Assignment Details
This assignment has 4 parts:

Collaboration in a business environment is a best practice that leverages the collective knowledge of the team assembled. Peer evaluation and support, provided in the spirit of continuous improvement and organizational success, result in higher quality deliverables than generally possible by the efforts of an individual. Please describe the process you plan to use to conduct research, identify findings, and develop the Comprehensive Project due in Unit 5 and present a preliminary outline indicating how you intend to organize the project deliverable.
Please review the process and outlines of other students, providing an objective assessment and constructive feedback that will help strengthen the effectiveness of their efforts and the quality of the finished product. (SEE ATTACHMENT OF ONE OF MY CLASSMATES)
What is the role of relationship development and management in effective leadership, and how are these concepts used in improving leadership effectiveness?
When and why should participation be used to improve leadership effectiveness?

Shanderay Aitkens

Greetings, Friends! I hope all is well with all of you. I also wish you luck on your papers. I am filled with anxiety, as to attempting to get it all together. I will finish this assignment first, then I will have more time to focus on the more difficult one to write. See, the other class is requiring students to innovate an existing product. My dimension which portrays new improvements to the basic umbrella. Technically, I have sold myself out on the idea which came to my mind regarding it. So much so, that I have applied for an inventor network’s assistance. My application was accepted. I went further to apply for Shark Tank. That application was also accepted. Hey, I don’t know where this will lead, but I’m writing that course’s IP, which is a homemade, Comprehensive Marketing Plan. I’m into it with intentions to include an inquiry to Tesla. Therefore, this my cause for researching Elon Musk as one of my business leaders for this course’s Unit 5 Assignment.
Here is a preliminary outline depicting how I plan to organize my IP. This outline will direct attention towards 4 leaders. It will guide me throughout the structuring of the IP. It will assist in presenting these 4 leaders and their infallible leadership capabilities. Examining these particular, 4 leaders, will all have a connection to my IP for the Marketing Plan in my other class. Like Mr. Musk’s attachment to Tesla and how we (him and I), with the Nifty Disc, could add another Billion dollars to his budget, and a freshly started billion dollar journey for myself. My dad always told me to dream big. Therefore, I do, but, I am enabling myself through education, with the background consisting of various degrees, to support my foot forward.
Here is my actual outline.
I. The importance of Leadership
A. how a leader chooses a style or falls into one
B. how a leader views the position held determines how that leader will behave
C. how a leader becomes corrupt
II. Examples of Leaders (4 picked)
A. Elon Musk (Tesla) (Space X) (AI)
1) companies he owns and founding dates
2) how he leads them (style of leadership)
3) benefits to his style and operative capacities
B. Bill Gates (Microsoft)
1) company ownership and affiliations and founding date
2) leadership style practiced
3) effects of leadership style implemented
C. Jeff Bezos (Amazon)
1) company foundations and founding dates
2) leadership style implemented
3) outcome of results as to this leadership style
D. Reta Jo Lewis (The import and Export Bank of the United States)
1) position of power
2) leadership style
3) outcomes and deliverables of this leadership style
II. Leader Commonalities, Similarities and Differences
1) how are these four leaders different?
2) how are they similar?
3) what is the common denominator for the four leaders?
III. From the research conducted, tell the audience what it would be like for all four to work together on a project. How would they fluctuate the power on the table, possessed by each individual?

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DB522011

Case Study15.1Murphy Manufacturing

When Joe Vollbrach, vice president of operations for Murphy Manufacturing, was given the CEOs directive to investigate the lean production concepts and to implement them if appropriate, he was slightly apprehensive. Everyone knew, he thought, that ERP was the best way to run a manufacturing operation, and they had been pretty successful with their ERP system. Once he read a couple of books and a magazine article or two about lean production, however, he thought maybe there was something to it and it sure seemed simple enough. Dozens of companies had reported great reductions in inventory cost and other forms of waste, and with Murphy Manufacturing having only five to six inventory turns per year, the prospect of significant inventory reductions was very appealing.
Encouraged with the success stories and very mindful of the CEO directive, Joe wasted no time. He put out the directive to all his people to implement lean production the way it was working in the book examples he had read. A few months later, however, he was beginning to wonder about the truth of the success stories in those books. The following are some of the examples of the complaints he was getting and the problems he was facing.

KAREN, THE PURCHASING MANAGER:

Joe, this JIT and lean production are a disaster for us. Its not only costing us a lot more money, but the suppliers are getting real angry with us. Since our raw material inventory had typically been high, you said we should order smaller quantities and have it delivered just in time for its need. Sure, that cut down on the raw material inventory, but that cost savings has been more than made up for with all the increased cost. First, purchase orders are not cost free, and were making a lot more of them. Thats also taking up a lot more of our buyers time. Then theres the transportation cost. Since most of the trucking companies charge a lot more for less-than-full truckloads, our costs are going sky-high with more frequent deliveries of smaller loads. Combine that with expediting costs, and it gets really bad. Our schedules are changing even more frequently, and without the raw material the production people are often asking for next day delivery of material they need for a schedule change. Were flying more parts in, and you know how much that costs!
Thats not all. Our suppliers are really wondering if we know how to run our business. Were changing the schedule to them much more frequently, and the only way they can hope to meet our needs is to keep a lot of our inventory in their finished goods. Thats costing them a lot of money in inventory holding costs as well as administrative costs to manage the inventory and to process all our requests. They not only have more requests from us, but it seems like everything is a rush order. Theyre pressing us hard for price increases to cover their increased cost to keep us as a customer. Ive held most of them off for a while but not much longer. Unfortunately, I agree with them, so its hard for me to make any kind of logical argument to counter their requests for price increases.

OSCAR, SUPERVISOR OF SHIPPING/RECEIVING:

If youre going to keep this up I have to ask for two more truck bays and about four more receiving clerks. Theres a lot more trucks making a lot more deliveries. We cant schedule perfectly when a truck will show up, so many times during the day there are several trucks waiting for an open truck bay. Production people are screaming at us because they see a certain truck and they know a critical part is on it, but we have to wait because the trucks currently in the bays being unloaded also have critical parts. It seems like everything is critical these days. A couple more bays with enough people to staff them will help, although its not the only answer. I figure about a $3 million renovation to the receiving area and an increase in our budget of about $500,000 ought to be about enough to keep us afloat, at least most of the time. Oh, I forgotbetter make that $600,000 more. I also need another records clerk to keep up with the big increase in paperwork from all those deliveries.
Joe was just finished taking a couple of aspirin to deal with that headache, when Marsha, a production supervisor, caught up with him:
Joe, I dont know where you came up with these silly ideas, but youre killing us here. This so-called kanban system is just plain stupid. It reminds me of the reorder points we used before the MRP system, and we all know how much better MRP made things work. I feel like I just slipped 35 years back in time. We all know our customers are a fickle bunch who are always changing their minds on orders. We used to have visibility with the change when we used MRP, but now all we have is what the final assembly area is working on. That not only causes us big, inefficient downtimes for setup changes but also doesnt give us much time to get the materials we need to make the different parts. When we do figure out what we need, most of the time our suppliers dont have any in raw material stock. Now we have to waste more time and energy to scream at the buyers. What makes it even worse is your directive to eliminate finished goods. We not only dont have material to make what we need half the time, but were not allowed to make what we can. It would seem that would make sense, so that when a customer does request a certain model we have in stock, at least that order wouldnt end up being a crisis.
The crisis scenario I just described is what happens when everything else works. When we have some other problems, such as a piece of equipment going down, the real disaster hits. What little order we can force goes out the window and everyone starts really getting uptight. And dont talk about preventive maintenance, either. We need every piece of equipment running as much as we can to even come close to making the orders we need.
By the way, some of our best people are threatening to quit. Some are being paid on a piece rate, and the lack of material combined with the directive to avoid finished goods has cut seriously into their paychecks. Even the ones on straight hourly pay are unhappy. All we supervisors are being evaluated on labor productivity and efficiency, and our numbers are looking real bad. Naturally, we put the heat on the workers to do better, but Im not too sure they can do much about it most of the time.
And another thing while I have your attentionin some of our models we have a lot of engineering design changes. The ERP system used to give us some warning, but now we have none. Suddenly one of the engineers will show up and tell us to use a different part. When we check with purchasing, often theyve only just gotten the notification themselves and have only just started to work with the suppliers for the part. Not only do we have to obsolete all the old parts, but also we have to wait for the new ones. The salespeople are even starting to scream at us.
While Im on a roll here, youve got to do something with those quality control people. We could deal with some scrap or rejected parts when we had plenty of inventory, but now we need every part in the place. Tell them to quit rejecting parts and let us use them. At least well have a better chance of shipping the order, even if it isnt perfect.
Almost as soon as Marsha left, Valorie the sales manager came in. Joe braced himself for more of a headache even before she spoke. The expression on her face foreshadowed what she had on her mind:
Joe, my job is to make sales and keep the customers happy. The sales have been going fine, but our delivery stinks. Our on-time delivery record has fallen from 95 to less than 50% in the past 6 months. Some of our customers are threatening to leave us, and some are pushing for price cuts. According to them, our delivery record is so poor they feel compelled to keep more of our inventory in their raw material stores to account for their lack of faith in our delivery promises. They say that since its our fault they have increased raw material inventory costs, we should compensate them with a price cut. Its pretty hard toargue with their logic. Im sure we would do the same with our suppliers if they treated us the way weve been treating our customers lately.
We all know our customers have to sometimes change orders to reflect what their own customers want. Now, however, the changes are becoming more frequent and radical. It seems since we are so poor in delivery they order more in advance from us to buffer the time for our late deliveries. Ordering further into the future gives them a lot less certainty of what they really need, so naturally they have to change once they do know. I may have to get another order-entry clerk to deal with all the changes, and if I do, you better believe Ill let everyone know the extra expense is your fault!
The bottom line here is simple, Joe. Youve got to get after your people to improve the delivery drastically or we may be in big trouble, and soon.
After Valorie left Joes secretary came in with a rush memo from the CEO:
I just got the preliminary financial report for the last quarter, and for the first time in over 5 years we show a lossand its a big one. The details show sales goals have basically been met. The loss comes from a very large increase in expenses in virtually every area in operations except a modest decrease in inventory cost. Im calling an emergency staff meeting for two oclock today. Please be ready to explain the situation completely.
As Joe shut his door to insulate himself from the complaints and to prepare for the meeting, he began to wonder if some of the people who claimed that lean production was a culturally based system and impossible to implement outside of Japan were correct. He knew most of the problems were related to his attempt to implement the new system. What, he wondered, went wrong, and what should he do about it? These were certainly two critical questions that would be major parts of the two oclock meeting, and he needed good and complete answers. The CEO was reasonable and could deal with the fact that mistakes might have been made, but she would expect a detailed analysis and complete action plan to get things back on track. The aspirin was definitely wearing off, and it was less than an hour ago that he took them!
Assignment
1. Prepare a complete and comprehensive report for Joe to use for his two oclock meeting. This should include both the analysis of what went wrong and why, as well as a comprehensive and time-phased plan to implement lean production the correct way.
2. If you do not think lean production is appropriate, explain why in detail and develop a comprehensive alternative plan.