Q1 (this is 200 cases in the 1,000-case units that the forecast is given in).
5 If a stockout occurs, the item is backordered and shipped at a later date. The cost when a backorder occurs is $2.40 per case due to the loss of goodwill and the high cost of emergency shipping.
6 The human resource group estimates that it costs $5,000 to hire and train a new production employee. It costs $3,000 to lay off a production worker.
Questions
1 Prepare an aggregate plan for the coming year, assuming that the sales forecast is perfect. Use the spreadsheet “Bradford Manufacturing”. In the spreadsheet an area has been designated for your aggregate plan solution. Supply the number of packaging lines to run and the number of overtime hours for each quarter. You will need to set up the cost calculations in the spreadsheet.
You may want to try using the Excel Solver to find a solution. Remember that your final solution needs an integer number of lines and an integer number of overtime hours for each quarter. (Solutions that require 8.9134 lines and 1.256 hours of overtime are not feasible.)
2 Review your solution carefully and be prepared to defend it. Bring a printout of your solution to class.

1)  What is the value to the company and the supplier in developing and implementing a Supplier Relationship Management (SMS) System? How can such a system provide greater efficiency? Describe the value to the organization

 

2)  Describe the role of “green” sourcing strategies in logistics design, and how an organization may be affected by this approach.

 

 

Reference: Wisner, J.D., Keah-Choon, T., & Leong, G.  (2012). Principles of Supply Chain Management (3rd ed.).  Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.  ISBN: 9780538475464

Discussion Topic: Corporate Governance

Describe the similarities and differences between the ERG Theory and Maslow’s Hierarchy. How have you used either of the two theories in daily life?

Hello there!

I have two(2) homeworks: cosnsist of selecting an article from the a newspaper related to global business and write a one (1) page review for each article below using MLA format.

1. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Merkel-to-ask-Modi-to-resume-FTA-talks-with-EU/articleshow/49190005.cms

2. ECB President Mario Draghi Says Eurozone Returning to Growth After Policy Moves

n a 350 word paper, define the following and provide an example of each:

• Pointer
• Array

Answer the following question and provide an example: What is the difference between a one-dimensional and a two-dimensional array?

write a paper from the point of view of a sales manager and write what incentives you would offer your employees and what are the pros and cons of those incentives (examples: quotas, commissions, etc)

Also write what incentive would motivate you and include 3 sources

I’m not familiar with the “sales” environment, but one incentive that will motivate my employees and myself as a manager is “commission”–––they will definitely try to make/close a sale.

format is: college writing (2 pages)

Case Study: Opening Your New Dunkin Donuts Locations

Assumption and Context: You have been the manager of a Dunkin Donuts store in the Midwest for the past two years. The store is owned by a Dunkin Donuts franchisee who owns 20 other Dunkin Donuts locations. Your employer took an employee inventory and examined all current employees. It has been noted by the owner that you have a highly successful track record. You have been recognized for doing an exceptional job staffing, leading, training, coaching, and managing people. You have been recognized for successfully managing all key components of your store and have successfully managed key business drivers such as cash, profits, growth, asset utilization and people. In regards to the metrics that are used to measure their stores for sales, quality, and customer service, your store is the top performing store in their system.

Congratulations! You have just been promoted to District Manager! The Dunkin Donuts franchisee sees your growth potential and the growth potential in your geographic area. The owner now has committed significant capital and plans to open five new locations over the next two years. You will be given complete autonomy, authority, and responsibility to structure, staff, and operate these five new locations. You will be playing a key role in this expansion for growth.

Assignment: Prepare a five-page paper (excluding the title and reference pages), including at least three scholarly sources, in addition to the textbook, formatted according to APA style guidelines as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. In your paper, explain your chosen job design, organizational design, your recruiting strategy and methods, and your training and performance appraisal process as the new District Manager for Dunkin Donuts.

You must organize your paper using the following section headings and include additional section headings as needed:

1. Introduction
2. Job Design
3. Organizational Design
4. Recruiting and Selection
5. Training and Performance Appraisals

Directions: You must create a thread in response to the discussion board prompt below. Your thread must be at least 500 words and no more than 550 words. Your thread must include at least 1 source from a peer-reviewed journal article (outside of the assigned course readings) cited in current APA format. Please remember to include appropriate formatting using the APA manual, 6th edition. This is very important as a graduate level student. Be precise, concise and clear and give you instructor exactly what the rubric and instructions ask for when completing your assignments. Graduate quality work is expected to be free from spelling and grammatical errors, written according to the most current APA formatting guidelines, and adhere to the specific assignment rubrics that are provided.

Thread Forum Question: You are a middle school counselor in a public school setting. Susan is a 15-year-old at your school, and she has come to you describing her plan to commit suicide. She tells you but explains that you cannot tell anybody because, if her parents find out, she will be abused. She says she wants to commit suicide because she is being bullied by other girls at the school because for being a lesbian.
What ethical, legal, and professional issues are involved in Susan’s case?
Compare and contrast the ACA, ASCA, and AACA ethical codes, identifying the differences and similarities. Then, identify those that you are applying to Susan’s case.
Identify the legal issues involved in Susan’s case.
Identify other professional, spiritual, and cultural issues that need to be addressed in Susan’s case.
Specifically describe the actions that you would take to address all the issues that need to be addressed in order to help Susan, describe how you might integrate biblical principles related to this case and in this secular setting, and describe the impact of your own religious beliefs and values.

Note: Be sure to address everything above in your original post. Use the attached rubric as you complete this assignment to make sure that you are covering everything correctly.

Due in lab Monday or Wednesday next week

The purpose of watching this movie is to
Identify natural and altered nutrient cycling in a modern agroecosystem,
to assess our role in our ecosystem, and
to identify social, economic, and political impacts on our agricultural practices.
Total possible points–50
Why do Ian and Curt set out to farm an acre of corn in Iowa? List at least 2 reasons. (4pts)
Using specific examples of how Ian and Curt farm their acre, list actions farmers take that di