Virtual Tours – Chapter 13 (Inventory Management)

Elk Corporation (http://www.elkcorp.com/new_virtual_tours.cfm)

Elk Manufacturing produces laminated fiberglass roofing shingles at four U.S. plants in Texas, California, Alabama and Pennsylvania. This site includes 4 to 7 minute video plant tours of all four plants. Each plant video shows the manufacturing process for laminated shingles which is straightforward and virtually the same for each plant, although the Alabama facility is smaller. The tour for the PA plant emphasizes their customer service while the video for CA emphasizes their site selection, distribution and logistics as well as their quality control focus. Each tour is very good and informative.

1.  Why was locating their plant in California a strategic decision for Elk?

2.  What percentage of the laminated shingles market is in the western U.S.?

3.  In the video tour of the Elk California plant what is “the last thing that a distributor wants to hear?”

4.  What are the advantages of locating the Elk plant in Shafter, California?

5.  What are some of the “biggest challenges” for Elk at the Shafter, CA plant as stated in the video tour?

6.  At Elk who is responsible for quality control?

7.  What items do you think Elk inventories at its plants?

8.  How does Elk ship Fiberglass rolls? How does Elk ship color granules and where are they stored?

9.  What kind of inventory system would Elk likely use? What kind of inventory system do you think Elk’s distributor might use?

10.  What kind of inventory control models do you think Elk might effectively use?

Triangle Brick (http://www.trianglebrick.com/)

The Triangle Brick Company is located in Durham, North Carolina. This tour can be accessed from the Triangle Brick home page by clicking on the “Virtual Plant Tour” link on the left side of the page. The tour is an excellent 5 minute, narrated color video that includes all the stages of the manufacturing process from mining shale and clay to delivery of the final product at home sites.

1.  At what stages in the brick production process is inventory held?

2.  To what extent does Triangle use information technology in the inventory control process?

3.  Why do you think triangle needs to keep a 2 week supply of partially ground clay at the plant?

4.  Do you think Triangle would sue a continuous or periodic inventory system?

5.  What type of EOQ model do you think Triangle might use for its raw material inventory?

6.  Do you think bricks would be an example of an independent or dependent demand item?

7.  Describe the supply chain for Triangle bricks?