Operations management strategy and key considerations

Business

Operations Management Strategy Questions

The World Trade Organization is an international organization whose primary purpose is to open trade so that everyone can benefit. The WTO provides an opportunity for negotiating agreements that are aimed at reducing obstacles to international trade. This ensures a level playing field for all and therefore contributes to the economic growth and development of everyone involved. The WTO also provides a legal and institutional structure for the execution and monitoring of these agreements. They also settle disputes that arise from their understanding and application. The principles on which the WTO was founded are the guiding principles that are still used today. These principles include the pursuit of open borders, the guarantee of most-favored-nation principles and non-discriminatory treatment by and among members, and a commitment to transparency in the conduct of its activities. They believe that opening national markets to international trade, with justifiable exceptions or with adequate flexibilities, will encourage and contribute to sustainable expansion, raise people's welfare, reduce poverty, and foster peace and stability.

2) Three items on the Jeep Rubicon that have been outsourced are: tires, tail lights, and the alternator. In looking at the photos it appears that they parts that have not been outsourced include: the chassis, the engine, the dash, the body and the doors. The reason that the company would choose to outsource certain parts would be to increase the speed of assembly while lowering production costs. Tires, tail lights and alternators are all parts that can be massed produced not just for this make of vehicle but for many makes of vehicles. This allows for lower production costs. Also having these parts massed produced by an outside resource allows Jeep to better spend their production time on the parts that can't be outsourced and must be made in house.

3)

In the article FDA warns Bayer over German manufacturing plant, it is discussed about how U.S. health regulators have warned drug maker Bayer over quality control issues at its manufacturing plant in Germany. The Food and Drug Administration says that its inspectors discovered testing problems at the company's plant in Berghamen, Germany. FDA inspectors claimed that the company measured the quality of its drug ingredients based on an average of several samples, instead of reporting individual tests results (Perrone, 2009).

Bayer produces the popular birth control pills Yasmin and Yaz. After reviewing all drug batches of these that were shipped to the U.S. between 2007 and 2009, Bayer responded to the FDA in an April saying that the quality of those batches were not affected. The FDA on the other hand disagreed with Bayer's conclusion. The FDA has asked Bayer to supply a full list of all shipments to the U.S. In which they used the averaging method and provide a plan to prevent the problem from recurring. The FDA said it will consider delaying imports from the factory until Bayer complies with the warning letter (Perrone, 2009).