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Assignment 2: Executive Summary Presentation
In LASA 2 (M6: Assignment 2), you were asked to prepare a company analysis report, choosing one company relevant to you. In that assignment, you provided information about the company’s strategic overview, an analysis of its supply chain, a plan to improve its operating processes, and an explanation of the outcomes obtained from this plan and its impact on human resources.
In this assignment, you will create an executive summary of your findings from LASA 2. Your summary should include the following sections:
- A statement of the problem or topic
- A concise analysis of the findings and a recapitulation of any main conclusions or recommendations found in M6:Assignment 2
- Specific details to highlight or support the summary
Develop a 10-slide presentation in PowerPoint format. Apply APA standards to citation of sources. Use the following file naming convention: LastnameFirstInitial_M7_A2.ppt.
Be sure to include the following in your presentation:
- A title slide
- An agenda slide
- A reference slide
- Headings for each section
- Speaker notes to support the content on each slide
RunningHead: COMPANY ANALYSIS REPORT
1
Running Head: PROJECT PROPOSAL
1
Company Analysis Report
Melissa Isaak
Argosy University
Professor Mitchell
Operations Management: Solutions to Business Challenges B6029
Company Analysis Report
The revolution in information technology and methods of production and manufacturing has enabled companies to attain flexibility and resilience in every capacity. It has also made the integration of conventional concepts such as six sigma, lean production and total quality management possible in the organizational activities and process. The current report will elaborate upon such a company that is consolidating the traditional functions into its processes and activities through the implementation of advanced technology and best business practices.
Strategic Overview
Strategic overview refers to the process of defining the company’s directions, strategies, mission and vision, and while doing so, making decisions for the resource allocation to pursue the strategy with the inclusion of people and capital. In order to attain the strategic direction, organizations use numerous techniques of business analysis such as PESTEL analysis, SWOT analysis, or STEER analysis.
The strategic overview of Donaldson Company is provided as follows:
Company Profile
Donaldson Company is a vertically integrated filtration company that is involved in the marketing and manufacturing of products that are utilized as a source of enhancing air quality and performance efficiency. Various sectors, including industrial/commercial (exhausts, engines, transmission of vehicles, hydraulics of pipelines, and windmills) and aerospace (planes and helicopters) use the company’s products. Donaldson also plays a significant part in the pharmaceutical industry and alternative energy industry through the provision of temperature balancing, self cleaning air systems in rotating devices engaged in energy production, and filters that are utilized to protect the chemicals in research facilities from contamination. Donaldson is a global corporation that conducts its functions in Mexico, Belgium, UK, China, USA, Thailand, Italy, Japan, France and Germany
(Donaldson Filtration Solutions, 2013)
.
A brief history of the company indicates its origin as a small business named Donaldson Engineering, which was established around the invention of Frank Donaldson’s air intake filter. It was in the year 1915, along with his siblings and parents, that Donaldson incorporated the business as Donaldson Company Inc. During the early part of the 1930s, William Lowther joined the company and developed the NS Filter. Donaldson expanded into the military and aerospace hydraulic equipment and established its subsidiaries during the 1960s in South Africa, Germany, France, Britain, Benelux, and Australia.
Donaldson facilitates its customers with a complete system of separation and filtration products for producing compressed gas and air systems. The Donaldson stationary and mobile compressor solutions are comprised of the housing and filtration for oil/air separators, air intake, fuel, lube and coolant filters, and condensate and dryers management products along with the compressed air filters of Ultra filter brand. The company’s subsidiaries and divisions work in the capacity of Industrial Housings, Dryers and Condensate Management, Process Housing, Industrial Filter Elements, and Process Filter Elements (Donaldson Filtration Solutions, 2013).
Marketing Strategy
A marketing strategy helps a company effectively use its resources to deliver a sales
message to a target audience and determine the most efficient ways of reaching that audience (Anderson).
The marketing strategy of Donaldson Company is given as follows:
Target Customers
Donaldson owns local manufacturing means and has a global presence; it locates where its customers exist. Currently, the company has more than 100 locations with divisions and subsidiaries in more than 44 countries. Donaldson has expanded the air filtration operation in Wuxi (China), liquid and air filtration operation in Aguascalientes (Mexico), the operation of liquid filtration in Stevens Point (US), the liquid filtration operation in Nostalgia (Italy), and its PowerCore & Ultra-Web capacity in Cresco (US). The major customer base of Donaldson includes the customers that work in engineering, manufacturing, and related industries. Through the organization’s global engineering, sales, distribution and manufacturing capabilities, the company has been able to provide extraordinary services in order to facilitate its customer base worldwide (Donaldson Company incorporation, 2012).
Market Position
Donaldson functions with an aim to provide its customers with solutions which enhance the performance of equipment, improve the lives of common people, and protect the environment. The statistics of the company’s revenue generated up to the year 2012 shows a good market position in the industry. Donaldson’s sales for the engine product division totaled $331 million, while the industrial product division totaled $206 million (Donaldson Filtration Solutions, 2013). The company’s sales for its agricultural, construction and mining equipment OEM customers’ sales tend to stay strong across the world, while it also anticipates gaining various economical advantages. In order to improve its market position, the company anticipates lower costs, additional benefits, and additional revenue generated in the future.
Competitive Differentiation
The sources of competitive differentiation for Donaldson include its unparalleled technology of greater value, higher performance, and increased efficiency. For instance, the company’s dust collectors provide its customers peak performance and have no equivalent in value. Being a global leader in filtration products for the last 90 years, Donaldson consistently engineers such filters, which break all other competitors and are the most cost-effective and efficient choice available for the collection processes of fume, dust, and mist. Along with its unmatched innovation, Donaldson provides great customer support and worldwide commitment and trust to deliver superior quality goods. The company’s major value position includes lower maintenance costs, smaller footprint, increased efficiency, longer filter life, lower energy consumption, and other relevant features of technology.
Organizational Structure
The organizational structure of Donaldson Company is given as follows:
(Donaldson Filtration Solutions, 2013)
Figure1: The Donaldson Company Incorporation
The company is led by the CEO, William Cook, who oversees all the departments of the organization along with the primary administration departments. The interaction and collaboration of the departments within the organization has been exemplary (Donaldson Company incorporation, 2012).
Supply Chain Analysis
Donaldson has been one of the largest and most successful filtration manufacturers across the globe since 1915. The company’s innovative technologies have presented solutions to the complex challenges of filtration in order to enhance the performance of equipment, improve the living standards of people, and protect the surrounding environment. Donaldson has been successful in creating an alignment between the strategic initiatives and its stakeholders.
Supply Chain Program
Donaldson has initiated a Donaldson Buys Value (DBV) program, which has been its mechanism to guarantee that it functions together with and fulfills the expectations of its customers. The supply chain program of the company is centered upon establishing service, quality, and cost metrics that enable its people to align with the supply partners through the actions and strategies adopted by the supply chain management program of Donaldson. Donaldson functions with the help of restricted supply in order to attain the maximum possible value. Donaldson categorizes its suppliers in three categories:
· Strategic suppliers are those who exceed or meet the company’s performance criteria and have a high dollar volume, high unit volume, and/or provide material, a critical part, or services to Donaldson.
· Measured Suppliers of the company exhibit the potential and are worthy of being given serious consideration for the Strategic category. This is the suppliers’ interim status, which gives them chance to prove that they can go beyond the expectation of the Donaldson Company regarding the measured service, quality, and overall value in the passage of year.
· Approved supplier includes the remaining suppliers that belong to the manufacturing base of Donaldson. They possess the skills to become Strategic or Measured suppliers.
The key inputs of Donaldson’s supply chain have been classified as follows:
· PPM
· Shipments Accepted
· Continuous Improvement
The Points for Parts per Million (PPM) are the defects that are taken into consideration by the company’s supply management program. The company awards a maximum of 300 points for a PPM score of 50 or less. Donaldson manages its supply base by utilizing various tools, which include the spreadsheets, databases, and the organization’s own manufacturing system for the recording of data, which is consulted for review every month with the supplier. The point scale and distribution is reviewed every month and is adjusted in order to implement continuous improvements (Michael, Clements & Australia, 2007).
The Points for Percent Shipments Accepted are the pro-rated points that are aimed towards continuous improvement of the supply base and company management. The supply management and collaborations between the company’s partners and suppliers tend to work for the continuous improvement project(s). The supplier representatives and the commodity team agree on different projects addressing particular product and/or process improvements that are associated with quality.
Value Addition
Donaldson tends to add value to its supply chain through the less tangible resources that have limited or no physical presence in the company. This includes Donaldson’s worth that is attained from the resource management, its intellectual capita, and human resource relationships and management. The formulation and development of a new supply chain program and the integration of information technology and new concepts of measuring quality and services have been the tangible resources.
Donaldson’s technology leadership enables it to add value to its processes and supply chain. The agility, expertise, quality and technology leadership of the Donaldson brand has enhanced the process development at the workplace. The company possesses a worldwide network of engineers and scientists along with the other internal resources that are comprised of prototype capabilities, design verification centers, a corporate library, and an advanced manufacturing technology group. The development of the proprietary filtration media has been successful through a wide variety of manufacturing processes and fibrous materials. Donaldson has leveraged multi-disciplined, broad expertise, involving the structural mechanics, fluid dynamics, and acoustics technology along with the rigorous testing of product.
Human Resource
Customers mainly chose Donaldson because it possesses engineers having expertise in the filtration science. The company employs over 1,000 engineers/scientists and possesses more than 1,500 pending or active worldwide issued patents. The employees of the company work with the customers in order to formulate and develop the next generation solutions by centering and emphasizing mainly on the value proposition that is applicable. Historically, Donaldson is known for its model of “Feet on the Street.” The sales and support teams of the company are all established over the field whenever they are required on the pre-sale through after-sale basis (Michael, Clements & Australia, 2007). They listen and understand the company’s business environment and are the industry experts.
The information technology and utilization of e-commerce resources play a vital role in the development of supply resources, product innovation and in adding value to the company’s manufacturing processes. The company’s application engineers and customer service representatives enable the provision of technical services of high quality. In various parts of Donaldson’s business, the e-commerce solutions are available and are the providers of easy means to communicate with the customers in order to obtain the product availability, price, place orders and track shipments.
Process Improvement Plan
Donaldson is likely to encounter challenges in the future in spite of its technology and resources. These challenges and troubles may include the containment of cost in the product manufacturing and operation processes, and these are the customized and complex processes according to every customer’s order. In particular, the improvement would be required within the job orders during the process of manufacturing in terms of timely visibility into accurate costs. The shortage of accurate and timely cost information through the cycle of manufacturing may result in numerous cost overruns on various big orders, and the streamlining of the general process of operations and manufacturing to eradicate the potential inefficiencies would be difficult. Moreover, the organization posing the competitive pressures in order to drive the aggressive delivery of order would make the orders difficult to complete in time and may also compromise budget and quality.
The improvement plan would be developed by conducting an independent assessment of the current manufacturing processes along with identifying and prioritizing the list of suggestions regarding the process improvement and development. A very close and effective working relationship would be required with the company representatives and the client management team while the recommendations would be organized into three high-level projects:
· Improved and enhanced process of order fulfillment
· Improved organizational flexibility and capability
· Establishment of Program Management Office (PMO)
All these proponents of the performance and operation improvement plan will collaborate with the teams of client management over the period of six weeks in order to identify, formulate and communicate the negative points and bad processes and inefficiencies to the authorities and executive leadership. This plan will bring an actionable and comprehensive work plan for addressing the challenges in a successful manner. The company’s supply chain program also needs to integrate more closely with the Research and Development effort and the supplier management programs.
References
Anderson, A. Why Is Marketing Strategy Important? Retrieved from
http://www.ehow.com/info_8080080_marketing-strategy-important.html
Donaldson Company Incorporation. (2012). Supply Management Program, Donaldson Buys Value. Retrieved from http://www.donaldson.com/en/supplier/dbv/dbv >
Donaldson Filtration Solutions. (2013). Catalogue, Donaldson Company. Retrieved from
https://dynamic.donaldson.com/webc/WebStore/hierarchy/hierarchy.html?section=11176&
site=WEBC_Donaldson_Company_Store>
Donaldson Filtration Solutions. (2013). Company History, Donaldson Company. Retrieved from http://www.emea.donaldson.com/en/about/information/history.html>
Donaldson Filtration Solutions,. (2013). Customer Relationships. Donaldson Company Retrieved from http://www.donaldson.com/en/about/customer/index.html>
Donaldson Filtration Solutions. (2013). Technology leadership, Donaldson Company. Retrieved from http://www.donaldson.com/en/about/technology/index.html>
Michael D. J., Clements, N. & Australia, P. (2007). A Transfer Pricing Apparatus for Measuring Value Added along the Supply Chain: Reflections for Internet Based Inter Organizational Relationships, Journal of Internet Business. (Issue 4) pg. 23.
