Please give opinion or debate

we learned about operations management. As I read through the materials provided. I couldn't help but to remember a job a worked several years ago. Right out of high school I had contracted a job with a local production company that specialized in the production of synthetic diamond drill inserts, that were used in the procurement of coal and oil. Mega Diamond, located in Provo, UT was a sub company of Schlumberger. Mega Diamond used a combination of batch processing and line processing in their production lay out. Each batch of drill inserts was produced at the beginning of the line and moved its way down through 5 different processes; Assembly; Pressing; finishing; final inspection and shipping. At each position in line there were different processes that needed to be done in their own special way.

Each process had its own special components that were needed in order to complete that task. Some were sourced from outside vendors, and some were made in house from components that were purchased in bulk from outside vendors. Some processes within the different departments were outsourced in order to complete that step. There are many moving parts and products brought in order to complete a finished product. There were also multiple different designs of product that were produced. Each having its own specialized formula of components in order to make it.

Although a lot of what was used to get to an end of the line product. There were some materials that were used that could only be sourced from one vendor in the entire nation. This is a difficulty as all reliability of production can come down to this one vendor. Even though Mega Diamond was one of two plants in the United States that produced these inserts. It could still be a factor in completing orders on time or at all. Before my departure, the engineers were working hard to come up with a different product that could perform as well or better then what was supplied to us through this one vendor. On the other hand, as stated before, many of the components used in production were sourced from multiple vendors to keep processes flowing.