Case Study on Foldrite Furniture Company

Case study on Foldrite

Furniture Company

Stage 1: Problem definition and Data

gathering

2011

Ankit Mittal, Sailee Latkar, Shefali Budhwani

NYU

5/25/2011

Phase 1 - Foldrite Furniture Company

Ankit Mittal, Sailee Latkar, Shefali Budhwani Page 1 5/25/2011

Table of Contents

1. The System....................................................................................................................................................2

1.1 System Description ......................................................................................................................................2

1.3 Appeal as an interesting problem.................................................................................................................2

1.4 Team's Exposure to the System....................................................................................................................3

2. Environment ..................................................................................................................................................3

2.1 Users ............................................................................................................................................................3

2.2 Nature of Current System............................................................................................................................ 3

3. Narrative of the Existing System.............................................................................................................................3

4. Hierarchy of organizational Problems....................................................................................................................3

5. Project Goals & associated Problems............................................................................................................4

6. Schedule for the Analysis and Design Venutre.....................................................................................................6

7. Data Gathering ..............................................................................................................................................7

Phase 1 - Foldrite Furniture Company

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1. The System

1.1 System Description

Foldrite Furniture Company based in Aurora, Colorado is in the process of changing its production

strategy based on a surge in demand for the current product line. It is also considering a change in product

offering based on current market trends. Based on the new sales forecast, they want to come up with a

production plan for the next six months.

The organization aspires to realize the four major goals viz.

* innovation in products and processes

* enhancement of customer responsiveness

* achieve lean manufacturing

* retention of workforce

1.2 System Overview

1.3 Appeal as an interesting problem

The case of Foldrite furniture company is compelling since it details the journey of the company across

two decades and provides and insight into its early fruitful years, its reputation as an innovative company, the

Phase 1 - Foldrite Furniture Company

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style with which it took over competitors, then its gradual decline and tryst with financial turmoil, ambition to

be big by buying smaller players and its eventual buyout by a group of private investors.

Across the two decades and these phases, Foldrite was faced with fisting with various issues such as

seasonal changes in demands, financial turmoil, workforce turnover, etc. In each scenario, the team at Foldrite

has come up with innovative and organized production plans to maximize the utilization of work force,

machinery, resources, etc. and to generate good revenue at the end of year by implementing various

strategies. Thus Foldrite comes to us an interesting problem due to its potential of providing an insight into

various different scenarios & challenges and system behavior in all situations.

A particularly interesting problem of Foldrite is to develop the right production strategy to fulfill the

expected demand for Cloud Chair (due to its current buzz in the market). This is intriguing since in order to

cater to expected demands, should the inventory be stacked, it'd come at the cost of product development

and R&D Budgets. Additionally, if hiring is done for the same, there will be the added expense of the process

and training. And finally, should the design change be made such that it saves a minute on assembly line, it'd

still demand a one time cost of $15,000.

1.4 Team's Exposure to the System

Having had a taste of Services sector, our team is curious about the knitty-gritties of manufacturing

sector and product based companies. In order to be able to make wise technical and operational decisions in

our careers, irrespective of industry, we'd like to gain an understanding of variety of industries and processes.

2. Environment

2.1 Users

1.