Wilkins, A Zurn Company: Aggregate Production Planning

The general manager of the Wilkins plant in Paso Robles, California has received instructions from head office to reduce inventory by 30 per cent in the next quarter. Although inventory had been accumulating over the past years, this has been seen as a benefit to the company for a couple of reasons. One is that the cost of raw materials has risen in the past year. The second is that the company has a policy of no layoffs, so having inventory in stock allows the company to minimize the use of overtime and temporary workers. The general manager wondered whether revising the production planning process would be enough to solve Wilkins’ inventory problems.