Span of processes - make or buy, Operation Management

Assignment Help:

Span of Processes - Make or Buy

When Henry Ford developed his famous moving assembly-line method of producing the Model T car at the River Rouge plant in Detroit, he chose to 'own' all stages of its production, ie the widest possible span of processes. His company owned the rubber plantations that supplied the raw materials for the car's tyres; it owned the forests that supplied the wood for the car's wheels; it owned the iron mines, steel plants, foundries, forges, rolling mills and machine shops which manufactured the engine and other components. Its ownership of the complete span of processes even extended to the company's shipping line and railroad for the transport of materials and product. Today, no car manufacturer tries to manage such a wide span of processes; the lessons of Skinner's 'factory focus' have been learned, and many of the car's components are bought from specialist suppliers. Returning to the example of the gas-turbine component and the process sequence, consideration would be given to how much of the span of these processes should be carried out by the company itself. Instead of installing and managing all of the processes, a plausible alternative would be to buy the precision forgings from a specialist supplier, and restrict the internal focus to the machining operations. In the case of the airline service discussed earlier, it might be decided to focus on the long-haul flights between hub airports, leaving the feeder flights to and from the hubs to be provided by other airlines. Likewise, the in-flight entertainment and catering provisions might be outsourced to specialist suppliers.


Related Discussions:- Span of processes - make or buy

Describe how personal selling can help solve the problem, Explain how perso...

Explain how personal selling can help solve the problem of information overload.

Define why is project management popular tool in recent year, Why is projec...

Why is project management popular tool in recent years?

What are the elements of supply chain management, Q. What are the elements ...

Q. What are the elements of supply chain management? The three elements of supply chain management: • Responsiveness as an example how flexibly and rapidly supply can meet d

Explain the production plant capable of making per week, Kamal's Roti Facto...

Kamal's Roti Factory makes Rotis and delivers them to various restaurants and delis around Brooklyn. The production plant made 200,000 Rotis last week. The production plant operate

Performance management, Performance Management Discuss Performance Ma...

Performance Management Discuss Performance Management in the context of the identifying the relevant School of Management Theory.  Identify positives and negatives in the app

Explain the way of clear communication, On a recent trip to India, Mr. Yang...

On a recent trip to India, Mr. Yang, a prominent Chinese executive, dined with his client Himanshu Jain. Mr. Yang commented that the food was spicy, which Mr. Jain interpreted as a

Explain could speed up a floor buffing machine, Consider this situation: Jo...

Consider this situation: Joseph had an idea that he could speed up a floor buffing machine by putting a different motor on it. After about 25 tries he was able to make a buffer run

Explain analyze and evaluate the issues identified, Google's strategy 2010:...

Google's strategy 2010: identify the issues management needs to address. Analyze and evaluate the issues identified based on the information provided in the case. Recommend a set o

Explain different contractors discussed other contracts, You are the projec...

You are the project manager for a new multi-million dollar building renovation for your organization. The company needs to maximize the space that they have and the best approach i

Proposed solutions to combat conflicts of interest, Three major solutions h...

Three major solutions have been proposed to combat the medical industry conflicts of interest detailed above in this paper. The first solution is embodied in the Physician Payments

Write Your Message!

Captcha
Free Assignment Quote

Assured A++ Grade

Get guaranteed satisfaction & time on delivery in every assignment order you paid with us! We ensure premium quality solution document along with free turntin report!

All rights reserved! Copyrights ©2019-2020 ExpertsMind IT Educational Pvt Ltd