Beck Manufacturing and Plant Capacity Assignment Instructions
Read the “Beck Manufacturing” case study below. In a four- to five-page paper, address the following:
- Calculate the capacity of each machine center and the capacity of the system.
- Analyze where the focus of the company’s efforts should be if Beck wants to expand capacity. Determine how much extra capacity he can get without causing another operation to become the bottleneck.
- Suggest ways Beck can expand capacity without purchasing new equipment.
Your paper should be in paragraph form (avoid the use of bullet points) and supported with the concepts outlined in your text and additional scholarly sources
Paper should have “introduction” page.
Submit your four- to five-page paper (not including the title and reference pages). Your paper must be formatted according to APA style and must cite at least three scholarly sources in addition to the textbook.
Beck Manufacturing and Plant Capacity – Sample Answer
The term capacity planning, or capacity management, refers to processes that are aimed at establishing the specific production capacities required by given organizations to suffice the evolving demands for own products. In capacity planning contexts, design planning refers to the highest quantities of work that organizations can complete within specified periods. An organization’s effective capacity refers to the highest quantity of work that it can complete with a specific duration owing to challenges such as insufficiency of material, machine breakdown, and quality problems. Capacity planning is employed in the course of monitoring production system performance and designing systems. The related decisions impact on client responsiveness, production lead times, operating costs, and organizational competitiveness (Berk, 2010; Weil & Maher, 2005). This is rather clear from the case of Becky Manufacturing.
Read also BUS 644 Operations Management Course – All Module’s Case Studies With Sample Answers
Beck Manufacturing needs help in establishing the capacity of all its systems as well as the ways via which it can be enhanced. The company comprises of diverse departments: drilling, grinding, milling as well as boring. All the four departments play critical in the production of steering gears, the company’s flagship product. Each steering gear produced by Becky Manufacturing is the outcome of manifold processes. Each of the departments has a number of machines, each of them playing an exclusive function in the production of the gears. The company’s president made available information that can be exploited in analyzing the capacity of each of the departments along with the system they constitute as a whole.
The following table contains information on each of the department’s capacity:
Department |
No. of Machines |
Run Time/Piece (Minutes) |
Rejection Rate (%) |
| Boring | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| Milling | 5 | 2 | 3 |
| Grinding | 7 | 3 | 5 |
| Drilling | 6 | 2.5 | 5 |
The following table contains information on the capacities of each of the departments as well.
Department |
No. of Machines |
Run Time/Piece (Minutes) |
Rejection Rate (%) |
Capacity (pieces of steering gear per minute) |
| Boring | 3 | 1 | 2 | 11.25 |
| Milling | 5 | 2 | 3 | 37.5 |
| Grinding | 7 | 3 | 5 | 78.75 |
| Drilling | 6 | 2.5 | 5 | 56.25 |
Given that the department that is the system’s bottleneck is the boring department; its capacity ought to be enhanced by an extra piece for every minute. Presently, the milling department’s capacity is characterized by a slack of 1 (one). The slacks in the drilling, grinding, and boring departments are 1.5, 2 (two), and 0 (zero) respectively. That means increasing the capacity by a unit would reduce slack defining each of the Becky Manufacturing’s departments.
Read also Manufacturing Overhead – Borealis Manufacturing Case Study
If the president is desirous of enhancing the capacity of company devoid of buying additional equipment, he can do so via various ways. First, he can introduce an additional, third, working shift in the boring department to support the manufacturing of the extra pieces. The introduction of the extra shift will increase the capacity without having the company purchase extra boring machines. With the introduction of the shift, at least 180 extra steering gear pieces will be manufactured according to Berk (2010) and Weil and Maher (2005). Particularly, the principal strength of introducing extra operational shifts relates to how the extant equipments are utilized. The longer any particular equipment is operated, or run, the higher is its effective production capacity. The introduction of extra shifts characteristically reduces production lead times, frees up production spaces and related resources, and increases equipment availability and tooling.
Second, the president can enhance the effective capacity of company devoid of buying additional equipment by reducing waste. Product engineers typically design products devoid of considering the impacts of their production, especially how atypical purchase pieces, or units, of weight, volume, or size ought to modified to give rise to given final products. The methods adopted in production are often designed to lessen the costs of specific production components like labor when they are first established according to Berk (2010) and Weil and Maher (2005).
Read also “Manufacturing in the United States” – Case Study Solution
Third, the president can enhance the effective capacity of company devoid of buying additional equipment by eliminating avoidable product features. Notably, custom-made products take long time to produce compared to mass-produced items. Every atypical, or non-standard, feature needs an extra phase in the related production process, lengthening it. The company should appraise its clients’ motives for buying steering gears from it. The motives may relate to cost, looks, quality, or related attributes according to Berk (2010) and Weil and Maher (2005). By establishing the features of the steering gears that the clients find important, it can selectively eliminate the ones not deemed important by the clients, increasing its production capacity.
Fourth, the president can enhance the effective capacity of company devoid of buying additional equipment via negotiations, especially with the company’s raw material suppliers. The production capacity can be affected if there are delays in the supply of the materials whenever they are needed. The president should negotiate with the suppliers to ensure that the company’s production processes do not suffer such delays. As well, the president can enter into contractual agreements with the suppliers to ensure that they bring in the supplies in a timely way.
You can order a unique answer at an affordable price.
Get Your Custom Paper From Professional Writers. 100% Plagiarism Free, No AI Generated Content and Good Grade Guarantee. We Have Experts In All Subjects.
Place Your Order Now