Wilson Manufacturing
Case Study
Ken Wilson had done it all at Wilson Manufacturing, a company founded by his grandfather 63 years ago. Among his many duties, Ken oversaw all the plant’s operations, a task that had grown in responsibility given the company’s rapid growth over the past three decades. When Ken’s grandfather founded the company, there were only two manufacturing sites. Expansion and acquisition of competitors over the years had caused that number to grow to over 50 manufacturing plants in 18 states.
Wilson Manufacturing had a simple process the produced only two products, but the demand for these products was strong and Ken had spent millions of dollars upgrading his facilities over the past decade. Consequently, most of the company’s equipment was less than 10 years old on average. Wilson’s two products were produced for local markets, as prohibitive shipping costs prevented shipping the product long distances. Product demand was sufficiently strong to support two manufacturing shifts (day and night) at every plant, and every plant had the capability to produce both products sold by Wilson. Recently, the management team at Wilson noticed that there were differences in output levels across the various plants. They were uncertain what, if anything, might explain these differences. Clearly, if some plants were more productive than other, there might be some meaningful insights that could be standardized across plants to boost overall productivity.
Ken Wilson asked you, an industrial engineer at the company’s headquarters, to conduct a study of the plant’s productivity. You randomly sampled 159 weeks of output from various plants together with the number of plant employees working that week, the plants’ average age in years, the product mix produced that week (either product A or B), and whether the output was from the day or night shift. The sampled data are contained in the file Case Study 1 Wilson Manufacturing. The Wilson management team is expecting a written report and a presentation by you when it meets again next week.
Instructions
1. Identify the primary issue of the case
2. Analyze the data
3. Draw your conclusions (should include next steps)
4. Create a PPT Presentation as if you were going to present your findings to the management team.
a. This should be no more than 6 slides (a title slide and 5 content slides)
b. Make sure your name is on it
c. As you will not actually be presenting this I want you to write up what you would say for each slide in the Notes section
d. PRINT your PowerPoint so that there is 1 slide with notes on each page (does not have to be in color)
5. Must be printed and turned in before the exam