Eastern Gear Inc.

...

From my analysis, the main issues with Eastern Gear is the fact that they take on too big of orders for the size of their shop and they put all of the orders, big and small, together. Therefore, people who have small orders don’t understand why their order is taking so long to be delivered to them. Since the main aspect that slows down production is waiting on machines, they either need to invest into getting larger machines, or get another one of the machines that are having the longest hold ups most often.

1. The major problems being faced by Eastern Gear is that their production process is taking longer, most likely due to the decision to take on larger orders. They take on too large of orders for the size of their shop and they send through large and small orders at the same time, causing confusion for people who have small orders that take a long time. Another main issue is that the production process bottlenecks at different areas, so there is not one main source of the slowed production that can be easily addressed.

2. The action that Rhodes should take in order to solve his issues is either invest in some larger machines that can run through more orders, or invest in getting another machine for the machines that cause a bottleneck most often. From reading the case, the issue is not the employees or the order amount necessarily, but the machine’s production times. If the machines were able to send through more orders at once, they would have more on-time delivery.

3. This case can be related to operations strategy because the four aspects, mission, objectives, strategic decisions, and distinctive competence must all be included in order to run a successful operation. Eastern Gear is having issues with its production process because their strategic decisions are not at the place they need to be. They decided to take on larger orders, but they don’t have the correct means to do so and still be able to get smaller order out in a timely manner. So they need to make a decision to get either larger machines that can make more at once, or get multiple machines. The case is related to process design because they decided to take on larger orders, but did not plan accordingly, meaning that they did not consider the fact that it would slow down not just the process in general, but also other orders involved.