Management Case Studies

Answer 1

Rollerblade, the popular skate manufacturer based in Minnetonka, Minnesota. Rollerblade has been one of the leading firms in the fast growing high performance roller skate marketplace. Rollerblade was in a bind. The product literally could not be shipped out the door. The managers found that workers were not able to ship products because, as a result of poor storage structures, they could not find the products. Once they were found, overcrowded aisles, in addition to other space constraints, still prevented efficient shipping because the workers could barely manage to get the products out the door. We were out of control because we didn’t know how to use space and didn’t have enough of it,” said Ian Ellis, director for facilities and safety. “Basically, there was no more useable space left in the warehouse, a severe backlog of customer orders, and picking errors were clearly in the unacceptable range,” added Ram Krishnan, Principal of NRM Systems, based in St. Paul, Minnesota. With retailers as their primary customers, the customer competitive imperatives that are being affected by Rollerblade’s inventory problems are mainly of services i. . delay in deliveries, as stated above they were facing problems in making deliveries on time, no shipment was reaching on time. These delays will effect a lot on their customers as the retailers want to sell them and if the products were delayed the retailers will also have to suffer in loosing their customers which will in deed result in backing off from the Rollerblade’s only. Rollerblades were lacking behind in technology so as to meet their customer demands they need to improve their technology.

Answer 2

JIT, or just in time, inventory is a inventory management strategy that is aimed at monitoring the inventory process in such a manner as to minimize the costs associated with inventory control and maintenance. To a great degree, a just-in-time inventory process relies on the efficient monitoring of the usage of materials in the production of goods and ordering replacement goods that arrive shortly before they are needed. This simple strategy helps to prevent incurring the costs associated with carrying large inventories of raw materials at any given point in time.

For a product like Roller skates, a just in time inventory system might not be that useful as the problem with roller skates isn’t associated with production means whereas it is with the time of delivery. The problem arises after the product is manufactured and is dispatched for the delivery. The main problem with them was for the storage and then reallocating it as there was no systematic way of storage and finding it and sending it for the delivery on time. To solve this problem technology was required rather than just in time inventory system.