You have just been hired as the VP of Operations of Shotinthearm Incorporated and your first task from the President is to look at the existing situation. The previous VP you are replacing was removed due to a mental breakdown from stress. In the first week you have talked to your Manufacturing/Operations Staff, your peer group VP's and other Managers (Accounting, Sales, Marketing, Product Development, Human Resources and Information Systems), Suppliers and Customers. You have noted the following problems:

Inventory levels are lower than needed, but future demand is much higher than planned due to the failure of a competing firm's vaccine (who's equipment now sits idle).

WIP levels have been increasing, but finished vaccine output has not.

A new production line is trying to get started but is having technical issues

The warehouse has inventory accuracy issues and raw materials often cannot be found for production.

You have 2, local, but off site raw material warehouses.

You have at least 3 suppliers for each raw material. Many are located overseas and are having delivery issues.

There is much bickering about the accuracy of the S & OP and MPS numbers.

Each department does their own scheduling and with their own methods.

Planning keeps changing the MPS and has only a 4 day frozen period.

HR says they can't keep with the constant hiring and laying off of workers.

Suppliers say the schedule changes too fast and they can't meet the schedules and are late delivering because of it.

There is no common shared information source.

Employees are well paid, but only knowledgeable in very specific areas of production.

The CEO thinks costs are too high and is thinking about outsourcing everything if possible

Based on what you have covered in this course, what issues do you see? What actions might you take to start solving the problems? What result do you expect from those actions?State your issue, your action and your expected result for each issue. Please specify the issues there are lots of them.