Operations Management Assignment Essay

Operations management focuses on cautiously managing the processes to generate and deal out products and services. Some of the associated activities comprise managing purchases, list control, excellence control, storage space, logistics and evaluations. It should be noted that a great deal of focus is on competence and efficacy of processes. Therefore, operations management frequently includes considerable dimension and scrutiny of in-house processes. Eventually, the nature of the method in which operations management is conducted in an association depends extremely much on the nature of goods or services in the association, for instance, vend, manufacturing, wholesale, just to mention but a few. This paper tackles a case study on Weldon Hand Tools that shifted from European hand tool manufacturers to woodworking tools market. (Lewis & Slack, 2002) 1. How many staff should the company employ  Weldon Hand Tools is a region of commerce that is concerned with the manufacture of merchandise and services, and involves the liability of ensuring that commerce operations are well-organized and effectual. The corporation ensures the administration of resources, the giving out of merchandise and services to clientele, and the scrutiny of queue systems. (Lewis & Slack, 2002) Woodworking tool market is a positive and reactive ecological strategy that has assisted the corporation to endorse high-quality stewardship within the society. This will enable Weldon Hand Tools to diminish its carbon footprint by using sustainable supplies, reduce squander in the fabrication cycle and execute widespread corporate-wide recycling and reprocess programs. (Lowson, 2002) The corporation should employ as many employees as possible, roughly more than 30 acquaintances both full-time and part time so as to incessantly look at the company’s processes, this will enable optimization of cede for every part. Nevertheless, the additional ways in which the corporation can reduce waste and optimize cede comprise: amalgamation of acerbic and full bunk consumption and lean manufacturing. Weldon Hand Tools ought to also use supplies with low formaldehyde and low VOC substance. This should contain 100 percent solid or water based adhesives and finishing supplies that will generate a quality smooth and fine fashioned wood that has a competitive advantage in the market. (Naylor, 2002) It should be taken into consideration that while using low VOC, Weldon Hand Tools products will facilitate strength and durability, whilst providing the additional advantage of packaging and delivery investments owing to the reduced density. Weldon Hand Tools can eradicate the burden of casing by lapping panels in the stacking procedure. This would enable the bundles to intertwine thereby eradicating the need for strapping to clutch the bundles jointly when they are moved. (Gaither, 1984) The power plant ought to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week so as to produce just about 1,700 tons of smooth and well shaped wood per week. This will facilitate the corporation to burn roughly 1,000 tons per week for steam and power. (Chase & Aquilano, 2000) 2.  What type of facilities and technology will the company need to buy in order to assemble this product? Weldon Hand tools will require a mixture of machinery that will offer a jointer and planner in one component. Grizzly and jet machines will be helpful in this corporation. A horsepower distinction stands out while comparing the motors of the two equipments. Whereas the jet device boasts a 3-horsepower, 220-volt motor, the Grizzly device boasts a 5-horsepower, 220 volt motor power. It then follows that each one motor produces more than 5,000 rpm thereby making the number of cuts per inch about equivalent. In comparison, Grizzly has 15,102 cuts while jet has 16,500 cuts. (Mattfeld, 2006) The Grizzly device has a split, silky and refined jointer bed and this means an additional step in converting to planer mode. The Grizzly boundary marker is physically powerful and easy to regulate. A straightforward flip of a handle allows one to turn around a knob and shift the boundary marker across the jointer bed. On the other hand, Grizzly design has a disadvantage of having to remove the complete boundary marker prior to converting the device to the planner mode. It should be noted that the boundary marker slides off a dovetail way, even though this appears to be easy enough, storing the boundary marker every time you make use of the planer is onerous. (Association of European operational Research societies, 1989) The Grizzly device has the more recognizable pork-chop technique protector. It swings out as the fabric, and your hand, moves past the harvester head. On the other hand, the jet device features a blueprint that is comparable to European machinery in which the unbending protector raises and lowers thus allowing you to fine-tune to the width of your stock. The advantage of this type of guard is that it helps keep your hands from forever passing over the blades. In my view, I have a preference of the jet guard in view of the fact that it’s an overall safer design. (American production and Inventory control society, 1991) The company will need to buy shapers. Shapers are frequently used to silhouette the boundaries of stock. The machinist feeds the stock from any route against a perpendicular revolving harvester mounted on a spindle and as a result the spindle rotates at a high speed. Some equipment has manifold spindles. Moreover, they also have guide pins that clutch the stock for bowed shaping and fences clutch it for straight line shaping. (Belenky, 1998) In addition to this, the corporation will need to purchase routers. These are used for purposes such as cutting and shaping ornamental pieces, generating framework and panel doors, and milling moldings. Routers have spindles that turn variously fashioned, miniature diameter cutting apparatus at high speeds. The device is held in a collet chuck and protrudes through a horizontal, silky base that slides over the outer surface of the labor. The tool-spindle axis is more often than not vertical, however it may be tilted. The machinist lowers the head for machining, and the head mechanically returns to its original location after the cut is made. This spindle is usually driven by belts and pulleys or by a high-speed motor. (Dilworth, 1989) Moreover, the company will need to purchase radial saws. These are spherical saws that cut downhill, either with or next to the wood grain. It then follows that for crosscutting, the timber is pressed away from the machinist and next to a boundary marker. For rip cuts, the cutting edge is set parallel to the boundary marker, and the stock is hard-pressed through. The saw razor blade then rotates upward the machinist; who feeds the stockpile in the differing direction of the razor blade movement. (Lewis & Slack, 2002) However, it should be noted that radial saws have features that make them more adaptable than table saws. The saw arm can be elevated and lowered and swung from side to side to regulate the profundity and horizontal point of view of the cut; the razor blade can be replaced with shaping shears, drum sanders and other garnishes. It should be noted that woodworking requires safety, therefore, the corporation should provide its human resources with push sticks or other hand tools so that their hands are away from the point of process when they work on miniature pieces of stockpile. A push stick is a narrow piece of wood or block with a nick cut into one end that is frequently used to shove narrow lengths of fabric through saws. The advantage of using push sticks is that they keep the stock from tipping and prevents the machinist fingers from getting in contact with the blades. (Lowson, 2002) Weldon Hand Tools should purchase bench planes in view of the fact that they are modifiable, and the finest have lateral as well as forefront and at the rear cutter adjustment. In addition to this, they also have a movable frog that varies the mouth opening. Moreover, the company can also purchase a block plane, even though it is the least and simplest plane; it is used for light work such as smoothing the finish granule of boards and shaping miniature pieces of wood. It uses a solitary harvester blade that is positioned at a low angle in the frame in order to sanction better acerbic. Its benefit is that, it is obtainable in both modifiable and non-modifiable models. (Klassen & Menor, 2005) Modifiable planes usually feature steel screws that are frequently on the ending of the plane to facilitate differing of the cutter height. Nevertheless, some block planes have an adaptable mouth to differ fragment thickness. An extremely narrow mouth is best for excellent finishing, whilst a wider mouth permits quick stock elimination on less critical labor. (Naylor, 2002) 3.  Design a layout for the assembly operation (to include the fly press work) including the tasks to be performed at each part of the system Device tools direct the equipment to process materials so as to get the desired shapes. For that reason, they comprise the center of manufacturing systems and will give a comprehensible procedure for the selection and acquisition of woodworking equipment. An assessment and examination of the fundamentals of production system ought to be performed prior to selecting machine tools. It then follows that production system has a number of factors that influence equipment selection. Such considerations are connected to the concluding product, industrial unit size and locality, product forecast, layout, universal device parameters, and cost. (Mescon & Albert, 1981) Since Weldon Hand Tools decided to amass all planes at one of the company’s lesser factory sites where an entire workshop is unoccupied, lower equipment ranking ought to be selected in order to maintain capital investment low. These tools will execute adequately when processing gmelina lumber, which is comparable to yellow-pop-lar in machining properties. (Gaither, 1984)