Lean Production

Read Case in your textbook about lean production costs and sustainability.

Answer the five questions at the end of the case and upload your analysis. Keep your answers brief but thorough, no more than two pages.

Questions:

Requirements

1. Think about the value chain for a carton of eggs that is sold in the grocery store.

(Start from the chicken and continue to the point of sale in the grocery store.) List as many steps in the value chain as you can imagine. At what points in the value chain does waste most likely occur?

2. In this chapter, the eight wastes of traditional operations were discussed.

Which types of waste are in the value chain that you identified in Question 1?

3. Answer the following questions from the standpoint of Cal-Maine Foods, Inc., and its egg farms:

 a. What costs will be incurred to individually stamp each egg?

b. What impact on revenue would the process of individually stamping each egg have?

C. What wastes in the value chain occur at Cal-Maine Foods (and its egg farms)?

4. Now answer the following questions from the standpoint of Walmart

a. What costs might decrease as a result of purchasing eggs that are stamped individually with grade, size, traceability code, and freshness date information?

B. What costs might increase as a result of purchasing individually stamped eggs?

C. What wastes in the value chain occur at Walmart?

5. Who should bear the cost of the individual egg-stamping operations: Cal-Maine Foods, Walmart, or the consumer?

Because of the tremendous amount of waste involved with the current system of discarding entire cartons, should individual egg stamping be mandated by the government? Why or why not?