The assignment is based on a pseudo manufacturing company, called $$Floors$$us$$

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The Scenario

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$$Floors$$us$$ are a Vinyl Flooring manufacturer with products serving the UK$,$ Europe and the Far East. The main manufacturing plant is located in Thornaby, Teesside in the North East of England.

$$Floors$$us$$ produce heterogeneous floors, consisting of a $$felt paper backing$,$ a gel layer and a clear PVC topcoat which is applied for durability. This product configuration has served the company well since its inception in $1967,$ with the plant in Teesside producing a consistent annual output of around $23$ million m$2.$ However, competitive forces are afoot there may be a need to change and improve the product configuration.

Clearly, consumers are becoming more discerning and the global marketplace is becoming more and more competitive, as customers gain greater choice through the Internet which in turn, educates individual buyers in general, to become more demanding of quality products. The Flooring Industry is no different and this was affirmed by a recent $$National Flooring Federation$$ survey which found that flooring customers, were not happy with the performance of $$loose lay$$ heterogeneous products and were favouring the more expensive homogeneous floors with their superior properties $-$ easy clean, anti$-$slip, stain, and scratch resistance. The release of this report $$raised eyebrows$$ amongst Senior Executives in the $$Floors$$us$$ board and from a high level meeting a directive came down to the Teesside Plant CEO to develop a strategic response, to what was clearly a serious threat to the $$Sheet Vinyl business.

Fortunately, the $$Floors$$us$$ Marketing department were ahead of the game and had been working on ways of improving the product performance in light of earlier market intelligence. As a result, the R&D department had already developed an advanced UV coating which, raised the performance of the $$Floors$$us$$ ranges to $$match$$ if not $$better the competitions products. Moreover, they believed they could do this and deliver the product to the market at a much lower price point. According to the Chemists, their coating formulation was $$tweakable$$ to give different gloss levels which gave more options to the marketing team in terms of product variability. The only drawback was that to gain the quality improvements, the coating needed to be cured in a Nitrogen filled atmosphere but according to the experts this was very $$doable$.$ However, it was expected that this will drive up the installation and running costs and may raise some safety issues for operational staff to address.

To pursue this strategic initiative further, the CEO has called on the $$Management Team$$ to urgently carry out a feasibility study into the installation of a UV coating process at the Teesside Plant. The location will be at the end of the $$end of the Coating and Fusion line, just before Inspection and packaging. The CEO has requested that any planning should include the application of coatings cured in a Nitrogen Filled enclosure using Infra$-$red heaters. To facilitate this, the Team should work together to provide a cohesive and thorough report, whereby each manager submits an individual report covering his$/$her function. More specifically, the CEO wants to know their plan, if and how the project will affect their area, if there are any issues and how these will be mitigated.

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If the feasibility recommends the project and is approved by the CEO, it is expected that a significant marketing campaign and capital investment will be needed to launch the product and install the necessary equipment. Given the urgency of the situation the project needs to be delivered in a timely fashion.

ASSIGNMENT BRIEF

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Teams should organise regular review meetings with the CEO $($via drop in sessions$)$ along with their own team meetings. Minutes of team meetings should be recorded in writing showing dates held, points discussed and actions agreed with owners. Evidence of these meeting in the form of sample minutes should be made available to the CEO for inspection as an appendix to the final report.

$1)$ A group report comprising of an Executive Summary$/$Main introduction, Main body, Conclusions$/$ Recommendations, Reference section $($words $250)$

$2)$ Manufacturing Manager$($words $1500)$

$$What impact might the proposed $$new product introduction$,$ have on existing and future manufacturing in terms of safety, the environment, cost, customer service and quality factors. How can the installation be best managed and disruption minimised? For example, how will outside contractors be managed and controlled during installation? How will new operations be manned? How will training of new operatives occur? How will existing production performance be maintained? What is the expected output of the new line?