Case 3.

MOTORBUS COMPANY: Que Sera Sera

Engineer Hermogenes Ancheta has just received his appointment papers from his new
immediate superior, the Vice President for Operations. he has been promoted from Assistant
Manager to Manager of the Maintenance Department. After congratulating him, his boss gave
him a verbal directive that he should put some order in his department and make it work in the
most effective and efficient manner possible.
Engineer Ancheta has just passed the board exam ination for Mechanical Engineering when he
joined Motorbus Company in 1993. By June 1995, he informed his former classmates at the
University of Santo Tomas that he was promoted as Assistant Manager for Main tenance.
The former manager of the department, Engineer Gaudencio Inductivo, joined the company
since it started operations in 1989. A total of ten buses began plying the Manila-Isabela route. A
maintenance unit was put up at the Manila terminal in Sampaloc Another unit serves the Hagan,
Isabela terminal. Each unit has a full-time mechanic and one assistant.
When a company bus comes in for repair, the mech anic diagnoses the various automotive
systems in the bus and later produces a list of parts needing replacement. The mechanic sends
the list to Engineer Inductivo, who, in turn, forwards the same to the company accountant for
approval of the purchase request Oftentimes, Engi neer Inductivo performs the actual
purchasing himself. Later, he sends the purchased items to the mechanic who made the
request.
mechanics and assistants were recruited. By the end of 1993, each unit has a personnel
complement of 5 mechanics and 5 assistants.
Even with current developments, the old method of purchasing was not improved. Purchase
requests started to pile up. Mechanics and drivers began complaining to the VP for Operations
about delays in the delivery of needed parts.
The VP for Operations immediately sent a note to Engineer Inductivo ordering that the problem
shald be resolved immediately. Engineer Inductivo was hard pressed and he could not offer an
immediate solution. The next day, Engineer Inductivo informed the VP for Opera tions that he is
requesting for the approval of his appli cation for retirement as he is already 62 years old.
The VP forwarded the request to the President with an endorsement justifying the request. On
the same day, the request for retirement was approved. The next day, Engineer Ancheta
received his appointment papers promoting him to Manager.
One of the first things Engineer Ancheta did was to inspect the storage room for parts. He found
out that the room was full of an uneven supply of parts. Some parts were of excessive
quantities, while some important ones were inadequately stocked. A corner of the room contains
a big volume of obsolete parts
At the end of the day, Engineer Ancheta was informed by the VP that the company will be
fielding an additional 50 new buses within 30 days. This will mean that by next month, about
100 buses will be servicing the various routes assigned to Motorbus Company,
Engineer Ancheta is new mulling over how he will make the operations of his department an
efficient and affective as possible.
My opinion:
Being a manager of the operations with a lot of setbacks left needs a lot of attention. Despite the
improvements made, with the same system in managing the operations, the company might
face a lot of problems, like delay in orders and delay in mechanical repair of the buses. With the
incoming 100 buses in the next month, the demand for the department will increase. For me, he
should first run a meeting with an agenda, and assign people to give him reports about the
current inventory and what parts do they usually need. In my opinion, to effectively manage the
operations, he should make an informed projection on how much stock will be needed to satisfy
the demand over a given time period. The first step in forecasting your inventory requirements is
to construct a simple forecast of your predicted orders. You will need to specify some forecast
boundaries for this. Then make a forecast period to ensure effectiveness. These should then be
examined on a monthly basis. If market trends or actual sales performance varies from
predictions, sales forecasts for the future can be changed accordingly. Next is knowing the base
demand, this just gives a starting point to work from in our forecast. To increase accuracy, he’ll
need to consider any trends and variables that may impact demand.