Borlog Services Borlog Services is a sizable family-owned workshop in Mississauga that offers cleaning and repair services for factories, garages, hospitals, retailers and offices in GTA and beyond. The shop has been founded and is owned by Ali Karami who started this business in 1975 by going to repair shops, collecting their door mats to wash them in his small pick-up truck. In nearly two decades he expanded his operation to what it is today. Crucial to his business success was his keen attention to fine detailing and rejuvenating old mats, which brought him a sound reputation among the clients he served. The bulk of Borlog orders come for cleaning rubber-based mats and runners. Equipped with latest cleaning machinery, the workshop operates 8 hours a day, five days a week (Monday- Friday) throughout the year. Rooted to Ali's reputation with refurbishing plush products (door mat, runners, area mats/rugs), the shop also accepts cleaning orders of these products. While Mike is satisfied with his operation revenue, he sometimes gets upset about the backlog of orders that could negatively impact efficient and timely delivery of the finished jobs to some clients. As an expediting measure, the shop receives the orders in rolled bundle tagged for each client and delivers the finished jobs in the same manner and using the same tags. In an attempt to manage efficient and timely delivery and improve his operation, Ali has hired your group as consultants to examine the Borlog operations and offer recommended solutions. Last Monday your group held a meeting in his office where he provided the following operational details. "I am very obsessed with clean delivery of finished jobs, so all jobs come into the shop floor in our trucks, bundled and tagged by order number and client's name and when finished shipped out in our own trucks." Ali continued "Upon arrival, bundles are inspected by our receivers to make sure they are all good. On average, this is done in about 5 minutes. After that jobs would be divided into two categories': a) Rubber and b) Plush. All rubber jobs will go through three processes: scarping, wash and dry/shine. Now let's walk through the shop and see them done in action." said Ali. During your tour of rubber operations, you noted that in "scraping" stage, mats and runners were guided through scraper rollers to remove debris from grooved surface (e.g., gum, duck tapes, sand, etc.) from the surface. Different scrapers were used for mats and runners. You were told that on average bundles of runners and mats were scarped in 6 minutes and 3 minutes respectively. Next, bundles of mats and runners were washed in separate machines. You were told that machine washing of runner and mat bundles are averagely completed in 10 and 5 minutes respectively. All washed rubber jobs were dried by pressure air and surface coated with a shine spray. You were advised that these activities averagely are completed in 8 minutes and 4 minutes for runners and mats respectively. Ali's brother, Abbas took your group for a tour of Plush operation and you noted bundles first went through detail wash whereby they were washed four times with different chemicals to remove dirt and stain. Next, they were dried through heat rollers and hot air blowers and sprayed with stain guard. You were told that wash and dry of plush bundles would averagely take 15 and 20 minutes respectively. At the end of your tour Ali and Abbas told you that they ensure all the rubber and plush jobs are carefully checked for quality before they are shipped to the customer. "On average we spent about 5 minutes on each bundle to make sure the outgoing bundles are clean, dry, treated and tagged properly. You asked them how many of each job order they receive. Ali said the number of orders slightly change at different times of the year, but ballpark 80% of their orders are rubber jobs and 20% is for plush. You asked about the break down of rubber orders and they said mats and runner each form 40% of orders. Ali then invited you back to his office, offered you coffee and asked his shipping Forman, Malek to join in. After coffee he said: "I am rather content with my business, but at times, particularly in winter, we take more jobs and I sometimes worry that we might fall behind. I don't know, perhaps it would be helpful to have a map of our operation to figure what can give us headache and what needs to be done about it. I also would very much like to know our effective hourly capacity for rubber mat orders. I really don't know the average capacity of the store in terms of order per hour for rubber and plush jobs. Malek here has some challenges with delivery of finished jobs. Malek started by saying "I am in charge of shipping and receiving. Our orders are brought in every morning by our own trucks. The same trucks pick up finished jobs for delivery in the afternoon. We have three trucks: a 10-footer, a 15-footer and a 20-footer, which is newer and can cover out of town up to Milton. Our 10-footer handles 36 orders, the 15-footer can do 56 and the 20-footer can do up to 76 orders a day." You asked Malek about the cost of delivery for these trucks. "Well, let's see, replied Malek picking a pile of invoices and going through them "considering the salary of drivers, fuel, repairs and other odds and ends, the 10-footer takes roughly $16 for rubber mat jobs and $12 for plush jobs. The 15-footer takes away $16 for rubber mat or runner jobs and $20 for plush jobs respectively. The 20-footer grabs $18 for rubber mats or runners and $22 for plush jobs." You asked him if he has had any issues with them and he said: "Currently we use these trucks in no particular order and ball park we spend $3500 a day. I would like to know if we can do better. I wonder how we can assign orders to them to bring our cost down". Leaving their office, you promised them to write a report that would address their concerns. Your group is required to collaborate on preparing this technical report. Please provide the following: Synopsis/Issues and Challenges 1. 2. Analysis and Solutions 3. Conclusion and Recommendation