MGT302 week 3Discussion
Monday23 Mar at 20:00
At my current job as a machine operator, at a truck bed manufacturing company, we use a "priority list" to determine the order that we complete orders, a version of a modified first come first served. The priority list is produced by the sales department and each product line has its own list. These lists are intended to either fill the shelves with overstock of our most common kits or build the kits in the order they have been purchased. The sewing lines operate under a kanban system, a material movement signal. (Wisner, 2019) Based upon which assembly lines are the priority or are producing the fastest that determines how many sewing lines are to be utilized per production line.
For the most part, the system is effective, the exception comes when the sales department needs to push a specific order or set of orders. In this situation, a "bump" is sent down to the assembly and sewing lines saying that the priority list needs to be re-ordered. This can lead to frustrations between the production floor and the sales department, as the production floor may have already produced work in process(WIP) for kits that the bump has pushed back. Then the WIP needs to either be repurposed for the bump or stashed until the bump is resolved. To better handle these bumps, the sales department needs to communicate better to the work floor to ensure a seamless transition between the priority list and the bump.
References
Wisner, J. D. (2017). Operations management: A supply chain process approach . Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu