2) Draw the schematic flow diagram for Sunwind and all Volvo plants. (Draw at abstract level not detailed level). Provides detail of distances and demand (quantity based on 1987 forecast) flow.

Ans) Demand of Sunwind is 1250/week = 1250*45 = 56250 units

The following table gives us the demand of each plant yearly for the year 1985 Plant | | Torslando | Kalmar | Ghent | Total | Year | 1985 | 17050 | 4525 | 12090 | 33665 | | % | 50.65% | 13.44% | 35.91% | 100% | Year | 1987 | 32919.947 | 8736.819 | 23343.23 | 65000 |

Depending on the percentage of share of each plant of the total in 1985, the same percentage is used to calculate the demand of each plant in 1987, as we know the total production of Volvo from all the plants …show more content…

* It also provides the best organizational structure needed to improve the supplier coordination by integrating the logistics, production and purchasing processes together.

6) How many varieties of products does the Sunwind manufacture for Volvo? How does this information help to design production and delivery?

Ans) Sunwind was the only supplier for the floorlid for the 5-door 700 series station wagon. These were offered in several carpet/ colour combinations. The lid comprised of 4 separate items - front panel, rear panel, left panel and the right panel. The carpeting could be any of four different colour choices – beige, blue, black and burgundy. The carpeting could be either needle felt or tufted. Thus 32 part numbers were needed to specify a particular part/ colour/ carpet combination
4 parts x 4 colours x 2 carpets = 32
This data of the variety of products being manufacture will give us an advantage of designing the production through JIT. One of the process considerations in lean systems “Uniform workstation loads “ comes into the picture. This in turn would decrease the big lots there by decreasing the average inventory level. We can follow the production model of “heijunka” which is the levelling of production load by both volume and product mix. Using this what we can do is to form batches in a way so that each batch gives us 32 varieties of different materials instead of