Learning Team Reflection

Learning Team B's Weekly Reflection – Nike, Inc.

Angela Arnold, Shelia Collins, Nancy Cline, Ashley Green, & Charlene Surrency

OPS/571

April 7, 2014

Instructor Andres Carrillo

Learning Team B's Weekly Reflection – Nike, Inc.

NIKE, Inc. is the world’s primary trendsetter in athletic footwear, apparel, equipment and accessories. Its mission is “to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world” (Nike, 2014). Before the thought of a Swoosh or the name Nike, there were two dreams of a revolution in athletic footwear that indistinctly changed the business world to what it is known as today. Bill Bowerman (a nationwide esteemed track and field coach at the University of Oregon who experimented with modernizations of running shoes) and Phil Knight (a gifted middle-distance competitor from Portland, who registered at Oregon in 1955 and participated in Bowerman’s track program) put together a development of superior athletic products, and ingenious approaches to connect openly with the customers. Nike continues to expand in many different ways, including robust advancement in China and becoming the official sponsor of the National Football League (NFL) in 2012 (Nike, 2014).

1) What type of process design do they use: Make to Order, Make to Stock, or Batch and of course why?

2a) What are one items regarding the manufacturing process related to the organization that the team finds unique or interesting? – Keeping here for reference – please remove in final paper.

Make to Order Tennis Shoes

One of the fascinating and unique things about Nike is that they have a “make to order” tennis shoe. The concept behind this is to make your shoes your way. “The make to order process is activated only in response to an actual order” (Jacobs and Chase, 2011, p. 113). For the make to order tennis shoe, the process begins with the customer going to the Nike.com website. The customer starts by selecting an “inspiration” or a style of tennis shoe. The next step is for the customer to select the sole of the shoe based on two options for the sole flexibility they want. Next the customer selects the shoe colors from the overall shoe color, the color of the “swoosh”, the color of the laces, the color of the mid and topline sole and lastly the tongue color and background color. The process is interactive so you see what the shoe will look like as you make your selections and select another color if you do not like how it looks.

Cost is a factor and a make to order tennis shoe may not be for everyone. Make to order tennis shoes are well over $100 and have a lead-time of 30 days. In the end, the customer has a tennis shoe that was designed by them, for them. Perhaps this is not just a make to order tennis shoe Nike is selling; perhaps Nike is also selling the experience of designing your own shoe.

3b) What are one items regarding the manufacturing process related to the organization that the team finds unique or interesting?

4) I need one team member to do the CONCLUSION.

References

Jacobs, R., & Chase, R. (2011). Operations and Supply Chain Management (13th ed.).

New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Nike.Com. (2014). Nike, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.nike.com/us/en_us/c/nikeid

Nike. (2014). NIKE, Inc. Retrieved from http://nikeinc.com/pages/about-nike-inc