Business Case Studies & Business Publications

Belle, Inc.

Hutchison-Krupat, ...

Case

Belle, Inc.

Hutchison-Krupat, Jeremy; Kraft, Tim; Weiss, Elliott N.

OM-1518 | Published September 2, 2014 | 5 pages Case

Collection: Darden School of Business

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Charlie Reese, an operations manager for a fragrance manufacturer, is given a directive to reduce costs in order to free up working capital for other initiatives. Reese discovers that his initial plan to approach the problem from an inventory perspective would be unsustainable. In evaluating his options, he must determine which other areas of the production process to focus on.

• Understand the importance of a system-wide analysis to capture the full impact of operational improvements. • Introduce and build familiarity with Little’s Law and its application. • Understand the relationships between throughput time, capacity, utilization, setup time, and batch size. • Establish how operational decisions can affect an organization’s ability to execute its strategy.