Wheaton Sanitary District

JoAnn Brockington

Feburary 9, 2016

Case Study 11

For the Somerset Furniture Company described in Case Problem 10.1 in Chapter 10, determine the product lead time by developing a time line from the initiation of a purchase order to product delivery. Discuss the company's possible transportation modes and channels in China and to and within the United States, and the likelihood of potential problems. Identify and discuss how international trade specialist(s), trade logistics companies, and/or Internet exchanges might help Somerset reduce its product lead time and variability.

Lead time is the average time it takes for one work item to go through the entire process from start to finish including time waiting and time consumed by rework. In most cases, unless you are intentionally managing your lead time, you will have lead times that are highly variable and probably excessively long. Increase Predictability, reducing variability in lead time will allow you to consistently know and commit when something can be delivered. Delivering consistently will help to increase the trust within the system. One of the very beneficial outcomes from increasing trust in the system is that it leads to a dramatic reduction in expediting. Once the system becomes predictable, the business may be able to make new offers to customers based on the high level of predictability.

Faster Feedback, Reducing lead time duration results in faster feedback. Faster feedback can result in increased quality. There are number of reasons for this.  Less work is done based on work items that require rework. Shorter cycles result in better fit since the feedback can be gathered and applied frequently. Also, faster feedback means that the team can minimize the work required to meet the objectives. Flexibility and Responsiveness, Shorter lead times and trust based on predictability increases options for flexibility. You can delay some decisions until very late deciding just before you pull into the system...