M3A2 Operational Data from the Phone4U Manufacturing

Case Analysis
Phones4U is a phone manufacturing plant in Shanghai. It produces four types of phones A, B, C and D. This case analysis examines the firm’s operational data to recommend and justify the decision on the type of phone the company should produce most.
In this case, there are seven steps in the process flow map for production of phones at Phones4U Shanghai manufacturing company. These processes are essential in optimization of the production process (Akimov, 2019). The first step begins from the time an order is received from a customer until it is placed into the queue of production line. Step two begins from the time the order is placed in the queue of line of production until the actual production begins. Step three starts from the time of initial phone construction to the decision point of custom versus non-custom case. There are two sub steps for step four; part (a) is the setup time for custom case, and part (b) setup time for standard case. Step five is the final production of the phones. Step six has two parts; first is the packaging of each of the phones and the overall order, secondly the beginning of delay time once the order is outdoor, from packaging to delivery. Step seven is the actual delivery of the phone to the customer. All the steps illustrate all activities the company undertakes once a customer places an order for until it is delivered to the customer.
The raw data for year 1 contains of all orders placed by customers for the year 2016. It also shows the month in which the order was placed and type of phone ordered by customers. From the data, the company produces four types of phone classified as A, B, C and D. Each of these phones must pass through the seven steps of the process flow map of production until they are delivered to customers. Each step can take hours or days depending magnitude of work. A window for rework is provided if there is defect in the production line to correct any possible mistakes. Finally the data shows the delay time above the anticipated time from production to delivery. The data typically serializes the orders placed by customers and shows the types of phones in each order, time taken in the production line, any possible rework and delay times in the flow process.
The value curve shows the ranking of each type of phone regarding various value parameters. The parameters upon which the phones are ranked are affordability, features available in the phone, color options, durability, cost, quality and speed (Machado, 2016). All the four types of phones A, B, C and D are ranked based on these properties. The phones are ranked in a scale of one to ten. Notably from this information, Phone A is the most affordable at a scale of 10. Phone C has the most available features at a scale of 8. Phone D has the highest color options at a scale of 7. Phone B is the most durable at scale of 10. Phone C is the most expensive ranked at 10. Phone D has the highest quality with a ranking of 10 and equally the fastest along with phone C rated at 9. A visual interpretation of the same information is provided on the value curve graph.
The table below shows frequency at which each type of phone was ordered. The information on the table is obtained from raw data for year 1.

Table 1: Frequency of orders made for Year 2016
Type of phone A B C D
No. of orders in 2016 46 42 60 52

Table 2: Data for Value curve
Value Parameter Phone A Phone B Phone C Phone D
Affordability 10 8 3 4
Available Features 5 2 8 5
Color Options 5 5 1 7
Durability 6 10 3 9
Cost 2 2 10 5
Quality 4 8 3 10
Speed 8 4 9 9

From the analysis, the company should produce more of phone C. Looking at the frequency of orders for each phone as obtained from the raw data of 2016, phone C made the highest sales. This is an implication that most customers in the market are attracted to the phone. From the table of value parameter, phone C out matches the other phones in three features. It has the most available features; it has the highest speed and the most expensive. Evidently the customers or market segment attracted to the phones like to have to more features in their phones. They also like phones with high processing power. The customers are not concerned about costs of the product (Nouri, & Mansouri, 2017).
The phone4U company should consider producing more of phones C, D, A and B respectively in terms of volume because that was equally the order of sales in volumes. Whereas phone D was superior is quality and speed, it became second in sales. It is superior to other phones in the two features. Phone B is the most durable and superior in one feature. Phone A is the most affordable and also just superior in one parameter. The company should thus manufacture more phones C because it is superior to other phones in three parameters of value and most customers placed more orders for it.

References
Machado, M. J. C. V. (2016). Product valuation methods: empirical study on industrial SME. Product valuation methods: empirical study on industrial SME, (1), 9-17.
Akimov, S. S. (2019, November). Optimization of production processes when building a value flow map. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1353, No. 1, p. 012136). IOP Publishing.
Nouri, R., & Mansouri, A. (2017). Digital image steganalysis based on the reciprocal singular value curve. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 76(6), 8745-8756.