Msci 432 Assignment 1

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Q1 a) The competitive advantage of a firm is a quality that the organization has that is not duplicated by another organization. This quality is what gives the firm the lead or differentiates the firm from others within the market or industry. After reading “Russia’s Factories Gear up for Efficiency” the competitive advantage cane be identified as offering new products specifically new components for railways and the oil industry. This is Chelyabinsk Forge-and-Press’s competitive advantage as no other firm is ale to offer these new products to these emerging industries. Another competitive advantage can be identified as a large quantity of parts offered. The article states, “The most important thing is that we now make far, far more kinds of parts”. This statement identifies another competitive advantage, as they are able to work with more clients and customers than other competitors. Also noted is the fact that the workers proudly show off metal links and other products they produce illustrating a level of quality that it not matched. This could be another competitive advantage of Chelyabinsk Forge-and-Press. b) After consulting Kaizen Institute a number of changes were made. These changes are listed as follows: a. Factory wide goals are implemented rather than production targets for individual employees. Now the employees are focused on the whole organization rather than a specific task. b. Excess time used to step off the line to fetch parts. The change was to reorganize production resulting in an increase in productivity of 50%. c. Excess time wasted on producing reports not useful. “Countless” hours were wasted on unnecessary paperwork. Now only reports that are NEEDED are produced, not supplementary or unnecessary reports. d. A number of unfinished products (WIP) are left around. The solution was to streamline the operations of the facility to

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