Using the simplex method, find the optimal solution to the following LP: A company manufactures three products, A,B, and C. The sales volume for A is at least 50% of the total sales of all three products. However, the company cannot sell more than 75 units of A per day. The three products use one raw material, of which the maximum daily availability is 240 pounds. The usage rates of the raw material are 2 lb per unit of A, 4 lb per unit of B and 3 lb per unit of C. The unit prices of A,B, and C are $20, $50, and $35 respectively.

David's Landscaping has collected data on home values (in thousands of $) and expenditures (in thousands of $) on landscaping with the hope of developing a predictive model to help marketing to potential new clients. Data for 14 households may be found in the file Landscape.

(a)

Develop a scatter diagram with home value as the independent variable.

A scatter diagram has a horizontal axis labeled "Landscaping Expenditures ($1,000)" with values from 0 to 25 and a vertical axis labeled "Home Value ($1,000)" with values from 0 to 900. The scatter diagram has 14 points. A pattern goes up and right from (8.1, 198) to (23.5, 800). The points are scattered moderately from the pattern.

A scatter diagram has a horizontal axis labeled "Landscaping Expenditures ($1,000)" with values from 0 to 25 and a vertical axis labeled "Home Value ($1,000)" with values from 0 to 900. The scatter diagram has 14 points. A pattern goes down and right from (6.5, 800) to (21.9, 198). The points are scattered moderately from the pattern.

A scatter diagram has a horizontal axis labeled "Home Value ($1,000)" with values from 0 to 900 and a vertical axis labeled "Landscaping Expenditures ($1,000)" with values from 0 to 25. The scatter diagram has 14 points. A pattern goes up and right from (198, 8.1) to (800, 23.5). The points are scattered moderately from the pattern.

A scatter diagram has a horizontal axis labeled "Home Value ($1,000)" with values from 0 to 900 and a vertical axis labeled "Landscaping Expenditures ($1,000)" with values from 0 to 25. The scatter diagram has 14 points. A pattern goes down and right from (198, 21.9) to (800, 6.5). The points are scattered moderately from the pattern.

(b)

What does the scatter plot developed in part (a) indicate about the relationship between the two variables?

The scatter diagram indicates a negative linear relationship between home value and landscaping expenditures.The scatter diagram indicates a positive linear relationship between home value and landscaping expenditures.    The scatter diagram indicates a nonlinear relationship between home value and landscaping expenditures.The scatter diagram indicates no apparent relationship between home value and landscaping expenditures.

(c)

Use the least squares method to develop the estimated regression equation. (Let x = home value (in thousands of $), and let y = landscaping expenditures (in thousands of $). Round your numerical values to five decimal places.)

ŷ =

(d)

For every additional $1,000 in home value, estimate how much additional will be spent (in $) on landscaping. (Round your answer to the nearest cent.)

$  

(e)

Use the equation estimated in part (c) to predict the landscaping expenditures (in $) for a home valued at $575,000. (Round your answer to the nearest dollar.)

$

Vail Associates Inc., was the operator of major ski areas in the central Colorado region. It planned to develop an expert skier area where snow conditions would be less groomed and the terrain more rugged. The firm planned to lease land from the U.S. Forest Service to develop this area.   Will the firm be required to file an Environmental Impact Statement prior to proceeding with the development? Explain.

In a trucking company, terminal docks include casual workers who are hired temporarily to account for peak loads. The minimum demand for causal workers during the 7 days of the week (starting on Monday) is 20,14,10,15,18,10 and 12 workers. Each worker is contracted to work 5 consecutive days. Develop the LP model that determines an optimal weekly hiring practice of causal workers for the company.     

MCS 5 Transforming IT at Global Digital Imaging

“We are your images!” proclaimed the various posters showing different types of uses for images—from personal to professional photos, x-rays to ultrasound, brain scans to jaw scans—down the long hallway away from the boardroom. As Ray Henderson strode out to the elevator, the tagline evoked many images in his own head—images of the proud company he had joined as a fresh-faced university grad that had ranked high in the Fortune 1000 and whose products and technologies were used and copied all over the world. It also evoked images of the hideous debacle of the last few years as its executives struggled with the downward spiral of its business as competitors and cheaper digital products undermined its traditional revenue sources. At least I’m getting out while the getting is good, he thought.

In an effort to regroup, both financially and strategically, his company, World Heliographics (WH), had begun to sell off its assets. Unfortunately, Ray’s division, medical film, was among the first to go. As the CEO had just informed him, it had been sold to a successful private equity firm that would hold 100 percent of its assets and take an active role in its future activities. It would now become a separate business, Global Digital Imaging (GDI), and Ray would be expected to deliver significant value for its new owner–investor, VE Investments. “They have an experienced management team and a proven ability to build businesses,” the CEO told him. “If you can give them the returns they want, they will keep you on as President.”

As he stepped onto the elevator, Ray felt both exhilarated and apprehensive about this new opportunity. Mentally, he started an inventory of the new company’s assets. With operations in more than 150 companies, revenues of about $3 billion, and 12,000 staff, it was a substantial company in its own right. But operating independently of a much larger parent company created headaches in a number of areas, requiring the development of separate functions in HR, finance, facilities, and IT.

There was a lot to do in very little time, and soon GDI was a legal entity. On Day 1, Ray called his senior people together. “Our first priority is to run as a company independent from WH as quickly as possible,” he said. “We need to think like a young, agile company and not like a large, entrenched bureaucratic organization. Fortunately, we’ve got the transition team from VE Investments to help us.” And indeed, it was only a few months before complete separation was accomplished, that is, everywhere except IT.

“Why is this so difficult?” Ray grumbled to the temporary CIO, Fred Gamble. “We have a number of problems,” Fred said cautiously, observing the fire in Ray’s eyes. “Because legally, GDI didn’t officially exist until the actual divestiture took place, no contracts could be signed or service level agreements established until then. As a result, GDI has inherited a ‘mini WH’ IT function with all its flaws, so we now have a smorgasbord of technology.” Fred explained that all applications, data, and infrastructure had been purchased and replicated to create a parallel organizational structure just to keep the business running during divestment. “So this means that not only are our systems not integrated, they are not designed for our type of company,” Ray concluded bluntly.

The search for a new CIO began in earnest the next day. “I need an experienced and proven CIO to formulate a vision for a transformed IT function,” he told the search firm he hired to help him. “You understand IT much better than I do so find me someone who is able to undertake a challenging transformation on multiple fronts at once.” The winning candidate was Ben Perry, a career IT executive, who joined GDI one year after it was created. “I knew I had a mandate to transform IT,” recalled Ben later. “And I knew we had to make some big changes, but I underestimated just how big these changes were going to be. There were a number of things we had to fix. We were still tethered to WH through some technology. The plans to disconnect had slipped four or five times and there was now a major lack of confidence about this separation. Our systems were outdated and not designed for a company dealing with healthcare products for medical practitioners. Our costs were too high and unpredictable. We needed to get our costs under control in order to free up funds for new investments. We had 700 core applications and needed 200–300 at the most. We had multiple financial and email systems, no architecture or standards, and exact copies of every type of infrastructure and application that WH had. It was like the Wild West!”

“Ben walked into a mess,” agreed Henderson. “IT was an obstacle to our being able to operate effectively and efficiently. I knew that IT was the key to our future so we needed to both clean up our act and find how to better balance technology and business strategy to move us forward. We needed basic competencies so we could use IT to differentiate our company and get us better information.” He left it up to Ben to oversee the transformation and bring GDI’s business leaders on board. “Ben understood both leadership and technology. That combination is hard to find. That’s why he got the job. He had my support but, if I had to sell these changes myself, I wouldn’t have needed him,” explained Ray.

Ben’s transformation mandate and the reality of GDI’s situation pulled him in two different directions. On the day he arrived, for example, the entire data center crashed. Observing how it was handled made him realize, “Our IT organization is a minefield. We have a lot of tactical staff who spend their time firefighting and trying to deal with the different pieces of the organization, but it isn’t making anything better.” But that was just the beginning of IT’s problem, as he soon discovered. There was no alignment with business on either tactical or strategic goals, and though the entire executive suite complained constantly about IT, there were no processes in place, such as portfolio management and prioritization, that would help educate business leaders about how to make IT investment decisions and confirm the direction they wanted IT to go. There was a considerable lack of role clarity and accountability, and this problem was exacerbated by a matrixed organization structure with dotted lines going everywhere.

Resisting the urge to start fixing immediate problems, Ben spent his first few weeks information gathering and listening to business leaders, trying to understand their pain points. He also implemented a business partner survey, much to the consternation of his own staff. “What is he doing?” they complained to each other. “He’s not doing anything!” Ben resisted this implied criticism. “Our IT strategy and governance were non-existent,” Ben explained to his staff later. “I needed to be sure I understood the business’ issues and their root causes before I did anything else.”

Ben explained: “This is in keeping with what our executives want us to accomplish. Each component links IT activities directly to business concerns. It is important that we hold ourselves accountable to our new mission. But more on this later.”

Next up was the new organizational chart. Ben started with the appointment of Teresa Danton as Director of IT Strategy & Planning, the Project Management Office (PMO) and Governance. As Ben explained, her job was to support the new organizational design by bolstering the existing, ineffective PMO and introducing new governance practices that would eventually result in a comprehensive governance framework. “We need execution discipline to deliver business value through our IT programs and portfolios,” Ben stated. “We need to develop the standards and best practices to do this and acquire the tools and methodologies to streamline project delivery and enhance quality. In addition, Teresa will be responsible for time tracking and billing, project planning and reporting, and financial planning and tracking. She will also measure everything so we can report on our progress to the business. Governance is a critical success factor for our transformation.”

Next, the rest of the IT leadership team was revealed: a Director of Operations, whose goal was to run the key business systems as efficiently as possible by streamlining resources and reducing costs; a Director of Relationship Management, whose job was to move the IT culture from being order-takers to solution-providers and eventually strategic partners; a Director of Enterprise Architecture responsible for developing a technology roadmap and a transition plan to move the organization from its current technology state to its planned future state; a Director of Data Security & Privacy whose job was to organize, safeguard, and ensure the availability of all data assets in a manner that protected the privacy of individuals; and finally a Director of Application Development whose job was to acquire new systems through purchase or development to support the business through automation. Ben kept talent management—critical to IT transformation—for himself. “Spin-offs are dirty work when it comes to people,” Ben told his team. “You’ve already seen that not everyone at the senior management level was able to handle the changes involved and this is true for the rest of our staff as well. Some of our people will need to move to our outsourcers as we realign our contracts, but others simply do not have the right skills.”

For the next hour and a half, Ben dealt with questions and invited his leadership team to discuss their issues and concerns with their new assignments. “I want us all in agreement here,” he told them, “because my next job is convincing the business that we will be able to accomplish this mission.” All heads nodded in unison. Then he dropped the bomb! “And the first way we’re going to do this is to cut the cord with WH!,” he proclaimed, holding up a mouse with a dangling tail.

While the whole IT organization was engaged in the “cutting the cord” project, Ben started communicating his vision of IT’s mission and the new organizational structure to his business partners and to IT staff through a series of town hall meetings. But to really sell the business on the benefits of the IT transformation and obtain their cooperation, Ben needed something more concrete. At the next weekly directors’ meeting, he declared, “It is time to start delivering on our mission. We need to develop a plan of action.” Not only would the plan have to align with the overall mission, but it would have to address issues at three levels: strategic, tactical, and operational. Calling them “buckets,” Ben explained: “Bucket number one is building the basics. We have to stabilize and simplify our systems and operations. Bucket number two is table stakes. That is, we have to make sure we have the right strategic platform that will enable us to do business and match what our competition is doing. Bucket number three is building differentiators and targeting strategic innovation. I know that most of you can’t even begin to think about buckets two and three because you’re so busy dealing with day-to-day problems, but we need to make time to do some work in this area, so we are not just fighting fires.”

Ben concluded the meeting by tasking each of his directors to develop an integrated mission and execution plan for the next three years that would be consistent with the overarching vision for IT. “We need to present both a holistic understanding of the transformation involved and a step-by-step roadmap for how to get there. Each year, each of you should have activities in each of the three buckets I’ve identified,” he said. “Clearly, your first year or two will be heavily weighted in building the basics, but I want to see accomplishment in each bucket every year and, as we move into year three, I would expect most of the basics to be addressed and considerably more strategic innovation to be taking place. Furthermore, I expect every goal you identify to be measurable and linked to our mission. We will develop a scorecard for each of the goals of our mission and report quarterly to the business. You have a month. At that time, we will integrate your individual plans and pull everything together into a comprehensive three-year plan. This will keep us all on the same page. And you will each have clearly defined accountabilities.” He paused, “Any questions?”

Not surprisingly there were no questions. As everyone filed out of the room, Ben signaled to Teresa. “I wanted to talk with you about your role in this planning exercise. As I see it, governance is the critical part. Without effective governance, we have no insurance that the right decisions will be made by the right people in the right time frame in order to deliver the value we want. Before you share anything with the other directors, I’d like to review your governance ideas with you. If you let my assistant know as soon as you have something, we’ll book some time. Got to run.”

Back at her desk, Teresa fought the urge to panic. I can’t believe that Ben is expecting me to be the expert on governance, Teresa thought as she tried to figure out how to begin. Within a few minutes thanks to Google, Teresa learned that: IT governance is a framework of processes and structures that specify who makes decisions about and who is accountable for the IT function and its work.… It is not about what specific decisions are made or how groups are organized and led. Effective IT governance is designed to encourage desirable behavior in the use of IT that is consistent with an organization’s mission, strategy, and culture. (Weill 2004)

This last statement resonated with Teresa. All she had to do was to create a set of processes that would incentivize the right decision makers to make the right decisions! In fact, the often-used example of effective governance involved dividing leftover cake between two children. You let one child cut the cake and the other select a piece. And presto, all by itself the process guarantees an effective outcome.

Further investigation showed that a governance framework was somewhat more complex. It covered three levels: board, enterprise, and business unit. She also found that effective enterprise-level governance should address several elements including architecture, security and privacy, operations, strategic projects, IT capabilities, and data.

Discussion Questions

1. 1. Differentiate between “management” and “governance.”

2. 2. Create a set of governance processes at the enterprise level to ensure that strategic initiatives at GDI are prioritized, developed, implemented, and aligned with the business’ strategic vision.

What was the ethical dilemma with the pharmaceutical companies and hemophilia patients?How was the quality of life for those affected by these unethical acts impacted?

Kouzes and Posner (2012) posit that, “Improvement comes when you engage in conscious introspection. This requires you to reflect on your past, attend to the present, prospect the future, and feel your passion.” Reflect on your where you want to grow and the strengths you want to further develop over the next year in regards to what you have learned in this class while keeping in mind you future career aspirations. What are 2-3 specific goals that you will set to better utilize your strengths and one way in which you want to grow in a needed area of improvement?

Make at least 200 words or more, thank you.

Coloplast is ~10 years old in the U.S. but is widely known in Europe and is a well-respected, 65 year old Danish company. Coloplast has a medical device implant (product) that is used for elective procedures that is considered extremely safe, highly effective and easy to use. Coloplast has a 30% market share in the U.S., and 25% market share outside of the U.S., where the prices are lower (by half) but the market grows 3X faster as the U.S. market is more mature.  The procedures are less common outside of the U.S. as they are not typically covered (reimbursed) under government insurance plans. Therefore, outside of the U.S., they are largely paid out-of-pocket.

Boston Scientific is 40 years old, American, and has a competing product that is safe, also as effective, and nearly as easy to use, but holds a 70% U.S. market share.   Boston Scientific has a 75% share outside of the U.S., where prices are lower by half, but the market grows 3X as fast as the U.S. due to lower penetration and less market maturity Their impressive share is largely based on longevity / brand recognition (by almost 30 years), alliances with notable physician advocates, loyalties to company and overall company recognition and reputation.

Most objective physicians, if asked, will acknowledge, though, that Coloplast is better, even if they use Boston Scientific, only as it is perceived easier to implant.   The Key Opinion Leaders around the world admit both products are excellent. Scientific studies and data for both products are largely equivalent. Both companies sell in all competing markets for roughly the same average selling price.

The market shares above have been stable for about 5 years and neither company is investing in a next generation product as this is a duopoly.  As this is an elective procedure, both companies focus on market development.....so growing the market size.

You should research marketing, patient awareness and education opportunities for Coloplast to gain 15% global market share points in 3 years.   

What programs or tactics should Coloplast do to achieve ~50% global market share? Please include your Business Description, Marketing Plan, Operational Plan and Financial Plan.

" The characteristics of the restaurant market that made it difficult for a reservation system to work were fragmentation and a lack of computers and technology. Many restaurants are locally owned and small with a lot of geographical differences. Implementing a system that was affordable and meets all the needs of these restaurants would be difficult. Restaurants are also not tech-savvy and don't even have a computer on site meaning they would have issues running a reservation software "

your opinion please

If we were talking in times of the case study where things were still starting out, any restaurant that would be willing to take the risk and have the competitive edge against their competitors. The fruit that would bear from the promise of the SaaS is not only conceptually advanced and promising, but also solidifies the restaurant's business as well. Customers would be impressed, pleased with the convenience, and possibly even intrigued at the system that is really for their benefit.

your opinion please

Restaurants would prefer software as a service model because its cheap, simple to use, and does not require upkeep. It is simple for restaurants to hire a third-party company to create an app that would allow users to book reservations from their phones. This platform could also make it easy for restaurants to advertise coupons and special offers.

your opinion please

Rocky Mountain Tire Center sells 10,000 go-cart tires per year. The ordering cost for each order is​$40​,and the holding cost is 50​%of the purchase price of the tires per year. The purchase price is​ $21 per tire if fewer than 200 tires are​ ordered,​$19 per tire if 200 or​ more, but fewer than 8,000​ tires are​ ordered, and​ $13 per tire if 8,000 or more tires are ordered.

​a) How many tires should Rocky Mountain order each time it places an​ order?

Rocky​ Mountain's optimal order quantity is ______

units ​(enter your response as a whole​ number).

b) What is the total cost of this​ policy?

Total annual cost of ordering optimal order size = $_____​(round your response to the nearest whole​ number).

Discuss the competitive challenges confronting Home Depot. Focus on the competition, customer, suppliers, and substitutes.

3.

Strong corporate culture, ability to adapt is best blueprint for going global: Lenovo

The blueprint for any company that pursues international expansion starts with building a strong entrepreneurial culture that adapts to the times, according to Chinese technology giant Lenovo Group.

It is a business principle that has served Lenovo well in its decades-long transformation from a start-up electronics company in mainland China in 1984 into the world's biggest supplier of personal computers.

"When a company becomes bigger, make sure that there is a unique culture committed to execute its strategy," Ivan Cheung, Lenovo executive director and general manager for Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea, said in his interview at the South China Morning Post's Game Changers Forum 3 on Tuesday.

Lenovo has been a role model for many Chinese technology companies since it acquired IBM's PC business in 2005. Photo: AFP

Lenovo has been a role model for many Chinese technology companies since it rapidly expanded its international operations after acquiring the personal computer division of IBM for US$1.75 billion in 2005.

The computer giant, which operates in more than 160 countries, has continued its expansion with the purchase last year of Motorola Mobility for US$2.91 billion from Google and the commodity x86 server business of IBM for US$2.1 billion.

"We're trying to replicate our success in the PC industry, in the smartphone and enterprise server businesses," Cheung said.

He pointed out that Lenovo translated the principles of accountability and entrepreneurship into a few action points: "We plan before we commit; we perform as we promise; we prioritise company first; and we practice improving everyday."

In their book The Lenovo Way, authors Gina Qiao and Yolanda Conyers said the strong corporate culture keeps the company prepared to change and diversify.

"The Chinese have a saying: To cultivate trees, you need 10 years. To cultivate people, you need 100 years. That's fine with us because we know how to be patient," the authors wrote.

Amid changes in the global economy and evolving consumer tastes, start-ups must also realise that being adaptable can help them survive tough times.

Lenovo currently finds itself in need to be more nimble as global personal computer sales continue to decline and competition in the smartphone and commodity server businesses intensify.

The company last month announced that it was laying off 3,200 employees in non- manufacturing jobs, out of its total 60,000 worldwide staff, under a sweeping restructuring plan.

That would help the company reduce expenses by US$650 million in the second half of its fiscal year to March and US$1.35 billion on an annual basis.

The restructuring will see Motorola be responsible for designing, developing and manufacturing smartphones. The production supply chain for personal computers and servers will also be integrated.

Yang Yuanqing, the chairman and chief executive at Lenovo, said last month that the company targeted a 30 per cent global market share in personal computers and the turnaround of its mobile devices business in two to three quarters.

Question:

What changes did Lenovo undergo? Process change or strategic cultural change? Explain your answers based on the consideration of the theme of change, driving force, and the degree of the organization changes. What are the reasons for Lenovo’s to success?

Joe orders 1000 red widgets from Amazon. The contract specifies that it is a "destination contract." Amazon ships blure widgets and the boxes are put in Joe's warehouse. Before Joe can inspect them, they are destroyed in a fire. As between Amazon and Joe, who bears the loss?

Joe orders widgets from Amazon. The contract says nothing about risk of loss. Amazon takes the widgets to FedEx for shipment to Joe. While in the posserssion of FedEx, the widgets are destroyed. As between Amazon and Joe, who bears the loss?

Joe buys and pays for a specific red bicycle from Agee's Bicycle Shop. He intends to pick it up the next week. In the meantime, the bicycle is destroyrd in a fire. As between Joe and Agee, who bears the loss?

Joe takes his new car to Acme Chevrolet to get its oil changed. While there, Acme's salesman sells it to Sam, who in good faith believes it to be for sale. Which of the following statements is true?

Zappos has received criticism for being too extreme in the honest of their recruiting approaches. Do you agree? Explain and motivate your answers including pros and cons.

OM in the News: Nurses, Ebola, and the Subject of Quality

OCTOBER 17, 2014

by Barry Render

With Ebola leading the news every day, I am reminded of the words of Dr. Edwards Deming: management needs to accept responsibility for quality in building systems. Deming believed an employee could not, on average, exceed the quality of a process’ capability. (His famous 14 points are summarized in Table 6.2 on page 212). Now with some nurses being blamed for the lax Ebola virus procedures in Texas, we are seeing a response from the leading nursing association.

Following news that the first U.S. nurse has now tested positive for the Ebola virus, National Nurses United (NNU, Oct.12, 2014) called for all hospitals to have in place the highest standard of optimal protections, including Hazmat suits, and hands-on training to protect all RNs, other hospital personnel to confront Ebola . NNU’s new survey of 2,000 nurses shows:

• 76% still say their hospital has not communicated to them any policy regarding potential admission of patients infected by Ebola
• 85% say their hospital has not provided education on Ebola with the ability for the nurses to interact and ask questions
• 37% say their hospital has insufficient current supplies of eye protection for daily use on their unit; 36% say there are insufficient supplies of fluid resistant/impermeable gowns in their hospital
• 39% say their hospital does not have plans to equip isolation rooms with plastic covered mattresses and pillows and discard all linens after use; only 8% said they were aware their hospital does have such a plan in place.

Not having supplies; not having equipment; not educating employees; not having a plan. All of these are systems problems, not employee problems, Deming would say.

Discussion questions:

1. Who in your opinion is responsible for setting quality standards and processes for the treatment and prevention of novel diseases such as Ebola at the time and COVID-19 at present?

2. Which of Dr. Deming’s 14 points particularly apply in this situation?

3. What do you understand by the term Total Quality Management (TQM)

4. List and describe 3 concepts of TQM