HP DeskJet Assignment

Nagarjuna Vutkuri Swamy

(U35137108)
Phanindra Kumar Sasanapuri
(U28760789)
1. Why do you suppose HP has not seen fit to establish a European
manufacturing center prior to the time of the case?
The following could be the reasons for not establishing a manufacturing center in
Europe prior to the time of the case:

Initially the market was mature in the US and Western Europe but was still
developing in Eastern Europe and in the Asia-Pacific region, which might
not have encouraged the expansion into these regions.
In the beginning, the Vancouver facility was able to meet the demand
through Kanban process which enabled high volume production, but later
due to improper demand forecasts they had product availability issues at
Europe and Asia DCs.
The time and resources required to establish and maintain a new
manufacturing center and attain production capacity to meet the already
existing demand could have been major factors of consideration.
There were no cohesive ideas or practices available which could help out
in capturing market share from already existing competitors in business
like Epson, Siemens etc. in Europe .

2. Should the Vancouver facility be closed in favour of opening regional

manufacturing centers in Asia and Europe?

No, the Vancouver facility should not be closed as it has a streamlined

manufacturing process for high volume products such as DeskJet printers
to meet huge demands of North America and other regions. Also, the
existing high level of demand for the DeskJet printers in the North America
region is evident from Table 1 provided in the case study, which represents
the demand data collected by Inventory expert Billy Corrington and his
team.
An additional manufacturing center could be set up at some place
between Europe and Asia to meet the existing demand levels in both the
regions as the cycle time could be drastically reduced with lesser
shipment time and it would also support the company's tradition of
maintaining zero or lesser inventory at the manufacturing center.
Further, the Vancouver facility would need to continue its operations to
fulfil the existing demand of all regions through utilization of better
demand forecasts or shipment by air until the new manufacturing facility
is able to meet the demand in Europe and Asia-Pacific regions.

3. How can the design of the product be changed to better infiltrate

with an improved supply chain?

HP DeskJet Assignment

Nagarjuna Vutkuri Swamy

(U35137108)
Phanindra Kumar Sasanapuri
(U28760789)

The design of the product could be changed to facilitate the localization

process at respective Distribution Centers (DCs). This would require the
separation of localization process from Final Assembly and Test (FAT) Stage
of the manufacturing process and implementing the same at the DCs
(Europe, Asia-Pacific) during final product assembly,
including customization to different option types in the respective regions.
This would improve the flexibility to meet fluctuating customer demands
by maintaining adequate inventory of universal intermediate product
derived from the FAT Stage which could be assembled into any required
model during localization.
In addition to the above mentioned change in product design, involving
dedicated inbound/ outbound logistics for maintaining in-house raw
materials, forecasted and safety stock inventory at the DCs by employing
better forecasting techniques would eventually help in attaining an
improved supply chain.
Outsourcing of few manufacturing activities to external vendors also could
reduce the production time.