Mike’s Desktop Publishing Services: TPS Evaluation Answers

Mike’s Desktop Publishing Services

Question 1

Mike’s desktop publishing services self-starter company has a diversified portfolio. The business has started producing business cards, brochures, advertisement banners, and flyers. Even before finalizing the internal organizational structure of his new venture, Mike learns that clients have started making inquiries and placing orders. Given the price list and the sales results for the first quarter, it is apparent that Mike needs an elaborate real-time and batch-processing plan.

Several elements of Mike’s desktop publishing services can take advantage of real-time processing. This strategy implies that processing takes place live. The processor, for instance, the person printing the ordered materials, must always be busy. Concisely, an order is processed immediately after a client places it. Several vital factors dictate if this type of processing is applicable. Firstly, cost matters. If the cost of producing one item is high, it is advisable to wait until the orders to be processed reach a certain number for processing to take place. Secondly, the quantity of items ordered within a given period tells if real-time processing is feasible. If one item is ordered more frequently than another one, then it should be processed immediately once it is ordered. For Mike’s business, Ad Banners and Brochures were the most ordered items during Q₁. The aspect of “large quantities” of the two items being ordered implies that real-time processing is feasible.

For batch processing, data or items are processed at spaced intervals. For example, processing could be done at the end of every week. This strategy is applicable when the cost of processing a few items is high and when clients place a limited number of orders. For Mike’s business, there were 7 orders of brochures and 3 orders of flyers during the first quarter. If such items were to be processed every time an order was placed, the business would incur unnecessary costs. Hence, it is essential to let orders accumulate before processing/printing in batches is done.

Question 2

An optimized TPS needs cost details for the processing of different orders to be provided. For example, one brochure must indicate the cost of processing if real-time or batch processing is the most applicable. Besides, there is a need to indicate the time frame for processing different orders. Suppose that producing ten brochures takes three hours and only a few orders are placed in one week. It takes the same time to produce 100 brochures which are ordered often. Time factor suggests that batch processing should be applied to printing flyers and real-time processing to printing brochures.

Question 3

Limited workforce. At the moment, Mike’s desktop publishing services are still a start-up struggling to break even while penetrating the market. There is an imminent likelihood of inquiries and orders being placed, increasing to the extent of overwhelming Mike, the owner, and the only employee.

Inadequate market capitalization. Mike’s publishing business has to operate in an industry with well-established competitors. Inadequate market capitalization might lead to the company losing market share to other larger firms.

Question 4

The general TPS framework is flexible because if the business grows and items set for batch processing become less costly to produce within a short time frame, Mike can scale his system such that real-time processing becomes the default strategy for printing order items. This might require him to invest in printing machinery and hire more workers.