Operation Management A++++++++++++++

iBackground Information for Acme Mexico City 
Acme Home Improvements, Inc. was founded in 1982 in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. At the beginning of 2015, the company had 125 stores along the US East Coast from Florida to Maine. Its annual sales are currently ~$5,400,000,000 with $280,000,000 net income. The average store is about 100,000 square feet with an additional 10,000 square feet of outside garden center. The stores typically carry 40,000 different products from 5,000 vendors worldwide. Major US competitors include Ace, Home Depot, Lowe's, and TruValue. 
In the interests of seeking greater profits and buffering against downturns in the US market, Acme has determined to follow Home Depot, Ace, and other competitors to Canada and Mexico. In the latter, it has established, in accordance with Mexican law, a joint venture with local interests, known as Acme Home Improvements de México, SA de CV ("Acme de México" or "Acme Mexico City"). (SA de CV = SociedadAnónima de Capital Variable, a Mexican corporate form.) 
There are five major product groups within each Acme store: plumbing and electrical supplies, building materials, hardware and tools, seasonal and garden/yard items, and paint, flooring and wall coverings. 
Each store has a store manager, assistant store manager, bookkeeper, an information systems manager and an assistant, a manager for each of the five major product groups, customer service employees on the store floor to assist customers with their purchases, cashiers, receiving/stocking employees, and maintenance/janitorial employees.

Assignment
Working individually, students will demonstrate competency in operations management by analyzing three operations management techniques and applying them to improve Acme Mexico City's operations in an integrated report. 
Two of the techniques are mandatory. They are: 
•	Data-driven decision-making aka data analytics 
•	Linear programming 

The student will select the third technique from the following list: 
•	Decision support systems 
•	Outsourcing to include offshoring, reshoring, and nextshoring
•	Sustainable supply chain management 

The student will submit a report in that integrates their three analyses and the applications to Acme Mexico City. Specifically, include an executive summary. 
Critical thinking, information literacy, problem solving, systems thinking, and technology fluency are required. 

- techniques, address the following: 
•	What is the general purpose of the technique? 
•	How does or should this help operations in general? 
•	What are the limitations of the technique? 
•	What are the costs involved? What training is needed to use the technique? What else is needed? 
•	At Acme Mexico City, what is the problem, opportunity, or challenge that this technique can address? 
•	How will the technique help Acme Mexico City's operations? Why? 
•	What would be the areas that present challenges in the approach (e.g., cost, personnel, training, culture, technology, management commitment, etc.?) 

Within your analysis on linear programming applied at Acme Mexico City, address the following: 
•	What is the recommended low-cost (not necessarily the minimum cost) customer service employee daily assignment schedule? 
•	What are your underlying assumptions and any qualitative factors that you believe are involved? 
•	How might non-typical days affect the schedule? 

Also, provide a sensitivity analysis that shows how relaxation of the 50% constraint on the hours worked by part-time customer service employees might affect the daily personnel costs. 
The following information is provided for your use in this linear programming analysis: 
To the extent permitted by local law, each Acme Home Improvements store, including Acme Mexico City, is open from 7 am - 11 pm every day. 

Acme Mexico City advance planners in North Carolina haveprovided the following table, which identifies the minimum number of customer service employees estimated to be needed on the floor of the store each hour of a typical work day: 


Customer Service Employees
Time Period	Minimum number needed on the floor
7am-8 am	10
8am-9am	12
9am-10am	18
10am-11am	22
11am-12pm	22
12pm-1pm	26
1pm-2pm	26
2pm-3pm	26
3pm-4pm	26
4pm-5pm	26
5pm-6pm	28
6pm-7pm	28
7pm-8pm	24
8pm-9pm	22
9pm-10pm	14
10pm-11pm	12

In the interest of cost control, the planners have also imposed a not-to-exceed maximum of 30 customer service employees on the floor at any time. 
Full-time customer service employees at AMC work a 9 hour shift (8 hours of work plus a 1 hour meal break) either from 7 am to 4 pm or from 2 pm to 11 pm. Workers on the 7-4 shift are assigned an hour-long lunch break at either 11 am or 12 noon. Workers on the 2-11 shift are assigned an hour-long dinner break at either 5 pm or 6 pm. 
Part-time customer service employees work four consecutive hours per day and their shifts can start any hour between 7 am and 7 pm. They receive no meal breaks. 
By company policy, which is consistent with Mexican labor law, the company limits the hours worked by part-time customer service employees to 50% of the day's total scheduled hours. 
Part-time customer service employees earn $500 per day, and full-time customer service employees earn $1100 per day in salary and benefits (here, $ = Moneda Nacional, i.e., the Mexican peso). 
Acme operations analysts working in North Carolina, working with the AMC advance planners, have used linear programming to propose in accordance with the foregoing factors, an employee assignment schedule for a typical day.