Management Case Study Page

6: Write-Up of the Solagen case

Case: Solagen: Process Improvement in the Manufacturing of Gelatin at Kodak

Work:

a)      Analyze the advantages and disadvantages with Solagen

• +Trends for solagen show continued improvement, smaller variance.
• +Increased yeild, more clarity (competitive advantage page 7)
• +Inventory benefits
• +reduced time for whole process
• +Savings 9.8 million dollars, 4 years to pay off initial investment.
• -Expensive
• -Technology not proven - set out to have better standards, it didn't meet the standards.
• -Hasn't completely met what was promised by R&D
• -Lower predicted demand, so cost savings would be less.
• -Requires lots of change in the factories and workers.
• -Existing workers were there for 20 years and deep knowledge
• -Need to have a full sized plant in order to test the process
• -Risky, process not completely understood.
• -Page 5, top quote, introducing technology might make people less committed - turning skilled workers into unskilled workers.
• -Any change to the gelatin process really affects the paper and film manufacturers.
• -48 hours time frame, much less flexibility.

b)      What is your recommendation?

• competition from japan, they need to improve quality to catch up.
• there's so much resistance right now, we think they should proceed cautiously.
• top management behind it, but everyone else isn't.
• need a champion with power
• if they continue less aggressively, they need to quantify how it's better
• there's still a lot of improvement and research that needs to be done
• possibly establish a smaller company to research and develop it.
• Don't push new plant, work on ways to continue improving and getting existing workers behind technology.