Space Age Furniture Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Space Age Furniture - Term Paper Example 3079) which needs machining on a particular lathe equipment applied for the making of that special part only. Ed Szewczak, an able and experienced machinist is in charge of this special lathe machine. Once the lathe gets started it can run on its won without being attended by someone. However it is necessary for the machinist to be present during the operations of any machine, including the lathe. Recently it has become essential for Ed to opt for overtime in order to finish producing the part 3079 on time. Due to the increased overload, Ed has become unhappy and this news has been communicated to the operations manager, Coral Snodgrass. Coral has been finding solutions to solve the overtime issue. Recently the company started using an MRP system which has helped it in reducing the inventories and improving the timing of the deliveries. There are two different sub-assemblies where the part 3079 is used and the lathe machines are used for producing both the sub-assemblies of Saturn an d Gemini. Ed Szewczak is supposed to get a 50% additional payment for the overtime work. Thus the whole scenario has got certain advantages and certain disadvantages which when studied carefully provide a framework for the better functioning of the organization. Questions & Answers 1. ... Overtime is expensive and the variation between a profitable week and a losing week is represented by overtime. If the demand is constantly surpassing the facility, then Coral can consider either adding more employees or adding more facilities. While taking this step, he should attempt to improve the efficiency of the plant by eliminating waste and dropping bottlenecks. Whenever measures are taken to remove overtime, either by increasing capacity or improving efficiency, it is necessary to understand the consequence of such a step on the employees. As in this case the overtime is not consistent, therefore extreme measures are not required; however Coral should be conscious of when the overtime is taking place which will help him to recognize the grounds for overtime. There is an alternative way-out that can be applied instead of adding more people to the organization which is outsourcing the jobs and getting things done away from the workplace. This would of course incur more expense s but it would reduce the costs of material consumption, overhead costs, labor costs, electricity consumption and other related expenditures. Therefore in simple terms it can be concluded that Coral can either add more people to the company or add more machinery to the organization or a third option is there where he can include an additional shift between the regular shifts. These steps would be helpful in reducing the workload on Ed. 2. How would reducing the minimum quantity of subassemblies help? The Saturn and Gemini tables are made up of part 3079 which is exclusively manufactured by the lathe machine and the lathe machine is not used for any other purpose. Also the part