State The Problems: Rabie And Harary Case
Introduction- State the Problem
Two entrepreneurs, Rabie and Harary, started a company around a product that sprouted hair from a small humanlike head. They called this product Earth Buddy and the sales jumped pretty quickly. Sales at first started through Toronto-area flower shops and gift stores but as demand increased they were able to start selling Earth Buddy at Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, K-Mart and similar stores. The production process had few steps but was affected by the weather. With hot weather, the process was delayed two hours.
Summer is forecasted to come, which means it will be getting hot soon. This will slow production when demand is increasing. It is Ben’s task to find a solution so that these hot days do not increase process time.
Analyze the Problem The problem lies in the process of making the product. There are seven steps in making the product and each one has a limited capacity. Personal should be placed in the task where they can be most effective. Ever process has a bottleneck and in this case it is the Filing step. The Filing step, with the current amount of employees, can only produce 40 units per hour. It is said that there is usually about 250 heads in the filling area but sometimes it is a larger amount. This is because all the other steps have at least a production capacity of 75 units per hour and some even have up to 225 units per hour. Filling is the bottleneck and it causing delays.
Conclusion/Suggestions
There are two suggestions for Earth Buddy to solve its problems. The first solution is to increase personal in the Filling stage. This will increase the capacity, which will increase production. Hiring more personal is the best option to stop the delays. The second solution is to making the productions areas temperature-controlled rooms. This way it does not matter how hot it is outside because the weather will not affect the product. This will stop the two-hour delays from ever occurring again. There is also a proposition in which facility can be expanded, but this is not a good idea. The product is going off the shelves right now but competition is soon to rise because it is a very simple process. Investing a lot of money in a new facility can become a failure. The solutions are increase production and get temperature-controlled rooms.
Two entrepreneurs, Rabie and Harary, started a company around a product that sprouted hair from a small humanlike head. They called this product Earth Buddy and the sales jumped pretty quickly. Sales at first started through Toronto-area flower shops and gift stores but as demand increased they were able to start selling Earth Buddy at Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, K-Mart and similar stores. The production process had few steps but was affected by the weather. With hot weather, the process was delayed two hours.
Summer is forecasted to come, which means it will be getting hot soon. This will slow production when demand is increasing. It is Ben’s task to find a solution so that these hot days do not increase process time.
Analyze the Problem The problem lies in the process of making the product. There are seven steps in making the product and each one has a limited capacity. Personal should be placed in the task where they can be most effective. Ever process has a bottleneck and in this case it is the Filing step. The Filing step, with the current amount of employees, can only produce 40 units per hour. It is said that there is usually about 250 heads in the filling area but sometimes it is a larger amount. This is because all the other steps have at least a production capacity of 75 units per hour and some even have up to 225 units per hour. Filling is the bottleneck and it causing delays.
Conclusion/Suggestions
There are two suggestions for Earth Buddy to solve its problems. The first solution is to increase personal in the Filling stage. This will increase the capacity, which will increase production. Hiring more personal is the best option to stop the delays. The second solution is to making the productions areas temperature-controlled rooms. This way it does not matter how hot it is outside because the weather will not affect the product. This will stop the two-hour delays from ever occurring again. There is also a proposition in which facility can be expanded, but this is not a good idea. The product is going off the shelves right now but competition is soon to rise because it is a very simple process. Investing a lot of money in a new facility can become a failure. The solutions are increase production and get temperature-controlled rooms.