11–1 You have been asked to develop a work breakdown structure for a project. How should you go about accomplishing this? Should the WBS be time-phased, department-phased, division-phased, or some combination?
11–2 You have just been instructed to develop a schedule for introducing a new product into the marketplace. Below are the elements that must appear in your schedule. Arrange these elements into a work breakdown structure (down through level 3), and then draw the arrow diagram. You may feel free to add additional topics as necessary.
Production layout
Review plant costs
Market testing
Select distributors
Analyze selling cost
Lay out artwork
Analyze customer reactions
Approve artwork
Storage and shipping costs
Introduce at trade show
Select salespeople
Distribute to salespeople
Train salespeople
Establish billing procedure
Train distributors
Establish credit procedure
Literature to salespeople
Revise cost of production
Literature to distributors
Revise selling cost
Print literature
Approvals*
Sales promotion
Review meetings*
Sales manual
Final specifications
Trade advertising
Material requisitions
(*Approvals and review meetings can appear several times.)
12–1 Should a PERT/CPM network become a means of understanding reports and schedules, or should it be vice versa?
12–2 Should PERT networks follow the work breakdown structure?
Case study:
Teloxy Engineering (A)
Teloxy Engineering has received a onetime contract to design and build 10,000 units of a new product. During the proposal process, management felt that the new product could be designed and manufactured at a low cost. One of the ingredients necessary to build the product was a small component that could be purchased for $60 in the marketplace, including quantity discounts. Accordingly, management budgeted $650,000 for the purchasing and handling of 10,000 components plus scrap.
During the design stage, your engineering team informs you that the final design will require a somewhat higher-grade component that sells for $72 with quantity discounts. The new price is substantially higher than you had budgeted for. This will create a cost overrun.
You meet with your manufacturing team to see if it can manufacture the component at a cheaper price than buying it from the outside. Your manufacturing team informs you that it can produce a maximum of 10,000 units, just enough to fulfill your contract. The setup cost will be $100,000 and the raw material cost is $40 per component. Since Teloxy has never manufactured this product before, manufacturing expects the following defects:
% defective 0 10 20 30 40
probability of occurrence (%) 10 20 30 25 15
All defective parts must be removed and repaired at a cost of $120 per part.
QUESTIONS
Using expected value, is it economically better to make or buy the component?
Strategically thinking, why might management opt for other than the most economical choice?
Teloxy Engineering (B)
Your manufacturing team informs you that it has found a way to increase the size of the manufacturing run from 10,000 to 18,000 units, in increments of 2,000 units. However, the setup cost will be $150,000, and defects will cost the same $120 for removal and repair.
QUESTIONS
Calculate the economic feasibility of make or buy.
Should the probability of defects change if we produce 18,000 units as opposed to 10,000 units?
Would your answer to question 1 change if Teloxy management believes that follow-on contracts will be forthcoming? What would happen if the probability of defects changes to 15 percent, 25 percent, 40 percent, 15 percent, and 5 percent due to learning-curve efficiencies?
