I need helping answering the questions below. They need to be in paragraph form.
ID: 469000 • Letter: I
Question
I need helping answering the questions below. They need to be in paragraph form.
Business is booming. The Broadway Cafe is operating better than ever and you have achieved your goal of driving operating costs down, which helps to drive revenues up. One of your best new products is a small coffee press from China. Customer can create a drawing on a special piece of paper that is sent to China and created as the outside of the coffee press. Customers are ordering the presses for everything from children’s drawing for mother’s day presents to marriage proposals. You also have many customers participating in the coffee-of-the-month and tea-of-the-month club where they receive two pounds of a unique blend each month from Brazil Beans and China Teas.
PROJECT FOCUS: Yesterday, a dock workers union strike began and shut down all of the west coast shipping docks from San Francisco to Canada. Work will only begin when the union agrees to new labor contracts, which could take months. You need to quickly assess the impact of the west coast dock shutdown on the cafe.
How will you keep business running if you cannot receive your shipments from Brazil Beans, China Teas, and the custom coffee press machines?
What strategies do you recommend to help the business continue working while the supply chain is completely disrupted by the dock workers strike?
Explanation / Answer
As per the problem statement, the a dock workers union strike began and it could take months to resolve.
Below are the list of possible alternatives that The Broadway Cafe can look at
1.The first step is to access how big is the problem? - The management should take into account current level of stock/inventory. Estimate the demand for the coffee-of-the-month & tea-of-the-month even. If demand is less than Inventory, the cafe can go ahead with the plan.
2.The Broadway Cafe can look at options for locally procure Brazil Beans & China Tea from other firms in the market
3.The cafe can conduct a feasibility of locally manufacturing options for long term stable solution.
4.The cafe can fly in the blend. This option may not be cheap however the shipment will take a lot shorter time for transportation.
Decision Theory: Decion theory helps in decision making under uncertainty. The process involves steps of identification of state of nature, courese of action and payoffs and choosing the appropriate action.
Common principles of decisions under uncertainty:
1. Laplace Principle
2. Maximin and Minmax Principle
3. Maximax and Minimin Principle
4. Hurwichz Principle
5. Savage Principle
Decision Under Risk: In this case the decision maker chooses to consider several possible outcomes and the probabilities of occurance. There are two criteria under condition of risk,
1. Maximum likelihood Principle
2. Expectation Principle