Exercise - Developing a Beginning-to-End Production System

You have been hired by an artist who has developed a number of appealing designs and patterns for leisure shirts. The artist has raised some capital to support establishing a competitive beginning-to-end production system for leisure shirts that must contain costs as much as possible in order to be competitive. The target markets include North America and a number of other regions around the world. The artist is aware that similar companies who are competitors have developed multinational beginning-to-end production, supply and distribution systems that take advantage of cost reduction and other operational advantages located in regions around the world. The artist has asked you to develop a preliminary proposal about how you would manage the following key steps within the beginning-to-end production process, including where such activities would be located:

• strategic planning and product design
• product prototyping and testing
• manufacturing and materials supply
• marketing
• sales
• distribution
• post sales support

What is your advice?