CASE STUDY

OPM400 Assignment #2 Case Study: SpecDine Inc. Assignment Due: Thursday, July 27, at 11:59 p.m. Background: SpecDine Inc, located in Guelph, Ontario, is a manufacturer of dining tables and chairs. The company employs 50 employees. Alex McGill is the new plant operations manager, and he has been very concerned about the increasing problem with rejected products found during the manufacturing operations. Alex feels strongly that there are too many rejected products. He feels strongly that data must be collected and analyzed in order to begin fixing the problems. As a newly hired operations analyst, you have been brought in to help review and analyze the quality data for SpecDine. Although you will not make technical recommendations, you should be able to help them figure out what the problems are and to point them in the right direction. Your Task: You have been asked to look at the quality data for the entire facility for the month of June. You have also been asked to tour the facility, gather information and make recommendations. Process Overview: There are two production lines, one for the tables and the other one for the chairs. The chair legs are made by a local supplier, while tabletops, table legs and all other wooden pieces are manufactured in-house. Any nuts and bolts used in the assembly are purchased from outside suppliers. For each production line, there is one inspector at the end of the line who performs 100% inspection, and two employees who package the products and load them onto a skid for delivery to the warehouse. Each table is packaged into its own box, designed to include the tabletop and legs. There are two sizes of tables, a 4-person and a 6-person. Each type of table has its own package of the right size. In addition, every two chairs are put into one box that is designed specifically to include the two chairs. The chair size is standard across all chairs. Note that the chairs are shipped to customers fully assembled, while the tables are to be assembled by the customer (due to their bigger sizes). Currently, the products that are found faulty at the final inspection are to be sent to a special team of 2 employees, in the repair department. These employees are responsible for evaluating, repairing and documenting their work. Any product that cannot be repaired is designated as "scrap" and sent to the garbage/recycling. There is a constant supply of products waiting to be evaluated by the repair team. After being repaired, products are returned to the final inspection area at the end of the production line that they came from. The inspector must look at the repaired product to make Page 1 of 3 sure that it has been properly fixed. The inspector is often needed to work overtime to inspect the products that arrive from the repair department