Question

Brutus Auto is a thriving, independently owned and operated firm located in Westerville. It was founded in 1986 by “Brutus” Cooper. Brutus was born and raised in Westerville, OH. Brutus is well-known and trusted by the residents of the town. As a teenager, he was a star football player for the high school team. In his spare time, he enjoyed working on cars and had a special talent when it came to cars. After college, this hobby led Brutus to start his own business – Brutus Auto Tire and Lube.

Brutus does a wide variety of work on vehicles of all makes and models. The shop also offers a variety of parts and supplies at retail. Brutus spends a great deal of time conversing with customers, most of whom he has known his whole life. His reputation for honest and reliable work has earned him many repeat customers, with the positive word of mouth helping him to expand his business.

His wife, Diane, runs the office, and takes special care to acknowledge customers on their birthdays with hand-written cards that include coupons for discounted services. Customers often reflect that Brutus offers the kind of service you can only find from a small-town mechanic. While Brutus is slightly more expensive than the chain establishments that have recently moved into town, customers testify that the friendly environment and quality service are worth the price.

Operational details

Brutus’s shop has grown steadily over the years. Originally, Brutus maintained a modest three automobile bays at his shop, and he and his long-time buddy, Fred, conducted most of the work except oil changes which were handled by a part-time apprentice. Currently, Brutus shop has six bays (the layout of the shop is shown in Figure 1) and seven mechanics (as not all of the service activities require a bay). Each of the bays is identical so that any employee can work at any station.

Four of the employees (including Brutus and Fred) are full-time (work at least 40 hours per week), and three are interns who work part-time (work fewer than 40 hours per week). Brutus and Fred are the only two mechanics permitted to do work beyond the basics, and so more involved car services can take some time getting through the shop. Most mechanics at Brutus Auto were trained at the area vocational school, and those with particular skill are taken on as apprentices who work under Fred and Brutus on the more involved projects. Cooper provides all the tooling necessary, and is respected as a fair and caring boss. In return, Brutus’ employees are loyal and hard-workers; seldom is absenteeism a problem, and turnover is rare.

The employee schedule for a typical week is shown in Table 1. The numbers shown in Table 1 are all devoted to working on vehicles. The shop closes for one week in the winter.

Inventory

Although the shop is primarily a service provider, all of the services require materials in addition to labor, and so there are inventory considerations that Brutus must manage.

A variety of other parts and supplies (for example, oil filters and oil) must be kept available due to the regularity of use; it would be difficult to meet the high expectations of customers if these items are not available. This has become a particularly high priority ever since national service chains moved into town, as the speed of their services such as oil changes is already far superior to that of Brutus. As a result of these competitive pressures, Brutus sets a 98% target service level.

Brutus is dedicated to using a high-quality brand of parts and supplies, most of which are available from a single supplier. Note that these parts and supplies are not only used to support services but also sold as retail transactions to customers who wish to perform their own repair work.

Currently, a continuous review policy is used for all car parts and supplies, but Brutus believes this system may require too much time to maintain for all inventory items. A sample of some of the items offered, the volumes used in services and sold at retail, and the associated costs are shown in Table 2. Brutus has determined that to call the supplier, pay for transportation, and put a shipment away costs approximately $50. The stockroom is relatively small and does not require special equipment or personnel. There is virtually no theft of product, so the annual holding costs are approximately 25% of unit cost. Delivery of orders takes about one week from the local supplier.

Adding Tire Service

The owners believe that adding tire replacement would increase revenues with a negligible increase to fixed (facility) costs other than tire inventory. However, in order to be competitive with the discount chains, Brutus must target a maximum of 30 minutes total time for each customer visit specific to tires since pricing was already competitive. They estimate that the time between arrivals for cars needing such replacement would be ten minutes. A dedicated and secure parking lot with a limit of 6 spots is available specifically for cars awaiting tire service. While service requirements vary, they estimate that a dedicated technician should finish up 3 tire service jobs each hour.

1. - Identify and describe TWO recommendations you would make to

                           Brutus Cooper to improve Operations and/or to lower costs.

Answer 1

Identify and describe TWO recommendations you would make to Brutus Cooper to improve Operations and/or to lower costs.

In auto industry, reasonable price and high quality are considered as order qualifiers. Your company offers extremely high quality service but not the reasonable price. High cost resulted from high quality could become the order loser in the long-term run. With the end goal to keep the expense from rising any further, we prescribe you making a long haul concurrence with providers to take favorable circumstances from cost transaction. Then again, we recognize fair and dependable work with astounding clients' administration as your aggressive needs. Then again, well disposed condition and effortless nature of administration that clients find from a residential area technician are viewed as your request champs. Thus, we strongly recommend strengthening the competitive priorities and order winners by focusing on the distinctiveness that you already had. Then again, we likewise prescribe you extending the request champ to item customization since clients these days have altogether different inclinations and they tend to pick the store where they can without much of a stretch find what they require. One way to strengthen customized service and products is distributing the surveys enclosed in the cards.

Corporate owners must continuously monitor industry trends and predict emerging markets for potential business products and services. One way to grow the company is to develop new products and services solutions for existing customers. Owners are actively searching for new products and services that provide customer benefits and are looking for new means of distribution for current products and services.

Whether business succeeds or fails, a business owner's ability to manage expenses plays a key role. Strategic design requires an exhaustive review of the business of the company to identify ways to save money. The quest for cheaper providers is one tactic. Better training often spares costs; more is done at the same work expense when it is more efficient. Strategic planning lets business owners monitor marketing expenses, investing dollars where they contribute to the greatest increase in sales.

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