Circuit Board Fabricators Case Summary

This course covers techniques used in analysis and improvement of the value-adding activities of an organization. Customer value is created or added only when the output from a process or set of processes results in something a customer is willing to pay for. The course focuses on techniques for efficient and effective process management, in both

Word had spread quickly on Fort Huachuca that contact had been made with Washington D.C. and the President of the United States. Everyone on post had questions but there were very few answers forth coming. It was fortunate that General Watkins and Colonel Clayton happened to be on post when contact was made. General Watkins was more than happy to take the lead on the call with Washington as the post commander was at North Island visiting Admiral Meyer. There had been some initial contact with someone claiming to be Corporal Byrd from White House Communications. It was lost for some unknown reason only to return almost two weeks later.

In this portion of my case analysis, I will be showing ways for suggested solutions in order to help improve the situation at the Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant. I will be showing ways in which organizational improvement outcomes can directly help remedy some of the issues and recommend strategic actions that would lead the organization in a proactive production workforce. The recommendations are creating committees, rework how the Scanlon Plan bonus works, create or use their marketing and sales department to the full capacity, and to help empower the workforce work to achieve Corporate Social Responsibility. (CSR)

Jabil Circuit Inc. is a publicly traded electronics and technology company who has been excused by their shareholders for insider trading by not reporting they're backdating information. Backdating is not illegal as long as it is reported but unfortunately Jabil Circuit Inc. wasn't reporting. Insider trading is “ the purchase or sale of securities on the basis of information that has not been made available to pubic” (652). With that being said Jabil Circuit Inc. was being tried for SEC rule 10b-5.

If management is looking to improve production at the machines before product assembly, they should concentrate on reducing wasted employee time. There is a lot of wasted time at the drilling and grinding machines, even though there are a lot of these machines. Either there are not enough employees, the employees are not utilizing the machinery efficiently or the machinery should be updated.

The Theory of Constraints indicates that excess capacity from ‘subordinate’ departments should be utilized to lessen the strain on the bottlenecked department. Until the constraint on production has been removed management should subordinate everything else to the constraint. The proposed action of outsourcing inspection from the coating and sharpening department will free-up more valuable direct labor hours in the area of constraint. A separate inspection station before the final stage of production should be added to the production process. An employee from the chemical bathing stage will be cross-trained to inspect products as needed for the brief periods of inspection required. Because the second process has been deemed subordinate to the area experiencing constraint its excess capacity can be utilized in a more valuable capacity. Each additional hour in the coating and sharpening process will result in a firm benefit of $1250, or the contribution margin per unit of constraint for the Model C210. The addition of an inspection

1. Better resource allocation to reduce variable costs. The company operates in more efficient resources.

Based on the changing electronic industry and business demands, Custom Molds should correct major issues by adopting the following recommendations. The molding process should focus on small batch sizes and purchase more small and customizable machines. More workers should be hired to oversee the production since there is more labor needed to prepare the machine for each customized mold. The plastic parts process should focus on few but large capacity specialized machines. Fewer workers will be needed to oversee this process because there are few setting changes needed. To control the problem of late deliveries, a better communication system between offices should be implemented so workers do not need to walk back and forth between offices. Orders should also be accepted based on the ability to complete the product in the time that is promised to the customer. More efficient communication between all departments would result in a more accurate estimated delivery time. To control errors resulting in defective parts, Custom Molds should invest in moving the testing center to a more centrally located area. More frequent testing and less walking will increase efficiency and decrease defective products. An alternative option to the recommendations listed, is for Custom Molds Inc. to evaluate the market for the products they produce and to decide to make either molds or plastic parts. The key factors that should be considered while

Step 4: “Have the team list failure modes and causes” (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) Tool, 2017). List of anything that could possibly go wrong and that would prevent the process steps from being successful. Some actions will benefit to avoid multiple problems. Recheck the improved process and consult management for

These two bottlenecks constrained the whole process. Alex and his colleagues were happy to identify two "Hebie"s, NCX-10 and Heat Treatment Department, which bottlenecked a flow sufficient to meet demand and make money. So the only thing to do was to find more capacity. To increase the capacity of the plant was to increase the capacity of only the bottlenecks. To increase the capacity of bottlenecks did not mean to install new machine, but to find the hidden capacity. With the help of Jonah, Alex found the NCX-10 had 1-hour idle time, as the union contract stipulated that there must be a half-hour break after every four hours work. The hours lost in the breaks of NCX-10 were enormously expensive because the throughput for the entire plant had been lowered by the bottleneck. The problem of the second "Hebie", heat treat, was that they didn 't make the bottleneck work on the parts contributed to throughput and many products were unable to be shipped without the parts in pile for treatment. What was more, they only did most inspections prior to final assembly but never inspected the parts before bottleneck. It easily let defects go through bottleneck and lost time in the bottleneck could not be recovered. The cost of one hour lost in these two bottlenecks is the cost of an hour lost in the system, which is computed as the total expense of the system divided by

CBF has hired you to help determine why they are not able to produce the 1,000 boards per day.

Overall, there is an apparent disparity between the capacities of each of the operation processes. The output from the different stages ranges from 900 to as much as 1,800 boards. It is seen that the bottleneck in the whole manufacturing of circuit boards is in the part that has the lowest capacity, and incidentally, located in the earliest part of the production process – the cleaning and coating machines. This means that the maximum number of circuit boards that will be finished by the end of the day is 900. From the finished boards, there is a historical defect rate of 20%, thereby leaving a total of only 720 boards that are ready for packing and shipping to the customer. It is therefore apparent that CBF is manufacturing very inefficiently, as they 280 circuit boards short of the required output per shift of 1,000 units.

Furthermore, the ACC strategy of offering increased variety requires shorter production runs which inherently increases the cost associated with each product and packaging, as idle time due to process changeover would increase between each product production (4.8% of time com-pared with 2% for DJC). The strategy of increased variety and production runs by the ACC would also affect labor in a number of ways. Direct labor costs would go up due to a larger amount of idle time associated with process changeover and the chance of increased problems associated with the

Electronic Board Plc is an organization established by an electrical engineer, John Watsons in the early 1970s as a sole proprietorship venture. The main business of the company is the production of electronic circuit boards. The company later on through dint of hard-work, developed into a public limited liability company. It maintained remarkable business success which climaxed in 1990, when it recorded an appreciable sales margin of £26 million and a profit after tax of £1.9m, using staff strength of 200 employees. The good business records of this company truncated in 1992, when it started experiencing heavy dwindling fortunes by recording abysmal drop in total sales

Many problems had come to surface for electronic manufacturing companies to increase their productivity. One of the solution is to reduce human errors in a PCB production especially before the PCB dispatch for electronic productions.