OSA [100 Marks] Read the following case study and answer ALL the questions that follow Plant Loading and Dispatch Planning at PCC Company The PCC is a company that is engaged in the production and sale of cement. It sells cement through its distribution network to the building and construction industry, concrete product manufacturers, and retail outlets, such as builders, merchants, hardware stores, and DIY centres. The company also exports cement to other African countries and the Indian Ocean islands. PPC is the leading supplier of cement in Southern Africa, with eight manufacturing facilities and three milling depots in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. These facilities are capable of producing more than seven million tons of cement products each year. Currently the company produces different types of products all produced by first producing three types of Portland cement. Portland cement is the most common type of cement in the world used as a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar, stucco, and most non-specialty grout. The three types of cement produced by the company are: Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), Pozzolanic Portland Cement (PPC) and Sulphate Resisting Portland cement (SRC). Of these, SRC is produced only for one customer, that too in a very small quantity. Virtually it is OPC and PPC which account for almost 100% of the sales. Packing is done in two ways paper packing and high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Company sells cement under different PCs in any given month. About 1000 stockists, on an average, place orders for different product combinations with the company. There are two types of transactions, namely, the trade and the non-trade. Under trade, the customers (stockists) are allowed to purchase material on credit. Credit is not allowed in non-trade. Trade accounts for about 75% of the sales volume, the balance being non-trade. The orders are received from stockists daily. The branch offices of the company receive these orders and compile them. Complete information regarding the stockists such as stockist code, location (state, district and location codes), point of delivery, freight etc., is maintained in the companys database. When products are supplied to stockists, it involves cost of production, freight, handling charges, tax, discounts and price. Production cost consists of two components, namely, overhead costs and variable costs. Management Decisions The company faces the problem of deciding on where to produce what products and which plants should serve which orders. Also, the company has to decide on the mode of supplies. These decisions have to be made for every month. The large number of stockists, large number of product combinations and the number of transport options (modes of transport) make the problem extremely complex. Even to understand whether the decisions made are optimal or how far they are from optimality, one needs an effective approach to the problem. With this in view, the company decided to develop a decision support system that would help them in not only making optimal decisions but also in analysing various decisions made from the view point of optimality. This would provide them a good management information system. For the purpose of making decisions optimally, the company decided to take the contribution as the objective function. Contribution is not profit in full sense because it does not include the overheads component of the production cost. As the overhead costs are anyway unavoidable and more or less fixed for each plant, therefore, management decided to use contribution for the objective function. Answer ALL the questions in this section. Question One Assume you work at the PCC branch in Cape Town and you are trying to convince the HR and Corporate Social Initiative (CSI) manager to consider a community development programme that would entail sponsoring five prospective candidates from the local high school to study towards an Operations Management qualification at any of the universities in Cape Town. Proffer a robust argument outlining the importance of an operations Management qualification. 1.1 (15 marks) PCC achieves its organisational goals by grouping its employees into different functional areas. Based on your understanding of Operations Management, discuss these functional areas and their relationships in relation to the case study.OSA [100 Marks] Read the following case study and answer ALL the questions that follow Plant Loading and Dispatch Planning at PCC Company The PCC is a company that is engaged in the production and sale of cement. It sells cement through its distribution network to the building and construction industry, concrete product manufacturers, and retail outlets, such as builders, merchants, hardware stores, and DIY centres. The company also exports cement to other African countries and the Indian Ocean islands. PPC is the leading supplier of cement in Southern Africa, with eight manufacturing facilities and three milling depots in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. These facilities are capable of producing more than seven million tons of cement products each year. Currently the company produces different types of products all produced by first producing three types of Portland cement. Portland cement is the most common type of cement in the world used as a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar, stucco, and most non-specialty grout. The three types of cement produced by the company are: Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), Pozzolanic Portland Cement (PPC) and Sulphate Resisting Portland cement (SRC). Of these, SRC is produced only for one customer, that too in a very small quantity. Virtually it is OPC and PPC which account for almost 100% of the sales. Packing is done in two ways paper packing and high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Company sells cement under different PCs in any given month. About 1000 stockists, on an average, place orders for different product combinations with the company. There are two types of transactions, namely, the trade and the non-trade. Under trade, the customers (stockists) are allowed to purchase material on credit. Credit is not allowed in non-trade. Trade accounts for about 75% of the sales volume, the balance being non-trade. The orders are received from stockists daily. The branch offices of the company receive these orders and compile them. Complete information regarding the stockists such as stockist code, location (state, district and location codes), point of delivery, freight etc., is maintained in the companys database. When products are supplied to stockists, it involves cost of production, freight, handling charges, tax, discounts and price. Production cost consists of two components, namely, overhead costs and variable costs. Management Decisions The company faces the problem of deciding on where to produce what products and which plants should serve which orders. Also, the company has to decide on the mode of supplies. These decisions have to be made for every month. The large number of stockists, large number of product combinations and the number of transport options (modes of transport) make the problem extremely complex. Even to understand whether the decisions made are optimal or how far they are from optimality, one needs an effective approach to the problem. With this in view, the company decided to develop a decision support system that would help them in not only making optimal decisions but also in analysing various decisions made from the view point of optimality. This would provide them a good management information system. For the purpose of making decisions optimally, the company decided to take the contribution as the objective function. Contribution is not profit in full sense because it does not include the overheads component of the production cost. As the overhead costs are anyway unavoidable and more or less fixed for each plant, therefore, management decided to use contribution for the objective function. Answer ALL the questions in this section.

Question One

1.1 Assume you work at the PCC branch in Cape Town and you are trying to convince the HR and Corporate Social Initiative (CSI) manager to consider a community development programme that would entail sponsoring five prospective candidates from the local high school to study towards an Operations Management qualification at any of the universities in Cape Town. Proffer a robust argument outlining the importance of an operations Management qualification. 15 Marks

1..2 PCC achieves its organisational goals by grouping its employees into different functional areas. Based on your understanding of Operations Management, discuss these functional areas and their relationships in relation to the case study.

15 Marks