EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

In 1977, Bansilal Mehta started Pramanik Containers Pvt Ltd as a family business. It is in to
manufacturing of aerosol cans and they are traded in B2B markets. Its emergence was simply by
chance, but later on it turned out to be a successful venture. Piyush Mehta, the only son of Bansilal has
completed his MBA and is enthusiastic to enter his fathers business. He identifies the improper
management of inventory and disorderliness in workers. He persuades his father to let him work on
these issues. Eventually he turns out with a long term and a short term solution.

SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS:

Pramanik Containers Pvt Ltd is an aerosol manufacturing company. And its major transactions lie in the
B2B markets. It was started by Bansilal Mehta in 1977 as a family business and ABC pharma was the
sole customer. The origin of Pramanik Containers was just by chance but eventually it turned out be a
serious venture with a turnover of about 315 million. Even Mohan Mehta, the purchasing director of
ABC pharma retired and moved on, Pramanik was the leading supplier of aerosol cans for the
company. The manufacturing process of aerosols involved two phases; one is preparing customized
aerosol cans and then the other one is decorating them. This manufacturing process was a high speed
and high volume process. Aerosols were mostly used by cosmetics, perfume and pharma companies.
Due to the changing trends in the market these companies are forced to introduce new products. In
order to reduce the cost of production they were forced to outsource the small runs to vendors like
Pramanik. So Bansilal was able to grasp the complex customer requirements and produced wide range
of products.
Piyush Mehta, the only son of Bansilal Mehta has just completed his MBA and is enthusiastic to work
in his fathers business. On his first day he identifies that, even though there is customer satisfaction
there are some areas like record maintenance, plate inventory and discipline among employees which
have to be taken care of. And the production capacity of the printing machines (300 per minute)
available was far more than that of fabrication machines (25 per minute). Though they have a high
manufacturing capacity they produced only 30,000 plates per day. Every day they received about 60
orders out of which 80 % were from regular clients. But, by the end of every month they end up with 67 urgent orders as their printing plates were not found. Then they are forced to prepare a new plate
costing Rs.7, 000 per each plate. Eventually this led to mismanagement of plates and wastage of time.
Although Bansilal was aware of all these issues he was more in to conservative business. And to avoid
taxes he didnt even show profits since 1980. His over dependency on his employees badly affected
their efficiency and discipline. After a fine research Piyush approaches his father but his father was
initially against his ideas. But later on agrees for Piyushs idea of improving Pramanik.

PROBLEM STATEMENT:
Page 2 of 8

Pramanik Containers Pvt. Ltd. is not in to top 100 aerosol manufacturing companies even though they
have a good number of loyal customers, it is due to inflexibility in Bansilals behavior and moreover
not a risk taker. Another issue observed is that they are willing to work for new customers but as of
now they are not in a position to cater the old customers itself. The main reason behind the inability is
improper people management, manual systems, lack of knowledge of roles and responsibilities in
employees. And even the records of the customers are not maintained properly. Bansilal conventional
business ideas will never help the company to grow in the current scenario. In the long run they might
lose their loyal customers, money and resources in order to retain their struggling business.

OBJECTIVES:
In order of their importance
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Improve the utilization of available resources

Enhance the quality
Retaining the customer loyalty
Bringing down the individual can cost
Reduce the dependency on employees

OPTIONS:
i)
ii)
iii)
iv)
v)
vi)

Computerizing the records of clients database.

Regular audit of plate inventory (Monthly/quarterly).
Categorizing the plates according to the frequency of their usage.
Discard the plates of clients whose probabilities of placing the order again are very less.
Implement RFID tagging for plates.
Installing an ERP System.

EVALUATION OF OPTIONS:
1. Computerizing the records through excel workbook or through word documents for each
and every client is one of the option that can be looked in to
Pros:
Page 3 of 8

i)
ii)
iii)
iv)

It reduces the cost of investments in purchasing manual registers.

It avoids extra time required to find a plate.
The clients data can be easily retrieved whenever required.
No issues of misplacement of registers.

Cons:
i)
A trained professional is required to handle the whole process.
2. By regularly auditing the plate inventory the maintenance of plates can be improved to a
large extent.
Pros:
i)
Warehouse area utilization can be improved.
ii)
Data of available plates can be prepared.
Cons:
i)
The process can become hectic if not properly planned.
3. Categorizing the plates according to the frequency of their usage can be implemented to
get rid of urgent orders.
Pros:
i)
As 80% of orders are from 15 regular clients categorizing the plates will help us
ii)

to get rid of the urgent orders.

Can help us to provide on time delivery which in turn improves customer loyalty.

Cons:
i)
It is a time taking process.
4. Discard the plates of clients whose probabilities of placing the order again are very less.
Pros :
i)
This will help to improve the warehouse utilization.
ii)
Minimizes the time required to trace the plates of regular customers.
Cons:
i)
We cant be sure of deciding whether a company is regular or not.
5. Implement RFID tagging for a plate also provides a new way to be implemented in
order to maintain the inventory.
Pros:
i)
It reduces the time required to locate a plate from warehouse.
ii)
Reduces the probability of urgent orders.
Cons:
i)
Trained professionals are required to operate the system.
ii)
Investments are required.
6. Installing an ERP System is one of the solutions that can be looked in to.
Pros:
i)
Improves the efficiency of work.
Page 4 of 8

ii)

Reduces dependency on employees

Cons:
i)

The only problem is huge initial investments.

DECISION:
Report Exhibit 1:
OPT/OBJ

Options
Computerize
records
1
2
3

Objective

the Regular

Categorize

Discard plates RFID

ERP

audit of the plates

of infrequent tags

system

plates

customers

X
X

X
X

X
CLEAR STATEMENT OF DECISION:
s

Short Term: From the above option-objective matrix it is clearly evident that we have two options
one is computerizing the records and the other is implementing RFID tags for each and every plate. But
from the pros and cons of both of the options we can observe that computerizing the records doesnt
involve much costs of installation whereas RFID tags implementation requires 1$ per plate. So its
better to go for the computerization of the records as of now and improve the efficiency of the
company.

Long Term: In the long run ERP system is the only option that can be taken in to consideration. As it
coordinates various applications to manage the whole business and automates many functions related to
technology, services and human resources. And this can even help the staff to have a track of the
subsequent orders to be taken care of. Thus improvement in efficiency of the production can be
achieved only through ERP installation. And Bansilal should consider the long run benefits of this
system.

Page 5 of 8

ACTION PLAN:
Company should follow the steps mentioned below in order to implement the decisions:
1) Initially the employees should be given proper training in the usage of Excel sheets or Word
documents. A briefing session should be carried out for them to elucidate their roles and
responsibilities.
2) In the short run the company should try to computerize their records for each and every
individual customer (regular/irregular).
3) After computerizing the company should try to identify the regular customers, their data should
be maintained separately in order to avoid the urgent orders. As we have only 15 regular
customers the corresponding plates can be shifted to a separate place.
4) Along with the above things mentioned it has to start saving money for the long run solution i.e.
ERP installation.
5) ERP installation can help the employees to maintain a check list of the available orders and the
data of regular customers which eventually helps them to improve efficiency of production.

CONTINGENCY PLAN:
In the long run if Bansilal rejects the ERP installation, then use of RFID tags for each and every plate
would yield better results as the installation cost is far better than that of the ERP installation. In this
RFID tagging system, each plate is attached with a tag. And each tag electronically stores the
information of that particular plate. So its location can be easily traced out. This eventually reduces the
time required to search for the plates. Thus improves the efficiency as well.

Report Exhibit 2:
Fabrication Capacity = No. of cans made per minute*60(for one hour) *No. of hours in a shift*No. of
shifts*No. of Machines = 25*60*8*3*4 = 144000
Printing Capacity = No. of cans printed per minute*60(for one hour) *No. of hours in a shift*No. of
shifts = 300*60*8*3 = 432000
So it is clearly evident that the printing capacity is far more than the fabrication capacity. But daily we
produce only 30,000 cans. This gap can be filled only with the help of above plans mentioned.

Page 6 of 8

Page 7 of 8

Page 8 of 8