THE MORRISON COMPANY Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

The Morrison Company Case Study Analysis

The above mentioned reasonsare differentiating the attractiveness of the pharmaceutical and retail sector of The Morrison Company, whichhas more focus towards the pharmaceutical industry. The customization also requires more time which effects the production efficiency. The cost of production for the retail sector is approximately 75 percent, which is higher than the pharmaceutical sector, i.e. 60 percent of revenue.

Competitive Priority of Product Lines:

Pharmaceutical Line:

The first and foremost priority for the pharmaceutical product line isthe performance of the smart tags or in other words RFID technology smart tags. There is a high demand for smart tags by the pharmaceutical companies, as they are highly concerned about providing original drugs to the patients, thereby having an ability to fight against the counterfeit drugs that are available in the market. The demand is at such extreme extent that the pharmaceutical companies emphasize much over the performance of the smart drugs rather than considering at what price the smart tags are being provided, as smart tags are playing a major role in identifying counterfeit drugs and expiration date of the drugs on a global scale.

Retail Line:

As compared to the pharmaceutical line thathas placed its major emphasis over the smart tags, the Retail line has UHF tags as a highly demanded product. Since the demand for UHF tags has been increasing at the rate of more than 12 percent with in the apparel manufacturing industries, therefore,the customization of the UHF tags play an important role for different manufacturing companies, leading it to become a competitive priority for the retail line. Since different companies are able to order the tags according to their choice of finishes, colors, and custom made sizes, therefore its demandis increasing at a high rate.

Match Between Product Characteristic and Process at Morrison Company:

The products characteristics are that the company is providing RFID technology for different industries, which is helping it to track the inventory levels, distinguish the original items with the counterfeiting, transportation tracking, transmitting data between devices, etc. This technology is used in smart tags and UHF tags, which are provided by the company, therefore, similarity exist. The products are quite similar in terms of technology being used, but are only different in that retail lines which require customization, whereas the pharmaceutical line does not require much customization.

The process of Morrison Company starts from receiving the goods from vendors. These goods go through aninspection process and data regarding these received good is gathered, after which they are processed through RFID technology. After receiving the goods, the parts which are initially required to start the production are selected and the production process begins. While the work is in process, the inlay process of assembling the microchips starts in between the production to conclude the product.

After the microchip is installed, the unit goes through tag assembly and checking regardingthe insurance ofwhether the product is accurately inlayed or not, because the inlay part of the production is highly sensitive as IC and antennae must be contacted. If there is a space of about only one millimeter in them, then there will be a problem in RFID tagging. After these various stages of the production process, process customization is done if required by the client. The packaging is the last step in the process, where the products are packed, labeled and delivered to the respective clients.(Sci, 2013).

Recommendations:

An increase in the number of machines is not possible for the company as it is already facing a shortage of space in storing inventory related to work in process and finished goods. The strategy which I wouldrecommend to Shauna Breen is to work on the supply chain process and managing the efficiency in the production process.

Shauna Breen should address the issues that are related to the customization process, which are creating a bottleneck in the production line. The customization department must be upgraded with advanced equipment and human resources in order to save more time in the customization process.As the retail sector is growing, there will be an opportunity for the Morrison Company to have a competitive advantage by applying these changes in the customization process of retail lines.

The additional recommendation would be that the supply from vendors of microchips must be obtained on time or before time if possible. Although the recession in the economy is vanishing and further hike in demand for smart label tags is expected to increase in both pharmaceutical as well as retail sector.

By examining these situations, Shauna Breen is recommended the policy of pre-ordering microchips, which can mitigate the cause of delays in the company’s production line bycreating work in process inventory. As the demand is increasing and expected to increase further, pre-ordering and stocking of microchips for future demand would give an advantage to the company in maintaininga smooth production line without disrupting the process...............................

This is just a sample partical work. Please place the order on the website to get your own originally done case solution.