Eastern Gear, Inc.

Eastern gear Inc., in Philadelphia, Pa., is a manufacturer of custom made gears ranging in weight from a few ounces to over 50 pounds. The gears are made of different metals depending on the customer's requirements. Over the past year 40 different types of steel and brass alloys have been used as raw materials. See Exhibit 1 for details.

Eastern gear sells its products primarily to engineering research and development laboratories or very small manufacturers. As a result the number of gears in most orders is small; rarely is exactly the same gear ordered more than once. The distribution of order sizes for March 2012 is shown in Exhibit 2.

Recently the president of Eastern Gear decided to accept a few larger orders for 100 gears or more. Although lower prices were accepted on these orders, they helped pay the overhead. It was found that the large orders caused many of the small orders to wait for a long time before being processed. As a result some deliveries of small orders were late.

QUESTIONS

1. Evaluate Eastern Gear with operations strategic objectives and how would you like to make recommendations for any changes in the firm's operations strategy?

2. Based on the diagnoses of Eastern Gear's operations, what decisions should Mr Rhodes make to solve his problems in terms of (1) process and (2) quality?

3. Based on the diagnoses of Eastern Gear's operations, what decisions should Mr Rhodes make to solve his problems in terms of (3) capacity and (4) inventory?

Attachment:- Assignment.rar