Riordan Fan Manufacturing Supply Chain Team Essay Example for Free

Riordan Fan Manufacturing Supply Chain Team Essay Riordan Manufacturing is the industry leader in the field of plastic injection molding. They are a massive organization that currently operates out of three plants. One plant is in Albany, GA, this is where the plastic bottles are produced. Then they do their custom plastic fabrication in Pontiac, MI. Then in Hangzhou, China they currently operate a decentralized unit of the organization, this is where they produce electric fans. While forming a process design for Riordan’s fan production operation, it is imperative to construct a complete production system that includes many different phases of production, including process design, material requirements planning (MRP), accurate forecasting methods, supply chain considerations such as just-in-time manufacturing, total quality management, and a means of implementing the changes. Aggregate Production Plan Riordan’s current operation process is not sufficient for the organization to achieve a competitive advantage. Over the past years the organization has faced delivery delays, purchases from local Chinese manufacturers have not provided the required stock material based on production forecasts, and as a consequence only 93% of stock is delivered on time (University of Phoenix, 2013). Before designing a new production process, Riordan has to eliminate all the bottlenecks in the production (inventory and manufacturers). Selecting alternative suppliers of motor fans will improve production schedules and help to balance the company’s global forecast and improve customer satisfaction. In addition the company should apply Just in Time strategies focusing on reducing raw material costs, eliminating waste and continuous production improvement. Figure 1 represents a flowchart the new process design for the production of the Riordan Electric Fans. Figure 1. Master Schedule and Material Requirements A Gantt chart also known as a bar chart was named after Henry L. Gantt (Chase, Jacobs Aquilano, 2011). A Gantt chart is an important tool that helps an organization keeps track of different projects at the same time. It will also help manage the time a project will last and in which order each task needs to be addressed, which helps to keep projects on time and on budget. In the case of the Riordan plant it was suggested that ten projects be assigned to be completed in one year starting January tenth. These projects are: (a) the elimination of bottlenecks, (b) a new match system (test time), (c) definition of roles and responsibilities, (d) team training, (e) review of new match system, (f) the review of a new match system (real time), (g) implementation of the new match system, (h) implementation of JIT strategy, (i) quality control of fan production, and (j) production and forecasting. Among these ten projects the implementation of the Match System can be classified as priority on e. The Match system will streamline the receiving process. By streamlining the receiving of raw materials Riordan will achieve a reduction of 10% of the operating expenses because Riordan will use less storage and less people handling the raw material before they get to the factory. The implementation of the Match System will take one year and it is divided into two stages. Stage one is the test time that includes creation of the program to Riordan specifications and testing for glitches. Stage two will be the training of employees on the program and the use of Match system in real time. Finally, a creating of a master scheduler position is required. The investment on a master scheduler will increase the communication between sales department, finance, management, and manufacturing needs. This cross-functional position will act as a control tower to make all the process more efficient by reducing bottlenecks. With this plan ready to be delivered it is imperative to understand that these projects will fail if all the workers involved and the management team is not committed to success.