2000-2500 words-APA Format w/references

You have just been hired as the director of process improvement, anew position, by the VP of Operations for the ABC Manufacturing Company.ABC has been plagued by both internal and external vendor issues; thevendor issues involved repeated late deliveries and poor quality, whileinternally poor deliveries to customers resulted from both vendorissues, as well as quality and scheduling issues. The CEO’s instinct isthat the factory could benefit from some wide-reaching processimprovements.

The VP of Operations has decided that a far greater focus on vendorquality and internal process improvements must be taken. The VP ofProcurement, prior to your coming on board, had already met with theCEO’s of ABC’s 4 major vendors and alerted them that he expected them tobegin turning around their quality performance. About a month prior, hehad sent each a letter suggesting several formal overall qualityprograms that they may embark upon, which included the following:

• TQM
• Juran's Trilogy
• Crosby's program
• Deming's program
• Six Sigma

Part One:

The VP has already received the following responses from each of themain vendors, and he asked you, in coming months, to work with eachvendor as they implement their quality initiatives.

• Company A had written back that it was planning to implement the Juran program but had not yet begun.
• Company B had written back that it was planning to implement the Crosby program but had not yet begun.
• Company C had written back that it was planning to implement the Deming program but had not yet begun.
• Company D had written back that it was planning to implement a TQM program but had not yet begun.
• Company E had written back that it was planning to implement the Six Sigma program but had not yet begun.

While all Companies note plans without and current action, your taskis to provide each company clarification of each respective qualityinitiative in terms of overall concept, methodology, pros, and cons. Youare to consolidate your findings into a single report for the VP priorto communicating these to each company individually.

Part Two:

In addition, you know that as far as internal processes and overallsupply chain management goes, that there may be opportunities forimprovement. Currently, the following internal opportunities exist forpossible process improvement:

• Supply Chain Management
  • The company communicates separately with each vendor; usually when aforecast or production change is made, not every vendor finds out thesame day. This leads to confusion, excess inventories, and stock outs.
• Demand Planning
  • The primary method to establish the master production schedule is touse a forecast that is created prior to the beginning of the year andupdated monthly using salesmen’s inputs. Invariably, the company ends upproducing too much of the wrong items (not demanded) and too few ofwhat is in demand (real customer orders).
• Multistage Inventory
  • To create ABC’s final finished product requires a multiple-step supply chain, which looks something like the following:
    • Raw material to vendors factory
    • Vendor processes raw materials to make their parts
    • Those parts are shipped to ABC’s factory
    • ABC processes purchased parts through a succession of departments, each one adding more and more vale
    • Finally, all finished components are assembled into a finished product.
  • Currently, every step in this entire supply chain is scheduled,monitored through some kind of MRP system, reported throughout the day,and seems to take an inordinate amount of system updating.
• Transportation Planning
  • ABC continues to use its own fleet to deliver finished goods allover the country and to have common carriers deliver parts from itsvendors, also located all over the country.
• Process Control, Performance, and Variability
  • ABC’s own internal process seem to all of a sudden go in and out ofquality specifications; the company always seems to find out too late toavoid massive amounts of scrap, rejected parts, or labor costs torework parts.
• Negative and Positive Cash Flow
  • The company goes through frequent swings from positive to negativecash flows as inventory purchases for large lots create negative cashflows, but then using up these materials occur at a slower rate, andwith less outgoing, cash flow becomes positive. The CFO really struggleswith managing these cash flow swings.

Before you begin to put together a vendor visitation schedule, yourboss, the VP of Procurement, advised you that the CEO expects acomprehensive report, in about a month, covering the opportunities forimprovement on the above topics.