Assignment Case Study 11.2: Ramstein Products, Inc. (1 hr)

The Ramstein case is an example of the problems that often occur once we have padded our activity estimates, through wasting project safety in a variety of ways. The case mentions that Jack is eager to fix project overruns, which are becoming more prevalent, but does not have the option of simply adding resources to his department. Any solutions must come from dealing with existing issues and fixing them.

Questions:

1. Applying Goldratt's idea of critical resources, what is the system constraint within the Special Projects Division that is causing bottlenecks and delaying projects?
2. How is multitasking contributing to systemic delays in project development at Ramstein?
3. Using concepts from Critical Chain Portfolio management, how could buffer-drum concepts be applied to this problem?