Business Research Process
The Business Research Process
Amy Portugue
RES/351
October 15, 2012
Steve German
The Business Research Process
I am the current employee of a world renowned company in the agricultural industry. John Deere has been a long standing name for over 175 years. The combine plant located in East Moline, Illinois just celebrated its 100th anniversary. I have worked at the combine plant for almost 5 years now and have experienced several dilemmas within the company. Many of our dilemmas come from new product launches. We recently launched a new combine that was code-named the Andromeda. This combine was the largest we have ever built and posed many issues when building it. With this combine, we faced over 8500 new parts and also the ability to move it down our production line considering its size. Our research question was would this combine out-perform our competitors combines and any of our previous combines? The management dilemma was would the factory be able to house the parts and provide the man-power to properly build such as large combine in the proper amount of time. Our company produces companies based on orders. Not one of our combines is produced without being previously ordered by a customer. So each combine is literally made-to-order. We provide a special service to our customer, which is known as the Gold Key Tour. If a customer has purchased a combine, they are invited to come to our factory, tour the facility, see their combine being built and be the first one to start their combine. When we do this, we are able to get feedback from the customer of their experience of our factory. This provided with information that we can use to better their experience that they can associate with the John Deere name. John Deere prides itself in the quality of its products. We mean to serve the customer in every way we possibly can. That is why we introduced our newest and largest combine. We wanted to give the farmers the ability to harvest more crop in a shorter
Amy Portugue
RES/351
October 15, 2012
Steve German
The Business Research Process
I am the current employee of a world renowned company in the agricultural industry. John Deere has been a long standing name for over 175 years. The combine plant located in East Moline, Illinois just celebrated its 100th anniversary. I have worked at the combine plant for almost 5 years now and have experienced several dilemmas within the company. Many of our dilemmas come from new product launches. We recently launched a new combine that was code-named the Andromeda. This combine was the largest we have ever built and posed many issues when building it. With this combine, we faced over 8500 new parts and also the ability to move it down our production line considering its size. Our research question was would this combine out-perform our competitors combines and any of our previous combines? The management dilemma was would the factory be able to house the parts and provide the man-power to properly build such as large combine in the proper amount of time. Our company produces companies based on orders. Not one of our combines is produced without being previously ordered by a customer. So each combine is literally made-to-order. We provide a special service to our customer, which is known as the Gold Key Tour. If a customer has purchased a combine, they are invited to come to our factory, tour the facility, see their combine being built and be the first one to start their combine. When we do this, we are able to get feedback from the customer of their experience of our factory. This provided with information that we can use to better their experience that they can associate with the John Deere name. John Deere prides itself in the quality of its products. We mean to serve the customer in every way we possibly can. That is why we introduced our newest and largest combine. We wanted to give the farmers the ability to harvest more crop in a shorter