Donner Company – Case Study Outline

1. How does Donner compete?

2. What would I see if you took me on a tour of the Donner

production facilities? Let’s follow a typical 8-board panel through the
process. What are the steps involved and how long will each take?
[see flowchart]

3. What design decisions did Plummer make in setting up the process

represented in the flowchart? What operating decisions must be made
on a daily basis?

Technology choice. What are the economics of the decisions of

when to use CNC router vs. punch press? Micronic vs. manual
drill?

Dry film photoresist capacity analysis. What is the capacity if

given an order size of 8 boards? What is the bottleneck?

set up time run time total time daily capacity daily capacity
per order per order per order in orders in boards
panel prep 5 min 0.2 min
lam & exp 20 min 2.0 min
develop 20 min 0.2 min

What if the order size were 80 boards or 800 boards?

order size order size lam & exp daily capacity daily capacity
in boards in panels process time in orders in boards
8 boards 1 / order 22 min
80 boards 10 / order 40 min
800 boards 100 / order 220 min

Capacity is not an absolute number, but is dependent on factors such

as: _______________, _______________, _______________.

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Standard labor time.

technology total time time

order size choice set up time run time per order per board
1 board manual drill 339 min 57.55 min
punch press
8 boards cnc drill 564 min 51.05 min
punch press
40 boards cnc drill 564 min 255.45 min
punch press
200 boards cnc drill 664 min 1176.25 min
cnc router
800 boards cnc drill 664 min 4705 min
cnc router

Labor times, as well as capacity, depend not only on the size of the
order, but the mix of other products in the shop at the same time,
their priorities, and on what equipment is available.

4. What happens when a customer wants an order? What does each

person do?
[see information flow chart]

5. How is the Donner plant doing?

Delivery performance?

Quality performance?

Productivity performance?

2 Quan 3600
Financial performance?

Donner versus competition:

time per
board

Order size per board

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