Indian Institute of Management Ranchi

Course on Operations Management I

Questions for Case Analysis

Donner Company
Synopsis
The Donner Company is a small but rapidly growing firm that produces circuit boards to the
specifications of electronic manufacturing companies. At the time of the case, the company is only
in its third year of operations, and is experiencing a rapid surge in business. The case provides a
detailed, step-by-step description of the manufacturing process which involves only 22
production employees defines the order processing and control procedures, and identifies
operating problems concerning production bottlenecks, worker performance and methods, and
quality and delivery problems.
Questions for Case Analysis
1. What is the normal process flow of the production system at Donner? Draw a process flow
diagram.
2. What orders would you schedule on the CNC drill? On the CNC router?
3. What is the capacity of the Dry Film Photoresist area? (assume that the order size is eight).
How does capacity change with order size?
4. What is the standard labor time for an order of one board? 8 boards? 200 boards?
5. How is Donner doing? What problems do you see?
6. Why do these problems exist?
7. What are the information flows within the Donner factory? Trace an order as it moves from the
originating customer to completion.
8. What specific actions do you recommend Plummer take to address these problems?

Assembling Smartphones: Takt Time =/ Cycle Time

Synopsis
This case offers an opportunity to discuss the context of a manufacturing process choice, and then
examine actual production numbers that resulted from a series of choices. It is also meant to
review the Hayes-Wheelwright Product-Process matrix, and the impact of variability on line
performance. The choice of process type generally involves making tradeoffs. The choice of
manufacturing process design for smartphones is interesting because the company experimented
progressively with four different designs. The heart of the case discussion would be around the
pros and cons of each choice, and what did they learn from making each one.
Questions for Case Analysis
1. The company has experienced industrial engineers who have put hundreds of products into
production. Why do they still experiment with new products that came into the factory;
should not the choice be straightforward?
2. Are there aspects of the sites operating system that enable rapid change and adaptation?
3. What happened with the conveyor-paced line?
4. What do you think happened on the smartphone line in the case?

Applichem (A)
Synopsis
This case can be used to introduce the problems and opportunities entailed in managing a multiplant manufacturing network. It raises the opportunities for coordinating among plants as well as
for rationalizing capacity. The case allows participants to use detailed data on costs, material and
labor resources, capacity output rates, and international exchange and inflation rates to compare
the performance of 6 plants which manufactured Release-ease (a chemical additive to molding
compounds) in 6 different countries in 1982. A major issue is how and whether to use any of the
cross-plant data in the case for evaluating the plants and their managers. This issue involves the
judgment of how the cost differences have arisen and what managers can do to affect their costs.
The comparisons relate to Joe Spadaros decision about the best configuration of plants to serve
his industrial customers world-wide.
Questions for Case Analysis
1. Compare the performance of Applichems 6 Release-ease plants.
2. Why were some plants better performers than others?
3. How would you advise Joe Spadaro to configure his worldwide manufacturing system?