Operations Management Case Study: Chad's Creative Concepts Analysis

This case study analyzes the operational challenges faced by Chad's Creative Concepts, a furniture manufacturer. The company struggles with scheduling, capacity, inventory, and layout issues due to the production of both custom and standard furniture lines. The analysis identifies key operating decisions related to manufacturing, turnover, and resource allocation. Potential solutions include warehouse repositioning, inventory reduction, revised manufacturing schedules, and division of production priorities. The case highlights the importance of efficient operations management for business growth and profitability. The solutions focus on addressing work-in-progress, inventory costs, and the need for increased capacity to satisfy demand. The study also emphasizes the need to balance the production of custom and standard furniture to optimize resources and minimize disruptions.

Running Head: CASE STUDY 0
Case Study
Operations Management
Student Name:
Student University:

CASE STUDY 1
Case Study: Chad’s Creative Concepts
Answer 1: Operating decisions faced by Chad Thomas’ business
Operating decisions are made for managing day-to-day business which is handled by the
operations manager. The operations in the business can be related to pricing, discounts,
promotions, information collection, maintaining account, sales and outreach, logistics
decisions, and employee and customer management (Liu, 2018). Chad Thomas’ business is
facing the situation between manufacturing and turnover and the operating decisions needed
to focus on were scheduling, capacity, inventory, and layout. The fact is that the use of same
set of employees and tools used for manufacturing of custom and standard line of furniture is
a problem (Choi, et al., 2016). The scheduling and layout are the key decisions for assigning
all the resources. The custom line is getting more priority because of higher sales in dollars.
The customers expect least time and low prices for standard furniture and this is counted as a
major issue. The increase in 75% of sales in dollars and volume of 60% to custom line
accounting but the increase in sales of standard line was going well. These decisions were
taken to address work-in-progress status for raw materials to avoid the problem; reduction in
inventory to decide good supply-chain and execution of it as the warehouse is costly; and
need of increasing the size to satisfy demand and separate both the production lines after the
increment. Chad’s Creative Concepts was costing high with the need for growth.
Answer 2: Potential solutions for Thomas to avoid the problems he faced
The company’s ability to produce goods and services has an impact on long-term and short-
term operations decisions. Operations management is needed in business, to human resources
and accounting, from engineering and research & development. The operations decisions are
needed in technological, monetary and human resources in the company (B, 2015). The
problem in the company is increment in sales standard line which requires regular scheduling
and the priority was given to custom made furniture for its higher sales and profit side-lines.
The reasons for the problems are company’s holding cost is tied up in the inventory of raw
materials and work-in-progress increasing with dollars and promising for longer delivery
times in both the segments. The day-to-day operational decisions are placed by standard
supervisors or employees in the company (Krajewski & Ritzman, 2002, p. 23). Chad Thomas
was facing the problem of slow-manufacturing process and finance which can be solved in
many ways. One of them is repositioning the warehouse which can be cheap and saving the

CASE STUDY 2
costs on the basis of location, reduction of raw materials through work-in-progress status,
reduction of work-in-progress stock by changing the manufacturing schedule, division of
manufacturing priorities equally of custom and standard lines, providing more facilities for
the expansion of business size, and to minimize the interruption in manufacturing line by
employing new employees for motivating existing employees to work for extra hours
effortlessly. The company sets operational goals and objectives are considered to be short-
term.

CASE STUDY 3
Bibliography
B, M., 2015. Operations Management: Theory and Practice. Chennai: Pearson Education
India.
Choi, T.-M., Chan, H. K. & Yue, X., 2016. Recent Development in Big Data Analytics for
Business Operations and Risk Management. IEEE, 47(1), pp. 81-92.
Krajewski, L. J. & Ritzman, L. P., 2002. Operations Management: Strategy and Analysis. 6
ed. US: Prentice Hall.
Liu, M., 2018. Accruals, Managerial Operating Decisions, and Firm Growth: Implications for
Tests of Earnings Management. Journal of Management Accounting Research, 31(1), pp.
153-193.