Ops571 Week Four Team Assignment

Assignment: Production Plan for Riordan Manufacturing

By

OPS 571 – Chandler Campus

University of Phoenix

Facilitator: Niraj Kohli

Week Four – April 27, 2011

Overview

The assignment for week four includes a review of the Riordan Manufacturing simulation and identification of bottlenecks within the process. Team A will discuss a new design and supply chain process utilizing strategic capacity planning and lean production methods.

Riordan Manufacturing

Dr. Riordan is a Chemical Professor and started Riordan Plastics in 1991. Through plastic research and development, Dr. Riordan obtained several patents with the intent to license products to manufacturers. Instead of licensing, Dr. Riordan procured financing for his own fan manufacturing plant in Michigan in 1992 and changed the name of the company to Riordan Manufacturing Incorporated. In 1993, Dr. Riordan purchased a plastic beverage bottle manufacturing plant in Georgia, and expanded business into China in 2000. All fan manufacturing moved from Michigan to China in 2000 and the Michigan plant was re-tooled to produce custom-plastic parts.

Strategic Capacity Planning

In today’s fast and highly competitive markets, more companies are utilizing the advances in technology and the speed of the Internet. These advances can assist Riordan Manufacturing improve supply chain management by managing stock levels, company assets and resources, and improving their on-time deliveries from 93% over the past year. Riordan’s fans use atypical parts and require a skilled workforce reducing plant manufacturing capacity. Utilizing strategic capacity planning would enable Riordan to forecast production demand more accurately and identify potential barriers to long-term goals such as the atypical parts and workforce. According to Chase, Jacobs, and Aquilano (2006), “strategic capacity planning is to provide an approach for determining the overall capacity level of capital-intensive...