Questions
Just provide a brief description of what kind of scenario The country Turkey intends to develop...

Just provide a brief description of what kind of scenario The country Turkey intends to develop a new product and how it can be used in their training.

In: Operations Management

1) How does capital investment affect the marginal physical product of labor? Does more college education...

1) How does capital investment affect the marginal physical product of labor? Does more college education have the same kind of effect? Which is a better investment? Please explain your answers in detail.

(2) While explaining your answer in detail, if you wish, you can also include an example. According to the rule for optimal input usage, a firm should hire a person as long as her marginal revenue product is greater than her marginal cost to the company. It is well known that many companies have management training programs in which new trainees are paid relatively high starting salaries and are not expected to make substantial contributions to the company until after the program is over (programs may run between 6 to 18 months). In offering such training programs, is a company violating the optimality rule? Explain.

In: Operations Management

GSU president is trying to analyze crime rates so they can shift their patrols from decreasing-rate...

GSU president is trying to analyze crime rates so they can shift their patrols from decreasing-rate areas to areas where rates are increasing. The city and county have been geographically segmented into areas containing 5,100 residences. The police recognize that not all crimes and offenses are reported: people do not want to become involved, consider the offenses too small to report, are too embarrassed to make a police report, or do not take the time, among other reasons. Every month, because of this, the police are contacting by phone a random sample of 1,020 of the 5,100 residences for data on crime. (Respondents are namelessness.) Here are the data collected for the past 12 months for one area:

MONTH          CRIME                        SAMPLE         CRIME

                    INCIDENCE          SIZE             RATE

January           9                      1,020            0

February         11                     1,020             0

March               9                       1,020            0

April                  9                        1,020            0

May                  9                        1,020            0

June                11                       1,020            0

July                 10                       1,020            0

August             12                       1,020            0

September      10                       1,020            0

October           13                       1,020            0

November       11                       1,020            0

December       10                       1,020            0

a. Determine the P−, Sp, UCL and LCL for a p-chart of 95 percent confidence (at Z = 1.96). (Round your answers to 5 decimal places.)

P−     

Sp       

UCL    

LCL    

b. If the next three months show crime incidences in this area as

January = 10 (out of 1,020 sampled)

February = 12 (out of 1,020 sampled)

March = 11 (out of 1,020 sampled)

What comments can you make regarding the crime rate?

            The process is in control.

            The process is out of control

In: Operations Management

Harvard Case: "Aspects of Sales Management: An Introduction" List and discuss five categories of salesperson Discuss...

Harvard Case: "Aspects of Sales Management: An Introduction"

List and discuss five categories of salesperson

Discuss four key aspects of sales compensation system

In: Operations Management

based off the National Cultures and Work-Related Values: The Hofstede Study, how are the elements he...

based off the National Cultures and Work-Related Values: The Hofstede Study, how are the elements he discusses used to develop strategies?

In: Operations Management

How should an owner-manager prepare the business for a move from the planning phase to the...

How should an owner-manager prepare the business for a move from the planning phase to the implementation phase? Provide business examples to support your position.

In: Operations Management

I need assistance with discussing this topic on the likely aftermath and long term effects of...

I need assistance with discussing this topic on the likely aftermath and long term effects of the coronavirus outbreak on business and society.

In: Operations Management

Can you please assist using the solver function in excel? CarPro is an automobile dealer selling...

Can you please assist using the solver function in excel?

CarPro is an automobile dealer selling only new cars. CarPro sells three types of vehicles: sedans, SUVs and trucks. CarPro places orders to the car manufacturers only when customers have decided to purchase. The ordering cost (per unit) of sedan, SUV and truck are $18,000, $20,500 and $19,000, respectively. The sales price (per unit) of sedan, SUV and truck are $20,000, $23,000, and $21,500, respectively. The base salary for a sales person is $100/day. In addition, a sales person gets a commission of 5% on the selling price of cars he sells. Each sales person works 8 hours a day. A sales person spends two hours selling a sedan, three hours selling an SUV, and two-and-a-half hours selling a truck. CarPro can spend a maximum of $300,000 per day on ordering cars. How many of each type of car should CarPro sell to maximize profits?

Refer to the CarPro problem. At the optimal solution, how many trucks should be sold to maximize profits?

a.

20

b.

14

c.

18

d.

10

Refer to the CarPro problem. To maximize profits, CarPro should sell two SUVs per day.

True

False

Refer to the CarPro problem. At the optimal solution, the total ordering cost for all cars is:

a.

$ 278,800

b.

$ 276,908

c.

$ 286,500

d.

$ 289,700

In: Operations Management

Please write a 2-3 paragraph addressing each of the steps involved in developing a mobile strategy....

Please write a 2-3 paragraph addressing each of the steps involved in developing a mobile strategy. For each step in the mobile strategy development process, please detail the process for completing the step, including any items you must take into consideration during that step as well as your recommendation for that aspect of the mobile strategy for a specific organization.

Defining risks


Knowing the limits of technology


Protecting data from loss


Compliance in the mobile enterprise


Staying flexible and embracing change


In: Operations Management

An organization has hired an outside consultant to evaluate a series of errors. The analysis reflects...

An organization has hired an outside consultant to evaluate a series of errors. The analysis reflects that several serious errors have occurred more than once. A review of investigative notes reflects that the focus has almost exclusively been on individual performance. Several employees have been disciplined or terminated as a result of the errors. The consultant makes a recommendation to refocus the organizational culture to a Just Culture. You have been assigned as project leader for this project. What steps would you take to begin this process?

In: Operations Management

What are the pros and cons of current labor practices in international locations? Are such practices...

What are the pros and cons of current labor practices in international locations? Are such practices ethical?

In: Operations Management

Bob’s Office Supply in Las Cruces is trying to compete against Staples. Many of his customers...

  1. Bob’s Office Supply in Las Cruces is trying to compete against Staples. Many of his customers purchase copy paper from Bob but explained that Staples sells the same paper for a cheaper price. Bob explains that Staples buys in huge bulk so they have a lower cost and thus can sell it for a cheaper price and still make a profit. Bob has been buying 5,000 boxes of paper per month, which is about how many boxes he sells per month. Bob asks Kimberly Clark if they have any additional discounts available and is told that for orders over 50,000 boxes then there will be a substantial unit price discount available. Bob complains that as a small business he cannot afford to buy and store 50,000 boxes of copy paper when he can only sell 5,000 boxes per month. At a small business luncheon Bob overheard a conversation with similar circumstances and someone said the solution involved a good contract. Bob was uncertain what that meant and has now come to you for advice.
  2. List the 5 elements of a contract, as we discussed in class, and briefly explain what each represents? [Hint: MAC L RAC].

In: Operations Management

Employee Motivation PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE (PSAC) A Fickle Cat : Long-time employees complain that Caterpillar has...

Employee Motivation PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE (PSAC)

A Fickle Cat : Long-time employees complain that Caterpillar has changed. John Arnold, a 35-year-old parts auditor at Caterpillar's distribution facility in Morton, Illinois, says some of his coworkers are on food stamps. Arnold has worked for Caterpillar since 1999. More than 10 years later, he's making $15.66 an hour.

To succeed today, does an employer have to worry about motivation? In recent years, Caterpillar, a Wall Street darling and mainstay of American manufacturing, has rolled back traditional extrinsic motivators.

  • Item: Caterpillar laid off 30,000 workers in 2009.
  • Item: By the second quarter of 2012, Cat's profit had jumped 67 percent from the previous year. (Net profits in 2011 2Q of $1.01 billion, or $1.52 per share, rose to net profits of $1.69 billion or $2.54 per share in 2012 2Q.)
  • Item: About the same time, Cat was freezing wages and reducing benefits. New contracts created a two-tier system so that new hires were brought in on an even lower wage scale.
  • Item: Further layoffs followed the newer, concessionary contracts.

Disparities

In May 2013 a feature in Bloomberg Businessweek noted that while workers were losing jobs, pay, and benefits, CEO Oberhelman prospered. In 2011 his pay rose 60 percent to over $16 million, and in 2012 to more than $22 million. So what serves as employee motivation in this environment? Maybe survival. The article quoted Emily Young, a welder at Caterpillar's Decatur plant: “You're basically expendable. For every one person who doesn't work, there's five waiting in line.” The same article quoted CEO Oberhelman affirming, “We can never make enough profit.” Weakened Unions. As Businessweek reported, Caterpillar toughed out a strike at its Illinois plant in 2012 for over three months. Eventually union workers agreed to virtually the same offer that caused the strike. Existing workers accepted a six-year wage freeze and reduced benefits. New workers would be brought in at a lower wage scale. In Wisconsin in 2013, union workers didn't even try to strike. When their contract expired, workers simply stayed on the job. After a few months of on-again, off-again talks, the workers agreed to conditions similar to the Illinois contract. Worsening Results. Recently Cat's march to higher peaks of profit have stalled. With greater use of natural gas and dropping coal prices, sales of big mining trucks (used in surface coal mining) also declined. This forced the company to scale back production and lay off even more workers. This on top of an overall drop in spending in the Asian mining sector contributed to Cat's decline in earnings.

Money Problem

Some industry watchers see Caterpillar's worries as a money problem. As in too much of it. Fortune senior editor Matt Vella, in a Fortune Brainstorm podcast with magazine staff, sees it this way: “The criticism from labor is the company is doing better than ever; why aren't we seeing some of the rewards of that? The company will say, ‘Well, we can't afford to give too much away because we don't know what's going to come down the road.’” The Businessweek article brought such questions to a head: Caterpillar has become a symbol of the growing divergence in corporate America between profits and wages. As a percentage of gross domestic product, corporate earnings recently hit their highest level in more than 60 years, and wages fell to new lows, according to Moody's Analytics. “What's interesting,” says Fortune writer Nin-Hai Tseng, “ … is that Caterpillar makes itself out to be this poster child of everything that went right with manufacturing in America. With that reputation carries a lot of responsibility…. [P]eople can ask … does it have a responsibility to pay its workers more?”

What Employees Say

While Glassdoor.com doesn't provide objective analysis, this job research site provides ready access to employee voices. The site includes posts by current and former company employees so people looking for work can research a potential employer. Most reviews include a simple yes or no on whether the reviewer would recommend the company as an employer. While there's no guarantee that all posts are legitimate, Glassdoor.com remains one of the best places to get a quick read on the way current and former employees likely feel. Reviews for Caterpillar vary. Some workers say good things about their future with Caterpillar and the corporate culture. But more critique the company. Critics of the company's policies include both current and former employees. Tellingly, many current employees who would recommend the company as an employer have misgivings. Major themes include:

  • Lack of chances to advance, stand out, prove one's worth, or improve one's compensation.
  • Rueful acceptance of problems in the workplace because of the need to have a job.
  • Over-management in face of shrinking pay.
  • Overemphasis on cost-cutting programs by middle managers who frequently lack product or process knowledge.
  • Lack of progressive vision for future growth, with single focus on reducing costs.

You get a sense of the tone of many comments in this post from a former employee, let go after eight years: “They will preach values, morality, safety, people, and quality, but in the end they only care about profit. Never been so disappointed in what a company has become as this one.”

The Executive View

When Businessweek asked Oberhelman about increasing wages, he sounded wistful. He can raise wages “when we start to see economic growth through GDP,” he says. “Part of the reason we're seeing no inflation is because there's no growth. Inflation was driven by higher labor costs, not higher goods costs. Frankly, I'd love to see a

little bit of that. Because I'd love to pay people more. I'd love to see rising wages for everybody.”

Real GDP has grown slightly during the period in which Oberhelman has reduced and frozen wages, from a negative 3.1% in 2009 up 2.4% in 2010, 1.8% in 2011, and 2.2% in 2012, according to the US Dept. of Commerce. In the meantime, Oberhelman justifies the growing disparity by invoking competitiveness. For Cat to be competitive, his executive salary needs to increase dramatically. For Cat to be competitive, workers’ wages need to be reduced or frozen.

Then and Now

In contrast to its current frosty relations with labor, once Caterpillar was seen as an exemplar of an enlightened management that could justify spending to increase employee engagement by its return on investment. As recently as 2006, a human resources guide on employee engagement cited Caterpillar as a success story. The guide noted Caterpillar's gains as follows:

  • Annual savings of $8.8 million from decreased attrition, absenteeism, and overtime (Europe).
  • Increase in output by 70% in less than 4 months (Asia Pacific).
  • Decrease in break-even point by almost 50% in units/day, and of grievances by 80% (unionized plant).
  • Increase of $2 million in profit and 34% in highly satisfied customers (start-up plant).

Now Caterpillar has decided to increase profitability almost solely by going leaner. The staff at Fortune doubt that today's Caterpillar will ever restore the kinds of manufacturing jobs of the past—jobs that brought US workers into the middle class. Instead, Cat hews to a global view of managing labor costs.

The company continues to increase its overseas operations in places like Korea, Russia, and Brazil. Over half of its labor force and its profits are overseas. Domestically Caterpillar continues to reduce and reshape labor, moving to lower pay scales and benefits, and with a greater reliance on guest workers. (Oberhelman has lobbied to make it easier for corporations to bring in lower-cost, highly trained foreign PhDs.) As modern manufacturing continues to do more for less, organic demand for labor will continue to decrease.89

Time will tell if the company can remain competitive with a primary focus on managing costs only, or if it will find reason to elevate employee engagement as a company priority.

Apply the 3-Stop Problem-Solving Approach to OB

  • Stop 1: What is the problem?
    • Use the Integrative Framework for Understanding and Applying OB (Figure 5.9) to help identify the outcomes that are important in this case.
    • Which of these outcomes are not being achieved in the case?
    • Based on considering the above two questions, what is the most important problem in this case?
  • Stop 2: Use the Integrative Framework to identify the OB concepts or theories that help you to understand the problem in this case.
    • What person factors are most relevant?
    • What environmental characteristics are most important to consider?
    • Do you need to consider any processes? Which ones?
    • What concepts or theories discussed in this chapter are most relevant for solving the key problem in this case?
  • Stop 3: What are your recommendations for solving the problem?
    • Review the material in the chapter that most pertains to your proposed solution and look for practical recommendations.
    • Use any past OB knowledge or experience to generate recommendations
    • Outline your plan for solving the problem in this case.

In: Operations Management

Develop revenue management tactics through applying the technique in demand forecasting, inventory, pricing or channel management

Develop revenue management tactics through applying the technique in demand forecasting, inventory, pricing or channel management

In: Operations Management

1.    Discuss the major corporate-level strategy formulation responsibilities, and how they are different from business-level strategy...

1.    Discuss the major corporate-level strategy formulation responsibilities, and how they are different from business-level strategy formulation responsibilities (review ch. 5)?

2.    Why might an organization choose to diversify? Define related and unrelated diversification?

3.    What are Mergers and Acquisitions? What are some potential problems with it? Define Poison Pill.

4.    What is BCG Matrix? Explain the characteristics of a question mark, star, cash cow and dog.

In: Operations Management