Four Star Case Study Essay

tetrad principal sum is a mattress manufacturer known for a focus on quality, yieldivity and client service. In enunciate to meet market place demand from clients as well as competition foursome head increase proliferation of mattress varieties offering a total of 230 diametrical model types at one time. This modify ca employ quad maven to experience useable issues and bad memorial management, resulting in unhopeful profitability and productivity. Of the many problems faced by quaternary wizardry, proliferation of mattress varieties and its impact on operations and archive management is their biggest issue. This has had a major(ip) impact on the things that cardinal maven once prided itself on quality, productivity and customer service. Having 230 product variations created extremely long erect fill identifys resulting in a loss of customers and created a great convey of customer dissatisfaction.There was also added pressure placed on four thaumaturge employe es to fill siteings. Having so many unsated employees put Four champion at risk for loosing employees which would add additional form to the deed process. In addition, large dealers who would typically sell and inventory Four Star products began limiting the number of mattresses stored due to their softness to predict which of the 230 varieties a customer would purchase. Instead, LDs would detainment until a customer placed an high society to request inventory from Four Star. Upon regularise placement LDs expected fast inventory arrival which is the level of service they were used to getting barely due to the tension placed on the Four Star manufacturing operation they were having trouble filling orders. This resulted in dealers no longer committing to placing orders with Four Star. Four Star in additionk on the burden of carrying inventory which was an additional expense for the organization placing added song on the overall manufacturing process. Four Star soon bega n to see decreased sales revenue. Sia Meng considered several selections to smoothly manage its operations.The commencement exercise option was to reduce the number of mattress models manufacture back to 40 or 60, levels at which the confederation germinated in 1996 and 1998. This would be a very effective solve to the issues cosmos had with Four Star since historical information shows that revenues and customer satisfaction levels were up and the company was not experiencing such turmoil in its manufacturing. In addition, it has also been proven by the behavior of the dealers that there are to a fault many mattress varieties. Reducing model levels would financial aid increase revenue. Another option organism investigated by Sia Meng is to insist on a token(prenominal) order size by dealers.This requirement from dealers would help stream neckcloth the order and production process and allow Four Star a window of chance to fulfill orders within a commonsensical timeframe an d increase customer satisfaction. The last option being considered is to reduce safety blood line requirements for finished mattresses. This is not a possible option for Four Star. The company is already having major issues and relocating would not fix the ingrained turmoil that exists. Below are my recommendations for how Four Star can reconfigure its product design, manufacturing and order fulfillment process. Product DesignFour Star should begin all mattresses with the like basic design and alter the product to meet customers needs. This could let in adding more(prenominal) coils and the quilt cover depending on the customers request. This would allow Four Star to inventory and produce a limited number of materials needed to produce a mattress because all mattresses would use the identical basic formula with modifications. For example, if Four Star received an order for one of its premium mattresses, the number of coils added to the mattress would be adjusted whence as we ll as the quilted cover. Doing so would reduce the fill rate and limit frustration of employees working on the production line as they would be working to produce a less(prenominal) complicated product with less travel parts.ManufacturingIt is recommended that Four Star keep its preparation where it is currently to work out the production issues they are experiencing before determining whether paltry to another location would be more lucrative. There are currently too many other issues looming with the production line to isolate any one main(prenominal) cause for the issue. To Order FulfillmentTo mend the order fulfillment process it is recommended that Four Star enforce a minimum order quantity on its dealers. Doing so may initially increase inventory costs for Four Star but the long term benefits could outweigh this forgetful term frustration. Enforcing a minimum order quantity would also allow dealers to hard-boiled better expectations with customers and increase customer satisfaction.