Sleepmore Mattress Manufacturing - Case Study Example

no. Decision Making: Sleepmore Mattress Manufacturing Case Overview The W. Carl Lerhos’ task to the Sleepmore Mattress Manufacturing Company was to determine the best way the company was to follow in improving its production efficiency, productivity, and profitability as well as management efficiency. In his task, he was to use numerous attributes that had ready been discussed in the top management meeting to make a decision on what are the vital aspects of such attributes to be implemented and what ones were to be eradicated. In other words, he was to list with the highest degree of confidence what attributes were most fundamental to be implemented over the others. Nonetheless, the consideration of these attributes in the order of their importance is vital for the Sleepmore Mattress since they are to determine the attraction areas that will enhance the rapid growth of the firm (Ahmed 793). The rapid growth herein defines the vital aspect that is the success of the form and its acceptance into the market it operates (Clemen 86). Notably, to work effectively on the attributes towards elevating the company’s process, it was vital for the team involvement management to highlight vital objectives that would act as the reference point to the attributes. The same objectives for the Lerho’s task are highlighted in table 1 below. The listed objectives led to the drafting of the attributes listed in the table 2 below. I. Maximize Manufacturing Benefits a. Labor b. Manufacturing effectiveness 1. Talent availability 2. Plant size c. Operability 1. Production line complexity 2. Training 3. Production stability d. Facilities 1. Layout 2. Location 3. Space available II. Maximize Sales Benefits a. Maximize services b. Maximize quality III. Maximize direct financial Benefits a. Maximize Initial Cost b. Maximize ongoing benefit Table 1: Hierarchy object for the Lerhos’ assignment (Ahmed, 791) Rank Attribute Worse Outcome Best Outcome 1 Labor Create hostile union Eliminate hostile union 2 Quality Drastically worsen quality Strongly improve quality 3 Service Lose business Increase business 4 Annual savings Lose $1 million per year Save $1 million per year 5 Initial cost Cost $5 million Save $5 million 6 Management talent Severely worsen management Strongly improve management 7 Plant size (sales) Create $35 million plant Create $15 million plant 8 Plant location Move from rural area to the city Move from the city to the rural area 9 Product line complexity Increased to full product line Reduce the product line 10 Space availability Need a new facility (100,000 sq. ft.) Save an expansion of 100,000 sq. ft. 11 Production stability Increase demand variability Decrease variability 12 Training Train all new labor Small layout no new training 13 Plant layout Create poor layout Eliminate poor layout Table 2: Highlighted attributes in the order of importance (Ahmed 791) Rates of four Qualitative Attributes Despite the above listing of the management, it is vital to understanding the main objectives of the entire process. The main objectives of this process include increasing productivity, profitability, and efficiency of operation in the company. This understanding narrows down the all the listed objectives into two main working objectives that include maximizing manufacturing benefits and maximizing sale benefits. Under these two main objectives, labor, management effectiveness, facility (location, layout, and space), maximizing quality and service are fundamental in setting on the four major attributed that must be considered in this assignment. Therefore, the major four attributes that must be given weight for this project include labor, quality, service, and space availability. Just like mentioned by the vice president of the Sleepmore Mattress’ human resource, “Labor is the most important” attribute “because the quality of the labor determines the major aspects of the plant performance” including quality and profitability among others (Ahmed 793). Every business venture is always in existence to make profit; therefore, all the activities and operation of every business must be geared towards maximizing such profits. Quality of labor will lead to quality production and service delivery. These aspects will help in attracting and maintaining customers among other players in the production and service delivery section. However, from the case, Lerhos seems to be worried on the consideration that concentrating on labor may lead or create hostile union. This may not be true. Depending on the management skills of the labor and providing the same with all the needed return and in a good quality and quantities, the company will never in any way be in loggerhead with the union. However, if the labor provides quality services and is with the required quality but the company missuses it, then there may be a problem between the company and the union thereby creating such hostility between the two. Moreover, quality production will depend on quality service delivery that is also pegged on quality work force. Therefore, effective production with quality concern are other factor that makes the quality attribute a factor of concern in working out on aspects that will elevate the company’s rapid growth. Additionally, it would hence be vital for the Lerhos work on factors that will strongly improve the quality of product and service delivery in the company. The third as attribute is the service delivery. This cuts across to employees, suppliers, and customers. The poor service delivery may lead to lose of the business while the reverse will lead to increased business; thus, the profitability of the company. In should be noted that wrongly or poorly treated employees will return the same frustration on their duties and customers among other company stakeholders. Therefore, the same may lead to poor quality production and service delivery thereby affecting the operation of the company and the relationship between the company and its vita stakeholders. Alternatively, well treated customer will ever remain loyal to the company in turn attracting more customers. Hence, it is prudent to note that the nature and quality of services offered within and outside the company may lead to the growth and profitability of the company or the collapse of the company. Therefore, it is vital that this attribute be put in play among other two. Up to this point, it should have been noted that these attributes largely relate to each other; thus, they should be considered collectively after understanding their individual input and effects. Finally, space availability is a vital attribute for consideration. Effective production operations depend on the space available for such activities. In other words, squeezed spaces for operation may subject the employees to hazardous risks that interfere with their quality and quantity production. Enough working space area usually acts as a motivation aspect to the employees; therefore, there should never be need to save the company of an expansion area of 100,000 sq. ft. at the expense of affecting the productivity and safety of the employees. It should be noted that some saving aspects in the company may subject the company into loses that could have been avoided. In addition, such saving may hinder the company from growing. Therefore, there are sometimes needs to take risks with the prospects of elevating the productivity of the company (Ahmed 793). In essence, labor, quality (of both serve and product), service (quality of services offered to all stakeholders, and space availability (size of the production space) are vital attributes that must be consider as they in the listing. Appropriate Weight for the above Attributes Dealing with each of the four attribute may vary depending on the management’s preferences. Depending on what is supposed to be done to labor, this aspect may remain challenging, involving, and expensive. In most cases, the quantity of labor may not be vital to the company especially in areas were quantity are not needed. Therefore, the company must determine its current labor status and streamline it towards what is supposed. For instance, the company may realize that it has large employees without requirement as per their work descriptions. In such a case, they may opt to train the existing employee or seek for talent off the employee. Seeking talent off the company means employing fresh minds. Employing will require more training; therefore, it would be prudent that they train the existing team since they already have some experience to their work (Ahmed 794). Nonetheless, employees who may seem extremely poor in performance may be laid out for the effective and quality production and service delivery. Therefore, it is worth noting that it is with the quality labor that other qualities of services and production within the product line are determined. Therefore, the company may not save $1 million for the first year and use the same to recruit or train and have a quality and desired quantity of labor. The right quantity and quality of labor will help in maximizing manufacturing benefits of the company along its product line. From labor, service delivery will be other vital immediate attribute of production to consider. It is from quality labor that quality services are obtained. The quality services are services that meet the goals and objectives of the company within the desired duration. Moreover, they constitute services that all stakeholders are satisfied. In this sense, the proper labor leads quality and timely service delivery of the company thereby defining the quality of service and products offered by the company. Thus, the third attribute in weight is quality. Quality production cannot be achieved without quality services that must be offered by quality labor. Finally, I my list of vital attributes, space availability come last. In some cases, maximum production and manufacturing benefits are usually achieved in the minimum working spaces, but this usually subjects such products and service deliveries with management risks that may with time reduce quality of production. Therefore, it would be vital that Sleepmore mattress not to reduce operation working spaces. Consolidation of Locations Despite the fact that president of the firm noting that, “The smaller a plant, the easier it is to manage,” this may affect production. According to the president, merging plants into smaller plants “… could improve from a $35 million plant size to a $15 million plant, the gain would be equivalent to a savings from the status quo of $1 million a year in operation cost (Ahmed 793).” However, I would not suggest as location consolidation and propose merging smaller plant to larger plants in order to still provide the operation space that is specious enough not to hinder operations and service delivery within the firm (Clemen 123). Mattress manufacturing and handling requires a lot of space that reduction of working and other operation spaces may also elevate risks and hinder proper quality productions. Hence, it would be vital to move the operation to spacious locations without congestions. Moving to the rural areas will be vital since the company will save since prices of land in such areas are likely to be low and available than operating in the city. Phase Consolidation The initial step in phase consolidation will be determining the sizes of the plant and their current free space. The free space within the firm usually determines the likelihood and ease for expansion. Therefore, in my phase consolidation, I will move the smaller plants to larger plants with wider areas that allow future expansion. Additionally, I will prefer moving smaller firms in congested locations to larger firms in uncongested areas. Nonetheless, it would also be vital to note that merging plants within a close proximity will be the next phase of consolidation. This will mainly targets firms within cities and congested areas that shall have not been moved. This will only be rendered possible or the city plants’ consolidations will only be possible or be undertaken for firms that make maximum production and profits in their areas of operations. Locations that Dominate Others Deterministically The plants located in the rural area dominate over the plants located in city (especially congested city areas) deterministically. The plants’ locations are usually important as their sizes. Plants in congested areas are recorded to have low profit margin compared to plants in the rural areas. Therefore, if consolidation is anything to do in Sleepmore Mattress, then it would be appropriate if it is done by moving the company’s plant from the city to the rural area. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that these consideration ideas may create more harm to the company than good. Work Cited Ahmed, Alansari. Making Hard Decisions with Decision tools. Sleepmore Mattress Manufacturing. 2003. Clemen, Robert T, and Terence Reilly. Making Hard Decisions with Decisiontools. Pacific Grove, Calif. [u.a.: Duxbury/Thomson Learning, 2001. Print. Read More