Reference no: EM132958447

BACKGROUND: Introduction manufacturing floor reorganization project

One final case for you to crack! A small apparel producer, Steel City Gear, needs help, and fast! Their operations expert quit recently to join a rock band, and they were in the middle of two important tasks: a and deciding how to allocate their advertising budget between TV, radio, and online advertisements. The departed operations specialist left some spreadsheets on the office computer relating to the project, but they are unsure how to make best use of the information.

Steel City has provided you with as much information as they have, and it is up to you to determine the best quantitative approach to answering their questions. Steel City has also made it clear that it is crucial that you explain what you are doing in a way such that a group of people unfamiliar with quantitative analysis can understand what you are doing and feel comfortable with the results. If you just provide a numerical answer to their questions, while still helpful, this will not meet their expectations for the project. Be sure to include all calculations, either in the report or as a supplemental Excel file.

Deliverable

Steel City has requested that you answer their questions in the form of a business report in MS Word format (hint: there are several canned report formats in MS word to spice things up a bit). Simply typing in answers to their questions below will be construed as a lack of professionalism. The writing must be free of errors and easy to understand. The exact design of the report is up to you, as long as the report format is used correctly and professionally, and all issues are addressed in an organized and coherent manner. As is your policy, you are to include any equations, calculations, and Excel files that you have used to be completely transparent. Any graphs or diagrams should be included in the body of the report and labeled properly.

THE CASE

The owner of Steel City has hired you to get these two tasks back on track after the abrupt departure of the manager in charge. Specifically, the owner has two requests:

Problem (1) Develop some metrics surrounding the reorganization project. They want to visualize the project map, and better understand the timeline of the project. In particular, the owner is very concerned about the finish date of the project and wants to know the expected completion time and probability the project will be completed in less than 52 weeks (assuming project finish times follow a normal distribution). Be sure to document ALL STEPS needed to reach this probability calculation.