Capacity Riordan

Riodarn Manufacturing Inc. is a leader in the plastic industry.   With advanced technologies Riordan has created innovative plastic design that has given the company international recognition. Still Riordan has room for improvement and they are looking to increase their margin of profit by minimizing costs and working more efficiently by eliminating current problems and implementing new strategies. This paper will examine strategic capacity planning, ideas to improve lean production and a breakdown of the supply chain process for Riordan’s electric fans.
Strategic Capacity Planning
According to Chauhan, S., Nagiz. R., and Prothy, J. (2004), “strategic planning is long-term planning and usually involves selecting providers and distributors, location and capacity planning of manufacturing/servicing units, among others.” Riordan Industries has a mixture of in-house and outsourced production facilities, and capacity planning is critical for every one.
According to Chase, R., Jacobs, F., & Aquilano, N., (2006), “A capacity cushion is an amount of capacity in excess of expected demand.” Unfortunately there is not much information on the Riordan website to indicate whether the issues experienced stem from a lack of capacity cushion. Most issues are arising from more distribution-related areas. In the case of the Albany bottle plant, a significant constraint has been show to exist in the delivery part of the supply chain. When trucking finished product to customers in the Northeast using Huffman Trucking, winter weather issues have often created delivery delays, most likely resulting in lost customers, dissatisfaction and reduced revenue. This topic might fall under the topic of strategic supply chain planning, however the two concepts are somewhat overlapping. Returning to our first definition where capacity planning involves wisely choosing distributors, in this case we can say that the trucking company represents a flaw in the strategic capacity plan, as they...