Riordan Process Design

Process Design for Riordan Manufacturing

Team

OPS571

July 6, 2010

Teacher

Introduction

Riordan Manufacturing’s owns three plants: Albany, GA where plastic bottles are produced; Pontiac, MI where it handles the company’s custom plastic fabrication, and Hangzhou, China that currently operates a decentralized unit of the organization producing electric fans. When creating a process design for Riordan’s fan production operation, it is important to create a holistic production system that addresses several different aspects of production, including total quality management, material requirements planning (MRP), process design, supply chain considerations such as just-in-time manufacturing and Six Sigma, accurate forecasting methods, and a means of implementing change.

Total Quality Management

One of Riordan’s principal focuses, as outlined in its mission statement, is on lean Six Sigma (University, 2002). Six Sigma emphasizes fast delivery and minimizing costs, while delivering the highest quality products to customers (George, 2004). The needs of the customer drive everything under Six Sigma and the determination of what exactly the customer wants and what is relevant to the customer leads to process improvement. Studying production data and process workflow improves process and delivery speed, which in turn improves customer relations and increases profitability (George, 2004). Riordan’s Six Sigma projects should always start by studying what their consumers want, and analyzing the consumer focus when comparing Riordan to their competitors.

All of this is based on production efficiency data, production numbers, and workflow processes. Riordan must manage their Chinese operations more effectively by using more resources to track and mine relevant data specific to their processes and order flow, which involves: (a) receipt of components by truck, (b) molding fan blades with colored pellets, (c) trimming excess plastic from blades, (d)...