Concept explainers
UPD Manufacturing produces a range of health care appliances for hospital as well as for home use. The company has experienced a steady demand for its products, which are highly regarded in the health care field. Recently the company has undertaken a review of its inventory ordering procedures as part of a larger effort to reduce costs.
One of the company's products is a blood pressure testing kit. UPD manufactures all of the components for the kit in house except for the digital display unit. The display units are ordered at six-week intervals from the supplier. This ordering system began about five years ago, because the supplier insisted on it. However, that supplier was bought out by another supplier about a year ago, and the six-week ordering requirement is no longer in place. Nonetheless, UPD has continued to use the six-week ordering policy. According to purchasing manager Tom Chambers, "Unless somebody can give me a reason for changing, I'm going to stick with what we've been doing. I don't have time to reinvent the wheel."
Further discussions with Tom revealed a cost of $32 to order and receive a shipment of display units from the supplier. The company assembles 89 kits a week. Also, information from Sara James, in Accounting, indicated a weekly carrying cost of $.08 for each display unit.
The supplier has been quite reliable with deliveries; orders are received five working days after they are faxed to the supplier. Tom indicated that as far as he was concerned, lead-time variability is virtually nonexistent.
Would using an order interval other than every six weeks reduce costs? If so, what order interval would be best, and what order size would that involve?
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Operations Management
- Scenario 3 Ben Gibson, the purchasing manager at Coastal Products, was reviewing purchasing expenditures for packaging materials with Jeff Joyner. Ben was particularly disturbed about the amount spent on corrugated boxes purchased from Southeastern Corrugated. Ben said, I dont like the salesman from that company. He comes around here acting like he owns the place. He loves to tell us about his fancy car, house, and vacations. It seems to me he must be making too much money off of us! Jeff responded that he heard Southeastern Corrugated was going to ask for a price increase to cover the rising costs of raw material paper stock. Jeff further stated that Southeastern would probably ask for more than what was justified simply from rising paper stock costs. After the meeting, Ben decided he had heard enough. After all, he prided himself on being a results-oriented manager. There was no way he was going to allow that salesman to keep taking advantage of Coastal Products. Ben called Jeff and told him it was time to rebid the corrugated contract before Southeastern came in with a price increase request. Who did Jeff know that might be interested in the business? Jeff replied he had several companies in mind to include in the bidding process. These companies would surely come in at a lower price, partly because they used lower-grade boxes that would probably work well enough in Coastal Products process. Jeff also explained that these suppliers were not serious contenders for the business. Their purpose was to create competition with the bids. Ben told Jeff to make sure that Southeastern was well aware that these new suppliers were bidding on the contract. He also said to make sure the suppliers knew that price was going to be the determining factor in this quote, because he considered corrugated boxes to be a standard industry item. As the Marketing Manager for Southeastern Corrugated, what would you do upon receiving the request for quotation from Coastal Products?arrow_forwardMpho is an avid seamstress and want to sew and sell high quality, reusable, designer face masks during the current Covid-19 pandemic. She will design and sew the masks herself and use her automatic embroidery machine to put her logo on each mask sold. With the help of her son, deliveries will be made all over Gauteng within 3 days of placing the order. Every mask will have a unique three-layer design with adjustable straps to ensure comfort and fit. Mpho’s only expense is the material needed to sew the masks and delivery costs. At this stage, Mpho’s target market is limited to Gauteng. Question: Create a diagram to illustrate the transformation process of Mpho’s new business. Be sure to include all relevant elements, headings and arrows to indicate the flowof products/ services. What should be in the diagram: outputs, inputs, feedback, transformation process and flow of product and service ect.arrow_forwardUPO Manufacturing produces a range of health care appliances for hospital as well as for home use. The company has expenenced a steady demand for as products. which are highly regarded in the health care I &id. Recently the company has undertaken a review of as memory ordering procedures as pan of a larger effort to reduce costs. One of the company's products is a blood pressure testing kit. UPD manufactures all of the components for the kit in-house except for the digital display unit The display units are ordered at six-week intervals from the supplier. This ordering system began about five years ago. because the supplier insisted on it. However, that supplier was bought out by another supplier about a year ago. and the six-week ordering requirement is no longer in place. None-theless. UPO has continued to use the six- week ordering policy. According to purchasing manager Tom Chambers. "Unless some body can give me a reason for changing. I'm going to stick with what we've been…arrow_forward
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- Purchasing and Supply Chain ManagementOperations ManagementISBN:9781285869681Author:Robert M. Monczka, Robert B. Handfield, Larry C. Giunipero, James L. PattersonPublisher:Cengage Learning