Production Planning and Quality Management

Scenario: 
A specialty memory chip manufacturer is located in Southern California with manufacturing plants located in the United States, Europe, Singapore, and Japan. Additionally, it has branch sales offices located in major metropolitan areas across the globe. The market for its six key products included original equipment manufacturers of personal computers, cellular telephone manufacturers, electronics distributors, and government organizations. The market environment for its products is extremely volatile with fluctuating demand and rapidly changing prices. The company uses short-term contracts (less than 1 month) and spot pricing for irregular customers. Internally, the operation is capital-intensive with depreciation running approximately $1.2 million per day (depreciation has an impact on revenue streams). The 6 key products had further specialized components, making the possible line mix total 24 distinct products. Further, the manufacturing process required high manufacturing lead times and various product yields. In the high technology memory arena, product life cycles were dramatically shortened because of rapid obsolescence. To coordinate the manufacturing activity, the company has an established process and system that helped optimize resource utilization, improve shop floor efficiencies, and manage customer demand.