Fhe Inc. Case Study
Case Study #2
FHE Inc.
Operations Management
FHE is a multimillion-dollar company that manufactures pumps and related fluid-handling equipment. The manufactured equipment transfers various types of liquids, from paint to food products. These pump are used by automobile and appliance industries, allowing performance in vehicle servicing and home construction, to name a few. Over the past five years, sales and profits have increased as a result of new product introductions.
The organizational structure of FHE begins with the President Dan Jones, followed by Phil Thomas who is the Vice President of Corporate Development and Marketing, and Norman Hart, the Vice President of Manufacturing.
Lum Donaldson is the product development engineer manager. Its is his job to determine the steps that should be taken to improve the new development process, along with clarifying the organizational relationship between product managers, technical program managers, and manufacturing managers. Donaldson also needs to improve the workload of the engineering services department.
When looking at the engineering department, it is apparent that there is a constant change in their workload. This causes bottleneck situations which can be attributed to the new project developments in progress, which can be as many as 20 at any one time. As a result, efficiency is limited and the introduction of the new product is slowed. The manager of Engineering and Administration has repeatedly requested notice in advance, however one excuse after another has prevented that from happening. It is also apparent that the manufacturing department is not included as part of the design team of new products, but the responsibility is theirs to manufacture the product. This in turn, results in products to be recalled. As a result of confusion over the job description of the marketing and engineering department, the product engineering manager need to make some drastic improvements.
The
FHE Inc.
Operations Management
FHE is a multimillion-dollar company that manufactures pumps and related fluid-handling equipment. The manufactured equipment transfers various types of liquids, from paint to food products. These pump are used by automobile and appliance industries, allowing performance in vehicle servicing and home construction, to name a few. Over the past five years, sales and profits have increased as a result of new product introductions.
The organizational structure of FHE begins with the President Dan Jones, followed by Phil Thomas who is the Vice President of Corporate Development and Marketing, and Norman Hart, the Vice President of Manufacturing.
Lum Donaldson is the product development engineer manager. Its is his job to determine the steps that should be taken to improve the new development process, along with clarifying the organizational relationship between product managers, technical program managers, and manufacturing managers. Donaldson also needs to improve the workload of the engineering services department.
When looking at the engineering department, it is apparent that there is a constant change in their workload. This causes bottleneck situations which can be attributed to the new project developments in progress, which can be as many as 20 at any one time. As a result, efficiency is limited and the introduction of the new product is slowed. The manager of Engineering and Administration has repeatedly requested notice in advance, however one excuse after another has prevented that from happening. It is also apparent that the manufacturing department is not included as part of the design team of new products, but the responsibility is theirs to manufacture the product. This in turn, results in products to be recalled. As a result of confusion over the job description of the marketing and engineering department, the product engineering manager need to make some drastic improvements.
The