Student Name
ACCT 3341
Case 4-2
February 15, 2016
East River Manufacturing Case
East River Manufacturing has several problems in their operation. Equipment is old and breaks
down frequently. Product sits in inventory for long periods. Bo/lenecks and scheduling
di0cul(es are not uncommon in the production line. Around 40% of the man-hours in Bay 7 are
spent moving materials at worksta(ons and between worksta(ons. All of these problems are
a/ributed to East River Manufacturing having low profit margins.
First, old equipment needs to be replaced with newer, more reliable machines. This will help
alleviate bo/lenecks caused my machine down(me. investing in newer machines also means
that there is an opportunity to automate more aspects of the production process. Adding more
automa(on, especially in the moving and handling of materials will reduce the amount of man-
hours spent doing non-profit genera(ng ac(vi(es and decrease the average throughput (me for
Bay 7. Automa(on could also help by reducing the number of steps in the production process
either by combining steps or eliminating some steps all together. Reducing the number of steps
would reduce the number of (mes the materials need to be transferred which would also help
throughput (me and reduce man-hours.
Next, instead of starting every proposal from scratch a system needs to be developed that uses
the same or similar detailed part component designs and materials composition. This would
mean that the same blueprints could be used and they would already be in each of the three
systems that the dra6smen would upload the blueprints to. Exhibit 1 depicts this process. The
