BJMP 3023 Assignment 3 - Technology Management Note: There are 2 questions in this assignment. Question 1: Serindits Inc. produces motherboards for the laptop industry. En. Yusoff, an industrial engineer at Serndits, is attempting to determine which motherboard assembly technology to propose for a new laptop model. En. Yusoff has 2 feasible options for fixing electronic components to the motherboard: semi-auto insertion technology and fully automated insertion technology. Below is the data prepared by En. Yusoff: Factor Weight Factors Economic factor: Score Semi-automated Automated Annual cash inflow .20 $110,000 $215,000 Other factors: Product quality .10 0.7 1.0 Product flexibility .15 1.0 0.5 Labor relations 10 1.0 0.6 Production speed 05 0.5 1.0 .10 0.4 0.8 Training requirements Implementation time .05 0.9 0.6 25 0.7 0.4 Capital requirements Note: A higher score is better Use the relative-aggregate-scores approach to compare the two motherboard assembly technology alternatives. Which alternative would you recommend to En. Yusoff? Why? Question 2 CASES Golden Kernel Processing Company Delana Lightfoot is a production analyst at the Golden Kemel processing plant, which processes whole kernel cut corn, Delana's current project is to evaluate different les els of automation for quality control inspection of com kernels. Option 1 is to assign a number of employees along the conveyor belt to inspect the corn kernels manually as they go by and pick out small and of color kernels. Option 2 involves using lewer employees who only check for off-color kernels and then running the corn over a screen that filters out the small kernels. Option 3 is to purchase a state-of-the-art, fully auto- mated machine that uses video cameras, a computer workstation, and small bursts of air. This new machine can automatically inspect individual kernels of com for size and color as the conveyer belt moves the kernels in a single layer by the machine. Inferior kernels are removed by a precisely placed small burst of air as the kernels pass over a perforated air tube. As Delana expected the initial costs of the options vary subtantially. She investi- gated the cost of each option and has summarized the information in the following table: Option 1 Option 3 Option 2 Annual fixed cost $2,500 $4,500 $27,000 Variable cost per thousand pounds 100 80 20 1. Based on annual cost, Determine the annual volume (in thousands of pounds) at which the company would be indifferent between Option 1 and Option 2; between Option 2 and option 3; and between Option 1 and option 3. 2. Create a table showing the total annual cost of each option if annual volume (in thousands of pounds) is 50, 200, 350, and 500. Circle the lowest cost at each annual volume. 3. Based only on annual cost, for what range of annual volumes would each option be preferred? Plot the graph. 4. What nonfinancial factors other than annual cost should be considered when making this decision
