Productivity

Manufacturing Taking a Turn for The Better

Posted on by f1222akrippinger


As I was growing up, as a kid in the early 90’s, I quickly learned that anything that said it was made in China was an inferior product to those that were made here in the USA.  However, even with this connotation of poor quality it seemed that every product that I came into contact with was made somewhere outside of the country.  Over these years, leading to this very day, the vision of these products has moved away from the poor quality of old.  Now it seems that what truly upsets us about products not made in with the USA is the fact that we have many of our own looking high and low for a job in the manufacturing industry.

In recent years it has seemed to have come nearly impossible to compete with markets like China, where it comes to manufacturing, with considerably low wages being received by their workers.  While wages in China are coming up, from an average of 58 cents per hour in 2001 and an estimated $6 per hour in 2015 http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/new-economy/2012/0510/As-Chinese-wages-rise-US-manufacturers-head-back-home, there is still a large gap compared to their American counterpart, at about $19 per hour http://www.trade.gov/mas/ian/MBU/index.html.  Even so, as stated in the Wall Street Journal article “Once Made in China: Jobs Trickle Back to U.S. Plants” manufacturing jobs are starting to make their way back to the good old USA.  The progress has been slow in the American manufacturing market after a 35% decline in jobs between 1998 and 2010 we have seen just a 4.3% increase since.  But, this increase that is expected to be about 3.2% this year compares to that of just 1.6% in all other fields.

These changes in the American manufacturing market have reasons that are not solely based on the increase in wages overseas.  It has been said that the American is more than 3 times more productive than that of their counterparts from China http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304587704577333482423070376.html#project%3DSLIDESHOW08%26s%3DSB10001424052702304363104577390470454369272%26articleTabs%3Darticle.  Shipping costs are becoming increasingly more expensive and companies are coming out close to even, if not better off, manufacturing in America when these costs are put into play.  These factors and the fact that overseeing the physical production becomes worlds easier when it is taking place in your back yard are bringing manufacturing jobs, little by little, back to the USA.

Harley-Davidson Inc. – Productivity

Posted on by f1231aadamiec

I recently read in article in the Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443720204578004164199848452.html?mod=WSJ_business_LeadStoryCollection  talking about changes for the company Harley-Davidson.  Over the past few years the company has trimmed down their production making it more flexible in order to avoid the risks that come with a falling economy.  Production for the York plant in Pennsylvania has shifted from 41 buildings to one large factory that depends on machines to do more work, while at the same time cutting the number of hourly workers in half to improve production.  This transformation will help allow Harley-Davidson to increase or decrease levels of production based on demand.

Harley-Davidson now believes that it can increase its operating profit margin to 16% since it will no longer need peak levels of production to gain profits.  In many of Harley’s factories they are depending more on part time workers and contractors to cut costs.  In York where there used to be 62 job classifications now only has five, meaning the hourly workers have multiple skills and can be used in production anywhere making them a lot more flexible.  The company now receives supplies for the factory based on day to day sales instead of buying extra materials they will not need.

Like many other companies, Harley is just trying to cut costs and stay competitive in a slumping economy.  Companies keep looking for new ways to increase profits.  For example, the traditional approach, from our book, in operations management is the emphasis on specialized, often manual tasks.  However, Harley-Davidson appears to be getting rid of the specialization of their employees and would prefer them to be able to numerous tasks instead of one.  It is also the operation manager’s job to improve productivity, which is defined as the ratio of outputs divided by inputs (Heizer, Render 13).  This is exactly what Harley is doing. By reducing inputs like labor and other costs they are increasing their productivity efficiency.  Harley seems to be leaning on the labor variable more than others to improve its productivity by counting on the increased knowledge of their workers and the ability to use this knowledge to perform multiple tasks.

Some questions that I had about the changes going on for Harley-Davidson is that since facilities have started to stock supplies based on the everyday demand of its products, is it possible that if there were a sudden large increase in the demand for motorcycles the company would not be able to satisfy the needs of all its customers on time?  Also, with many companies like Harley downsizing to improve performance, does it hurt the overall economy because of the reduced number of jobs?

Working Hard or Hardly Working?

Posted on by erinw301s12

In a recent article on Businessweek.com, Vanessa Wong discusses the growing trend of employees working from home. According to a survey that polled over 1,000 American office workers, a substantial portion of them admitted to participating in various leisure activities while “on the clock” during work hours. Some of those surveyed even admitted to napping or drinking alcohol.

 

Somewhat surprisingly, preliminary studies performed by Stanford University found that some at-home employees are actually more productive than their more traditionally office-based counterparts. Some of the telecommuting employees mentioned within the article said that they highly value the benefits for working from home, such as flexibility of time management and family needs. Half of those surveyed also stated that their bosses oppose the practice of working from home.

This article interested me because my life is personally affected by the “work-at-home” trend. My husband works in a project management position and is afforded the opportunity to work remotely on a daily basis. Though the distractions of home life can sometimes be difficult to deal with, he has also proven himself as one of the most productive, successful employees within his peer group.

Home-based employees could be difficult from a manager’s perspective because it can be more difficult to oversee and control what is happening and companies likely would not like to be paying wages to employees who are not actively performing while on duty. However, productivity is a key component for successful organizations and, if this survey’s results are a true indicator, loss of some control might be a worthwhile trade-off for a more productive employee.

Furthermore, there is an increasing expectation for employees to be in a constant state of availability. Smart phones and laptops have made it possible, and sometimes mandatory, for employees to remain connected at all hours of the day and all days of the week. Business life and personal life used to be clearly defined areas, but they have now bled over into each other’s territories. Advances in technologies are helping the definitions of employment evolve. For many positions, working from home is simply not possible, but for others, it is a definite possibility. I believe that if home-based employees continue to show productivity, the practice of telecommuting may become even more common place in the years to come.

Emirates Catering: A380

Posted on by Ali Shubbar

 

Every year two billion people take it to the sky and that is more the combined populations of China, USA and Russia. All have one thing in common (i.e. hunger for food), and the question in here is ‘how to deal with this hunger?”.

Emirates Flight Catering, is the world’s largest airline catering and provides catering and ancillary services to airlines that are operating at this busy regional hub. Astonishingly, the company provided 42.5 million meals in 2011. Currently, the daily average catering uplift is 118,000 meals to 340 flights.

It is based in Dubai International Airport. A perfect example would show how the company’s manage its operations. Whenever, a plane lands at the airport, and after unloading the passengers, in less than an hour the planes have to be cleaned, fully stocked and ready to fly. An amazing thing is the way the catering carts are bring moved from the largest kitchen in the world to the planes which shows
efficient and effective operations.

The steps of the journey are as follows:

Step One: the carts move in an electric power monorail system and they stretch in three floors where they get emptied, cleaned and ready in 25 minutes. The carts move in a spectacular way using these electrical systems. All are controlled in a central monitoring system. The carts move in here as we want, just the way of controlling objects in games where they are directed to different locations, either for storage, repair or reuse. All is done at the press of a button.

Step Two: the kitchen where all the types of meals are prepared every morning, serving all the needs of the passengers. Everything is prepared in hand by qualified chefs. After preparing the food, they are kept in giant fridges to be saved at the required safe temperature and it becomes ready to be assembled.

Step Three: take back all the carts after they are loaded with trays filled with food.

Question worth mentioning: is this best way to serve our customers? Is there any different way to do it?

 

Watch this amazing video and you will get to know: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6vBo_uTGlY